This article examines the milestones in the development of cinematography as a phenomenon in Bashkortostan. The author traces the path from the emergence of very first films to the present state of local film production in the republic. Research methodology leans on the methods of systematization and analysis of scientific literature, written and cinematographic sources, historical-typological, interpretation of written and cinematographic material. The peculiarities of the establishment and development of Bashkir cinematography are revealed. The theoretical importance of this (...) article lies in systematization of knowledge and description of the ethnocultural characteristics of the development of cinematography in the context of Bashkir cultural field. Cultural tradition as an example that is being reflexively used by people within the framework of a particular culture for solution of life tasks underlies the national cinematography. The models of lifestyle and perception of the world in a given cultural era are realized in the national cinematographic works and represent cultural paradigm of the nation. The author notes the ethnic peculiarities of the development of the phenomenon of cinematography in the region. Prevalence of the elements of traditional national culture in the films determines the peculiar nature of Bashkir cinematography and impacts the ethnocultural identity of the recipient. The scientific novelty lies in revealing the historiographical and culturological aspects of Bashkir cinematographic works, as well as outlining its role in modern art culture. The study was conducted on the basis of semiotic and interpretational methods of art history analysis. (shrink)

This article examines cinematographic observational studies of infants conducted by a loosely connected group of female psychologists and physicians in the USA from the 1930s to the 1960s. Largely forgotten today, these practitioners realized detailed and carefully planned research projects about infant behavior in a variety of settings—from the laboratory to the well-baby clinic. Although their studies were in conversation with better-known works, such as John Bowlby's research on attachment and René Spitz's films on institutionalized infants, they differed in a (...) close examination of individual characteristics of babies and a critical attitude toward contemporary notions of ‘pathological mothering’. In closely following the work of several researchers, including but not limited to pediatrician Margaret Fries (1898–1987), the clinical psychologist Sibylle Escalona (1915–96) and her team members—child psychiatrist Mary Leitch (1914–?) and avant-garde photographer Ellen Auerbach (1906–2004)—and psychologist Anneliese Korner (1918–2010), I argue that their cinematographic works shed a more nuanced light on the landscape of infant research and child psychiatry in the mid 20th century, and open a way for alternative readings of gender, psychoanalysis, and scientific observation at that time. (shrink)

The biologist and founder of Umwelt-Research Jakob von Uexküll used cinematographic techniques in many ways. This article explores three of these. First, Uexküll uses chronophotography to investigate the locomotion of marine organisms and insects, making multiple exposures on a single photographic surface to facilitate comparison between different phases of locomotion. Second, according to Uexküll, observing the motions of the living being in this way renders visible the ‘conformity with plan’ that is particular to each organism. The technique of cinematography (...) is therefore original to his investigation of the plan-like character of organisms. Third, in his later works Foray into the World of Humans and Animals ([1934] 2010) and Theoretical Biology ([1920] 1926), Uexküll uses cinematography to demonstrate his theory that the life of every living being unfolds in its own perceptual world possessing of its own subjective time and spatiality. It is in this context that one has to understand the centrality of his references to ‘pre-cinematographic’ experiments on and theories of perception. (shrink)

The article focuses on Alexander Bogdanov’s utopian novel The Red Star, which is interpreted as a sort of literary experimentation that, in a free artistic form, develops ideas of socialist...

This essay investigates time-lapse cinematography as a hybrid, intermedial practice. To interrogate practices of authorship, publication, copying, storage, and especially distribution, it recovers the history of The Embryonic Development of Drosophila melanogaster, a film made by Eric Lucey at the University of Edinburgh in 1956. An unusually rich archive makes it possible to recover uses and reuses of time-lapse footage in research, teaching, and other forms of communication.

In 1900, the physicist Henri Bénard exhibited the spontaneous formation of cells in a layer of liquid heated from below. Six or seven decades later, drastic reinterpretations of this experiment formed an important component of ‘chaos theory’. This paper therefore is an attempt at writing the history of this experiment, its long neglect and its rediscovery. It examines Bénard’s experiments from three different perspectives. First, his results are viewed in the light of the relation between experimental and mathematical approaches in (...) fluid mechanics, leading to a re-examination of the long-term reception of Bénard’s results among fluid dynamicists up to the chaos craze, whereby the traditional emphasis placed on mathematical physics is counterbalanced by greater attention to experimental approaches. Second, we focus on Bénard’s own way of using his results as analogies that could help grasp something about the reason why inorganic matter may structure itself in ways reminiscent of living forms. This is shown to resonate strongly with Prigogine’s work in the 1960s and 1970s. Third, Bénard’s adoption of the cinematograph as his preferred experimental instrument is interpreted as having reinforced his long-misunderstood belief that he had exhibited a form of self-organization essential to the understanding of life.Keywords: Bénard cells; Henri Poincaré; Chaos; Fluid mechanics; Cinematograph; Self-organization. (shrink)

The Flowers of War, based on the homonymous novel by Geling Yan, and City of Life and Death are recent Chinese films that deal with the so-called 'Nanking Massacre‘ or 'the Rape of Nanking‘. The events which inspired these stories in the context of the second Sino-Japanese War will be analysed through the study and comparison of both films, together with the reasons which led the directors to fictionalise a series of events so many years after they occurred in 1937. (...) This analysis will be carried out based on the testimonies of the foreigners who eyewitnessed the events at the time, and who left written testimony of the facts, and a comparison shall be made between the fictional and factual events. (shrink)

