The Musical Arrangement of a Live-Action Film

The purpose of the study is to analyze the characteristics of a live-action film’s musical arrangement; to identify the impact of musical arrangement on the audience’s perception, on the example of the film composer Eric Serra’s works. The research methodology is to apply the following methods: theoretical – analysis of the music functions in making a film and the implementation of the director’s vision, generalizing the influence of musical arrangement on the viewer. Scientific novelty. The functions of film music that help in creating a live-action film were analyzed for the first time, a detailed analysis of the interdependence of music and visuals was made, by theoretical analysis of music functions; it has been found out how it affects the perception of the audience. Conclusions. In the article, we analyzed the functions of musical arrangement in a live-action film. Through the analysis of the influence of music on the audience’s perception, it has been established how the musical arrangement helps to realize the author’s vision. The role of music in making a live-action film has been researched. Through theoretical and practical research of various cinematography aspects that are relevant at the moment (in particular, the problem of the sound space in a movie), it becomes possible to reach a new aesthetic level of design, creation, perception and understanding of cinematic works.

Appropriation, Rewriting and Alienation: A Postcolonial Critique of Mulan

Released in September, 2020, Mulan, a live-action film starring Liu Yifei, was adapted by Disney from the Ballad of Mulan[1]. The film was produced from its animated version Mulan (1998) which hit global box office amounting to 304 million with marvelous reputation. However, the live-action movie Mulan did not continue the brilliant results of the previous work. Instead, Mulan (2020) disappointed most Chinese audience[2] because historical facts and cultural values about Mulan were excessively appropriated, rewritten and alienated. Applying theories of Postcolonialism, this essay analyzes the live-action movie Mulan revealing the ethnocentric abuse of the target culture as the “other”: arbitrary appropriation, rewriting and distortion of its historical events and traditional values. Also, theories of popular culture will be used to analyze the cultural industry strategies applied in this unsuccessful film.[1]the Ballad of Mulan (Chinese: 木兰辞; pinyin: Mù lán cí), a famous folk song of the Northern Dynasty in China.[2]The investment in the live-action film Mulan is as high as US$200 million (about 1.4 billion RMB). As a result, the global box office is less than US$70 million. Also, the score in Douban is only 5.0 points. (the full mark is 10.)Sources:https://new.qq.com/rain/a/20201102A0J6EO00,https://movie.douban.com/subject/26357307/

HUBUNGAN ALAM DAN MANUSIA DALAM FILEM TOMBIRUO: PENUNGGU RIMBA (2017)

‘Tombirou: Penunggu Rimba’ (2017) (TPR) is a mystical action film based on the rural Sabahan community belief about nature. More than 99 per cent of this film was shot in forested areas, therefore relevant to the film’s ultimate idea, which is the importance of caring for nature and striking that balance between nature and man. The film also contains symbolism that conveys nature’s revenge against man for their irresponsibility. Thus, this paper studied the portrayal of man and nature in TPR. An approach was devised with content analysis as a tool to answer the said question. This was supported by applying Aldo Leopold’s ecocentrism (1949) to analyse the film. The primary research material was TPR, whilst additional data was retrieved from books, journal articles and newspaper articles. Findings showed that this film had portrayed the importance of preserving the balance between nature and man in life’s ecosystem. This factor is vital to ensure nature’s wellness and the balance between man and nature. The characters Tombiruo, Tobugi, Bobolian and Pondolou were also shown as agents of peace, mediators and caretakers of nature. Keywords: ecocentrism, Tombiruo: Penunggu Rimba, Malay film, film criticism, symbolism.

