Abstract:
Abstract： Realistic film, one of the major schools of film creation since the founding of new China, has long been favored by Chinese people as a welcome artistic form. Its origin can be traced back to China’s early films in the 1920s and 1930s. Over the past 70 years, the creation of realistic films has experienced vicissitudes and setbacks due to political interference, but its basic aesthetic need has remained constant. Reviewing and analyzing the cinematic changes over the past 70 years, we find that realism has never faded: from the proposal of “socialist realism”, to “two combinations”, then to the thought imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution, thereafter a discussion of “return to realism” in the 1980s, followed by the “main melody” realism and its entanglement with “postexistentialism” in the 1990s, and finally to the breakthroughs out of all kinds of aestheticization after the new century. However, realism is not stagnant. Instead, the creation of realistic films can survive and grow out of films with different themes, styles and production techniques. That is to say, it can be perfected through constant adjustments. Only in this way, can realistic films in China better approach contemporary life and meet contemporary aesthetic needs.

Key words:  , socialist realism, the “main melody” realism, entanglement with “postexistentialism”, predicaments, breakthroughs and innovation