O artigo investiga as nuances dos discursos sobre Brasília presentes nos textos de pareceres de censores que atuaram durante a ditadura militar. Os filmes que sofreram censura prévia escolhidos para a construção do artigo foram ‘‘Vestibular 70’’, ‘‘Brasília Ano 10’’ e ‘‘Samba em Brasília’’. Os dois primeiros foram produzidos na capital e o último no Rio de Janeiro, no ano de 1960. Diante disso, foi importante refletir sobre a historicidade de como se apresentava o discurso dos pareceristas nos documentos. Para (...) tal, os pareceres foram examinados à luz da Análise do Discurso de Michel Pêcheux e Althusser, bem como outras reflexões dentro deste campo teórico-metodológico. A historiografia sobre Brasília foi de extrema importância para o entendimento da conjuntura na qual a linguagem dos pareceres está inserida. A pretensão desta análise foi identificar o papel do cinema candango na construção do imaginário da cidade e sua relação com o Estado, por meio dos pareceres. This article investigates the nuances of the discourses about Brasília in the texts of the censor’s opinion on who acted in the military dictatorship in Brazil. The movies that suffered previous censorship were ‘‘Vestibular 70’’, ‘‘Brasília Ano 10’’ and ‘‘Samba em Brasília’’. The first two were produced in the capital and the last one in Rio de Janeiro, in 1960. With that being said, it was important to reflect on the historicity of how the discourse was presented in those documents. For that, the opinions were examed in the light of the Speech Analysis of Michel Pêcheux and Althusser, alongside other reflections inside this theoretical-methodological field. The histography about Brasília was also of extreme importance for the understanding of the conjecture in which the language of the opinions is inserted. The aspiration of this analysis was to identify the role of the candango cinema in the construction of the city’s imaginary and its relation to the State, through the opinions of censorship. (shrink)

The Cinematography in Whisky (2004) is essential in the directors’ efforts to explore existential isolation. The incompleteness of knowledge, the uncrossable gaps between people, and the impossibility of communion among individuals are some of the themes explored in this film, directed by Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll. These are mostly absent in the scholarship about the movie, which tends to focus on the concept of small cinema. The present text aims to build on these discussions to propose a (...) reading of Whisky as a work of art that, although made within a very specific context of production, is not limited by it.Keywords: Cinematography. Uruguayan cinema. Small cinema. (shrink)

This Sixth volume in the series The Key Debates. Mutations and Appropriations in European Film Studies investigates the question of screens in the context both of the dematerialization due to digitalization and the multiplication of media screens. Scholars offer various infomations and theories of topics such as the archeology of screen, film and media theories, contemporary art, pragmatics of new ways of screening (from home video to street screening).

Desde sus inicios, el cine estuvo fuertemente ligado con la literatura a partir de las adaptaciones de novelas, la divulgación del patrimonio literario, el análisis de la subjetividad, la teoría de los géneros, la aplicación de las categorías de la narratología para el estudio de las especificaciones fílmicas, entre muchos otros. Este estudio toma dos relatos literarios y los compara a través de orientaciones metodológicas y teóricas de la narratología con la versión animada de La Leyenda de la Llorona, para (...) determinar similitudes y diferencias. Asimismo, analiza ciertos elementos del lenguaje cinematográfico que tienen concordancia con las obras literarias para entender que los vuelve diferentes y específicos. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville puts forward a cultural critique of modern capitalism in a poetic form. The film subverts the standard classification of cinematographic “genres” and of cinematographic languages, without separating the content of the criticism from its form of expression. Thus, it uses an original language that integrates both philosophical and poetic referents, putting together elements from the dystopic imagination, the science fiction, the romantic film, and other cinematographic “genres”. Unlike Orwell and Huxley’s dystopias, Alphaville depicts a deeper, insidious, invisible (...) and more efficacious form of totalitarianism that invades the so-called “democratic” societies. This type of totalitarianism is dominated by instrumental rationality and techno-science, which expel art and imagery, the poetic and the possible, emotion, feelings and everything that is free. This paper analyzes the construction of this original form and interprets its critical content from the perspective of Godard’s thought. It is an exercise of looking and knowing how to look. (shrink)

Resumen La figura femenina en el arte cinematográfico ha sido mostrada mediante arquetipos y cumpliendo distintas funciones. Nos proponemos en este estudio analizar los personajes femeninos por medio de la narrativa audiovisual en dos películas emblemáticas de la cinematografía de Hitchcock: Recuerda y Vértigo, en las que la mujer se contempla como empoderada, pero también sometida, llegando a una negación de su propia identidad. Consideramos que la forma del tratamiento de la mujer en el cine de dicha época radica en (...) la situación social de la misma, sufriendo un tratamiento discriminatorio, que es admitido por los personajes femeninos justificándolo en un enamoramiento, que anula la propia personalidad. Abstract The female figure in cinematographic art has been shown through archetypes and performing different functions. We propose in this study to analyze female characters through the audiovisual narrative in two emblematic films of Hitchcock’s cinematography: Spellbound and Vertigo, in which women are seen as empowered, but also subjected to a denial of their own identity. We consider that the treatment of women in the cinema of that time lies in the social situation of the same, suffering a discriminatory treatment, which is admitted by the female characters justifying it in a crush, which annuls the own personality. (shrink)

Morphogenesis is one of the fundamental processes of developing life. Gastrulation, especially, marks a period of major translocations and bustling rearrangements of cells that give rise to the three germ layers. It was also one of the earliest fields in biology where cell movement and behaviour in living specimens were investigated. This article examines scientific attempts to understand gastrulation from the point of view of cells in motion. It argues that the study of morphogenesis in the twentieth century faced a (...) major dilemma, both epistemological and pictorial: representing form and understanding movement are mutually exclusive, as are understanding form and representing movement. The article follows various ways of modelling, imaging, and simulating gastrular processes, from the early twentieth century to present-day systems biology. The first section examines the tactile modelling of shape changes, the second cell cinematography, mainly the pioneering work of the German embryologists Friedrich Kopsch and Ernst Ludwig Gräper in the 1920s but also a series of classic, yet not widely known, studies of the 1960s. The third section deals with the changes that computer simulation and live-cell imaging introduced to the modelling of shape change and the study of cell movement at the turn of the twenty-first century. Although live-cell imaging promises to experiment upon and represent the living body simultaneously, I argue that the new visuals are an obstacle rather than a solution to the puzzle of understanding cell motion. (shrink)

