The sublime stands as one of the core aesthetic discourses in contemporary academic research on“Seventeen-Year Cinema”(1949-1966). The semantic generation and discursive practice of the sublime in this context derive from three primary sources: first, the introduction and integration of Western sublime theories with China’s existing sublime discourse and cultural traditions that emphasize ethics and morality; second, the ideological recognition and explicit pursuit of film art’s uniqueness and significance; third, the aesthetic shaping of“generalized heroic imagery”centered on workers, peasants, and soldiers. While Chinese academia inherited the“moral transcendence-pleasure dimension”from both Western theories of the sublime (notably Kant’s) and traditional Chinese aesthetic culture, it significantly diminished the“aesthetic form-pain dimension.”This trend resulted in a“one-dimensional semantic state”marked by an“excess of pleasure”and an“insufficiency of pain,”thereby establishing a significant divergence from the Western conception of the sublime, which is characterized by“dual-dimensional heterogeneity and transformation.”

“Seventeen-Year”Cinema, sublime, aesthetic discourse, ideological pursuit, images of