About One Cinema Ekphrasis of Sh. Abdullaev

The results of the study of the genre form of ekphrasis in the context of the “visual turn” in the 1990—2000s are presented in the article. A particular case — Shamshad Abdullaev’s poem “Two Films”, which combines the impressions of two films by Spanish director Jose Luis Guerin “En la ciudad de Sylvia” (2007) and “Tren de sombras” (1997) are examined in the article. It has been established that this text is both a narrative about reception and an experience of “poetological” utterance, in which the poet speaks about his understanding of the essence of art, the nature of the creative act, connections between poetry and visual imagery. This is a “complex ekphrasis”, involving the alignment of motives and plots of different works in a single semantic series. Ekphrastic description includes both the reproduction of plot-significant scenes and the peculiarities of the film language. It is proved that the reception of cinema is mediated by other artistic codes (photography, literature), complicated by reflection on the language of philosophy and aesthetics (“mono no aware”, “nunc stans”). The semiotics of the visual, therefore, arises at the intersection of different cultural codes and contexts.

Różewicz vs. Różewicz, czyli o noweli „Piwo” Tadeusza Różewicza i jej ekranizacji w reżyserii Stanisława Różewicza

The author of this article makes a comparative interpretation of Tadeusz Różewicz’s novella Piwo [Beer] and its film adaptation directed by Stanisław Różewicz. Among other things, the researcher asks the question: to what extent do the differences between the film material and the text material – in this particular case – stem from the specificity of the film language and its autonomy in relation to literature? He believes that this can be explained by the fact that the action of the film takes place only in the station’s waiting room; the movement between the inn and the station, undoubtedly justified in the case of the original text, would be for the viewer something illegible and disturbing to the sequence of events. The multilevel linguistic code forcing symbolic readings, so important in Różewicz’s prose, seems, however, not to be translatable (at least not in its entirety) into the language of the image, which enforces a number of other artistic solutions. It seems that the film work here speaks the language of symbols on a different level.

The Aesthetics of ‘Speaking Objects’ in Aniki-Bóbó’s Anthropo-cosmo-morphic Material

The surface of the things which make up the pro-filmic constitutes the shell/ signifier chosen to shape the soul of the filmic world or its anthropo-cosmo-morphic image rendered by the techniques of film language. The result is the creation of a complex and multi-layered “possible world”, consisting of discursive parts that speak through the dramaturgy and aesthetics of the film, a socio-semantics which transfigures the matter of bodies and objects through the mechanisms of filmic re-signification. Amongst these, the intellectual montage as well as all the graphic and audio signs that appear on the scene can be identified. These signs stand out because of their metaphorical-discursive capacity, as will be analysed in the film Aniki-Bóbó (1942) by Manoel de Oliveira: the written words that serve to give voice to inanimate matter (Carlitos’ bag); the modelled forms which reproduce material allegories or doubles of the human body (the doll); the fragile materials that refer to the children’s fragility itself; the steel and iron of mechanised infrastructures showing the modernisation of the country; the classical architecture, the nature of the place and the free, open-air spaces of games, as opposed to closed spaces that recall underdeveloped pedagogical institutions; and among the latter, the liminal place par excellence, symbolised by the ‘Shop of Temptations’. In the filmic whole, bodies, places and objects are thus configured as interconnected parts of a single compact world, in which the cosmos is reflected in the anthropo, and the anthropo in the cosmos, in order to transfigure, in a metaphorical key, the immaterial culture referring to the changes in national identity. This allegorical fable of Portuguese pedagogical culture ultimately proposes the possibility of a social (and political) change, projected into a ‘just’ future without dictatorship (victory of good over evil).

A Conversation with Indonesian Filmmaker Candra Aditya

This interview with the Indonesian filmmaker Candra Aditya reflects on several months of collaborative work with a small group of scholars specializing in film, language, religion, and culture. In addition to remarks on the short film Dewi pulang, the discussion also addresses a range of more general issues pertaining to filmmaking in post-authoritarian Indonesia.

