Vol 6, No 1 (2014)

The idea of replacing revenues from alcohol sale with income from cinema attendance was put forward by L. Trotsky in Soviet Russia in the early 1920s. At the stage of transition from silent cinema to the sound one this idea received a significant number of supporters. Anyhow attendance statistics proved a considerable gap between alcohol profitability and yield, calculated on theatre booking. In order to heal the situation quite a number of new cinemas had to be built. Since the state did not have adequate resources at its disposal, it was decided to refurbish the churches into cinema theatres. As a result the two important aims were to be gained: efficient increase of attendance and effective antireligious propaganda. Achievements of Soviet cinema in the early 1930s supported the idea of cinema to triumph over alcohol. Iosif Stalin proclaimed the replacement of the income from vodka with income from cinema as an official party and state program: expanding industrial base of the Soviet cinema, making more films, increasing the film circulation, building more cinemas. I. Stalin’s idea was to be realized by the chairman of the GUKF B. Shumyatsky. Acquainted with American and European experience, he proposed a number of reforms in the film industry, the key to which was the creation of the Cinema city in the South of the country, the Soviet Hollywood. As a result, the Soviet film industry had to be increased 10 times. But the project of the Cinema city was not approved by the government. While B. Shumyatsky was working over this project, the assets of the Soviet cinema were actually put on the slide. As a result, the output of film production in Russia decreased significantly, not allowing to execute the annual plan. Thus the idea to replace vodka income into cinema one turned out unfulfilled.

The article focuses on Alexander Sokurov’s “Faust”, one of the most outstanding pieces of Russian and world cinema (a Venice Film Festival Award). It comments on the director’s artistic intentions and the affinities with other parts of Sokurov’s film tetralogy about the 20 th century dictators Lenin, Hitler and Hirohito. Contemporary postmodern art practices demonstrate an unprecedented freedom in treating the classical masterpieces; at the same time, this approach cannot be applied to Sokurov’s film. The author comes to the conclusion that Goethe’s intention itself could be analyzed only in comparison with the following historical processes. The 20 th century events allow deeper understanding of Goethe’s prophetic talent. The article raises a question about the origin of such a mental complex as demonism which was significantly growing during the times of religious crisis, and widely expanded nihilism. At the same time, demonism that was discovered during the era of Enlightenment had clashed with an optimistic attitude of Modern as a discourse. Its consequent exploration took place a century later and was associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who had managed to forebode the historical calamities related to the 20 th century revolutions and world wars from his position of a 19 th century philosopher. Nietsche didn’t prognosticate arrival of the dictators, but he defined the barbarian spirit in its new civilized forms. The images of the 20 th century dictators became the embodiment of this spirit, so the phenomenon has attracted Sokurov’s directorial attention. In his “Faust” the director put a spotlight on the early Modern era when the Man began to claim God’s heavenly position. Goethean times with a strong intention to build utopia, as well as an immortal tragedy by Goethe, had attracted Alexander Sokurov who saw it as a harbinger of the 20 th century realities. Goethe’s tragedy is one of the first attempts to understand the inner workings of the constructive, creative and destructive elements that have been invading the world during the early Modern era. Sokurov’s films tell the story of how utopia turned into its opposite, an anti-utopia, i.e. the destructive forms of demonism.

The article analyzes the television adaptation of the famous novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, shown on Russian television in 2012. The author juxtaposes the TV-series with the renowned Soviet film «Days of the Turbins», premiered in 1976. The analysis is carried out in the context of the history of a theatre version of the novel «The White guard», staged in the Moscow Academic Art Theatre in the 1920s, that is «Days of the Turbins», highly appreciated by Stalin. Traditionally, both theatre and cinema directors were drawn to the play adapted by Mikhail Bulgakov after his novel. Anyhow, there is a certain subject and semantic difference between these two works. The author analyzes the structure of the TV version, its style, elaboration of on-screen characters, based on the literary source and previous interpretation of the play «Days of the Turbins». However, the author argues, that ideological and figurative interference into the original, adaptation to the stereotypes of mass culture significantly distort the perception of Bulgakov’s works, largely obliged to the writers’s mood and emotions experienced in the years of Revolution and Civil war. Concluding, the author pinpoints both - complexity unit of Bulgakov’s text adaptation towards contemporary TV, and misjudgements of the TV-series’ makers in the way of conception and realization.

Currently discourse of the monstrous and demonological has been intensified. These phenomena are gaining new understanding due to the processes occurring in the post-secularitanian society undergoing a succession of critical shocks. The interest in the demonic and monstrous as the manifestation of the desire tends to form a new point of view on the anthropology and man's place in the new reference frame. The judgments about the demonic and monstrous allowed creating representation of the correct, normative, standard, and normal. Hereafter the definition of the demonic and monstrous characters is presented as well as differentiation between the concepts of the demonic and monstrous is drawn through analysis of etymology of the words "demon" and "monster" and their connotations in different languages. Particular attention is drawn to the changes in the concepts of demonological and monstrous in cultural traditions and historical perspective on the basis of analysis of the ancient Greek literature, pre-Christian mythological and biblical texts, philosophical treatises and works by Plato, Thales, Socrates, Hesiod, Homer, Aristotle, Cicero, Pliny, Ctesias of Cnidus, St. Augustine, Vl. Solovyov, Av. Fr. Pott, A.F. Losev, G. Umberto Eco, Derrida, Sl. Zizek. The analysis revealed the differences in relation to the monstrous and demonic. If the idea of the demonic has evolved from the divine to the sinister, and has completely lost the binary of the semantic opposition up to now, the monstrous continues to show the duality of its nature. As a result the monstrosity is associated with limitary existence between the normal and abnormal, possible and admissible, esthetic and ugly, ethical and immoral, represented and unimaginable. If the demonic is the manifestation of the supernatural and demonstration of the Other, the monstrous as exiting outside the scope of the ordinary and habitual, represents the image of the Other. Both the supernatural of the demonic and the marginality of the monstrous ground concatenation, furnishing the images with the phantasmic. If the demonic appears as the distortion of the divine, the monstrous is the distortion of the human. The hybridous or synthetic character of the forms and qualities is the feature common to both the demoniac and monstrous images.

