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FILM THEORY AND FILM HISTORY | AUDIOVISUAL ARTS

Paradoxes of Deconstruction in Postmodern Aesthetics and Art Cinema

UDC 7.01

Summary: The article presents reflections on the key points regarding Jacques Derrida’s conception of ‘deconstruction’ as a certain universal model of artistic and practical embodiment of some basic principles of this model which acquire a specific penchant in the work of such outstanding modern directors as M.Haneke, A.German (senior), or C.Reygadas. The article does not claim to be complete nor does it offer any final conclusions as it is written in the Bartes’ manner of “question in reply”.

Key words: deconstruction, “inventive deconstruction”, decomposition, recomposition, intelligibility, aggression of discourse.

Author: Ludmila B. Klyueva, Doctor of Arts, Professor, Department of Film Studies, Faculty, Screenwriting and Cinema Studies, VGIK.

Labyrinth Structure: the Complexity of Plot Construction as a Problem in the Theory of Drama

UDC 778.5.04.072:8.011

Summary: The shaping of the dramatic base of a movie is created with regards to the audience’s capability to perceive certain artistic forms while the screenwriter searches for the form that expresses the content to the fullest extent. Thus, the screenwriter balances between the conventional and unconventional, the simple (in some cases even formulaic) and the complex. Introducing such a spatial model as labyrinth seems to connected with the risk of violation of this delicate balance. The article explores the compliance of the film’s elaborately structured space with its content and artistic conflict.’

Key words: labyrinth, plot, structure, film, film’s artistic space.

Author: Aleksey I. Kasmynin, MA, PhD student, Department of Screenwriting, Faculty of Screenwriting and Cinema Studies, VGIK.

FILM LANGUAGE AND TIME | IMAGE GENESIS

Historical Trauma as a Source of Grotesque in Cinema

UDC 778.5.04.072»

Summary: The article searches into the elements of grotesque in film art. It analyses the signs of transgression and ambivalence in a number of film plots arising from showing such historical events as world wars, disasters and cataclysms. The massive transformations caused by rapid scientific and technological progress can also be regarded as a historical trauma of the society due to the development of a digital civilization.

Key words: grotesque, transgression, historical trauma, script, image of chronotope, dramatic conflict.

Author: Anastasia E. Babina, PhD student, VGIK.

A Stunt as a Plastic Metaphor in Epic Series “Liberation”

UDC 778.5.01(014)

Summary: On the example of Yuri Ozerov’s epic series “Liberation” (1967–1971), the article explores stunt performance in Soviet cinema, which has become a narrative and plastic metaphor which affected the storytelling of fiction films about the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945). The stunts used by the director Yury Ozerov and DOP Igor M. Slabnevich, real war veterans, increased authenticity to the shots reenacting the war tragedy and promoted the development of the image of the Soldier-liberator.

Key words: film epic, stunt demonstration, Great Patriotic War, plastic metaphor, stunt.

Author: Dzhan I. Danilov, Lead Editor “Vestnik VGIK”.

PERFORMANCE | THE ART OF PRESENTATION

The Perception of a Contemporary in Non-Fiction Films

UDC 778.5.03.01

Summary: By the examples of Russian non-fiction films, the article examines the specificity of perceiving the image of a contemporary by filmmakers and the audience. Due to the development of digital technologies, the problem of seeing the hero in a documentary takes on new forms: certain contradictions between the filmmaker’s ideas and the traits of the created character are revealed. The problem of interaction between the author, the character and the viewer in art is considered by referring to the experience of other art forms.

Key words: contemporary Russian documentary film, character, perception, social assessment, portrait, vision, audience.

Author: Anastasia A. Shtandke, PhD student, VGIK.

The Intertextuality of the Sound Space in Dmitry Volkostrelov’s Productions

UDC 778.5.01(014)

Summary: The article is devoted to two stage productions directed by Dmitry Volkostrelov: L’Année dernière à Marienbad and Un condamné à mort s'est échappé, based on filmscripts instead of theatrical plays. The study object is the sound space of the productions and the main objective is to look into the systematic relationship between the individual components of the audio landscape inside the productions and to compare it to the original texts of the films.

Key words: film as text, performance diegesis, metalepsis, Dmitry Volkostrelov, intertext, sound space of a stage production.

Author: Yuliya A. Oseeva, PhD student, Department of Russian Theatre, Russian State Institute of Performing Arts.

Compositional objectives of Academic Drawing

UDC 372.874

Summary: Teaching Academic Drawing at the VGIK Production Design Department has certain specific features due to the necessity to prepare the students to their future career at film studios where they will closely collaborate with the director and DOP to create the visual concept of the film. The article dwells upon the most essential challenges of this work: quick and detailed sketching, the unity of contrasts, the problem of movement and time, the arrangement of plane and space. The author also argues that alongside with the rational approach (reasoning) one should develop intuition for the work seems to dictate the choice of a specific way of completing the assignment.

Key words: composition, solution of the problem of plane and space, artistic intuition.

Author: Aleksandr V. Sveshnikov, Doctor of Art, Professor, Department of Fine Arts, VGIK.

SCREEN CULTURE | CULTUROLOGY. PHILOSOPHY

Is Film Philosophy Possible and What Aspects of Cinema May Become its Subject?

UDC 778.5.01

Summary: The article analyses the development of a new academic discipline — film philosophy — in view of the rise of philosophic implications in auteur cinema and its connection with life philosophy: existentialism, post-modernism and other schools. There are three particular issues which require philosophic interpretation: cinematic experience, time in cinema and the problem of corporeality in film due to the intrusion of technologies into the communication between cinema and mainstream audience.

Key words: philosophy of cinema, Deleuze, Bergson, life philosophy, existentialism, postmodernism, time, auteur cinema, cinematic experience, corporeality.

Authors:

Nikolai A. Khrenov, Doctor of Science in Philosophy, Professor, Head of the Section of the Artistic Problems in Media, Department of Media and Popular Arts, State Research Institute for Art Studies;

Andrei N. Khrenov, PhD in Cultural Studies, Leading researcher, Research Section, Academy of Media Industry.

WORLD CINEMA | ANALYSIS

Visual Communications of May 1968 in France in the XXI century: Slogans, Posters, Cinema

UDC 004.9+778.5.01(014)

Summary: The article analyzes the influence of visual communications that emerged in France during the May 1968 events on contemporary French culture. The study of this problem makes it possible to form an academic understanding of the peculiarities of the protest visual symbolism, graphic art and cinema that appeared after the Red May strikes.

Key words: visual communication, May 1968, poster, slogan, French cinema.

Author: Maria E. Makarova, Bachelor of the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University.

TELEVISION | DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

Contemporary TV Series: Narrative and Genre Metamorphoses

UDC 316.773.4

Summary: The article investigates the principles of forming and developing narrative patterns in modern TV series as a particular phase of global escalation of sociocultural introspection characterized by a specific way of affecting mass audience. TV series act as a major culture-modeling tool, making it possible to catalogue massive information layers residing in the process of exponential transformations of socio-historic experience. The speculation on the explicit-implicit principle of arranging narrative series diegesis making it possible to form specific viewers’ accidentia is substantiated.

Key words: TV series, narrative model, genre, plot, diegesis, motive, conflict, form, content.

Author: Yana A. Parkhomenko, Ph.D in Art, Head of the Department of Screenwriting, Academy of Media Industry.

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

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

About the authors

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Email: vestnik-vgik@vgik.info
Russian Federation

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