Vol 11, No 4 (2019)

Международный студенческий фестиваль ВГИК — уникальное явление.
Это площадка для молодых, чьи работы оценивает авторитетнейшее жюри — кинематографисты с мировым именем, заслуженные педагоги. Как отметил ректор ВГИК В.С.Малышев: «…это первые шаги студентов, их работы привлекают свежестью и молодежной энергетикой, они тем и интересны, что это первые шаги в профессиональную жизнь». Фестиваль не только площадка для общения, но и старт вхождения в профессиональную среду, первая оценка творческих и когнитивных способностей тех, кто вскоре будет представлять национальный кинематограф, театральное творчество. Фестиваль — это и обучение: в его рамках проводятся спецпоказы фильмов, в том числе из истории кинематографа, мастер-классы, тематические конференции.

The continuing introduction of digital technologies into the production of meaningful and engaging audiovisual images accentuates the necessity of international cooperation in the sphere of the professional education of those young people who are planning to work in film, television and other screen arts. All over the world film schools are challenged by problems the solution of which requires consolidated participation of worldfamous masters. This has been recently confirmed at the Congress of the International Association of Film and Television Schools (CILECT) Congress held in October 2019 in Moscow in connection with the 100th anniversary of the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). This essay analyzes
VGIK's contribution to the process of perfecting programs in the field of screen arts at different stages of their development.

The essay explores issues of CILECT development since its foundation in 1954. Initially, CILECT was supported by nations with developed film cultures, such as Brazil, Chile, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Poland, the Soviet Union, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Today, the Association unites 180 film schools from 65 nations. The essay analyzes VGIK's role in the development of film education and, more generally, the development of screen arts; and emphasizes the importance of international cooperation in this technological, digital age.

The essay explores the artistic and expressive features of the world's first film adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot, directed in 1910 by Pyotr Chardynin. The author substantiates the degree of influence of one of the most important philosophical concepts of the novel — that of a split in the human personality — on Russian national consciousness at the beginning of the 20th century. The analysis of the figurative system of the film shows that its semantics and the images of its characters were ahead of its time and, therefore, deserve closer critical attention.
In the The Idiot the idea of Dostoevsky about a human being’s separateness in the world is revealed in the four main characters — Prince Myshkin, Parfyon Rogozhin, Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya — who are not “complete”, full-fledged personalities but separate components of a harmonious human personality. These characters, like puzzle pieces, possess mutually complementary qualities. Thus, Prince Myshkin, the bearer of the highest spirituality, is contrasted with the earthly and passionate Rogozhin. And the images of Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya are connected, respectively, with the images of Heavenly Love and Earthly Love. If the characters of the novel could unite with each other in love and harmony, the world would get a “complete” harmonious person, like the one created by God for the Garden of Eden. However, such a merger seems impossible within the limits of earthly existence. In Dostoevsky's novel the individual parts of the soul could not unite into a harmonious whole. Egoism, passion, pride and imperfection of human nature do allow the protagonists to unite and lead them towards personal disintegration.
In Russian national cinema, Dostoevsky’s idea of human being’s separateness undergoes a number of transformations. The changes introduced by Pyotr Chardynin into the film adaptation of the novel mostly relate to the image of the film’s main protagonist — Nastasya Filippovna, whom the filmmaker associates with a dying Russia. Chardynin also transforms other protagonists. Prince Myshkin is the only carrier of the highest spirituality, while Nastasya Filippovna, Aglaya and Rogozhin are earthly and passionate. At the end of the film, Nastasya Filippovna’s murderer Rogozhin, dressed in a Russian folk costume, sobs at the bedside of the dead “tsarina”, while “heavenly prince” Myshkin who was not accepted by her in her lifetime, comforts the sinner. Chardynin’s film transforms the idea of a split in the human personality into the idea of the Russian separateness from God, the internal split within the Russian world and, as a consequence, that world’s inevitable death.

The essay addresses the key theoretical and practical aspects of the problem of scholarly approach to the analysis of artistic texts (films). The author aims to clarify the term "discourse" both with regard to its content, origin and scope and with regard to the possibilities and prospects of using it in analytical work with films. From the author’s point of view, the discourse analysis can solve a complex of serious problems that inevitably arise in the work with artistic texts.