CREATIVITY OF THE KRASNOYARSK DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER I. ZAITSEVA AS A PHENOMENON OF REGIONAL AND NATIONAL CULTURE

The article describes the work of Irina Borisovna Zaitseva, a world-famous Krasnoyarsk documentary film director, a member of the Board of the Union of Cinematographers and the Association of Documentary Films of the Russian Federation, whose film productions have not yet been the subject of film studies. Her films have won numerous prizes at prestigious All-Russian and international film festivals ("Russia", "Golden Knight", "Living Water", "Flahertiana", "Stalker", "Saratov Suffering", "Mediawave", "Documenta Madrid", "Docupolis", etc.). A number of documentary films reflect the history of not only the Krasnoyarsk Territory, but also Russia. Some films have a parable discourse and carry a moral and philosophical context. The director repeatedly addresses the topic of "fathers and children". I. Zaitseva makes high demands on the profession of a film director, relying in her work on the director's code of honor, so as not to harm the heroes of her documentaries. As a result of the analysis of the film "Martyrs and Confessors" and a brief review of other films directed by I. Zaitseva, a wide range of artistic techniques was identified: subjective video camera, vertical and parallel editing, historical reconstruction, "story within a story", changing focalizations and temporality, allegory, and others. All the author's means of the film language work for a strong drama, which distinguishes the films of the documentarian. In her work, there is a hybrid-a combination of factuality and artistry, which does not mean devaluing the principle of documentality. The Krasnoyarsk documentary filmmaker was one of the first in Russia to make a film about the tragic fate of the clergy who died at the hands of representatives of the Soviet government in the period 1918–1938. I. Zaitseva's filmography is a phenomenon of regional and national culture.

Preservation and Changes of Russian Culture from the Perspective of Film Language — Taking Attraction as an Example

The changes of Russian literature and film language, to some extent, mirror the historical process of changes of Russian culture. In the history of cultural development in several centuries, Russia has critically absorbed the achievements of Eastern and Western civilizations on the premise of preserving its own cultural background, thus forming a Russian civilization with national characteristics. Taking Attraction as an example, this paper analyzes the preservation and changes of modern and contemporary Russian culture from the perspective of film language, so as to discover the changes of modern and contemporary Russian civilization.

The Origins of Recycled Films

At the beginning of cinema, in his early twentieth-century research the Soviet director and film theorist Sergei Eisenstein developed his theory of associative montage “1+1=3.” Nowadays, new methods have been added to this theory. These variables include the creative re-use of allusions to film history. In contemporary cinema, when a new archive film uses sequences from cinema heritage, it quotes from the past and can activate visually and content-wise complex cultural memories. In these films, the successive placement of two sequences, beyond their association, creates new associative meaning, thus, it calls forth metacinematic associations. This additional meaning is the imprint of cinematic heritage. Final Cut by György Pálfi and Péter Lichter’s works make use of the archives of cinematic heritage through a reinterpreted film language, attempting to create independent, innovative works of art. They use the same starting point, based on a directorial concept, but the two attempts resulted in completely different motion pictures. Due to the approach at the basis of their conception, these films illustrate both the linear, i.e., the archetypal narrative film representation and the nonlinear narration. However, these films are not only defined by the scenes they are compiled of, but also bear the particularities of the original motion pictures, referring to and going far beyond the individual characteristics of the scenes themselves. Despite being linear narrative films, the cinematic rhetoric of neither motion picture is continuous but associative - they bring into play layers of film culture. Overall, Eisenstein’s formula can be extended in the following way: 1 afs (archive film sequence) + 1 afs (archive film sequence) = 3 mca (metacinematic associations).

Slow Motion in the Age of Intensified Continuity

Using the lens of Bordwell’s intensified continuity, slow motion is a device that rose to prominence after the 1960s and has become a common part of modern film language. Slow motion has several canonized applications such as intensifying scenes of violence or spectacle, but there are also exemplary films that use slow motion to convey something unique. Technological developments throughout the decades have also made slow motion a powerful and more accessible tool.