Art communication as culture component of production activity

The purpose of the article is to identify the specifics of art communication in the culture of production both in the process of filmmaking and in the distribution (distribution) of film products. Methodology. The method of theoretical analysis of the culture of production activity as a phenomenon of the postmodern and postmodern epoch was used in the elaboration of the topic; the comparative-historical method was used in the analysis of the evolution of the producer's activity in cinema; empirical method made it possible to address the practical component of film production and distribution as structures of socio-cultural and economic activities aimed at the needs of society; analytical method and methods of scientific analysis, generalizations have come in handy in the process of establishing the specifics of art communication in the context of creative and production aspects of the film producer. The scientific novelty of the study is that the problem of art communication of the producer in the context of his creative and production activities is the subject of a special comprehensive study; the meaning of the concept of "art-communication" as certain specific integrity and unity of interconnected elements is argued and clarified. Conclusions. Acquaintance with the materials of this study enriches the knowledge about the specifics of art communication as a component of the producer's activity in the culture of film production in the process of its evolution and is the scientific basis for their use in courses on theory and history of culture, including cinema, film production, film directing. Keywords: culture, art communication, cinema, film producer, film director, film.

Njoo Cheong Seng: An Artist in the Fight between Liberalism and Eastern Traditions

As an artist, Njoo Cheong Seng (writer, playwright, film producer, and director) made efforts to respond to colonial discourse through his works and activities from the mid-1920s to the 1940s. His responses manifested in the forms of resistance and counter discourse. This paper seeks to explore the ideas and forms expressed in the counter discourse by Njoo Cheong Seng, an artist of Chinese Indonesian ethnicity. The perspective applied in this research is the postcolonial approach, particularly with regard to the concepts of hybridity and resistance. The deconstructive reading framework interpretation method was applied to determine the opposing relationship between the colonised and the coloniser discourses. The results show that Njoo Cheong Seng supported the movement to restore Chinese characteristics as a form of cultural resistance to the idea of Dutch colonial liberalism. The strategy that he used seemed to support the colonial discourse while simultaneously masking the hybridity that he promoted through ideas such as cultural nationalism. In addition, Njoo Cheong Seng and other similar collective artists developed a strategy that seemed to be of a puritan nature; however, it was, in fact, a simultaneous hybridity that consistently responded to modernity values. Njoo Cheong Seng actually opposed modernity born of liberalism. Essentially, he opposed the concept of the human as the centre of everything, or anthropocentrism.

Maria Hirszbein: An (In)visible Figure of Polish Cinema of the 1920s and 1930s

This article examines the career of the Polish film producer Maria Hirszbein (1889–1939/1942) in relation to the development of interwar Polish cinema, including Yiddish films, and the modern idea of a “New Woman.” Investigating Hirszbein's activities as the successful manager of her company, Leo-Film, and as cofounder and member of the Polish film producers’ unions, the article explores her professional accomplishments and innovative work style, which was based on teamwork and promoting young, talented actors, creative directors, and screenwriters sensitive to social issues. In reconstructing Hirszbein's professional biography, the text combines different sources such as press reports, film reviews, photographs from the collection of the Polish National Film Archive (FINA), and data collected by the Institute of Jewish History in Warsaw.

