China Social Science Review

No.2, 2023

The Concept of Unity of Heaven and Man and the Aesthetic Reconstruction of Chinese Films

(Abstract)

Chen Linxia

As a way of thinking and an intellectual proposition, the concept of the unity of heaven and man has “meta value” for Chinese art and Chinese film. This traditional Chinese concept can provide three forms of ideal values with strong national characteristics for Chinese film, and provide conceptual guidance for the transformation of narrative art. Thence, the three basic elements of film narrative can go through changes: the intellectual theme shifts from “talent cultivation” to “understanding of the Tao”; character shaping has shifted from modernist subject with a goal of self-reflection to an ideal personality of contentment and enjoyment; the plot structure has shifted from a speculative three-part structure to a perceptive dual-thread structure. The concept of the unity of heaven and man in traditional Chinese culture which provides the fundamental way of thinking and ideal value for film art may shape the current Western context of film art under the influence of the subject-object binary thinking, thus promoting the emergence of a “third type of film” beyond the admit of European and American film traditions.