Abstract:
From those movies directed by Wu Tianming, especially The Life and The Old Well, we can see some trace of evolution in his conception of art. This trace reveals a transfer from empirical writing to symbolic writing and from socialist realism to modernistic conception of art. The transfer of his conception of art implies his contradiction and choice between “for the people” or “for art”. The success of The Old Well at home and abroad predicts Chinese movies characteristic of going to the market, to formal excellence and to elite discourse have developed mature environment of existence. This may be regarded as an implicative enlightenment of the mid of 1980’s Chinese movies to the orientation of their later development.
