Creating For the State. An Introduction

Author(s): Caterina Preda / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2017

This introductory article presents the study of the state artist in the context of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the USSR through several case studies. This introduction places the analyses gathered here of the relationship between artists and the state in different phases of the communist regimes, and in different artistic expressions, as well as in several countries. While the focus is on Romanian cases of study, the articles bring forward possible comparisons with neighboring communist regimes. Some of the articles included in this special issue deal with visual arts, literature, photography, amateur rural comedy brigades, and specific cases of artists (Ion Irimescu and Ion Grigorescu), while other articles discuss the specific institutional contradictions of the Soviet cultural framework. This issue advances thus a little bit further in the comparative institutional archive-based study of cultural institutions during communism.

Artă în spațiul public sau artă pentru sine. Ipostaze ale artistului Ion Grigorescu în epoca comunistă și posttotalitară

Author(s): Ileana Pintilie / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 3/2017

This article discusses the case of Ion Grigorescu, and of his ambiguous relationship with the communist regime, which he registered through a form of ”documentary realism”. Through his ”realgrams” Grigorescu documented real life experiences in an innovatory approach to the majority of Romanian artists of the time using photographs of his everyday environment, and being inspired by his social and political context. Grigorescu is thus an artist committed to the public space and assuming a critical stance without it being discursive, pedant or moralizing. The approach of this study is descriptive, based on the artists’ artworks and self-descriptions, and seeking to situate Grigorescu’s approach in the context of the communist regime and its transformation after 1990 into a democratic regime. The conclusions show that Grigorescu’s artworks are anti-system, criticizing any establishment, no matter in which regime he finds himself. His contestation is specific to a committed artist that chooses to express his freedom of expression beyond his own studio.

Public Performance of Private Interviews: Reinserting the Self into the Family Narrative

Author(s): Alina Predescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

Serban Oliver Tataru and Alfred Guzzetti are filmmakers that investigate on camera the role of memory in the construction of family history. They interview family members, gather old home movies and family photographs, and dig for public archival footage, in an effort to assume their position within a personal historical continuum, and to affirm their agency within their familial community. In their creative affirmation of generational subjectivity, they push against accepted familial narratives, and use the camera as a surgical tool that troubles lingering wounds beyond the surface of old images. In Anatomy of a Departure (2012), Romanian-German filmmaker Serban Oliver Tataru interviews his parents about their decision to emigrate from Ceausescu’s Romania while he was a teenager, scrutinizing on camera the conditions and consequence of a life-changing decision. While the dynamic of filming one’s own family is reminiscent of home movie tropes, and the tension built around sharing delicate memories reveals an intimacy usually intended to remain private, the film proposes a multilayered performance of the authorial self. As the film reveals a self-portrait set against the familial portrait (Marianne Hirsch), an inherent performative element acts as the necessary mediator between private and public, between ethic, aesthetic and politic. Negotiating between a restorative and a reflective nostalgia (Svetlana Boym), Tataru proposes a live performance of homecoming.

The Archetypes of Holmesian World: A Study of Sherlock (BBC) and Elementary (CBS) as Appropriations of Archetypes

Author(s): Rituparna Das / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

The idea of Sherlock Holmes or what I am calling Holmesness has evolved with each of Holmes’s onscreen representations and with it has evolved his Victorian England. My paper argues that Holmes has become an emblem of victory of good over evil, thriving in his ecosystem comprised of other characters, incidents and Holmes’s Victorian England; and Holmes can only be successfully represented along with his ecosystem. To support this, I will analyse two recent television adaptations of Sherlock Holmes - Sherlock by BBC and Elementary by CBS and highlight how these series have successfully adapted Holmes and his ecosystem emblematically-not as narrative laments, but as archetypes. The chosen adaptations have not only appropriated Holmes in contemporary time, but also have appropriated his world as well.

Pathos as Narrative Glue: Marnie the Novel, Film, and Opera

Author(s): Alina Bottez / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

This article looks at several ways in which personal trauma is the source of pathos in the etymological sense of suffering and affliction, engendering social failure in Winston Graham’s novel Marnie. Likewise, the study strives to demonstrate that both the literary original and its cinematic and operatic remediations are sparked into emotional cohesion by the narrative glue of pathos. From the perspective of both psychoanalysis and adaptation studies, this article reaches the conclusion that the open ending of the three versions also involves the reader/spectator in the process of narration – as Aristotle discovered in anticipation of Jauss’s reception theory – and thus leaves it to them to decide whether healing from pathos can ever be reached by the protagonist.

