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FILM THEORY AND FILM HISTORY | AUDIOVISUAL ARTS

Cinematic Media in Digital Culture

UDC 791.43.03

Summary: The article investigates the embedment of digital media into film studies. The author notes that digital cinema makes us have a fresh look at film history and revise certain classic conventions without rejecting them completely. This idea is illustrated by digital documentary cinema which blurs the line between production and viewing due to its interactivity.

Key words: cinema, film studies, documentary, cinematic media, digital cinema, digital culture, digital technology.

Author: Gennady P. Bakulev, Doctor of Sciences (Philology), professor, professor of Russian and foreign languages chair, All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography after S.A.Gerasimov. E-mail: genbakulev@gmail.com

The Sound Space of the City as a Reflection of “the Spirit of the Times” and the Inner World of the Film Hero

UDC 791.43/45

Summary: The article explores the theme of urban space in contemporary cinema, the role of the city as both visual and sound environment in a film and the significance of city sounds in forming the character’s inner world. The author analyses films shot in Tbilisi at various times. The city’s flamboyancy makes it possible to trace the variety of aesthetical approaches to using musical material and audio expressive means for forming the character’s image in the cultural and historical context of the plot and the time of its creation.

Key words: urban space in cinema, sound directing in cinema, film sound design, inner world of film character, films about Tbilisi, contemporary Georgian cinema.

Author: Elena A. Rusinova, Ph.D (Arts), Associate Professor, Vice Rector For International Relations and Scientific Work, S.A.Gerasimov Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK).

Between Ideology and Literature: the Discussion of Screenplays in the USSR in the 1930s

UDC 791.43

Summary: Using under-investigated periodicals and introducing the archive of the “Vseroskomdram” artistic union into academic discourse, the article surveys the historical details of the termination of the dispute about “iron” and “emotional” screenplays and the emergence of the ideological script theory. If a script expressed the film’s ideology, it was not only self-sufficient but also more important than the film itself. A number of examples reveal the peculiarities of this literature-centered philosophy.

Key words: screenplay, Socialist Realism, literature-centric, “iron” screenplay, “emotional” screenplay.

Author: Alexander A. Goncharenko, Postgraduate Student, S.A.Gerasimov Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK).

FILM LANGUAGE AND TIME | IMAGE GENESIS

Contemporary Russian Сinema and Its World Contexts

UDC 778.5р(092)1

Summary: The article (ending, for beginning see Issue 4 (38), 2018) attempts to insert the parameters of the cinema of the last decades into the world’s film history, to compare the dominant principles and artistic methods often leading to similar patterns and the ways of their implementation. The author’s aim is not just to educe and describe these comparative patterns but to find the logics of their emergence and manifestation determined by historical reasons.

Key words: Soviet and world cinema, Perestroika, Aesopian language, magical realism, New Drama

Author: Olga K. Reisen, Doctor of Arts, Professor of Cinema Studies Department, S.A. Gerasimov Russian Federation State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK).

Entrepreneur As a Hero of Russian Cinema in the First Half of the 1990s: the Adoption of a New Stereotype

UDC 778.5р(09)«1990-2000»

Summary: Based on the material of Soviet and Russian cinema of the 1990s, the article researches into the establishing of a new social and ethical stereotype: a positive moral image of an enterpreneur, a proprietor. The Russian cinema of the period is analysed in the context of forming mass conception (stereotypes and frames) of one of the most characteristic social characters of the 1990s. The author comes to the conclusion that the Russian cinema of 1990–1995 did not give sufficient reasons for the ethical rehabilitation of business activity or help create new stereotypes and instructive frames in mass conscience.

Key words: Russian cinema of the 1990s, moral and ethical issues, the image of an entrepreneur in Russian cinema, ethical stereotype and frame in cinema.

Authors: Dmitry L. Karavaev, Ph.D of Arts, Research and Information Center of Film Training and film Education, S.A. Gerasimov Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK).