Nicolas Philibert's 1997 documentary, La moindre des choses, depicts the daily lives of residents and staff at the private psychiatric clinic La Borde, and their production of Witold Gombrowicz's play Operetka. This paper will analyse the aesthetic and ethical implications of La Borde's production of Gombrowicz's play by mapping the documentary, text and production's collective expressions. The film's capacities to reconfigure audience subjectivities through a filmic and intensive entanglement will be explored at length by framing the documentary's cinematography in (...) Félix Guattari's theories of the ethico-aesthetic paradigm and minor cinema. (shrink)

The subject of the study is Bernardo Bertolucci's film "The Last Emperor", in particular, the coloristic of the film and the psychology of the image of the main character, which is largely revealed through the color palette and individual artistic details. The object of research is the language of cinematography, cinematographic artistic techniques. Despite the sometimes shocking images and plots, Bertolucci's films were highly appreciated by the international community and domestic film critics due to their artistic solution and topical (...) issues affecting the problems of class struggle and anti-fascist themes. The author of the article examines the image of the main character of the film, Aisingero Pu Yi, the last emperor of China and Manchukuo. The film is based on real historical events taking place in the first half of the 20th century, so the dramatic collisions of the character are not perceived by the viewer as some kind of abstract problem. Against the backdrop of the complex historical changes that China has faced, many questions of the formation and self-determination of the individual are being raised. The image of Emperor Pu Yi is revealed gradually through a comparison of two storylines and the color scheme of the film, since it is the color palette that helps to subtly and meaningfully convey the psychological content of the character. The main research methods are analytical and comparative-historical. The composition of the film and the dynamics of the change in the color palette of individual episodes are analyzed, which makes it possible to trace the evolution of the image. The author comes to the conclusion that it was the coloristic solution of the film that allowed the creators to convey the national color and historical atmosphere of China of a certain historical period and show a vivid image of the protagonist on the screen. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE PARTY'S OVER (ALMOST): TERMINAL CELEBRATION IN CONTEMPORARY FILM Tony Bartlett Syracuse University Movies are a universal language, and as we approach more and more integrated levels of global economy and communication they increasingly become a universal symbol system. At these levels a modern movie from China orNigeria will display swiftly recognizable sensibilities and situations to any viewer in Europe or the USA, and vice versa. But should we (...) not, therefore, also feel prompted to indicate a universal de-symbolization, if movies along with the modern world reflect constitutive elements of decomposition and collapse. For I would like to suggest in this essay that not only do movies constitute a kind ofplanetary envelope, literally a "film" of collective imaginai references wrapped around the world, but that this "film" is peculiarly apt to dismemberment, to breaking up before our eyes even as it still holds together, to abuilt-in "crisis" that is part ofits very nature. The two films that form a background to these remarks, Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction, are, I suggest, movies that set out actively to represent this cinematic crisis. In Adam Smith's The Wealth ofNations (Bk. 2, Vol. 5, 795-97), the grandfather ofmodern capitalism discusses the fate ofthe laborer who leaves arural village in which he is known and his life observed, or "attended to," by others. He moves to a great city where promptly "he is sunk in obscurity and darkness." Smith's concern is not directly to remedy this misery ofthe worker forced to seek employment in the anonymity ofthe city, but to avoid a possible course ofaction he might take. He wishes to divert him from the possibility of joining "a small religious sect," in whose company the newly depersonalized worker will achieve "a degree of consideration which he never had before." 2 Tony Bartlett Adam Smith does not relish the prospect ofthe mushroom growth ofclosed, "unsocial" religious factions within the heart of industrialized political economies, and he proposes two remedies by which the state, "without violence," might correct these tendencies. His proposals are remarkable both for their conjunction ofcertain themes and their prescience. The first is a plan for the imposition of the study of science and philosophy on the middle ranks ofthe poor, for science is "the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition." Next to this classic Enlightenment nostrum comes the following: The second ofthose remedies is the frequency and gaiety of publick diversions. The state, by encouraging, that is by giving entire liberty to all those who for their own interest would attempt, without scandal or indecency, to amuse and divert the people by painting, poetry, musick, dancing; by all sorts ofdramatic representations and exhibitions, would easily dissipate, in the greater part of them, that melancholy and gloomy humour which is almost always the nurse ofpopular superstition and enthusiasm. Publick diversions have always been the object of dread and hatred, to all the fanatical promoters ofthose popular frenzies. Here are the movies before the fact. Adam Smith in his charter for emergent industrial capitalism sketches an alliance between education and entertainment that together will prevent any reversion to the darkness ofsmallscale society and its ready excrescence of religious fanaticism. All of the components of cinema aesthetic are assembled in Smith's prophetic vision: cinematography, script, score, choreography, plot, spectacle. The only thing lacking was the technology to capture them together on film, and with the release ofinventive energies attending division oflabor that would only be a matter of time. Cinema is the born ally ofrational modernity, and is in itself the child of industrial alienation and the need to find a mass aesthetic to substitute for the control exercised by the sacred in a traditionally local setting. But, ofcourse, there are several levels ofirony that are not lost on us here. First, Smith says explicitly that the state has a direct interest in such mass entertainment. What then is the relationship between the much prized freedom ofthe creative artist and the very concrete concern for self-preservation on the part ofthe state? He specifies that the people's entertainment must be without scandal or indecency: what now should be said when political leaders... (shrink)

