ABSTRACT
Films are not created individually but collectively, under the command of directors. In the 1980s, film creation in China was shaped by official regulations, film studios’ decisions, and audiences’ preferences. Characterization in the films of the 1980s represents a compromise between the mainstream values of veteran cadres and the cultural imagination of intellectuals that can be accepted by the public and that represents social expectations. However, it is found that artistic images based on such a kind of compromise are quite different from their political counterparts in real society. As a kind of social expectation, artistic images are the imagination based on social consensus. If such social expectation comes to be realized, the consensus will be lifted beyond the narrative and work in reality, finally cementing the social consensus itself and promoting social stability and development. Unfortunately, the characters shaped in the films of the 1980s who were expected to be bellwethers for the Chinese image can only be perpetual on the screens, and they have lost their place in real China since then. Furthermore, historic impacts will definitely lead to the abandonment of the “imagined China” on the screens of the 1980s.
