Editorial article

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Brief presentation of authors and contents of articles of the current issue.

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FILM THEORY AND FILM HISTORY | AUDIOVISUAL ARTS

CILECT as a Project of a World Film School: Origins, Specifics, Development

UDC 778.5

Summary: The development of digital technologies in creating audiovisual products filled with attractive images and value-based meanings actualizes issues of interstate cooperation in the field of vocational training for young personnel who will have to work in cinema, TV, and other screen arts. Film schools of different countries face many problems, which can only be solved with the consolidated participation of accomplished filmmakers, whose experience and knowledge are acknowledged in the world. It has been confirmed by the CILECT Congress held in Moscow in connection with VGIK’s centenary. The article analyzes the university’s contribution to the improvement of vocational training methods and programs in cinema, television, and screen arts.

Key words: film school, national cinema, audiovisual arts, CILECT, international cooperation, digital development, film production, video production, education, new generation of experts.

Author: Vladimir S. Malyshev, Doctor of Arts, Professor, PhD in Economics, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education, President of the Association of educational institutions of art and culture, Rector of the Sergey Gerasimov’s All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography.

Sergei Eisenstein’s Ideas in the Context of Contemporary Cinema. Stereo Film and Stereo Sound

UDC 791.43/45

Summary: Studying the heritage of Sergey Eisenstein, who made an indisputable contribution to the development of cinema, reveals many theoretical aspects relevant to modern cinema. The article published in the journal (No. 3 (41), 2019) analyzed the term “audiovisual counterpoint” introduced by the director into academic circulation, discussed in contemporary art criticism in a new artistic context. The article explores the main points of Eisenstein's essay “Stereo-cinema”. Modern multichannel sound technologies have come close to the practical embodiment of Eisenstein’s ideas, particularly, about “drawing the viewer into the screen space and his merging” with the artistic creation. In this case, the problem of the relationship between the technological and artistic aspects of a film production is the subject of the theoretical discourse of interdisciplinary knowledge.

Key words: S.M.Eisenstein, stereo cinema, stereo sound, sound spaces in the cinema, sound-visual image in the film.

Author: Elena A. Rusinova, PhD in Arts, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Sound Engineering, VGIK.

FILM LANGUAGE AND TIME | IMAGE GENESIS

Pyotr Chardynin’s The Idiot as a Phenomenon of Creative Reinterpretation of Dostoevsky’s Novel

UDC 778.5.04.072.094

Summary: The article explores the artistic and expressive features of “The Idiot”, the world's first film adaptation of the novel by Fyodor. Dostoevsky directed in 1910 by Pyotr Chardynin. It substantiates the degree of impact on Russian national identity in the early 1900s of one of the most important philosophical concepts of the novel: the split nature of a human soul. An analysis of the film’s imagery shows that the semantics of this screen work, its characters are ahead of time and deserve close attention of art historians.

Key words: Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot, first film adaptation, Pyotr Chardynin, Russian national identity.

Author: Anastasia V. Ryabokon', Post-Graduate Student, Department of Film Studies, VGIK.

The Russian Intelligentsia: Taming Nihilism in the Stalin Period

UDC 778.5.04/с

Summary: The article is a fragment of the work devoted to figurative representation in Russian cinema: the evolution of the image of a scientist during the Stalinist cinema is briefly analyzed. Using well-known Russian films as an example, the author explores the basic ideological concepts underlying the formation of the image of Russian intellectuals.

Key words: Stalinist cinema, intelligentsia, scientist, nihilism, Abram Room, Grigori Roshal

Author: Vladimir V. Vinogradov, Doctor of Arts, Associate Professor, Department of Film Studies, VGIK.

On the Problem of the Discourse Analysis of Literary Texts

UDC 7.01

Summary: The article discusses the academic approach to the analysis of a literary text (film), its key aspects and substantiates the possibility and necessity of introducing the discourse analysis method into practice. The main challenge is to clarify the term “discourse” in terms of its origin, content and scope, as well as the possibility of its use in analytical work with films.

Key words: language/speech, text, film text, “expression”, discourse, discourse strategy

Author: Lyudmila B. Klyueva, Doctor of Arts, Associate Professor of the Department of Film Studies, VGIK.

