试论严歌苓小说的电影化特质

Abstract

严歌苓，1958年11月16日出生于上海，美籍华人作家、也是好莱坞的专业编剧。1970年，她考入成都军区，成为一名跳红色芭蕾舞的文艺兵。1978年发表处女作童话诗《量角器与扑克牌的对话》。1980年，发表了电影文学剧本《心弦》，第二年由上海电影制片厂拍摄完成。仅仅只有二十余岁的严歌苓开始在文坛崛起。1989年赴美，现定居于美国。严歌苓的小说被频繁改编后搬上荧幕，从《天浴》在当年的台湾金马奖大放异彩，一举夺得当年金马奖的六项大奖开始，严歌苓的文学作品便引起了各大导演的广泛关注，并且热度一直持续上升，最近的作品则是2017年底由冯小刚导演执导作品《芳华》。 纵观之前专家学者对于严歌苓文学创作的透彻分析，从主题上来看，女性主义、移民文学、种族和后殖民角度的研究都不在少数，从作品形式上来看，叙事角度，策略以及语言艺术分析类的成就颇多，也有从运用心理学进行文本解读和比较文学等方面着手，而本文则从严歌苓最新的小说《芳华》的电影化特质入手，通过对小说的文本解读和对电影拉片，深入探究其作品电影化特征，剖析文学作品与电影作品之间的相通之处与不同之处，从叙事特征、叙述手法、主题揭示以及电影化转变等角度对作品《芳华》予以解读。本文由绪论、正文和结语组成。第一章绪论主要介绍了本篇论文的研究方法，研究目的，以及小说和电影的区别和联系，解释什么是小说的”电影化“表现。第二章是严歌苓小说改编的现状、学界对严歌苓小说研究的现状。第三章是小说《芳华》的叙事艺术分析，主要分析小说中的语言是如何描写动作，人物性格，推进情节发展以及揭示主题内涵。作为构建整篇小说的基石，语言在小说的叙事中起到举足轻重的作用，在动作描写和人物语言描写上用功颇深的严歌苓自己曾说过“我一直非常注重小说的形式美，好的语言是好故事的第一步….现在，我仍旧没有放弃我对小说形式的追求。” 严歌苓小说作品对于人性也有较为深入的思考与揭示，这些都是其小说的电影化改编的重要表现之一；第四章是试论《芳华》从小说到电影的叙事转换，其中包含作品题材选择方面的特殊性标准、独具一格的小说叙事结构、叙事手法，叙事视角以及叙事空间的转变。严歌苓擅长运用镜头语言讲故事，文字叙述具有丰富的画面感，她的文字就像摄影机一样，随着它的推拉摇移，我们能够像观影一般去感受她笔下人物的世界。严歌苓的小说还具有独特的叙事顺序，叙事顺序的多元化使其小说充满张力，倒叙、预叙、插叙灵活运用，类似于倒叙的“闪回”、电影中的“画外音”和平行叙事的预叙的运用，本文还分析了严歌苓小说到电影的叙事视角与叙事时空转换；第五章是对文学与电影的关系分析，通过对严歌苓小说改编电影现状进行的延伸，主要阐述严歌苓小说改编电影作品的得与失以及文学和电影应该如何相辅相成发展。最后结语部分总结了严歌苓的作品气质，以及在论文的编写过程中存在的不足和需要改进的地方。;Yan Geling, born in Shanghai, November 16, 1958, is a Chinese-American writer and a professional screenwriter in Hollywood. In 1970, she was admitted to the Chengdu Military Region and became a literary soldier who danced red ballet at that time. In 1978, she published her debut fairy poem “Dialogue between protractor and poker cards”. In 1980, she published the literary film script “Heartstrings” and it was filmed by the Shanghai Film Studio in the following year. Just over 20 years old, Yan Geling began to rise in the literary world. In 1989, she went to the United States and now lives in the US. Her novels were frequently adapted and then put on the big screen. After 1998, by the virtue of “The Sent-down Girl”, she won seven Golden Horse Awards in one fell swoop, Yan Geling’s literary works have aroused widespread attention among major directors in the field and this heat continues to rise and never cools down. Her most recent work was “Fanghua” directed by Feng Xiaogang at the end of 2017. Through reviewing the thorough analysis of Yan Geling’s literacy works by experts and scholars, from the thematic point of view, there are a number of studies taking the perspectives from feminism, immigration literature, ethnicity, and postcolonialism. Then from the point of the work form, there are many research analyzing her works’ narrative angles, narrative strategies, and the art of her language. There also exists some studies interpreting her works from the perspectives of applied psychology and comparative literature. However, this article begins with the analysis of the filmized features of her latest novel “Fanghua”, and then through the interpretation of the novel text and film scanning, deeply explores its filmized characteristics as well as similarities and differences between literary works and film works, associated with the in-depth interpretation of “Fanghua” from the perspectives of narrative features, narrative techniques, thematic disclosure and filmized transformation. This article consists of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The first chapter mainly introduces research methods, research purposes, the differences and connections between novels and films, and explains what the performance of the “filmized” novel is. The second chapter includes the status quo of the adaptations of Yan Geling’s novels and the current research on her novels. Chapter three is an analysis of the narrative art of the novel “Fanghua”, mainly discussing how the language in the novel describes behavior, characters’ personalities, and how the language promotes the development of plot and reveals the theme. As the cornerstone of the whole novel, language plays a pivotal role in the narrative. In terms of the description of behavior and character dialogues, Yan Geling once said, “I have always attached great importance to the formal beauty of the novel, fancy language is the first step of a good story…, Now, I still haven’t given up on my pursuit of the form of my novel”. Yan Geling’s novel works also contain relatively profound reflection and disclosure of human nature, which is one of the important manifestations of novel’s filmized characteristics. The fourth chapter is the discussion about the narrative transformation from a novel to a film in “Fanghua”, involving the particularity criteria in the selection of works, the unique novel narrative structure, narrative techniques, narrative perspectives and the transformations of narrative space. Yan Geling is good at utilizing the lens language to tell stories as well, which enriches the picturesque sense of her literal narrations and that is the reason why her narrative is like a video camera. As it progresses, we can feel the world of her characters like literally watching the movie. Furthermore, her novels have a unique narrative sequence: the diversification of her narrative sequences, such as the flexible applications of flashback, presupposition and insertion, makes her novel full of tension. These applications are similar to flashbacks, voiceovers, and parallel narratives in the movie. Chapter five is the preliminary exploration of the relationship between literature and film, which is an extension of the theme of this article, mainly discussing the limitations of Yan Geling’s adapted films from novels and how should literature and film works develop complementarily. In the final part, it summarizes her works’ temperament as well as the limitations and recommended improvement in the composition of this thesis.