Vol 8, No 3 (2016)

Evaluation of Russian animated cartoons of the 1930s wasn’t positive for a long time; historians of cinema, directors, artists marked this period as the era of hard times, as «formalism» and «imitation Disney's esthetics». However the films considered in the article have played a significant role in development of world cinema. Particularly they have influenced upon moulding of the Czech, Polish and Ukrainian stop motion animation of the post-war years. Unfortunately, some works released in the Union of puppet animation at Mosfilm studios under the leadership of A.L. Ptushko have been lost, and nowadays it is impossible to establish precisely their actual released number. In the article the experimental animation films of the second half of the 1930s which have remained on film and also in the form of editorial scripts (RGALI, “Mosfilm”, “Gosfilmofond”) are being analyzed. It should be noted/ that five films of the group shot with P. Mershin's method are restored (method of time-lapse reconstruction) by N. Mayorov and V. Kotovsky (on the remained color negatives) in the 2010s. So it is possible now to estimate innovation and originality of these films, and to define a role of school of the Soviet animation in development of the world stop motion. Special attention is drawn to the socio-cultural context accentuating peculiarities of reading the films, which formed their imagery and on specific reflection of a “defence discourse” in the Soviet animation of 1935-41s.

During the last fifteen years in the Russian documentaries dominated creative trend characterized by passionless, objectivist fixing of reality, mainly the negative sides of it. Today, the so-called actual cinema is under crisis, and that determines the relevance of the study summing up some of the processes that have taken place in the Russian documentary cinema in the late 20th-early 21st century. The author examines the causes of uprise and development of the objectivist, naturalistic approach to the fixing of reality and showing the negative aspects of it in Russian documentaries. The primary reason for this phenomenon is connected with the changes in the social system of the country, which has led to the loss of ethical and aesthetic guidelines. The critical perception of reality in a number of contemporary documentaries is the antithesis to the Soviet documentaries with its trend to show predominantly positive aspects of life. As for the rejection of contemporary realities, it can be explained by the desire of film directors to distance themselves from the glamorous approach in the interpretation of reality customary a contemporary TV. And finally, there was the purely practical reason, namely poor theatre and TV distribution that forced the filmmakers to focus on the festival jury and film critics supporting this orientation. Another problem of contemporary Russian documentary lies in the fact of the elimination of the state documentary studios that has led to a general fall of professionalism in this field. The availability of digital video which appeared at this time and easiness of shooting and editing technology allowed to create documentaries by those who could not tell an interesting documentary story. The result of this process is a decline of spectators’ interest towards documentaries. It can be predicted that the development of new forms of financing documentaries and promoting them to the viewer, will significantly change the aesthetic content of Russian documentary films and return the interest of the audience to this kind of cinema.

The author analyzes the special type of imagery, that is kaleidoscopic image, and investigates its evolution in photography, video and multimedia from the first vortograph (photo, taken through the prism of the mirrored glasses in 1917 by Alvin Langdon Coburn) until nowdays. The author combines empirical methods with the theoretical analysis. For the first time in the humanitarian historiography a huge package of kaleidoscopic photos, video and multimedia images was collected and systematized. The collection includes works of several dozens artists, some of them interviewed by the author of the research. As a result the author proposes the classification based on the subject regimentation: the entire aggregation of the assembled materials is divided into three main groups - the human body, the nature objects, the architecture. The images in each group are analyzed with respect to their structural features, composition and semantics, creation technology. Two structural features were singled out as unifying for all three groups: ambivalent character of the kaleidoscopic image as a symmetrically organized chaos, as well as a trend to transform a realistic recognizable subject into an abstract pattern. Kaleidoskoping is considered to be of the form generated mechanisms not only in the visual arts, but also in practice-oriented areas: design and graphic design, textile industry and fashion, ceramics, glass industry, etc.

The article is devoted to the first collaborative work of the director Alexander Sokurov and the scripwriter Yury Arabov The Lonely Voice of Man, based on A. Platonov’s works. The everlasting value of the picture is expressed through a number of concepts and images, identified by the author, which will later become his central ideas and further develop in Sokurov's films. The author analyses the imagery system of the film, its major concepts in the context of artistic-philosophical system of Platonov and N. Fyodorov's “philosophy of the common task”, addresses the main and essential biblical allusions implicated in the film. First and foremost, the main character Nikita Firsov is associated with the images of the prodigal son and Jesus Christ: love without any body contact, break with the father (earthly), Nikita's departure which reminds of Christ's withdrawal to the desert, return of Nikita associated with the arrival of Christ in Galilee, unique resurrection from the dead, etc. The research is based upon the concept of “substance of existence” - the central idea of philosophy of Russian cosmism and Platonov's artistic-philosophical system (greatly influenced by the ideas of N.Fyodorov). In the context of A. Sokurov's creative work the author pinpoints the issue of the filial love, as a necessary condition to achieve unity and harmony that became the basis for philosophical explorations of N. Fyodorov and philosophical-imagery system of A. Platonov. The author also juxtaposes A.Sokurov and A.Tarkovsky in their ways of depicting historical (narrative) time. A.Tarkovsky defines this category via motive of unity of a person with the world resulting in disappearance of the notion of the past (in accordance with the Fyodorov's vector of mankind’s movement). A. Sokurov like A. Platonov expresses this historicism through entropy. For A. Tarkovsky it is a cutoff, eternity and homogeneity (an absolute substance of life), for A. Sokurov (as well as for A. Platonov) it is a movement and versatility.