PERFORMANCE | THE ART OF PRESENTATION

The Mystery of Lexical Coincidences in the Works of Yuri Tynianov and Osip Mandelstam

UDC 778.5(01)

Summary: The article deals with lexical coincidences in the work of Yury Tynianova and Osip Mandelstam, testifying to one of the processes of the Soviet literature of the 1920–1930s, the so-called metaphorical resistance to total dictatorship of power, on the one hand, and complete and unconditional submission to dictatorship, on the other. This technique is used not only in literature: cinema did not escape the common fate, which is confirmed in a number of studies.

Key words: coincidence, power, freedom, creativity, variety, literature, servilism, hope, cinema.

Author: Valeri I. Mil'don, Doctor of Philology, Professor, VGIK.

The Existential World of Kira Muratova

UDC 791.43

Summary: The article investigates the work of Kira Muratova, a director and screenwriter with a special constitution of psychoanalytic thinking. She made 20 films in the Soviet period and after the collapse of the USSR. The artistic heritage of this director contains masterpieces of “auteur cinema” with a special, existential world where the problems of spiritual existence and the inner life of an individual are revealed. Kira Muratova’s films are not only an artistic experiment in interpreting reality, but also a school of professional excellence.

Key words: Kira Muratova, existential world, screen culture, interpretation of reality, intellectual world

Author: Natalia B. Kirillova, Doctor of Culturology, Professor, Head of the Department of Cultural Studies and Socio-Cultural Activities, Ural Federal University named after the First President of Russia B.N.Yeltsin.

Multimedia Learning Model: Adapting an Image in a Screen Work

UDC 791.5

Summary: In the context of media space digitalization, the issues of using multimedia in audiovisual productions become particularly relevant. Using the work of VGIK students as an example, the article looks into the process of developing a new type of communicative space and the transformations of the artistic form when introducing multimedia into the movie plot.

Key words: technological revolution, multimedia director, media means, artistic form, audiovisual work, virtual reality, interactivity, computer graphics, special effects, multimedia project.

Author: Elena G. Yaremenko, Director of animated and documentary films; Head of the workshop “Directing Multimedia”, Dean of the of Animation and Multimedia Department, VGIK.

SCREEN CULTURE | CULTUROLOGY. PHILOSOPHY

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

UDC 7.01

Summary: The article (Part 4, for the beginning see Issues 1(39), 2019; 2(40), 2019; and 3(41), 2019) 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 sub-discipline 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: art history, subject of the theory of culture, humanitarian paradigm, depersonalization of the subject of art history, cultural anthropology, cultural determinism, popular culture, civilization, myth, folklore, language

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

WORLD CINEMA | ANALYSIS

Agnes’s Self-Reflection in Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers

UDC 778.5.04.072

Summary: The article provides an insight into the film “Cries and Whispers” by Ingmar Bergman in terms of using the character’s self-comprehension as the main plot-forming device. The self-comprehension of the main character Agnes is presented in all its diversity which generates a polyphony of meanings and images. The author also accounts for the dramatic methods, allowing the viewer to be involved in Agnes’s psychological experiences. The heroine’s diary is represented as her conscious self-reflection, becoming an on-screen tool for studying her psychology.

Key words: self-reflection, dramatic tool, Ingmar Bergman, self-comprehension, plot.

Author: Maria V. Solovyova, PhD Student, VGIK.

FILM INDUSTRY | STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF MANAGEMENT

Cooperation between the Russian Animation Industry and Asian Partners

UDC 791.44

Summary: The article discusses the forms of international cooperation in the field of animation, identifies the differences in the interaction with Asian companies, determines the vector in the change of priorities in the sphere of animation coproduction. An analysis of mutual project experience of Russian animation production companies allowed us to identify co-production strategies that seem promising in terms of conquering the international market, promoting national ideas and representing animation as the “soft power” of international interaction.

Key words: Russian animation industry, co-production, distribution, international cooperation, film studios, film companies.

Author: Natalya G. Krivulya, Doctor of Arts, Associate Professor, Scientific Department, Higher School of Television of Moscow State University named after M.V.Lomonosov.

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

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