卷 11, 编号 3 (2019)

The article is devoted to the history of the Russian film studies and methodology of film history as science using the example of the Introduction of History of the Soviet Film Art by Nikolai Iezuitov (1899–1941), one of the founders of the national film studies. Since the manuscript of History of the Soviet Film Art — the first history of the Soviet cinema — has not yet been published and introduced into scholarly use, the author pays special attention to archival sources.

Despite a number of essays and discussions about film history and its methodology, a fundamental scholarly work on the historiography of the history of Soviet and Russian cinema has not yet been written. The relevance and novelty of the article is that it is based on the study of archival manuscripts of Nikolai Iezuitov. The exploration of early approaches to the study of the history of the Soviet cinema is important both historically and pedagogically.

One of the most important sources of the concept of film history at an early stage of the national film studies is Iezuitov's Introduction to History of the Soviet Film Art. The Introduction is valuable because: 1) it is a rare evidence of reflection on the foundations of film history as scholarship and its methodology; 2) it is given by the author of the first history of the Soviet cinema; 3) it is represented by the author not as a separate “abstract” essay but as a part of the history itself.

The Introduction defines the scholarly tasks and content of film history; overviews foreign books on the history of cinema; emphasizes specific periods of Soviet film history; and indicates the principles of work with relevant sources.

Iezuitov’s main principles in relation to film history are established in connection, firstly, with Soviet history scholarship; and secondly, with the vision of film history as the history of film art. Thus, film history, according to Iezuitov, is the unity of Marxist understanding of history and art-historical (stylistic) analysis of films and the main film movements in Soviet cinema.

The author states the achievement by virtual reality technology of a certain stage of maturity. Virtual reality equipment as a means of film exhibition not only determines our aesthetic experience but fundamentally changes film language — the duration of a film and particular takes, their composition, the specifics of inter-shot and intra-shot editing, etc. The essay explores the visual system of VR cinema, a phenomenon which is gaining more and more spectator popularity.

Defining the depth of immersiveness as the fundamental difference between traditional and VR cinema, the author identifies aspects characteristic of the latter — aspects determining its creative method. Among them is limited length (the duration of a typical VR film rarely exceeds 15–20 minutes), a 360-degree view, the representation of spherical space (for example, the viewer does not see anything more than shown to him in the film), and interactivity, which manifests itself in the spectator's freedom of to choose the area of focus and borrows elements of gaming practices.

The essay analyzes typical mise en scènes and highlights the basic ones. The most important aim of mise en scène along the first person axis is to give the viewer an opportunity to feel in a different way, to look at the world with other people's eyes. In passive mise en scène along the third person radius, where the axis of movement is absent, the semantic center of is expressed not so clearly. This type implies the viewer's aspiration to study the surrounding space. The third type is active mise en scène along the third person radius, which corresponds to the look of an active full participant in the shown events — instead of the look of an abstract observer from the inside. The essay describes the mechanism of synthesis of mise en scènes with the aim of obtaining a new artistic quality.

The author emphasizes such aspects of the artistic uniqueness of VR cinema as expressive minimalism, minimization of the value of editing, and new attitudes towards camera work. In conclusion, he describes the current state of VR cinema and looks at the basic principles of the development of its artistic uniqueness.

One of the characteristics of films related to the “new sincerity” trend is the priority use of the type expressiveness of the actor. The essay compares between the methods of using the type expressiveness of an actor in the artistic concepts of Lev Kuleshov and Sergei Eisenstein and in the films of “new sincerity”.

Lev Kuleshov's concept of the “model” is characterized by emotionality produced by posing instead of experiencing emotions corresponding to a specific pose. In the films of “new sincerity” this emotionality is characteristic of the protagonists and is interpreted as their inability to experience and reflect. This complex mental state is typical of protagonists in the “new sincerity” films.

Such characteristic features of Sergei Eisenstein's “masks” as their static character, negativity and actions and appearances conditioned by social status are interpreted by “new sincerity” filmmakers as protagonists' problems, their inability to be sincere with themselves and with others. Identification of protagonists with their social “masks” threatens them with death.

On the visual level, the type expressiveness of actors is emphasized by long plans, using a panoramic lens when shooting close-ups of faces; symbolism in a costume. Often masks, dolls and mummers appear in the frame as signs indicating a human individuality dying under a social mask.

