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FILM THEORY AND FILM HISTORY | AUDIOVISUAL ARTS

The Struggle for the Far East in the Interpretation of the Vasilyev Brothers

UDC 778.5с(091)«Volochaevskie dni»

Summary: The film Volochaev Days made by the Vasilyev brothers is analyzed as a vivid example of the propaganda culture of the late 1930s. The author shows how the transformation of the facts and the reminiscences of the participants of the historic events helped create ideological myths in which successes were associated with folk culture.

Key words: propaganda film, collective memory, totalitarian cinema, socialist realism, the Far East, Japanese intervention, folklorism

Author: Marianna A. Rostotskaya, Ph.D in Art, Associate Professor, Head of Aesthetics, History and Theory of Culture Department (VGIK).

Stopover? Non-Fiction Movies in the First Decade After the Millennium

UDC 778.5.03.0+778.5.03.071:1+778.5.03р-(09)

Summary: The article explores the creative processes in Russian documentary of the first decade of the 21st century, based on the desire of filmmakers to find new ways to study cognitive abilities and human needs. A wide thematic panorama of the documentary film portrait of this decade is presented. The author analyses different directions of searches of the structure of non-fiction genres: manifestation, construction, docudrama, auteur artwork.

Key words: documentary film portrait, filmmaker's design, artistic composition in documentary filmmaking, dialogic character of the method of portraying a hero.

Author: Galina S. Prozhiko, Doctor of Arts, Professor, VGIK.

FILM LANGUAGE AND TIME | IMAGE GENESIS

Historical Time and the Image of the House in A.Sokurov’s Work

UDC 778.5с/р(092)1”Sokurov A.”

Summary: The article discusses historical time, one of the key categories of artistic time in the films of A.N.Sokurov. Methods of transmission of empirical time in a number of his films are investigated, special attention being paid to the documentary The Moscow Elegy. Such an integrated approach makes it possible to identify the ways of representing historical time through the creation of a complex space embodied in the image of a house, and also allows to reveal the causal relationship of historical events and the space of human life in Sokurov’s films.

Key words: Sokurov, historical time, history, “Moscow Elegy”, image of a house, home space.

Author: Nadezhda V. Klimenko, Post-Graduate student of the Department of Film Studies (VGIK).

Russian Сinema: a Modest Charm of an Hollow Character?

UDC 778.5.01

Summary: The article introduces the concept of “hollow character”, which has a special, extremely scarce spatial and temporal form. They are not capable of either reflection or self-reflection; as a matter of fact, they are not susceptible to external reality either. The author argues that introducing a hollow character to the plot ofthe film correlates with neo-sentimentalism, a movement in contemporary art.

Key words: artistic space, plot, “hollow character”, bodily, simulacrum, neo-sentimentalism.

Author: Natalia E. Marievskaya, Doctor of Arts, Associated professor, Russian State University of Cinematography named after S.A.Gerasimov.

PERFORMANCE | THE ART OF PRESENTATION

Modern Social Problems in the Works of Novice Documentary Filmmakers

UDC 778.5.03.071.1

Summary: The article highlights the significance of the topic of social problems reflected in the films of aspiring documentary filmmakers presented at the 39th VGIK International Student Film Festival taking place in the year of VGIK’s centenary. The author analyzes the visual and sound techniques used and reveals the signs of using the interdisciplinary innovative approach to creating the creating figurative expressiveness of a thematic plot in a documentary film.

Key words: 39th VGIK international student festival, documentary film, observation, interdisciplinarity, international competition, global problems, social problems, ecology, metaphor.

Author: Anastasia A. Shtandke, Post-Graduate student, VGIK.

Dramaturgy of the Character of the Tempter Devil in the Movie

UDC 778.5.04.072:8.01-2

Summary: The article discusses the dramatic methods of creating the image of the devil in films. The main characteristic of the character under study is a tendency to manipulate, which forms the ambiguity of his image, hiding under a mask, seeking to gain power over his victim.