Purpose. Objectives of the study are as follows: to remove the reduction of women to a metaphysical subject, to the "castrated Other" through the correlation of postmodern strategies and gender medicine; to institutionalize gender medicine as knowledge and practical activities that improve the quality and span of life of women based on the methodological application of deconstruction, complementarity, differance, "double writing", X-subject treatment and biomedical innovations; the perspective of gender medicine development is the implementation of the concept of "sovereign writing" (...) of postmodern in individual treatment of a person. Theoretical basis. Shock value of the title means farewell to metaphysics in the complex of its derived concepts. The author criticizes the abstract, reduced, marginalized, deviant subject of classical metaphysics and its continuation in psychoanalysis, explores the correlation of postmodern philosophy strategies and biomedical innovations. The allusion to the masterpiece of world cinematography Pasolini’s "Ciao maschio" corresponds to the rhizomatic stylistics of the postmodern. Originality. After feminist transgressions, gender constructivism postmodern philosophy demonstrates a new subject and a new methodology, which formed gender medicine. Differance, distinction, complementarity, X-subject of treatment, chiasmatic movement, "double writing", "sovereign writing" organically turned over and reconstructed modern medicine in gender, biochemical, and hormonal innovative variations. Conclusions. 1. Based on the philosophy and biomedical innovations, a new direction has grown – gender medicine, which has removed the reduction of women to a metaphysical subject, "castrated Other", which has improved the quality of women’s health and span of life. 2. Gender medicine in organic combination with the strategies of deconstruction, complementarity, differance, distinction as hormonal distinction, "double writing" as a "dual protocol" of treatment for the same diseases of men and women, the treatment of X-subject turned out to be "new wisdom", which improves the quality of health and span of life in everyday practice. 3. The prospect of the gender medicine’s development is in the implementation of the "sovereign writing" as an individual treatment of a specific person. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. Genre-wise the article is a form of publication of analytical conclusions resulting from researching religious symbolism within the movie. The material for interpretation was derived from mass media, in particular cinematography. The article describes religious symbolism within the movie "Barbie" (2023). It is made apparent that the wide array of religious symbols in modern cinema requires a new approach. M e t h o d s. Issues with defining religious (...) symbolism in cinema have inspired a search of appropriate methods and research methodology. The article utilizes analytical approach based on religious symbolism found in the artistic source material – in this case a movie. R e s u l t s. With that considered the goal of the scientific research was to track down instances of religious symbolism in "Barbie" movie; such was confirmed to be abundant within otherwise mundane work. Barbieland symbolises paradise withiin the movie's fictional universe: it's a perfect place with no diseases or suffering, populated by perfect people ignorant of sorrow, problems, and worries. Naturally, the exile from paradise is a theme that is also predent. C o n c l u s i o n s. Brief research concludes that the "Barbie" movie features disguised religious symbolism – a common trope for many works within modern cinema. (shrink)

The article addresses the special conditions in Soviet society during the Stalin period that contributed to the emergence of latent ideas about the unique position of the USSR on the map of the world, of Europe in particular. The focus is on pedagogical methods, the theory and practice of cartography, literary and journalistic texts, cinematography, and pop music, all of which present an image of the USSR as the “center of world civilization” and thereby sustain its inculcation in public (...) consciousness. An interesting and significant example is the second edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, launched on Stalin’s initiative and carried out under his patronage. In this context, the logic and the rhetoric of encyclopedia articles on the physical and political geography of Europe must be analyzed as a kind of territorial “crowding out” of Europe to the periphery of the Soviet Union. “Crowding out,” not only by geographical but also by ideological illusions of space, which emphasize and reproduce fairy-tale and epic orientations of social self-knowledge, brings the illusory space clearly into view. These means motivate the cyclical movement from centre to periphery and from periphery to centre. (shrink)

This is a review of the narrative medicine documentary, Our Curse. The writer and director of this Oscar-nominated Polish movie is a film student and a young father to a baby born with congenital central hypoventilation syndrome. Using simple cinematography, the film is an autobiographical exploration of the fearful, tearful, and sometimes joyful days and nights in the lives of the child and his parents.

Though he has worked almost exclusively in collaborative mediums like radio and film, Orson Welles has always tended to think of himself as an individual author. "Any production in any medium is a one-man production," he said to me. On the question of sharing creative responsibility for the works that bear his name, he is deeply ambivalent. His insistence on multiple billings for himself is legendary. As I can well testify, the very mention of the term collaboration at a wrong (...) moment can be enough to send him into a rage. The controversy over who scripted Citizen Kane initiated by Pauline Kael hurt him very deeply. That the wound still festers to this day is evident in the rancor with which he speaks of former associates like John Houseman. Yet in quieter moments he will fully concede how indispensable his principal collaborators have been to him and will openly discuss the nature and extent of their contributions. He is especially full of praise for cinematographers with whom he has worked over the years, such as Gregg Toland, Russell Metty, and, more recently, Gary Graver. On Citizen Kane, he singles out four individuals whom he thinks deserve special recognition: writer Herman Mankiewicz, art director Perry Ferguson, composer Bernard Herrmann, and Toland. Of these, he says, Toland's contribution to the film was the greatest, second in importance only to his own. In this essay I deal with the history and nature of Welles' collaboration with Toland on Citizen Kane—what brought them together, their working relationship, and the characteristics and rationale of the visual plan they created for the film. As we shall see, Toland brought a largely pre-conceived visual plan to Citizen Kanewhich he had been working out in his previous films. Welles accepted Toland's plan so readily because he recognized how dramatically appropriate it was to the story material. Toland's cinematography for Citizen Kane also left a major legacy to Hollywood films of the 1940s.Robert L. Carringer, is associate professor of English and cinema studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This essay is excerpted from his book in progress, The Road through Xanadu. His most recent contribution to Critical Inquiry was "The Scripts of Citizen Kane". (shrink)

Cet article s’inscrit dans le prolongement d’une recherche que je mène depuis une vingtaine d’années sur les rapports entre cinéma et pensée. En m’appuyant en particulier sur les réflexions de Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Edgar Morin, j’ai ainsi pu créer les concepts de « complexité esthétique », « noosphère filmique », « cinématographie des flux ». Suite à l’évocation de créateurs-penseurs du cinéma muet d’avant-garde, sont ici abordés des films d’Amos Gitaï, Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais et Andreï Tarkovski. (...) L’intitulé, « Les métaphores filmiques du cerveau » indique que l’approche de la relation cinéma-cerveau est d’ordre philosophique, mais également d’ordre poétique. Si le cinéma est à même de donner forme à la pensée, il invente aussi des circuits cérébraux — sonores et visuels — qui lui permettent de devenir forme « pensante ». This paper is a continuation of my research over the past twenty years on the relationship between cinema and thought. By relying in particular on the reflections of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Edgar Morin, I was able to create the concepts of “aesthetic complexity”, “filmic noosphere” and “cinematography of flows”. Following the evocation of creative thinkers coming from avant-garde movies of the silent era, here I discuss films from Amos Gitaï, Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais and Andreï Tarkovsky. My title, “The brain’s cinematic metaphors”, indicates that my approach to cinema-brain relationship is philosophical, but also of a poetic nature. If cinema is able to shape thought, it also invents metaphorical brain paths—audio and visual—that allow it to become a “thinking” form. (shrink)