Bollywood Comedy Films as Catalysts for Body Positivity and Self-Acceptance

Author(s): Kishan Kumar Mishra / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

In recent times, Bollywood comedies have evidenced a shift in their attitude and perspective towards body image. In earlier comedies, people of different physical appearances were stigmatized. That approach has changed of late and as a result, these movies now serve as powerful catalysts for positive change in society. This article offers an overview of the transformative role played by Bollywood comedy films in contributing to body positivity and promoting self-acceptance. Through an analysis of a selection of films such as Bala (2019), Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015), and Gippi (2013), this study explores how these movies influence individuals’ perceptions, destigmatize identity, challenge stereotypes, and advocate for self-acceptance. This study also emphasizes the role of humour as a central element to engage audiences in sensitive discussions surrounding body image. In a nutshell, this research highlights the profound impact of comedy films on individuals and how these films reshape societal perceptions from body shaming to body acceptance.

Mindful Observers

Author(s): Jutta Fischel,Konrad Stania / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

The importance of services running in the background is often overlooked. Museum wardens assume such a role. This project focuses on them. It works using the means of photography, interviews and the respectful design of the presentation of the project results in a gallery.

Krize a stát za první republiky ve světle filmových pramenů

Author(s): Luboš Marek / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2023

The text offers a perspective on the crises of Czechoslovakia through selected films deposited in the National Film Archive. A large space is devoted to fires in Prague as part of the news film from 1934. A completely different type of recording concerns the town of Hradec Králové in 1929 visited by the first Czechoslovak president in the company of prominent politicians. This film closely reveals the specific security measures designed to prevent the crisis.Subsequently, two short films mapping sporadic protests and the mobilisation on the eve of World War Two are briefly described. The article concludes with information about films dealing with the army mobilisation. The greatest attention is paid to a more detailed characteristic of the film Neporažená armada (Undefeated Army) from 1938; although it should promote the idea of the homeland’s defence against the enemy, the occupation of Czechoslovakia not only required an amendment of the original title, but also the changes of the final scenes.

L’image et le cauchemar

Author(s): David Bernard / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2023

The present article questions, starting from the teaching of Jacques Lacan, the particularities of the image in the nightmare, and in what way does this lead to a certain awakening of the subject. We will also try to underline how several works by David Lynch, very close to the structure of the nightmare, express this mechanism in their own specific approach.

Mircea Săucan – A Paramount Escape from Reality in Romanian Cinema

Author(s): Marian Sorin Rădulescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

Mircea Săucan, one of the best kept secrets of Romanian narrative cinema, is yet to be unveiled. Starting off as a dedicated Stalinist, he studied in Moscow at VGIK (Moscow Film School) and he was very familiar with mainstream propaganda works by Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Vertov, Dovzhenko. When he returned to Romania, he worked as a Communist Party secretary of “Alexandru Sahia” Documentary Film Studio in the 1950’s. As Romania gradually evolved towards national-communism and liberated itself from the patronage of the USSR, Săucan became a persona non grata. His exceptional talent and powerful cinematic feeling helped him create unconventional and formally radical works. His revolutionary style, in perfect synchronization with the French Nouvelle Vague, acted as a tremendously macroseism able to shatter the very geological configuration of Romanian cinema. Nobody wanted that. Mircea Săucan directed only four full length features. Each of them had to face major opposition when it was about to be released: When Spring Is Hot (1960), The Endless Shore (1963), Meanders (1967), 100 Lei (1973). In 1971, a journalist asked Mircea Săucan what he thought of the coming decade. The director admitted uneasily that he was rather concerned about what the coming decade had planned to surprise him with. His concerns proved to be true, as he stopped directing full length features in the early 1970’s. He was allowed to direct only a few shorts and, in the late 1980’s, he emigrated to Nazareth, Israel.

Nietzsche and Cinema: Cinematography as an Expression of Unity between Apollonian and Dionysian Impulses

Author(s): Cristina Radu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

The following article analyzes the process of filmmaking through the framework of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Apollonian-Dionysian dichotomy. Specifically, it centers on cinema as an example of the interplay of both Apollonian and Dionysian impulses. The first half of the article provides a definition of Nietzsche’s dichotomy and two descriptions of Apollonian-Dionysian unities as cultural tendencies and artistic elements. The second half of the article examines how key aspects of the movie production process embody either Apollonian or Dionysian elements. Additionally, a case study of the film Pan’s Labyrinth is employed to exemplify these concepts in a movie experience.

Strindberg, Bergman, Noémina...