Winnifred Eaton

Winnifred Eaton Babcock Reeve (b. 1875–d. 1954) was a Chinese North American author best known for fiction published under the faux-Japanese penname “Onoto Watanna.” In her forty-year career, Eaton published nineteen novels, many of which were critically acclaimed and translated into many languages. Eaton also published hundreds of stories, poems, and articles in US, Canadian, Jamaican, and English magazines and newspapers. She was born in Montreal to a white British father and a Chinese mother who married in China and, after brief stays in England and the United States, emigrated to Canada. Whereas Winnifred pretended to be Japanese, Eaton’s older sister Edith wrote sympathetically about diasporic Chinese using the pen name “Sui Sin Far”; with her sister Sara, Winnifred co-wrote Chinese-Japanese Cook Book (1914), one of the first Asian American cookbooks. Sara’s experiences also inspired Winnifred Eaton’s novel Marion (1916). In 1895, Eaton began her writing career working as a reporter in Jamaica. Soon afterward, she moved to Cincinnati, where she first assumed the identity of a half-Japanese, and then to Chicago. Writing as “Onoto Watanna,” Eaton published prolifically about Japanese life, exploring romantic encounters between Americans and Japanese and the experiences of mixed-race children and interracial kinship. Her Miss Numè of Japan (1898) is the first novel in English by a writer of Asian descent published in North America. In 1901, when she was living in New York, Eaton married journalist Bertrand Babcock and published her novel A Japanese Nightingale, which skyrocketed her to fame, inspiring a play, a film, and an opera. After reviewers expressed doubts about her Japanese identity, however, Eaton tried to leave Japanese subjects behind her. She submitted Diary of Delia (1907) to publishers under another pseudonym, published Me (1915) and Marion (1916) anonymously, and published one final Japanese-themed text, Sunny-San, in 1922. In 1917, after divorcing Babcock, Eaton married American businessman Francis Reeve, moved to Alberta, and rebranded herself as “Winnifred Reeve,” rancher’s wife and Canadian literary nationalist. There, Eaton wrote Cattle, a powerful naturalist novel about a girl raped by her employer, and His Royal Nibs, a romance between an English aristocrat and a young Alberta woman, and tried her hand at writing screenplays. Eaton received her first film credit in 1921 on Universal’s “False Kisses.” When the Reeves’ ranch failed, Eaton joined the East Coast scenario department of Universal, a then-minor film producer, and soon afterward was made its Hollywood editor-in-chief and literary advisor. Eaton collaborated on dozens of screenplays and adaptations, translating her experience writing Japanese romances into scripts featuring exotic locales and peoples, as well as commissioned scripts during Universal’s transition from “silents” to “talkies”. She also ghostwrote scripts for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Eaton left Hollywood and returned to Alberta in 1931 after a brief estrangement from Reeve. At her death, most of Eaton’s works were out of print. Yet she remains significant to North American literary history as the first Asian American novelist and screenwriter and as an early Canadian author and woman journalist.

Film producer: European cultural context

The purpose of the article is to identify the specifics of the development of the producer's activity in cinema in the context of the European cultural space and to outline the vectors of mutual influence of the producer's activity in the countries of the Eurospace and Ukraine. Methodology. In elaborating the topic, the historical method was used to identify the peculiarities of the origin and development of the profession of film producer under the influence of socio-cultural, economic, political factors, in particular, in Ukraine; analytical method and methods of scientific analysis, comparison, generalization, which came in handy in the process of establishing artistic, production, organizational, managerial, financial and economic features of the film producer in the European cultural space. For the sake of art history and culturological aspects of studying the problem, methods of systematization and analysis were used. The scientific novelty of the study is that the origin of the profession of producer in cinema is considered in the context of both European and Ukrainian cultural space, and has become the subject of a special multi-vector study; the content of the concepts of "film producer", "production system" as specific unique integrity and unity of interconnected elements is argued and clarified; the expediency of using the comparative method to study and manifest the peculiarities of production in the filmmaking process of European and domestic cultural space is proved. Conclusions. Acquaintance with the materials of this study enriches the arsenal of knowledge about the origins of the film producer in the culture of film production in European countries and Ukraine and provides a scientific basis for their use in courses on theory and history of culture, including filmmaking, production and directing.

Activity of a film producer within the cultural space of Ukraine

The purpose of the article is to identify problems in the development of production in Ukraine and outline ways to overcome them. Methodology. In elaborating the topic, the historical method was used to identify the peculiarities of the origin and development of the profession of film producer, in particular, in Ukraine; analytical method and methods of scientific analysis, comparison, generalization, which came in handy in the process of establishing the creative, production and economic and legal features of the film producer in the cultural space of Ukraine. Methods of systematization and analysis were used for art and cultural aspects of studying the problem. The scientific novelty of the study is that the problem of functioning and motivation of the producer in the context of the cultural space of Ukraine is the subject of a special comprehensive study; the content of the concept of "film producer" as certain specific integrity and unity of interconnected elements is argued and clarified; the expediency of using the comparative method for the study and manifestation of the peculiarities of production activity in the film-making process of the domestic cultural space is proved. Conclusions. Acquaintance with the materials of this study enriches the arsenal of knowledge about the specifics of the producer's activity in the culture of film production in Ukraine and forms the scientific basis for their use in courses on theory and history of culture, including cinema, production, and directing.