Since in the work with film texts the discursive practices of analysis are rare, or even sporadic, and the very concept of discourse is still being adapted by Russian film theory, it is necessary to consider the term in more detail — particularly, the conditions of its appearance in the humanitarian sphere and the prospects of its use in the artistic sphere and analytical work. The purpose of this essay is to summarize viewpoints which exist in the humanities regarding the term “discourse” and to formulate the understanding of the term which can be employed for the practical analysis within film studies.

The term discourse is considered in the essay primarily in the linguistic tradition — in particular, in connection with Ferdinand de Saussure’s dichotomy of language and speech; and then the author traces the gradual departure of the concept beyond linguistics into a broad sphere of semiotic activity. Modern semiotics, which grew up on the foundation of linguistics, has carried out the transfer of a number of linguistic categories — such as language, speech, text, and discourse — to other sign systems, regarding these categories as universal and basic — among other things, as applicable to the sphere of art. The essay aims to clarify the subject of discourse analysis and its specificity in regard to other approaches, and to define a fundamentally new position of the researcher taken in the process of discourse analysis in relation to the artistic text.

The essay explores lexical coincidences in the works of Yuri Tynianov and Osip Mandelshtam — coincidences which appeared in different time periods, independently of each other.
In the second half of the 1920s, Tynianov wrote the novel Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar which, while dealing with events of the 1820s, anticipated the soon-tobe disappearance of free artistic speech.
Ten years later, Tynianov's anticipation became a reality — reflected in Mandelstam's poem “Lamarck”. Freedom of creative activity did not disappear completely but became, in many respects, a thing of the past. Even if the hope for the return of free expression still existed, no one imagined when this event would take place. Loyalty to the regime and assentation were the signs of the times. Studies of Soviet artistic life in that period reveal the extreme degree of the unnatural selection aimed at creating unwavering servants of the regime. One of such servants wrote: “In today's situation, genius and villainy are two compatible things: the killing of a Mozart may assist history”.
Such “assistance to history” became a Soviet norm and, according to independent Russian émigré observers, led to a situation in which Soviet literature lost the position within world literature obtained by the Russian classical literature of the 19th century and acquired unmistakably provincial traits. As Shigalev declared in Dostoyevsky's Demons, “All are slaves and equal in their slavery”.
Analogous processes were taking place in cinema, where pro-regime servilism — due to cinema's ability to influence the audience more rapidly and more powerfully than literature — acquired its most dangerous form. This was fully understood by the Bolshevik regime which held cinema in high regard. “Creating art? No, doing what you were told to do”, — this was how Soviet filmmaker Leonid Trauberg later described those times.

In the context of media space digitalization, issues of using multimedia in audiovisual works and in screen arts become increasingly important. Evolutionary processes in audiovisual production form a new system of expressive means, determine the scope of modern multimedia, transforming them into a new communicative space. The article notes that the gap between the intensity of the introduction of this type of creativity and lack of theoretical justification of the process is due to the rapid formation of a new artistic environment, its adaptation and relevance.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the exploration of the new type of communicative space, change and adapt the art form when introducing multimedia into the movie plot.

The author gives a generalized description of the interaction of the viewer with a work of art, equipped with elements of interactivity, which is represented in the ‘‘creative dialogue’’ of the artist and the consumer. But the design format involves fundamental knowledge in the field of cinema and practical skills when using technologies in screen arts.

In the section on practical techniques for implementing multimedia, the author focuses on the short stories developed by the teachers of the Department of Animation and Computer Graphics for training multimedia directors at VGIK.

Taking the work of VGIK students as an example, the article substantiates the integration of theoretical knowledge and practical skills in teaching students whose training is based on common and fine culture in combination with the skills of using digital technology.

The article touches upon the education of a multimedia director an auteur and professional, capable of realizing their plan with audiovisual means involving the transformation of screen time and space, which is a difficult but important educational task in digital time.

Intensive development of knowledge in the 20th century, including the emergence of new sciences and humanities, constantly creates a problematic situation in the sphere of art, shifting art’s designation to what in the philosophy of science is known as “normal science”. This is associated with the idea of art as a science that has reached a stage of maturity and consistency and, therefore, complies with its norms. The concept of art as “normal science” is characterized by a certain degree of conservatism, as it presupposes art’s selfprotection against deviations from the established methodology.