Key words: temptation, dramaturgy, plot, game, manipulation, mystery.

Author: Maria A. Batova, Post-Graduate student of the Department of Film Dramaturgy, VGIK.

The Emergence of a Holistic Artistic Image

UDC 7.012

Summary: This article is the final in a series of publications on composition in visual arts (Previous ones were published in issues 4 (38), 2018; 2 (40), 2019). This time, the author maintains that similar symbolic images may have different semantic meanings depending on the viewer's worldview and attitude, that the meaning of an individual element depends on the context and has a polysemantic character. The author also considers the problem of composition as a text organized by complex interconnections of symbolic elements that form the integrity of the art form with its inherent “super sense” that goes beyond the sum of the meanings of the individual parts of the image. Attention is paid to the practical experience of students in creating compositions, operating with signs, symbols, mythologems that transform a graphic text into a holistic form. It is emphasized that the information awakens the perceiver of the “super sense” with new thoughts, feelings and understanding, similar to insight.

Key words: compositional organization, graphic text, composition.

Author: Aleksandr V. Sveshnikov, Doctor of Art Studies, Professor, Full Professor at the Department of Fine Arts, Russian State University of Cinematography (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 5, for the beginning see Issues 1 (39), 2019; 2 (40), 2019; 3 (41), 2019 and 4 (42), 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

A Screen Version of the Story of Salinger Translated into Farsi

UDC 791.43-24

Summary: The article analyzes the film Pari (1995) by the Iranian Director Dariush Mehrjui based on J.D. Salinger's book Franny and Zooey. The problem of the interaction of a highly gifted person with the world of the layman, posed by Salinger in the literary source, turned out to be relevant for Iran in the 1990s. It was at this time that new heroes appeared in Iranian cinema: young educated women and veterans of the Iran-Iraq war. Having retained the original dialogues, Mehrjui, however, made a number of significant changes to the story that immerse the viewer in a completely different worldview from the Salinger one.

Key words: Iranian cinema, Dariush Mehrjui, cultural adaptations, screen adaptations, Iranian woman, feminism in Iran, unauthorized screen adaptation of Salinger’s books.

Author: Natalya G. Grigoreva, Ph.D. (Arts), Associate Professor, VGIK.

TELEVISION | DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

Transmedia Storytelling: A Feature of the Digital Media World

UDC 366.17

Summary: The process of convergence/deconvergence in media-communication industry introduce new concepts and methods in content production. Recently researchers and practitioners’ interest has been drawn to the idea of transmedia storytelling, developed by Henry Jenkins. Russian authors’ works are based mostly on foreign sources offering the ways of putting this innovative technology into practical use predominantly in the field of journalism and marketing. The purpose of our research is to consider the benefits of transmedia storytelling in the production of television drama series. On the production side, transmedia storytelling presumes planning of the global series narrative with the perspective to distribute it piece by piece on multiple media platforms. Ideally this conception expects every medium to do what it does best. It is vital to choose transmedia extensions which best suit for rendering of the particular story to support the branded narrative universe, fill the intervals between the seasons, maintain the target audience interest and supply new information about the characters.

Key words: transmedia, transmedia storytelling, convergence/deconvergence, immersion, meanings production.

Author: Gennady P. Bakulev, Doctor of Philology, Professor, VGIK.

Techniques for Compositional Filling the Space of a Television Frame

UDC 792.8.01

Summary: The article investigates the possibilities of modeling the screen space when building the visual basis of a modern television frame. It analyzes its composition, the relationship with the introduced visual components (color bars, copies of image parts, graphics, split-screen elements, lines) appearing in a non-standard solution to the imagery field of the live television broadcast. The use of these expressive components in representing objective reality on a television screen, giving the audience emotional involvement in viewing, is substantiated.

Key words: visual object, frame composition, television report, TV image format, screen time, screen space.

Author: Vladimir V. Shabalin, Ph.D in Arts, Advisor to the Office of the Government of the Russian Federation.

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

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