Author(s): Călin Ciobotari / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2023

Enfance et cauchemar dans le film Voilà de Dumitru Grosei

Author(s): Noemina Câmpean / Language(s): French Issue: 1/2023

KÜLTÜREL FARKLILIKLAR VE TOPLUMSAL HAFIZANIN AFİŞ TASARIMINA ETKİSİ: FİLM AFİŞLERİ ÜZERİNDEN BİR İNCELEME

Author(s): Mahmut Erzincan / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 110/2023

Cultural differences in different geographies and societies are not limited to language, traditions or lifestyles. Culture can also have an impact on design, art and communication styles. This study examines the effects of cultural differences and collective memory on poster design in general and movie posters in particular. Movie posters play a critical role in the promotion of movies. They provide viewers with first impressions about the movie and represent a visual story to attract the audience to the movie. However, people from different cultures and with different collective memories may react differently to colors, symbols, slogans and visual arguments. For example, in one society, a color, a symbol, a discourse or a slogan may have positive meanings, while in another society with different cultural values and collective memory, these arguments may have negative and negative meanings. In this context, cultural changes and collective memory are important factors that determine the design of visual communication tools such as movie posters. Designers can design more effective posters by taking cultural factors and collective memories into consideration. This can both help films reach a wider audience and help audiences have deeper and more meaningful experiences. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to cultural diversity and collective memory in the field of poster design. Posters, which are also seen as pre-publication visual communication forms of motion pictures, have gained a very popular momentum today. Cinema companies have started to produce universal films and to make posters for these films according to different geographies, different cultures and collective memories. At this point, it was observed that different posters were produced for a single movie. In this study, the effects of culture and collective memory on movie posters will be examined and a detailed perspective will be gained on the subject by using the comparative analysis method through poster designs.

Развитие на монтажния принцип като метод в изкуството на руския авангард

Author(s): Gergana Tabakova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2023

The text aims to present the approaches of the Russian avant-garde in different arts and the interaction between them. The study presents the artistic practice of the period as a broad-spectrum phenomenon which manifests the idea of synthesis. The montage is brought out as universal method in the context of the various arts. The article also claims that, gradually, the montage principle turns into an instrument of the avant-garde’s urges for synthetism. As a result, the montage method gives the artistic practices possibilities of renewal. The period’s practices and concepts that cons ainting, film, sculpture, theatre, and literature are analysed in relation to the aims of the text. For the purpose of analysis, the following are used: little-known Futurist books, Sergei Eisenstein’s views on montage, the artistic practices of Russian futurist poets, Malevich’s zaum painting, and others. Searching for the interaction between these, the text brings out more fully the role of montage as a creative and formal method of the avant-garde.

AMAZON KADINLARI VE “WONDER WOMAN” (2017) FİLMİ ÖZELİNDE SİNEMADA FEMME FATALE KAVRAMI

Author(s): Fırat Sayici / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 43/2023

The narration of mythological legends in the cinema has been popular in every era. One of the legends told is the story of the Amazons. Wonder Woman, the biggest representative of the Amazons in comics, was transferred to the big screen as a movie in 2017. Although the art of cinema, which is constantly fed by the world of comics and mythology, brought Wonder Woman to the big screen a little late, it achieved great success. In the film, subjects such as the Amazon myth, the rise of feminism, World War I, and changing balances are also discussed. Until the Wonder Woman movie, female superheroes were often behind or overshadowed by male superheroes. Women have been used as supporting elements that help men more. However, the character of Wonder Woman broke box office records with her unique structure in cinema, just as she shook the male-dominated hero world with her success in the comic book world since the 1940s. New forms of discourse have been developed in the script of the film and the representation of women. Within the scope of this study, the myth of the Amazon, which is legendary with matriarchal scenarios, and the 2017 film "Wonder Woman" prepared based on this myth, will be discussed in the context of the definition and concept of femme fatale. In the 2017 film, it will be revealed how the femme fatale female character, whose similars were seen before, was modernized and what kind of coding was used while creating the Diana character. Thus, it will be tried to observe how the patterns coded in the consciousness of the cinema audience are redesigned in the movie Wonder Woman, which brings together the distinctive patterns of the concept of femme fatale, mythology, and superhero form throughout the history of cinema, from the 1910s to the present.

ANIMATION FORMS IN VIDEO GAMES AND A CLASSIFICATION STUDY BASED ON GAME MECHANICS

Author(s): Cahit ÜSTÜN / Language(s): English Issue: 43/2023

The first inventions that aimed to convey the movement had features of animated films rather than filming. However, cinema and animation began to emerge as an art, not only with the transmission of movement. The creation of software-based graphics enabled video games to be created with computer graphics, and digital games using threedimensional graphics began to appear in other attractive animation applications. So again, game technology animation filmmaking, different forms specific to games began. Since this study accepts it as a form of making cinema, not a genre of cinema, using the ways of using cinema in video games to understand, define and use it with game mechanics. In the study, video games were examined and the animation methods used here were defined, and these methods were classified and analyzed within the teachings. Video games cooperate closely with the art of cinema. Although the digital game shows a software-based structure, its aesthetic components can be included in the animation universe. The research has shown that the playing experience is actually an animation experience and has classified these experience areas with examples in this direction.