The use of type expressiveness of the actor in the films of “new sincerity” is explored in the essay as an example of the artists' striving for the authenticity of screen reality, which results from the authenticity of the actor’s existence within the frame and the “reflection” of the hero’s unconscious sphere characteristic of “type”..

The accelerated development, convergence and integration of information and communication technologies open up great opportunities for social actors to express themselves, motivating amateur artists to produce media products. The essay discusses the principles of the functioning of "self-media", a new type of media model in individual entrepreneurship which is developing in China and analyzes its advantages and disadvantages in the testing of innovative business models.

The essay explores the problem of the importance of screen communications for civilizational development and their possible influence on the processes of collective cognition, mentality and behavior patterns of social actors, groups, communities and cultures. Screen communications demonstrate the inextricability of the linking of the media and social systems which undergo fluctuations (unstable fluctuations) in digital time at the stage of digital reforming. The author notes that this development of a social system is most often built not on collectively-consolidated but on individualized solutions resorted to by people forced to rely on their own choices in difficult situations, on their intuition and imagination.

Social actors master digital technologies and create various kinds of projects that encourage the masses to acquire new knowledge. The “self-media” project began to be implemented in China in 2010-2013 on the basis of the new WeChat platform, both a social network and a messaging application. In a convergent-integration form, a functional of differing target technology platforms was implemented, providing typological signs of self-media. This attracted a large number of consumers to media projects.

Self-media are based on the idea of learning new things - in other words, a knowledge code (a set of signs / symbols and a system of certain rules that define a process of cognition) which is implemented by the creators. Initially, it is presented in the form of informative and historical texts, illustrations and videos dedicated to art, a chosen topic complemented by the attributes of material symbolic things and various kinds of organizational services. Materially embodied ideas motivate the media consumer to replenish knowledge of the unknown.

The author elaborates the idea of modern aesthetics that the notion of “beautiful” is not a fundamental category of modern art and modern philosophy of art. Under the direct influence of science and arts modern philosophy has added to the categories such notions as probability, absurdity, the mundane, the understanding etc. On the other hand a new understanding of society and man prompted the introduction of such categories as lifeworld, fear, solitariness, care, doubt, language games etc. It has become evident that many categories are not only blurred but rather heterogeneous, thus the “system of categories” is something to be referred to with considerable reservations.

The article proposes a preliminary definition and interpretation of the beautiful and the main principles of the analysis of the beautiful. In the most general and tentative terms the “beautiful” can be defined as something that complies with the idea of beauty accepted in a given society or civilization. Ideas of beauty can vary from culture to culture and from civilization to civilization. This is no to say that certain, albeit few, objects cannot be considered beautiful throughout many historical epochs. Standards of beauty as well as social standards in general, do not refer to any object but only to certain types of objects. Consequently “beautiful” is always “beautiful of a kind”. Beauty in general does not exist, there are only beautiful objects of a definite kind.

The article maintains that there are at least three reasons why the “beautiful” cannot be verbally defined. The first is methodological, the second is social and the third is related to the peculiarities of the beautiful itself, primarily it sensual nature. In the first place the degree of clarity of scientific notions depends on the level of the development of science. The scientific study of arts is a never-ending venture. And while it continues, its categories and in particular the category of the beautiful will require clarification.

Today, the name of the New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson is known throughout the world. His films The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit received many awards, were a major commercial success and conquered millions of viewers' hearts, including the admirers of J. R. R. Tolkien, who followed the screen adventures of their favorite literary characters with bated breath. However, connoisseurs of cinema had closely followed the work of Jackson for many years before the films' release, for his early films — above all, Heavenly Creatures, based on a monstrous real crime — impressed by the complexity of chosen topics and the outstanding directorial skills.

This essay analyzes Heavenly Creatures, exploring the reality of a terrible murder in a sleepy, little New Zealand town — the murder which was largely disclosed through explicit entries in the diary of one of the criminals; and which became the basis for the film's plot. In no way justifying the criminals, Jackson, however, makes it clear that the incident was also the fault of the adults who did not see and did not want to see the difficult situation of their daughters. To ban, to punish — such “educational” measures largely anticipated the tragic ending: harmless fantasies turned into a tragedy. The action of the film could take place in any town, and not only in New Zealand. The film's warning - don't be indifferent to your children — was understood by all viewers, regardless of their country.

The essay looks at how the film was made by an artist who knew how to combine — and make this combination credible — art house and commercial cinema, surrealism (and other aesthetics of shock) and hard realism.

Worldview criteria for a profession in the bowels of VGIK