However, sometimes the artistic processes of modernity require different approaches. In addition, the emergence of new humanities shifts the already established methodology of art. This happened in the first decades of the 20th century, in the era of a linguistic turn in the humanities, indicating the invasion of natural sciences in the humanities; and this is happening today, at the turn of the 21st century, in a situation of a cultural turn, the emergence and intensive development of the science of culture. The current turn requires
a deeper understanding of the structure and components of art history, i.e., its sub-disciplines: art history, art theory and art criticism.

The essay argues that in the situation of cultural turn the theory of art can carry out functions which the other two sub-disciplines cannot. It propounds that art theory is able to make a decisive contribution to the elucidation of two problems: the relationship between art and cultural studies and the problem of historical time, which is important both for contemporary art and for art history.

The essay explores Ingmar Bergman’s film Cries and Whispers (Viskningar och rop, 1972) from the perspective of the protagonist’s selfreflection as the main plot-constructing tool. The self-reflection of the main protagonist Agnes is presented by Bergman in a variety of forms which create, by mixing with each other, a polyphony of senses and images.

The author analyses those dramatic tools which make it possible to immerse a spectator into Agnes’s inner feelings. Her diary is her conscious self-reflection and, therefore, becomes a cinematic instrument for a study of her psychology. Bergman explores the visual images of the main protagonist’s self-reflection and, logically, turns them into symbols. This is exemplified by the symbolic comparison of her mother’s and her sisters’ images to a bouquet of magnificent white roses. And then, a close-up of a flower shows symbolically the true nature of Agnes’s mother: the flower turns out to be an artificial one, revealing the hypocrisy of Agnes’s externally beautiful mother. The protagonist’s conscious striving to understand herself is also revealed through the use of an analytical voice-over monologue accompanying a sequence of reminiscences about the mother.

The essay analyses the same sequence from the viewpoint of the objectorientation of Agnes’s self-reflection. Within this sequence, self-reflection changes its object, becoming either introspective or extrospective. Agnes recomprehends herself either through the prism of herself or through the prism of the others. Quick alternation of these two types of self-reflection indicates the causal connection between Agnes’s identity and her relationship with her mother. Significantly, the sequence's ending is the moment of the closest rapprochement between Agnes and her mother - that is, between two types of self-reflection.

A protagonist's self-reflection could be an effective tool of creating semantic resonance. An example of this is provided in the film's final sequence, in which Anna, the servant, reads the diary of the dead Agnes. This sequence is a reminiscence of those several minutes of Agnes’s life when she was “absolutely happy”. It begins with Anna reading the diary and turns into the visualisation of a diary entry accompanied by the Anna’s voice-over on Agnes's behalf. This creates a triple resonance of the film's semantic content.

In the author's opinion, the above examples confirm that a character’s selfreflection can become an effective dramatic tool for exploring a character’s psychology and a technique of revealing the meanings in their polyphony.

One of the main trends in the development of the Russian animation industry is the intensification of international cooperation and promotion on international media markets. Russian animators are developing different forms of international cooperation and co-production in the context of the economic crisis, financing problems, lack of second-tier personnel and production capacities, as well as national distribution problems. In the situation of a weakening relationship with European partners, there is an increase in cooperation with Asian companies.

The leading role is given to cooperation with China, due to the policies pursued by the two countries and close cultural interaction supported at the intergovernmental level. Russian companies are moving from outsourcing in film production to other forms of interaction, such as co-financing of projects and co-production. The essay analyzes the co-production experience of such leaders of the Russian animation industry as Riki, KinoAtis and Wizart Animation.

Co-production with foreign companies involves a number of problems caused by cultural, mental, legal and organizational differences. Still, it combines financial efforts and consolidates technical capabilities, raising the quality of films to the world level. Co-production also stimulates international distribution and reduces financial risks, opens up opportunities to conquer new markets and overcome the systems of quotes that exist in some countries. In the Russian animation industry, the number of co-produced films demonstrates a tendency to increase. The development of various forms of interaction between the Russian animation business and foreign partners and the presentation of coproduced films on international media markets contributes to the formation of Russia’s positive image and promotes its national interests, lifestyle and culture, affirming animation’s long-standing status of a soft power asset.

В статье кратко излагается история создания Режиссерского факультета ВГИК, рассматривается как исторический материал, связанный с разными фактами жизни учебного заведения в период с 1924 до 1930 года, так и обозначается круг проблем, с которыми столкнулся факультет в период своего становления.

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

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