BİR TERAPİ ODASI SİMÜLASYONU OLARAK GÜLSEREN BUDAYICIOĞLU EVRENİ DRAMALARI

Author(s): Zeynep Ekin BAL,Gizem Parlayandemir / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 43/2023

Television dramas are influenced by social transformations and popular culture. Cinema, too, has been nourished by psychology almost from its beginning. In addition, both the popularization and the massification of psychology, with examples such as Irvin Yalom in world literature and Gülseren Budayıcıoğlu in Türkiye, have increased the visibility of therapy in television dramas. On the one hand, the fact that the narratives that center or contain therapy in cinema and television can be seen as an opportunity for the healing of society due to the therapeutic potential, which has also increased the discussions on the point of representation. In this study, the discourses and representations in the dramas İstanbullu Gelin (The Bride from Istanbul), Doğduğun Ev Kaderindir (The House You Are Born is Your Destiny), Kırmızı Oda (The Red Room), Masumlar Apartmanı (The Innocent Apartment), and Çöp Adam (Rubbish Man), in which the therapy and the therapist take place in the television dramas both adapted from Gülseren Budayıcıoğlu's novels and supervised by her were discussed with descriptive analysis. With this representative therapy process, the characters are not handled as a part of the society but as a self and family integrity independent of all environmental influences. The individual is a separate part from the whole. Considering the interactions within the dramas, it has been seen that all narratives can be considered as a part of a fictional transmedia universe. All contents serve the same world and reproduce a similar discourse. Although there may be a dimension that encourages society to go to therapy in the dramas examined, the narratives do not produce a therapeutic treatment in general and provide catharsis with the narrative style and music used.

A Culture in the Captivity of Propaganda

Author(s): Yevheniia Levchenyuk,Ruslana Atashkadeh / Language(s): English Issue: 19/2023

In the article, it is claimed that culture and art at the current stage of society’s development are means of propaganda. The propaganda itself has several semantic loads, which has both a neutral and a negative context. It is essentially a neutral phenomenon, a social and psychological phenomenon. It is not a crime under international criminal law. However, the use of propaganda as a powerful means of influence to manipulate public consciousness has a negative connotation, as it tries to deliberately create images and views that distort or replace information and facts, which in turn form the desired public opinion, attitude towards a certain segment of the population, representatives of an ethnic group, nation, religion, etc. Propaganda uses such techniques as dehumanization, generalization, stereotyping, suggestion, substitution of facts, etc. At the present stage of development, propaganda has reached unprecedented levels of distribution. Today, this has become possible due to informatization, technologization of all spheres of society, active use of communication means, and social networks.

Ольга Кобилянська в кінематографічному дискурсі

Author(s): Nataliia Nikoriak / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 108/2023

The article emphasizes the need to supplement the literary discourse with the topical issue of intermedia poetics, namely the film reception of the biography and works of Olha Kobylianska. It is noted that cinematography had an organic impact on the life and works of the Bukovynian author. This is evidenced by her autobiographies, biographical studies, as well as the works written under the impression of cinema (“By Situations”), or which imply the cinema code in the plot (“Black Apostol”), or those that demonstrate a pronounced cinematic poetics (“Ghost”, “Battle”). The poetry and prose of the author are mentioned to become an integral part of the cinematographic discourse, that is traditionally activated in relation to writers on the eve of their anniversary. The analyzed documentaries “Valse Brillante. Olha Kobylianska” (2013) and “To be one’s own goal. Olha Kobylianska” (2014) present a receptive version of her biography, created in a productive collaboration of filmmakers and literary critics. The functional potential of the biographical films, that popularize and actualize the works of this outstanding personality, contribute to the full understanding of Olha Kobylianska as a complete artistic phenomenon. Emphasis is placed on the fact that compared to biographical projects, film reception of the writer’s works is significantly more productive, which contributes to the reconstruction of a holistic perception of her literary heritage. The films “Earth” (1954), “The Wolfhound” (1967), “The Melancholic Waltz” (1990), “The Princess” (1994), “Nature. The third film” (television series “The Island of Love” 1995–1996), “Early on Sunday, I dug a potion” (2019) are the film texts of different genres that demonstrate the occasional attention to the works by Kobylianska in the cinematic environment, due to a certain historical situation, another anniversary or the desire of filmmakers to reinterpret the works of the classic.