Revenge Remix: TERROR NULLIUS (2018) and the Politics of Sample Filmmaking

<p>TERROR NULLIUS (Soda_Jerk, 2018) is an experimental sample film that remixes Australian cinema, television and news media into a “political revenge fable” (soda_jerk.co.au). While TERROR NULLIUS is overtly political in tone, understanding its specific messages requires unpacking its form, content and cultural references. This thesis investigates the multiple layers of TERROR NULLIUS’ politics, thereby highlighting the political strategies and capacities of sample filmmaking. Employing a historical methodology, this research contextualises TERROR NULLIUS within a tradition of sampling and other subversive modes of filmmaking, including Soviet cinema, Surrealism, avant-garde found-footage films, fan remix videos, and Australian archival art films. This comparative analysis highlights how Soda_Jerk utilise and advance formal strategies of subversive appropriation, fair use, dialectical editing and digital compositing to interrogate the relationship between media and culture. It also argues that TERROR NULLIUS employs postmodern and postcolonial approaches to archives and history to undermine positivist, linear historical constructions and colonial mythologies. Building on these formal and theoretical foundations, this thesis also closely reads TERROR NULLIUS to scrutinise the accessibility of its arguments for Australian and international audiences: one reading utilises Donna Haraway’s cyberfeminist theory to interpret TERROR NULLIUS’ progressive identity politics, and the second explores the cultural and historical references imbedded in TERROR NULLIUS’ samples to unpack its commentary on contemporary debates in Australian politics (particularly regarding refugee detention and white nationalism). Ultimately, this multi- faceted analysis of TERROR NULLIUS’ form, content and references highlights the complexity of sample films’ political messages, which are radically open to diverse interpretations.</p>

Revenge Remix: TERROR NULLIUS (2018) and the Politics of Sample Filmmaking

<p>TERROR NULLIUS (Soda_Jerk, 2018) is an experimental sample film that remixes Australian cinema, television and news media into a “political revenge fable” (soda_jerk.co.au). While TERROR NULLIUS is overtly political in tone, understanding its specific messages requires unpacking its form, content and cultural references. This thesis investigates the multiple layers of TERROR NULLIUS’ politics, thereby highlighting the political strategies and capacities of sample filmmaking. Employing a historical methodology, this research contextualises TERROR NULLIUS within a tradition of sampling and other subversive modes of filmmaking, including Soviet cinema, Surrealism, avant-garde found-footage films, fan remix videos, and Australian archival art films. This comparative analysis highlights how Soda_Jerk utilise and advance formal strategies of subversive appropriation, fair use, dialectical editing and digital compositing to interrogate the relationship between media and culture. It also argues that TERROR NULLIUS employs postmodern and postcolonial approaches to archives and history to undermine positivist, linear historical constructions and colonial mythologies. Building on these formal and theoretical foundations, this thesis also closely reads TERROR NULLIUS to scrutinise the accessibility of its arguments for Australian and international audiences: one reading utilises Donna Haraway’s cyberfeminist theory to interpret TERROR NULLIUS’ progressive identity politics, and the second explores the cultural and historical references imbedded in TERROR NULLIUS’ samples to unpack its commentary on contemporary debates in Australian politics (particularly regarding refugee detention and white nationalism). Ultimately, this multi- faceted analysis of TERROR NULLIUS’ form, content and references highlights the complexity of sample films’ political messages, which are radically open to diverse interpretations.</p>

Retro-Series About the Artists of Soviet Popular Music: Between Conventions, Past and Reality

The article deals with the dramaturgical and aesthetic patterns of the Russian TV series of the 2000s–2010s, which provide insight into the lives of famous Soviet pop music artists. The main characters in the biopics studied were inspired by Leonid Utyosov, Pyotr Leshchenko, Lyubov Orlova, Anna German, Lyudmila Zykina, Valentina Tolkunova, Alla Pugacheva, Lyudmila Gurchenko, Edita Piekha, Valery Obodzinsky and Muslim Magomaev. The article gives an overview of the similarities in the development of historical and biographical film genres in Hollywood and Soviet cinema. Moreover, a brief introduction to Soviet films about musicians is provided. The main part of the research is devoted to the issues of adaptation of Hollywood conventions of the music biopic genre In Russiania. Through the interaction of the Soviet past, Hollywood standards and contemporary Russian realities, the specific features of different narration types are revealed, the issue of authenticity is considered, and the status of pop music in the past and present is outlined. In addition, the types of dramatic conflicts and types of heroes are analyzed, questions of the commercial component in relation to Soviet popular culture are raised.