Channeling globalism: Canal+ as transnational French genre film producer

This article examines Canal+’s contribution to the recent or contemporary consolidation of three genres traditionally excluded from the French filmmaking landscape: romantic comedies, horror films, and teen movies. The many films from these emergent French genres funded and in frequent cases also more indirectly supported by Canal+ speak to the organization’s status as a transnational, transmedia production entity. Moreover, analyzing the new French genre trends in whose burgeoning the company has been instrumental suggests the difficulties of unpicking geo-cultural allegiances and influences in an ever more multidirectional, multiplatform, cross-hybridizing mediasphere. This article considers the case study films Alibi.com (2017) and Grave (2016) to illustrate the fact that, like the European audiovisual mainstream as a whole, French genre films are bound up in an increasingly transnational and complex intertextual web - a state of affairs promoted by multinational conglomerates such as Canal+. It nonetheless suggests that such French iterations of US-originated genres appropriate and transform rather than merely citing, echoing, or emulating existing models. What is more, drawing on theorizations of aesthetics and affect suggests that these processes can foster new identities.

Producer in the culture of audiovisual production

The purpose of the article is to determine the features of functioning and motivation of the film producer in the culture of audiovisual production and to outline scientific vectors that will serve as a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of production in the intercultural space. Methodology. In elaborating the topic, a theoretical method was used to typify the functional features of the producer's activity; analytical method and methods of scientific analysis, comparison, generalization, which were useful in the process of establishing the creative and production features of the film producer in the culture of the audiovisual field. For the sake of art history and culturological aspects of studying the problem, methods of systematization and analysis were used. The scientific novelty of the study is that the problem of functioning and motivation of the producer in the context of the culture of audiovisual production has become the subject of a special comprehensive study; the content of the concept of "audiovisual creativity" as a certain specific integrity and unity of interconnected elements is argued and clarified; the expediency of using the comparative method for the study and manifestation of the peculiarities of producer's creativity in the film production process is proved. Conclusions. Acquaintance with the materials of this study, enriches the vast knowledge of the specifics of the producer in the culture of audiovisual production and provides a scientific basis for their use in courses on the theory and history of culture, including filmmaking, production and directing.

Researching Janet Dean

The 1954 American television series Janet Dean, Registered Nurse (1954–1955) capitalised on the star power of its lead Ella Raines, business heft of CBS executive William Dozier, and cache of film producer Joan Harrison. Though a brainchild of Raines’, the series relied heavily on Harrison’s decades of nuts-and-bolts experience producing Hollywood films. It became a vehicle for both women to pool their creative talents, advance a growing medium, and comment on contemporary social issues. This contribution to the dossier considers the methodological challenges posed by analysing this instance of female collaboration in 1950s television production. It represents an effort to excavate undocumented production practices and women’s creativity, while decentring prevailing historical narratives surrounding the “great genius” male executive.

The Impresario in British Cinema: Bernard Delfont at EMI

The article argues that Bernard Delfont played a significant role in the development of the British film industry in the 1970s as head of EMI's entertainment division that included film. In contradistinction to existing accounts, it is contended that Delfont provided dynamic leadership to the corporation's policies through the skills and knowledge he had developed as a highly successful theatrical impresario, even if he lacked a detailed understanding of the film industry. Delfont made a series of bold choices. The first was to appoint Bryan Forbes as Head of Film Production in an imaginative attempt to revitalise the British film industry using indigenous resources and talent. The commercial failure of this initiative occasioned Forbes's departure and a more cautious regime under the direction of Nat Cohen. Faced with a rapidly shrinking domestic market, Delfont decided that a thoroughgoing internationalism was the only way to sustain EMI's film business. He sidelined Cohen by appointing two young ‘buccaneers’, Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings in May 1976 to pursue a policy of investing in Hollywood films and producing ‘American’ films financed by British money. This radical strategy was controversial and reconfigured EMI as a ‘supranational’ rather than national film producer. This was intensified by Delfont's boldest move: establishing Associated Film Distributors (AFD) in July 1979, in partnership with his brother Lew Grade's Associated Communication Company, to distribute their companies' films and become a major Hollywood player. Its failure, after only 20 months, coupled with spectacular production losses effectively ended both companies as important film production units. Delfont's career demonstrates the wider significance of the risk-taking impresario in understanding British film as a business enterprise, the importance of the policies and tastes of studio heads and the need to reposition the film industry as part of wider entertainment and leisure provision.