Cinematographic coloring of open space in Volodymyr Drozd’s short prose from 1960s

Abstract

The paper considers the style manner of V. Drozd’s prose from his early writing period with a focus on cinematographic aesthetics of color and possibilities of the screen design of plein air as the most free spatial environment for visual development of the image. The writer’s literary means have their analogues in the well-known contemporary films (“October”, “Poem about Sea”, “Red Desert”).
 
 The dynamic plein air compositions have certain screen potential. The images of open-space are related to freedom in dynamic and successive change of a scene, and alternation of verbal pictures. They are rather close to the specifc cinematographic representation of action, as their color markers may be associated with an imaginary film. The first V. Drozd’s attempts of designing the color and light of plein air are marked with an accent on the hues of the represented objects, the dynamism of objects in the imaginary shots, and expressive motion, increased with spectral indicators. A growth of the writer’s mastery is related to development of successive color ‘melody’, based on nuances of the visual impressions, and harmonized with internal action progress. Plastic imaginal markers with limited color range also remind the technique of cinematographic rush, adding emotional and psychological mood connotations to the narration and stimulating positive (nostalgic, elegiac) associations. Although they may seem random, the light and color signals acquire cinematographic expressiveness due to integration into the plot and its internal action, and to the dynamics of the character’s point of view. Abandoning a picturesque fixed nature, the author acquires possibility to decode wider associative meanings with color and light markers, search for deeper semantics of visual image complexes, and construct deterministic relations of a character and environment. Even minimal visual signals contribute to the color structure of a verbal shot. Such terseness and obscurity of objects in the prospect of a narrative camera, and a rapid change of plein air sections are similar to the features of cinematographic aesthetics and poetics.