The French public has a distinct taste for realist representations of public crisis. Citing figures from the Centre National de la Cinématographie et de l’Image Animée (CNC), Sarah Cooper has shown that interest in documentary film is steadily on the rise in France (9), as attested to by the growing number of documentary festivals and documentary films recently released in theaters. Within this context, Martin O’Shaughnessy links the popularity of the social documentary genre to a series of political developments in (...) France, such as the 1995 protests against the infamous “Plan Juppé,” which aimed to slash public spending, and the French electorate’s spurning in 2005 of the Constitution proposed by the European .. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between technology and aesthetics in contemporary Hollywood, using experiments with frame rates and shutter speeds to show how deep, systemic changes in cinematic technologies can alter our relation to the image’s referential functions. For eighty years, cinema’s registration of movement relied upon a standardized frame rate and shutter speed, meaning that cinema’s sense of motion was constant. With the proliferation of ever more powerful digital capture systems, however, these formerly inflexible options are made variable and (...) put into question. By changing the registration of movement, the high frame rate experiments in The Hobbit and the open-shutter cinematography of Miami Vice offer an estranged relation to cinema’s presentation of worldly motion. I argue here that this altered sense of the image’s referentiality is well suited to depictions of our contemporary reality, which, being profoundly bound up in digital technologies, seems similarly disorienting, estranging, and aesthetic. In the first section of the article, I trace out the origins of this style of movement in the logics of the corporate tech industry, which rolls out continual upgrades in audio-visual technologies in order to justify new product lines. According to industry rhetoric, these upgrades ostensibly lead to a heightened sense of realism, but viewer response has been torn over whether this new sense of motion is realistic or unrealistic. In the second section, I closely analyze The Hobbit and the recent work of Michael Mann to show how established film form shifts in relation to this problem in digital cinema’s representation of worldly movement. In The Hobbit’s case, film form is altered in order to assimilate the HFR’s unfamiliar sense of motion, but the cinematography in Miami Vice embraces a productive aesthetic estrangement which is both realistic and hyperaestheticized, leaving the divide between immanent experience and technologized disorientation an open question. (shrink)

Za pretpostaviti je da identitet, čak ukoliko ga se i provizorno fiksira, biva promatran kao nestabilna, socijalno uvjetovana kategorija, označena i prepoznata ovisno o preraspodijeljenosti moći i trenutnim diskurzivnim relacijama. Pretpostavka teksta jest da se problematika identiteta promišlja kroz konfliktan suodnos dominantno i marginalno pozicioniranih društvenih aktera. Kontekstualizirano unutar ovakve dualne distribucije moći, aplikativni dio teksta tematizira temu proučavanja problematike identiteta u dva različita društvena diskursa . Pritom, film se promatra kao medij popularne kulture, dok bitan segment znanstveno-teorijskog pristupa temi (...) koji omogućuje raspravu pripada domeni kulturne kritike.Inicijalno zadirući u sferu estetskog, tekst započinje primjerima iz teorije prakse. Tiče se inkorporiranosti filmskih sadržaja u osobne identifikacijske procese svakodnevnog života. Praktična pretpostavka jest: budući da se relevantnost kinematografije u velikoj mjeri očituje u dostupnosti plasiranih sadržaja, sam film se tako predstavlja kao privatni i kolektivni itinerar kulturnih znanja i putokaz življenom iskustvu.Teorijski se pak dio priče odnosi na prenošenje znanja specijaliziranim kodovima koje potvrđuje činjenicu disciplinarnog zatvaranja kao identifikacijskog procesa. Ukoliko pretpostavimo da je inicijalna tendencija prepoznavanja, uspostave i upisivanja identiteta u matricu svakodnevice oblik kritičkog djelovanja, utoliko se s pravom možemo pitati postoji li nešto što možemo zvati paradoksom uspostavljanja identiteta? I ukoliko postoji, sabotira li zapravo taj paradoks vlastitu inicijalnu tendenciju, a ta je, ponovimo to – djelovanje? Zaključak sugerira dijalektički i interdisciplinarni pristup problematici čiji su cilj etički i politički korektnije politike predstavljanja. Preciznije, umjesto danas razvidnih i dominirajućih perpetuiranih reprezentiranja manipuliranog znanja, ovaj rad nastoji otvoriti mogućnosti za samoartikulacije i samoprezentiranja različitih identifikacijskih pozicija.It is procurable to postulate that identity as such, even if tentatively fixed, is being beheld as an unstable, socially conditioned category, marked and recognized depending on the distribution of power and current discourse relations. The assumption of this text is the politics and the problematic of identity viewed through the conflict nature of the dominantly and marginally positioned relation of social actors. Contextualized throughout this binary distribution of power, the applicable part of this text introduces the subject of identity studies and the problematic it beholds within identity itself in two different social discourses . In this perspective, the film is seen as the media of popular culture, while the important part of scientifically-theoretical access to the subject which allows debate, is in the domain of cultural critique.Interfering initially in the domain of esthetics, the text begins with examples in theory of practice. It concerns embeddedness of the film epitome into personal identification processes of everyday life. The practical assumption is: given the fact the relevancy of cinematography is broadly shown in the availability of the placed substance, the film itself is presented as a private and a collective itinerary of cultural knowledge and a signpost for lived experience.The theoretical part of the story relates to the transfer of knowledge using specialized codes while confirming the fact of disciplinal closure as well as the identification process. If we were to assume that the initial tendency of recognition, establishment and inscription of identity into the matrix of everyday life is indeed a form of critical action, than it is right to ask if there is a thing that could be called the paradox of establishing identity. And, if there is indeed such a thing, is this paradox actually sabotaging its own initial tendency – that being – acting? Conclusion suggests dialectical and interdisciplinary approach to the problematic which aims to the more correct politics of representation, both in ethical and political sense. More precisely, this text tries to open the possibilities of self-articulation and self-representation of different identification positions instead of nowadays apparent and dominate representations of manipulated knowledge. (shrink)