The article focuses on the first period in the history of Australian cinema. It is well-known that the present is always rooted in the past. This is true of any national cinema, and the Australian one is no exception. This subject is relevant in the light of the fact that, in the first place, the reasons for the contemporary boom in Australian cinema are impossible to understand and analyze unless they are derived from the awareness of the first steps of Australian cinema. It was in the very first years of the existence of Australian cinema that there emerged a special worldview, inherent in the cinematographic messages of this nation, that would later become iconic of Australian cinema: addressing the reality of Australia, love for its wild and beautiful nature and for the people who civilize this severe land. In their works the filmmakers of the Green Continent have almost always unflaggingly introduced two protagonists, an animate one, a manly, daring human being, and an inanimate one, the nature, magnificent, powerful, unexplored... At the same time, there was formed an image of a Hero: a fair, proud man, for whom honor and dignity are closely linked to striving for freedom. A conflict between the Individual and a soulless system is manifested in the early bushranger films and in the contemporary ones alike, now that the films by the Australian filmmakers come out again and again featuring the Individual’s attempts at breaking his bondage. The novelty of this research lies in the fact that while the contemporary period of Australian cinema is well-covered in the global film criticism, the past of this national cinema is almost unknown. Considering the interest in the phenomenon of the contemporary cinema of the Green Continent, the author concludes that the global success of the Australian films today is largely linked to the accomplishments of the cinema pioneers, who against tough competition from American and English films, have laid a foundation for the future victories of this special national cinema.

This article delves into decision making in producer’s activity under shortage of financials, materials’ and human resources. Every decision to be made is generally a multicriterial task. At the same time these criteria are controversial: amelioration of one criterion leads to degradation of another. That is why solution finding with the use of mathematical methods is worth to consider. Hereafter theoretical stuff and practical exemplification of decision making under multicriterial conditions are presented. In many mathematical methods of decision making multicriterial task is simplified to one criterion. Therefore the main attention is paid to global criterion method, providing a means to define optimum out of several criteria. The point of the method assumes to weigh up the initial criteria and create a single global criterion, serving as a key to decision making. The weight coefficient of each criterion is defined by experts. There are several methods of combining criteria. Nevertheless in practice three methods are used: criteria relation, criteria multiplication and criteria summing up. The methods are analyzed and practical examples are shown in the article. Other approaches to combining criteria are also examined. It is generally agreed that every method of decision making has its own pros and cons, which in turn define the optimum range of its application.

Postmodern television gravitates to the game programs. This process takes place not only in Russia but all over the world as a manifestation of a general trend. TV is a part of the system of mass communication which has moved onto the network stage inevitably linked with the game. A game helps to overcome the discreteness of contemporary reality. Due to objective reasons the present-day content of television broadcasting is packed in a game model of communication. This tendency is not introduced from the outside or imposed upon the subjective will; it reflects the specificity of television broadcasting of the postmodern. Both the telecast and game are the communication processes creating new structures. On the one hand, they coincide in algorithm: the result is not as important as the process itself. On the other hand, the very word game is multi-faceted and multi-layered in Russian language, and its alliance with TV is controversial. Maybe mainly due to linguistics. Game and Play are different in meaning but there is only one word игра (igra) in Russian, that unifies significance of two English words. In 2013 the sociological study "Game and Me" was held in Moscow under the supervision of the author. It demonstrated the fact of generational variations in understanding of the word. For grandparents’ cohort igra is fun; entertainment and a kind of work aimed at self-knowledge for generation of grandchildren. In both cases, the game reflects the philosophical category of "special attitude to the world". With the advent ofnew communication technologies, TV viewer gets an impulse of activity and the postmodern situation provokes reformist moods. Game and Play provide an escape from reality. Fans of play are suspicious of game and vice versa. This is the problem. Therefore, the pretence of two-sided criticism of television programs is considered hereafter. Screen pretence is often criticized. TV game may be constructive or destructive, in all circumstances being genuine without any conversion to quasi game. The dramatic collision of modern TV games is overcoming the theatricality and the “quasi game” situation. TV games obviously will be evolving along this trend.

Мамору Осии (р. 1951) известен в первую очередь как автор анимэ, в которых поднимает сложные философские проблемы. В своих минималистских работах он рисует гнетущую безотрадную картину нашего будущего, которое представляется как мрачная антиутопия. Основное внимание режиссер уделяет зрительному ряду, за которым следует история, и лишь последнее место отводится персонажам. Осии работает в различных сферах - анимация, инсталляции, игровые полнометражные картины, короткометражки. Наиболее известные его работы «Призрак в доспехах» и «Авалон».

Абсурд KING SIZE. О монографии М.Г. Анищенко «Драма абсурда». - М.: ГИТИС, 2011. - 312 с.