Roses in Amber: Gendered Discourse in Disney’s 2017 Adaptation of Villeneuve’s Fairytale Beauty and the Beast

This study considers the dialogic relationship between the 2017 Disney live-action film Beauty and the Beast with Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s fairy tale and Disney’s 1991 animated version. Drawing on cultural and feminist discourse, the study seeks to examine Disney’s live-action film for incidents of cultural appropriation of gender representation compared to Villeneuve’s fairy tale and Disney’s 1991 animated version. The Study argues that the 2017 film adaptation reverses the traditional patriarchal notions and embraces a transgressive feminist discourse/approach as part of Disney’s strategy of diversity and inclusion of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation as constantly evolving cultural categories. This study finds significant alterations made to the physical and psychological attributes of the 2017 film’s three characters: Beauty/Belle, the Beast, and the Enchantress, changes that align with the film’s gendered discourse. By reversing the characteristic privileging of the male and the empowerment of the female, the live-action succeeds in addressing the contemporary audience demands of diversity and inclusion. The study concludes that the changes made in the 2017 film adaptation displace the oppressive patriarchal notions and stereotypical modes of representing the male and female as they have been perceived in the original fairy tale, for they are no longer compatible with contemporary cultures’ assumptions on gender.

The Artist and the Poetic Provocations in the 1980 Bulgarian Live-Action Film Illusion

This text highlights the aesthetic explorations of Bulgarian cinematographers from the 1980s, specifically those aimed at people of art. The article offers, first, a brief overview of films that examine the symbolic potential of the artist, which defines the consideration of an established and meaningful tendency in the development of Bulgarian cinema. The article focuses then on the live-action film Illusion (1980, directed by Lyudmil Staykov and written by Konstantin Pavlov) and examines the figure of the artist in the piece. The presented interpretation supports the view of the film as a morally valuable expression of modern art.

Making enemies: A theoretical approach to antagonism and emotion in the contemporary American action film

Conflict and adversity form an essential component of many American action films. Not only are these spectacular blockbuster films often grafted on forms of contemporary geopolitical warfare, moreover, the violent deaths of the film’s villains arguably form one of the genre’s key pleasures. Utilizing Laclau and Mouffe’s concept of antagonism, this article deconstructs how within the action film, discursive articulations of enemyhood attempt to structure heroic violence as just and the lives of villains as ungrievable. The action films Lone Survivor (2015) and London Has Fallen (2017) will operate as case studies in elucidating how antagonistic frontiers between the hero self and the enemy other are cinematically drawn and strengthened.

Roses in Amber: Gendered Discourse in Disney’s 2017 Adaptation of Villeneuve’s Fairytale Beauty and the Beast

This study considers the dialogic relationship between the 2017 Disney live-action film Beauty and the Beast with Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s fairy tale and Disney’s 1991 animated version. Drawing on cultural and feminist discourse, the study seeks to examine Disney’s live-action film for incidents of cultural appropriation of gender representation compared to Villeneuve’s fairy tale and Disney’s 1991 animated version. The Study argues that the 2017 film adaptation reverses the traditional patriarchal notions and embraces a transgressive feminist discourse/approach as part of Disney’s strategy of diversity and inclusion of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation as constantly evolving cultural categories. This study finds significant alterations made to the physical and psychological attributes of the 2017 film’s three characters: Beauty/Belle, the Beast, and the Enchantress, changes that align with the film’s gendered discourse. By reversing the characteristic privileging of the male and the empowerment of the female, the live-action succeeds in addressing the contemporary audience demands of diversity and inclusion. The study concludes that the changes made in the 2017 film adaptation displace the oppressive patriarchal notions and stereotypical modes of representing the male and female as they have been perceived in the original fairy tale, for they are no longer compatible with contemporary cultures’ assumptions on gender.

Music and the Formal Structures of Contemporary Action Film Trailers

Music and sound are key to creating film trailers that are coherent pieces of media because the visual and narrative content is so fragmented in trailers. Deaville and Malkinson note that sync points “tend to occur with greater frequency in trailers than in narrative films” (Chion, 1994). This chapter develops this claim further: Not only are sync points more frequent in trailers than in narrative films, but also they more commonly extend to small-scale characteristics such as the beat and rhythm of the music. Using a corpus of fifty contemporary action film trailers, this chapter demonstrates the integral role of “tightly organized synchronization” (Watts, 2018) in unifying and organizing a trailer’s materials into a compact audiovisual experience, as well as outlining common trailer structures. This work begins to unpack the relationship between music, narrative, and spectacle that is imperative to understanding how contemporary trailers go beyond promoting and previewing the feature film.