PERFORMANCE | THE ART OF PRESENTATION

Mass Scenes as a Way of Manipulating the Consciousness of the Viewer

UDC 778.5.01.067.2:15

Summary: The article explores crowd scenes, the techniques of creating the image of the mass on the screen, analyses the cognitive elements of mass psychology both on the set and in real life, as well as the processes of the viewer’s interaction with the film and the ability of an audiovisual product to affect the formation of collective identity. Crowd scenes are considered as an effective method of controlling and manipulating the audience’s cosciousness.

Key words: mass psychology, identification, psychology of art, mass scenes in cinema.

Author: Anastasiya S. Arysheva, Postgraduate Student, S.A. Gerasimov Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK).

VR Technologies in Docudrama

UDC 070:654.19+791.229.2

Summary: The active introduction of VR-technologies to film production predetermines the creation of a VR-product that affects human sense organs (vision, hearing, smell, tactility) and the modeling of digital reality with maximum immersion into it. The advantages of VR-technologies are best represented in the docudrama as documentary footage looks particularly convincing when combined with dramatized reenactment. This aspect is exemplified by the film “The Hermitage VR. Immersion into History”.

Key words: VR technology, virtual reality, audiovisual content, docudrama.

Author: Natalia G. Stezhko, Ph.D (Art Criticism), Associate Professor, Institute of Journalism of the Belarusian State University.

SCREEN CULTURE | CULTUROLOGY. PHILOSOPHY

Modern Art History as a Human Science in a Situation of Cultural Turn

UDC 7.01

Summary: The article discusses a vital problem of modern art studies connected with the relationship between art history and theory. The study subject of art theory as a subdiscipline of cultural studies, unlike that of art history, has not been determined yet. Tracing the processes taking place at the time of linguistic and cultural turns in the humanities, the article dwells on the subject of art theory and justifies the idea of this subdiscipline’s significance in transitional eras.

Key words: science of art, humanities, history of art, theory of art, methodology of art studies, linguistic turn, cultural turn.

Author: Nicolai A. Khrenov, Doctor of Sciences (Philosophy), Professor, Section of Media Artistic Problems, State institute of Cultural Studies.

WORLD CINEMA | ANALYSIS

Australian Cinema: Transforming Youth Issues Over Time

UDC 778.5I (Australia)

Summary: The article is devoted to Australian films where the character’s fate is somehow connected with the extreme leftist youth protests of May 1968. These multimillion movements proved a chock not only for the Green Continent, but for other Western countries as well. They also brought bitter frustration and tough consequences to their participants. And although the student riots took place half a century ago, this theme is still present in Australian cinema. The analysis of Australian movies accounts for the fact that contemporary directors continue to explore the end of the young hopes and illusions of grown up characters.

Key words: youth, “Red May”, protest, disillusionment, hope.

Author: Irina A. Zvegintsevа, Doctor of Sciences (Arts), Ass. Professor, Chair of cinema Studies, S.A. Gerasimov Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK).

TELEVISION | DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

Visual Picture of the World As Reflected in Modern Media

UDC 778.5.01

Summary: The article (ending, for beginning see Issue 4 (38), 2018) looks into the problem of reflecting “a visual human being” as the “medium and demiurge” of the world picture and examines the role of the anchor. It also surveys the ways of revealing multiple meanings through visuality and physicality and the methods of affecting the audience’s (sense) perception. The analysis of these issues makes it possible to take a fresh look at the process of seeking for screen expressiveness.

Key words: visual picture of the world, information environment, visual codes, media image, new media, visual-figurative form, symbols, simulacra, screen space.

Author: Natalya I. Utilova, Doctor of Sciences (Arts), Professor Higher School of Television, Moscow State University.

TV Attraction: Rules of Communication Game

UDC 654.197

Summary: The article studies the game nature of on-screen attraction, one of the essential tools of TV dramaturgy. TV viewing is a specific game determined by the rules of the show’s format which are repeated in every episode. The attraction character of a TV spectacle is viewed it terms of its subject matter and semiotics as one of the ways of audiovisual language functioning.

Key words: game, attraction, on-screen spectacle, dramaturgy, format, television viewing.

Author: Irina N. Kemarskaya, Ph.D in Philology, Leading Researcher, Research and Development Sector, Academy of Media Industry.

* For further discussions please contact the authors on: editor@vestnik-vgik.com  

© Translated by The Laboratory of the Foreign Cinema, VGIK.