Film Aesthetics Research Articles

“The Hum of the Conversing Audience”: Ordinary Criticism and Film Culture in American Early Film Theory

AbstractThis article seeks to explore the early stages of American film theory, wherecinephiliabecame a site of aesthetic interest and criticism thanks to the theorization of cinema as a conversational medium. Following Stanley Cavell’s analysis of a distinct form of moviegoing in America, based on the casual conversation about movies, I argue that a reinterpretation of Emerson’s ordinary aesthetics has been at the core of early film theory, especially in Vachel Lindsay’s writings. In order to illustrate the relation between the defence of a new medium and the attempt to define a quintessentially American art form, this article focuses on the concept of “conversation” that Lindsay uses to describe film spectatorship and to provide a new critical apparatus to grasp the specificity of film aesthetics.

The information dissemination path of the sense of community of contextual beauty universe based on the hierarchical analysis method - the science fiction film “Dune” as an example

Abstract Since its introduction into China, the film Dune has sparked heated discussions among Chinese moviegoers. This paper explores the sense of cosmic community embedded in Dune, and its cinematic aesthetics conveyed to audiences through the information dissemination path. This paper identifies the hierarchical analysis method as the main research method, first identifies the definition of cosmic community in terms of content, and then conducts an appreciation of the sense of cosmic community in the contextual beauty of “Dune”. The algorithmic framework is established by building a model of the hierarchical analysis method, while the priority weight allocation coefficient is calculated afterward to determine the priority weight of the program, and the results are evaluated using the fuzzy preference evaluation method. The data showed that the highest ratio of movie viewers who liked science and technology very much or more was 36.09% and 35.49%, respectively, while the ratio of movie viewers who were interested in the topics of universe and space exploration was 48.8%. The rating screen effects and movie music scored out of 10, and the average audience rating was above 8.2. And Dune belongs to the topic of cosmic exploration, indicating that at least in terms of the movie audience, Dune already has a large audience base in the early stage, which is one of the sources of the movie’s enthusiasm. This paper is feasible and meaningful to explore the research direction of Dune’s cosmic community of contextual beauty from the contextual level.

Application of Multimedia Technology in Film and Television Post-Production Under the Analysis of Film Aesthetics Paradigm

Application of Multimedia Technology in Film and Television Post-Production Under the Analysis of Film Aesthetics Paradigm

The agony of cosmopolitan love: the Melina Mercouri-Jules Dassin partnership

ABSTRACT The article explores the role that cosmopolitan love plays in the cinematic partnership of émigré director Jules Dassin and Greek star Melina Mercouri. In defining cosmopolitan love, it employs a conceptual framework informed by Simmel’s theorisation of the ‘stranger’ and Barthes’s analysis of ‘a lover’s discourse’. It offers a detailed and historically rooted understanding of stardom, performance, and aesthetics in the films of Dassin and Mercouri tracing changes in the director’s film aesthetics and in the star’s performance style. It argues that these transformations, demonstrated through a comparison between Never on Sunday and Phaedra, are substantially the outcome of a struggle to reconcile their cosmopolitan positions with love as a cosmopolitan disposition. The article uses this specific case study to propose an agonistics of cosmopolitan love that stands in opposition to ethical approaches such as Levinas’s for whom love is a form of ‘being-for-the-other’.

The personal and the fictional: Aesthetic mediation in the Indian documentary

This article traces two interrelated strands of documentary film aesthetics in India that have steadily developed since the early 2000s. One concerns the presiding influence of personal narratives and subjectivity, manifesting in diverse thematic interrogations. The other relates to the increased tendencies of working with the cinematographic tropes and idioms of fictional storytelling. These directions, evolving over distinctive historical circumstances, have significantly revised the generic assumptions of the documentary. Two films feature centrally in this discussion, Payal Kapadia’s A Night of Knowing Nothing and Shaunak Sen’s All that Breathes. Both uniquely explore the personal and fictional registers of working with the genre. While Kapadia intimately thinks through the reigning political crises in India, Sen devises inventive means to visualize the graded, interrelated layers of ecological catastrophe in the world’s most polluted capital city. A critical review of these films seeks to understand the emerging narratorial, formal and technical logic informing the hybrid nature of contemporary documentaries and their intersecting issues.

The Influence of the French New Wave Movement on Contemporary World Art Film Creation

The French New Wave is one of the three major aesthetic movements in the world film history. The "New Wave" films shocked the world, causing the "New Wave" film movements in America, Europe, Asia and other countries to emerge one after another, triggering a worldwide film aesthetic revolution. The French "New Wave" has a profound impact on modern films. This paper focuses on grasping the emergence, development, prosperity and decline of the French "New Wave" film aesthetics, paying attention to live broadcast and process documentaries, analyzing the artistic skills of the New Wave film to shape characters, effectively summarizing the influence of the French New Wave movement on contemporary world artistic film creation, so as to find out some rules of film development and provide a necessary reference system for contemporary world film art creation, And explore the development direction of Chinese film in the future.