American History X (hereafter AHX) has been accused by numerous critics of a morally dangerous cinematic seduction: using stylish cinematography, editing, and sound, the film manipulates the viewer through glamorizing an immoral and hate-filled neo-nazi protagonist. In addition, there’s the disturbing fact that the film seems to accomplish this manipulation through methods commonly grouped under the category of “fascist aesthetics.” More specifically, AHX promotes its neo-nazi hero through the use of several filmic techniques made famous by Nazi propagandist Leni (...) Riefenstahl. Now most critics admit that, in the end, the film claims to denounce racism and attempts to show us the conversion of the protagonist to the path of righteousness, but they complain that nonetheless the film (perhaps unintentionally) ends up implicitly promoting the immoral worldview it rather superficially professes to reject in its final act. This charge of hypocrisy is connected to another worry: the moral conversion in the film is said to fall flat because the intellectual resources on display to support the character’s racism are not counterbalanced by equally explicit (but superior) arguments for the anti-racist position ultimately embraced by the character. In other words, just as the devil is said to get all the good lines in Milton’s Paradise Lost, in AHX the racists get all the arguments. This has been taken to be a morally problematic flaw of the film. Critics lament that Derek’s conversion seems to result not from relevant logical inferences and valid rational argumentation but from overly simplistic and arguably egoistic insights (e.g., “has anything you've done made your life better?”) combined, perhaps, with a hackneyed cliché (in prison, one of his best friends is a black person!) In this paper I’ll attempt to rebut these charges and defend the film as a powerful, and powerfully moral, work of art. I’ll be suggesting that the seductive techniques employed allow for many viewers a degree of sympathy towards the protagonist that is crucial, both for making that character’s more horrific actions especially unsettling, and also for making his eventual conversion plausible and ultimately compelling. I’ll also argue that the manner in which his conversion is presented is in fact subtler than many critics have allowed: Derek’s transformation is not artificial or implausible but is depicted as resulting from a cumulative series of emotionally powerful life events and personal engagements. It is certainly true that it is not represented in the way some would seemingly have preferred, i.e. as straightforwardly resulting from a process of gradual intellectual improvement in Derek’s reasoning on questions of race and politics. However, I’ll argue that the decidedly emotional basis of his moral evolution is both refreshingly realistic and no hindrance to accepting his conversion as rational. Finally, properly understanding the legitimacy of the emotional foundations of much moral thought will also allow us to appreciate the ways in which our initial worries about this film’s (not insignificant) ability to persuade viewers through the engagement of emotions need not, in itself, be seen as a barrier to endorsing the film as a morally praiseworthy work. (shrink)

The set of symbols of success is a set of cultural determinants of activity and their functioning is connected with the fundamental functions of culture as a system of historically developing supra-biological programs of life. The relevance of considering the symbolization of success in modern cinema is due to several factors. First, according to the majority of art historians and film theorists, cinema remains the leading, most widespread form of art throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. If we understand art (...) as a figurative comprehension of reality, its process and result, which is expressed in works, then the symbolization of success in cinema can be considered one of the most common practices for representing the determinants of activity through a figurative comprehension of reality. An analysis of this process in modern cinematography reveals the mechanisms of functioning of one of the elements of the totality of joint life programs as a segment of modern culture, limited by the boundaries of film communication. Secondly, the development of cinematography largely determines the fundamental changes in the culture of the 20th century. and there is no reason to believe that its influence is diminishing in recent times. Consequently, modern cinema remains one of the most important areas of cultural life, the study of which allows expanding scientific understanding of the patterns of changes taking place in culture. Thirdly, the development of information and communication technologies at the end of the 20th century. led to the fact that the value complexes of traditional cultures of different peoples of the world and expansive global neoplasms of a supranational nature (mass, elite, corporate, fandom, etc.) are simultaneously transmitted into the space of personal culture. Cinema in the new conditions only strengthened its position as the leading relay of value complexes. The special socio-forming qualities of cinema were noted both by its pioneers (L. Delluk, A. Dovzhenko, Ch. Chaplin, S. Eisenstein, etc.), scientists (B. Balash, V. A. Gottwald, E. M. Samuylenko, etc.) , and the ideologists of cultural revolutions at the beginning of the 20th century. G. Turner, in particular, drew attention to the fact that “to achieve control over the everyday representation of the world for a nation means to acquire strong power over the representation of individuals about themselves and about each other”, referring to the threat to the integrity and coherence of an individual’s understanding of the world under the pressure of foreign cultural domination over film communication. In this regard, the search for ways to relevantly measure the trends in the development of modern culture by marking in cinema the cultural determinants of activity, which are the symbols of success, seems to be an urgent theoretical and scientific-practical task, the solution of which expands the predictive potential of culture and its projective possibilities. (shrink)

Against Transmission introduces the technical history and phenomenology of media, a field of study that explains the characteristics of contemporary life by looking to the technical properties of machines. By studying the engineering of signal processing, the book interrogates how the understanding of media-as-machine exposes us to a particular phenomenological relationship to the world, asking: what can the hardware of machines that segment information into very small elements tell us about experiences of time, memory and history? This book offers both (...) a detailed and radical investigation of the technical architecture of media such as television, computers, cameras, and cinematography. It achieves this through in-depth archive research into the history of the development of media technology, combined with innovative readings of key concepts from philosophers of media such as Harold A. Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Kittler, Siegfried Zielinski and Wolfgang Ernst. Teaming philosophical inquiry with thorough technical and historical analysis, in a broad range of international case studies, from early experimental cinema and television to contemporary media art and innovative hardware developments, Barker shows how the technical discoveries made in these contexts have engineered the experiences of time in contemporary media culture. (shrink)