The article aims at revealing intertextual references to paintings woven into feature films by the British director Derek Jarman (1942-1994). The author explores various manifestations of intertextuality from direct citations to reminiscences, which allow to emphasize the continuity of film-director’s work, the connection of its aesthetics, composition, film mood with the original fine art source paintings. The target is to enhance the emotional impact on the viewer. The concept of “intertextuality” has undergone significant changes since its introduction to the research usage by the poststructuralist French theorist Julia Kristeva. This term has gone beyond the literary discourse and has begun to be used in the analysis of all the semiotic formations to describe the interaction of both verbal and non-verbal texts. In this regard, it is important to analyze and reveal the intertextual references to paintings woven into feature films made by a British director Derek Jarman whose works are insufficiently explored in Russia. Intertextuality is a characteristic feature of Jarman’s creative style that seeks to blur the clear distinction between painting and cinema. Analysing the influence of such artists as Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Piero della Francesca, William Turner, Ford Madox Brown, Thomas Eakins and Francis Bacon on Jarman, the author reveals the interconnection between the director’s aesthetics, composition, mood, light and shade frame modeling and the original paintings. Derek Jarman uses a variety of intertextual references from direct citations to reminiscences affecting the visual associative row of the audience and their film perception, emphasizing the continuity of his work. The intertextual references seek to enhance the emotional impact on the viewers, to recreate the mood of the epoch and its atmosphere, to aggravate the tragedy of the situation. The metaphors and allusions greatly expand the spatial and temporal characteristics of Jarman’s films. Numerous intertransitions from one semiotic system to another fill his films with inner dialogue and strengthen semantic polyphony of meaning.

Indian cinema is a unique, original phenomenon of world culture with a rich history and deep roots. The dawn of the era of cinema in India is referred up to 1913, when the film 'Raja Harishchandra' by J.G. Phalke was shot. Further development of cinema going in different directions in several chronologically successive stages, and the most famous center of the film industry has gradually led Bollywood in Northern India. The early cinema works are not enough accessible to study, and the first stage is clearly traced in the span of 1940-1960s, when the plot has become the basis of the social problems of the society, directly connected with striving for independence. 1970-1980s were characterized by relative imperturbation in the country and the lives of the Indians, so the results of this time became widely known in the USSR and influenced on Russian melodrama. The first Indian TV-series wore melodramatic and mythoephic nature. In 1990s the process of globalization touched upon film industry in India. As a result the films underwent substantial Europeanization, but on the other hand appealed to domestic traditions and values, performing a kind of popularization and propaganda. There is a fully manifested characteristic of the Indian film industry mixture of genres called "masala". In 2000s the line of reasonable combination of modern trends with traditional culture and national originality of cinema went on. Currently, the Indian film industry continues to develop. Conservative technology combined with modern technical equipment are actively used in the shooting process and in the cinematic action. However despite this the cinema of India is a vivid example of conservation of the unique national art in a world cultural unification process.

At cinema’s inception the market played the role of the midwife. Further on, market relations had been one of the fundamental framing conditions for the formation and the development of cinema as a social institution, with all its merits and demerits. It was along the pathways of the market that cinema crossed over from France to Russia. The state more suffered it rather than accepted it. Nicholas II deemed cinema «a vacuous, no-good-for-anyone, and even harmful entertainment». Of the same opinion initially was V. Lenin. But, having positioned himself at the helm of the state, he put forth the task of turning cinema into «artistic propaganda» and the most important of the arts. Commerce in cinema was subjected to an ideological and aesthetical anathema. However, market relations did not cease to exist altogether. They rather took on a rudimentary and truncated form. But even in that state, market relations came to be one of the decisive conditions for the cost-effectiveness of Soviet cinema. Since many deny it, in the article this viewpoint is overturned by an analysis of statistical materials from 1976 and 1986. It is shown that the cost-effectiveness was concealed by draconian taxation and the economically groundless expenditure on operating the exhibition network which had been built with a view of film service to the entire population, including the rural. In the late 1980s, on the initiative of the Soviet state, a turn was executed toward a legitimate socialist market. But in reality, only the first steps were made in that direction. Intervene did the demise of the state regime in the USSR. In the post-Soviet period a proper development of the market mechanism did not come to pass. Functioning primarily thanks to the state financial support, the national cinema of contemporary Russia is of a mixed sort: a public-mercantile one.

The problem of visualization characteristic of TV and street advertising, is utterly relevant, as the follow-up of cultural and artistic origins of any new information technology helps to present potential of the creative perception of social reality historically engendering both forms of art and their artistic palette. Visualization of goods, that is demonstration them to its customers is the first phase of the exchange, and it is only foreshadowed advertising. When production becomes ponderous, information about goods should become regular, inclusive, and possibly aggressive. A wide-scale consumer boasts of increase of the number of social needs. In the course of time exhortations system has complicated to a larger extent, and their form become more diverse. Nowadays exhortation exists as a potential conclusion after reading the text. The advertising message may consist of a simple statement of some information about the offer: but it may also show. Demonstration can promote a positive attitude to the product. The heyday of this practice we can see on TV. Due to power of its pictorial capacities it shows the world in all its beauty. It just shows the power of using the product demonstration process. And most importantly - since the image might be hiding, or it reflects the pattern of life, - even a whole philosophy of life. This is the model of any symbolization - from details to the total, from the individual to the whole universe. TV used this mechanism in such mode of advertising as the celebrities marketing. The figure of the “hero” is symbolic, consumption becomes synonymous with success, achievement. Sometimes visualization of ideas have problems with limits symbolization (the example of the TVC “Daisy”). This problem becomes more urgent nowadays because the marketing communications based on unfounded statements do not work anymore. The strength of the latter particularly manifested itself under the crisis.