The Moldovan film Balada haiducească (Outlaw Ballad): the Phenomenon of Innovation through Tradition

The polemical character of the paper is explained by the need to reconsider the generative factors in the configuration of the new cinematic wave of the “thaw” era. Unlike the popular postulate, the author launches the novel conception: the change in the face of Soviet cinema is entirely due to the ideational-aesthetic performances of the most ideologized genre of historical film, the historical-revolutionary one. Namely in the films, dedicated to the Russian revolution, there happened a reversal of values of the existential equations: “man – history”, “individual – collective”, “general – human-soviet”. Appealing to the generous virtualities of the mythical-archetypal analysis, we specified the change of the vector of cinematographic knowledge in the Balada haiducească/Outlaw Ballad by updating the patterns of the mythical-folkloric complex as the millennial censorship of the nation. Assigning the inspired cinematographic work both to the context of the “thaw” era and to that of the exponential Balkan genre – the film with outlaws, the singularity of the local discourse inscribed in the identity grid of the neo-romantic type was stated

Ukrainian Revolution of 1917—1921 in the Propaganda Discourse of the Russian Bolshevism: Tymofii Levchuk’s Film “A Kyiv Citizen” (1958)

The history of cinema is one of those unique cultural phenomena, which constantly attracts the attention of researchers. This phenomenon, especially in the 20th century, determined not only the direction of aesthetic transformations of the cultural development but also had an impact on the formation of ideologies and the strengthening of political regimes. This topic is relevant because the methods of propaganda that were actively used by totalitarian regimes (including the Soviet totalitarian rule) are now actively used by the undemocratic Russian administration to achieve political goals. The construction of the “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalist” image in Soviet cinema is of special interest in the context of Russia's “hybrid warfare” against Ukraine, which continues today. The instrumental technologies of ideological manipulation used in the creation of films have shown their effectiveness in shaping the worldview of the “new Soviet man”. Forms of this type of consciousness still continue to influence the political choices of many citizens of our state. The film “A Kyiv Citizen”, studied in the article, was created in 1958 by the Ukrainian Soviet film director T. Levchuk at the Kyiv O. Dovzhenko Studio. The film is a classic example of the ideologically biased film production. On the example of this film, we can observe technological principles and constructive models used by the Soviet regime to falsify the history of Ukraine in the 20th century, in particular the events of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917–1921. In the film “A Kyiv Citizen”, the events of the Ukrainian revolution of 1917–1921 were counterfeited in order to illustrate to the audience the Soviet version of the history of Ukraine and the events related to the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. In such a way, the Soviet propaganda tried to form in the viewer a type of psychological perception of reality loyal to the “Soviet empire”. In particular, the facts related to the Bolsheviks' attempt to seize power in Kyiv in October 1917, the battles for the Arsenal plant in January 1918, and the conclusion of a peace treaty between the Ukrainian People's Republic and Germany were falsified.

Grand Piano-the Audiovisual Hero of the Soviet Cinema Screen

Статья посвящена особым случаям использования фортепиано в советской киномузыке: не только в составе партитуры, но и как непосредственного «участника» экранного действия. Обычно это происходит в фильмах революционной и исторической тематики, а также в экранизациях русской классики. Среди множества картин, где рояль появляется на экране, нужно выделить ряд шедевров, в которых введение его отмечено уникальными решениями. В статье рассмотрены примеры из фильмов «Новый Вавилон» (музыка Д. Шостаковича), «Строгий юноша» (музыка Г. Попова), «Веселые ребята» (музыка И. Дунаевского). The article is devoted to special cases of the use of the piano in Soviet film music: not only as part of the score, but also as a direct “participant” of the screen action. This usually happens in films with revolutionary and historical themes, as well as in film adaptations of Russian literary classics in scenes of home music. However, among the many films where the instrument appears on the screen, it is necessary to note a number of absolute masterpieces in which the use of the piano is marked by unique solutions. The article considers examples of this kind from the films “New Babylon” (music by D. Shostakovich) “A Strict Young Man” (music by G. Popov), “Funny Guys” (music by I. Dunaevsky).