In his opening address at a discussion of the book: V. V. Bychkov, N. B. Mankovskaya, and V. V. Ivanov, Trialogue: Living Aesthetics and the Contemporary Philosophy of Art , held on 27 February 2012 at the S. Gerasimov All-Russia State University of Cinematography , the author shows that Trialogue came into existence as a result of interpretation, polemical debate, and further development of ideas formulated in his early fundamental work. The Artistic Apocalypse of Culture . The key idea (...) of both books is V. Bychkov's hypothesis of Culture -post- culture drawn from radical processes that take place in art, aesthetics, and the culture of the last century. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the emergence and development of Yakut cinema. The object of the study is the Yakut cinema as a phenomenon of national culture. The first appearance of film installations in the Yakut region at the beginning of the XX century is considered. Attention is drawn to the process of mass cinematography in Soviet times. In parallel, the inclusion of Yakut people in the creative process of participating in the first filming at All-Union film studios in (...) the 1930s is traced. Attention is also drawn to the prominent role of the Yakutkino State Trust, which led the development of Yakut cinema. The author analyzes the reasons for the rapid development of Yakut cinema in the post-Soviet period, related to the appeal to the traditions of the Sakha people, the high level of development of theatrical art in Yakutia, artistic and aesthetic needs and spiritual demands of the audience. The article shows the role of "Sahafilm" in the history of Yakut cinema. The characteristic features of the formation of genres of journalistic cinema, the change of repertoire in the early years of Soviet cinematography and during the Great Patriotic War are revealed. The characteristic features of the post-war reconstruction of the technical equipment and training of personnel of the Yakut cinema are outlined. The genre diversity of films shot during this and subsequent times is shown, when, along with documentaries, feature films also begin to be shot. The development of Yakut cinema is traced against the background of all-Union and all-Russian processes. The formation and development of the main institutions of Yakut cinematography, the growth of the skill of its figures are examined through famous films created by them. For the first time, three stages of the development of Yakut cinema have been identified - from the very beginning to the present day: from "silent cinema" to the birth of the national film industry. (shrink)

The article focuses on the work of Ian Wallace, Jeff Wall and Rodney Graham, in particular, a notion of the studio that provides both an anchor and departure for the work of all three. This genealogy turns primarily on Wallace’s photo-conceptual work from the 1970s, which establishes the space of the studio as an allegory of painting or the modernist tradition, and as the topological equivalent of the museum and street. Using Wallace’s model of post-studio practice as an analytic, the (...) article unpacks the tensions of Wall’s notion of cinematography, highlighting his mounting hesitations with photography understood on the model of the studio system, as an inside/outside relationship and as the mimesis of painting. Finally, the article puts the notions of studio as genealogy and dispositif to work in order to understand the logic of Graham’s emphasis on the durational art of film. (shrink)

This essay discusses the matter of the cinematography, with the analysis of Elio Petri’s film and novel, La proprietà non è più un furto, in the background. These works are paradigmatic as to a fundamental aspect of the cinematography, that connects it with the mechanism of the money. This mechanism, as every other human product, is the effect of a projection of the humanistic ideology. For this ideology the system of exchange is the ground of the monetary circulation. (...) Criticizing this idea, this essay individualizes a correspondence between production (capture) of images in the cinema and monetary circulation (considered in his totality of displacement and original theft). (shrink)

This essay discusses the matter of the cinematography, with the analysis of Elio Petri’s film and novel, La proprietà non è più un furto, in the background. These works are paradigmatic as to a fundamental aspect of the cinematography, that connects it with the mechanism of the money. This mechanism, as every other human product, is the effect of a projection of the humanistic ideology. For this ideology the system of exchange is the ground of the monetary circulation. (...) Criticizing this idea, this essay individualizes a correspondence between production (capture) of images in the cinema and monetary circulation (considered in his totality of displacement and original theft). (shrink)

On 1 July, 1926, Express Wieczorny Ilustrowany [The Illustrated Evening Express] began printing the episodic novel Białe niewolnice [White Female Slaves] by Jan Teodor Grzechota. Twelve days later, the newspaper published an article in which it informed that the printing of the novel was suspended, because the work turned out to be a plagiarism of a novel with the same title by the Scandinavian writer Elizabeth Schoyen. The Jan Teodor Grzechota pseudonym stood for a well-known Łódź-based poet – Mieczysław Braun. (...) The subject of the plagiarism was an extremely popular novel, whose numerous trans- lations appeared in Polish in separate book editions several times in the 1920s and 1930s. The popularity of the motif of human trafficking might have proved itself, as the motif was also used at that time by Polish and European cinematography and theatre. A careful analysis of both works shows that Brown copied the content of Shonyen’s novel almost exactly, i.e. the plot, the characters, and the details. The Polish writer added several initial episodes of the novel in order to set the plot in the reality of Lodz, which was one of the determinants of the poetics of the seg- mental novel. It is probable that the only punishment Braun suffered was public critique of his shameful act, since copyright regulations were not yet in place. (shrink)

Une sorte de dialogue entre un "acteur" (Jacques Derrida) et un "auteur" (Safaa Fathy), croisant leur mémoire (notamment sur l'Algérie) et leur réflexion. Deux autobiocinématographies réalisées à partir d'un film produit pour la série "Profils" d'Arte et consacré au philosophe : D'ailleurs, Derrida. Au-delà du méta-discours sur le cinéma, il s'agit ici de tenter une cinématographie de la parole.

The relationship between cinema and technology is a complex and fascinating one. Andrew Utterson brings together key theoretical texts spanning more than a century of writing. He begins by investigating cinema as technology or as an interconnected series of technologies, then goes on to examine the technological history of cinema within a much broader context: as one element in a sustained period of technological expansion, cinematic or otherwise, and its impact on the wider world. Rather than seeing technologies in traditional (...) mechanical terms, this reader explores by way of the moving image the various cultural, social, political, economic and ideological dimensions that are essential to an understanding of technology. Students taking courses on cinema and media technologies will find this an ideal introduction to the wealth of writing and research in the field. (shrink)

"You will never know, nor will you, all the stories I kept telling myself as I looked at these images." With these words Jacques Derrida opens his reading of Marie-Francoise Plissart's hundred-page photo-novel. Originally published in France in 1985, this tour de force of word and image is available in English for the first time. Plissart's visual narrative unfolds in photographs, and photographs of photographs, in a kind of silent cinematography. Derrida's polylogue explores gender, photographic genre, time, language, and (...) the interpretative act of seeing. The text and the photographs, each with its own structure and syntax, together illuminate what is at stake in the "right of inspection.". (shrink)

Rogue One is a complex film that invites a wide range of philosophical questioning. This chapter focuses on the film's political aspect. Rogue One powerfully illustrates an essential and timely claim made about the nature of democracy by John Dewey. Rogue One is significantly different from earlier Star Wars films. It does not offer a simple, mythic morality tale, where the difference between right and wrong is as stark as the contrast between Leia's white gown and Vader's black mask. Rogue (...) One takes place in a messy and unfair world in which traditional moral frameworks appear naive and ill‐suited. The rest of Rogue One is exceptionally powerful not only because of amazing acting, sound design, and cinematography, but because it uses the tropes and setting of gritty war cinema to tell a universal story about the power of hope and faith in others. (shrink)

What follows is the elaboration of a series of discussions held by the two authors at a seminar during which we tried to “read” Wim Wenders's Lisbon Story starting from Gregory Bateson's double bind theory. These discussions then developed into writings that were intertwined, hybridized, corrected, extended, and cut. We experimented directly with the game of relationships, the “mess that works” of the difficult distinction between map and territory, between epistemology and cinematography. Emerging from general considerations on cinema is (...) the double bind of the “crisis” of images, a prelude to a renewed faith in the creative and constructive possibilities of art: image not as a replica but as the experience of a relationship. (shrink)

The article opens with a brief discussion of the cultural economy of cities. A framework for investigating this phenomenon is then proposed, paying special attention to the interconnections between the system of production, its geographic milieu and the logistics of distribution. An overview of the structure and logic of the French film industry is laid out in which the fragmentation of production activities and labor markets is stressed. The policy system governing the French film industry is described in detail, and (...) the special role of the CNC (Centre National de la Cinématographie) is highlighted. The industry is then shown to be deeply interwined with the urban milieu of Paris, both in terms of its locational structure and its cultural dynamics. The final major section of the article deals with issues of industrial survival and competitiveness in the new global economy. It is suggested that French film policy needs to shift from a posture of defensive support of the industry to a more clearly articulated and aggressive concern with rebuilding market share in both the domestic and international arenas. (shrink)

Sergei Eisenstein’s 110th anniversary celebrated in 2008 calls for a re-assessment of his overall heritage, which until now has been customarily perceived in Western film scholarship as - in Annette Michelson’s words - ’indissolubly linked to the project of construction of socialism’ - a view shared from Marie Seton to Jacques Aumont, from Kristin Thompson to Ian Christie and from David Bordwell to Anna Bohn. Not only did Eisenstein’s output magnificently and persuasively outlive this project, but from our vantage point (...) at the beginning of the twenty- first century we can see its position within the complex tapestry of the cultural, philosophical, political and aesthetic developments of the twentieth century from a different angle. Drawing on the recently published in Russia Eisenstein’s magnum opus Method and the author’s research on still unpublished Eisenstein’s writings of the same period, including his diaries, the present paper positions the discussion of Eisenstein’s theory-and-practice between two diametrically opposed philosophical poles - utopia and event. I argue that while Eisenstein’s theoretical writings were encompassed by a number of utopian ideas, which were, nevertheless quite different from the utopian projects of bolshevism, it is his cinematography, which now - in the context of an on-going discussion in continental philosophy - can be defined as ’cinema of event’ that demonstrates the biggest and radical discrepancy between Eisenstein’s work and both ideology and art of socialism - the world of ‘realized utopia.’ . (shrink)

This article develops an interdisciplinary theoretical method for assessing the environmental values articulated and practised by dispersive or 'mobile' film production practices, aiming toward applicable strategies to make media practices more environmentally conscientious and sustainable. Providing a social and environmental study of the local relational values, political economy and ecosystem ramifications of runaway productions and film incentive programmes, this study draws on contemporary international green production practices as entryways into environmentally positive film industry change. Offering an overview of the potential (...) use of a relational values approach to media production cultures, the essay uses two opposing models (the Michigan film incentive and the underwater cinematography culture of South Florida) in order to assess the political dynamics, social consequences and environmental threats of Hollywood's mobile practices - as well as their potential as sites, beyond Hollywood, to converge environmental values with local media culture. (shrink)

The author of the work raises the issue of the phenomenon of nomadism in the context of the work of the French director Alain Resnais. The object of the research is the early works of the director, such films as "Last year in Marienbad", "Hiroshima, my love", "I love you, I love". The purpose of the work is to answer the question of how nomadic strategies allow the author to create non-linear narrative structures, oscillating characters and flickering characters in his (...) films, and how understanding these strategies can help viewers and researchers in the act of deciphering works. The author also analyzes a number of phenomena related to nomadism, such as the rhizome, the body without organs, deterritorialization, escape, flicker. The novelty of the research lies in the application of nomadic strategies to the cinema of Alain Resnais. This approach makes it possible to use the current philosophical and art history prism to study narrative structures, intraframe space and characters. The author argues that Rene's cinematography can be viewed through a position of resistance to forms of power - suppression and control - which manifests itself in the violation of traditional forms of narration and the creation of split characters. To study the mentioned aspects of Rene's work, the author resorts to the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. The author also explains the position of the modern viewer and describes the strategies of looking, which can lead to a state of pleasure from interacting with nomadic works. (shrink)