The “subjective microphone” technique in M. Khutsiev’s film “I am Twenty”

The object of research in this article is the actor speech in the cinema of the "Khrushchev Thaw" period. The subject of the research is the artistic specifics of the recorded speech in the film "I am Twenty." The article analyzes the use of "subjective microphone" technique in the sound landscape of the film "I Am Twenty" by Marlen Khutsiev. The aesthetic and technical aspects of the use of the above technique have been analyzed in detail. "Subjective microphone" is considered by the author as part of the updated speech style that appeared in Soviet cinema in the era of the " Khrushchev Thaw." The author pays special attention to the influence of the updated speech aesthetics of cinema of the 1950s and 1960s on theatrical art and acting. The novelty of this research lies in the study of the phenomenon of acting speech in the cinema of the "thaw" from an aesthetic and technical standpoint. The term "subjective microphone" was first introduced into scientific circulation in application to sounding speech in screen arts. The term "cross-diegesis" is proposed for inclusion in scientific circulation to determine a special sound space formed in screen arts when using the technique of a "subjective microphone." The article scientifically substantiates a special place that is occupied by the "subjective microphone" technique in the concept of dividing the sound space of the film into diegetic, non-diegetic and methadiegetic layers. Separately, the author dwells on the inclusion of the reception of the "subjective microphone" in the general documentary-poetic artistic style of Marlen Khutsiev. In conclusion, the author says that the appearance of magnetic sound recording in the 1950s had a powerful effect on the aesthetics of film monography and, in particular, the sound of acting speech.

Theory of the Filmic: Classical Interpretation of Chinese Film Aesthetics

Abstract When linking Chinese film theory with traditional Chinese aesthetics, it is worth considering that the core categories of ancient Chinese aesthetics ought to be incorporated into a film paradigm that includes the meaning of film itself and it should not just be the way of transplanting the concepts of ancient Chinese literature directly into the system of film theory, for example, introducing the concepts of poetry, painting and opera directly into the evaluation system of films. For this reason, the author expects to establish a core concept in Chinese film aesthetics as an aesthetic category that may be considered to be parallel to the poetic, the pictorial and the calligraphic: this concept is named ‘the Filmic’.

Historical Themes in Fiction and Documentary Cinematography: Comparative Analysis

The purpose of this article to investigate the peculiarities of the representation of historical transformations in fiction and documentary cinematography, to reveal the artistic potential of cinema in the coverage of historical issues.
 The methodology. The main methods of cognition were used: socio-communicative, axiological, culturological approaches, figurative-stylistic analysis and structural-functional method, art history approach combined with morphological analysis, hermeneutic approach. The specified methods contributed to the in-depth study of fiction and documentary films aimed at the coverage of historical or current events.
 The results. In the course of the study, it was found that the line between documentary and fiction films is extremely thin, especially when the films claim to cover historical events or real figures. Despite the fact that fiction cinema is realized thanks to the play of actors, and documentary cinema is realized thanks to the shooting of real participants in the events, the means of expression of both types of cinematography are similar. One of the results of the analysis was the conclusion that documentary cinema uses a greater number of expressive means than fiction films. This is due to the fact that the directors of fiction films strive to document the aesthetics of the film, and the directors of the documentary, on the contrary, to strengthen the artistic component. Historical themes combine documentary and fiction films, while the aesthetics of documentary films is more diverse.
 The scientific novelty of the research. In this research for the first time, we investigated the historical transformations in fiction and documentary cinematography from the point of view of cultural meanings and aesthetic foundations of both types of cinema, and also analyzed the potential of cinematography to reveal hot and controversial topics on the example of contemporary cinema works.
 The practical significance of the article. The presented research can be used by filmmakers in both the field of fiction and documentary cinema in order to create an objective, unbiased and artistically valuable screen product. In addition, the conducted analysis can be useful in teaching professional courses in the specialty 021 “Audiovisual art and production”.

Воображаемая столица и реальная провинция в комедии Л. Гайдая «Инкогнито из Петербурга»

The article analyzes the film by Leonid Gaidai Incognito from St. Petersburg (1977) based on the N.V. Gogol’s play The Government Inspector. The author draws attention to the preservation of theatrical aesthetics, which is revealed in the spatial accents and the interaction of the characters. The comedic core of the play, the misunderstanding, is enhanced by the eccentric accents characteristic of the aesthetics of silent cinema. The key dramatic structure of the film is the various types of urban spaces — an imaginary idea of capital city and a real provincial town, as well as the dialogue of their artistic incarnations in the film. The activation of comedy effects takes place at the intersection of extremely serious elements and their childishly naive interpretation and implementation, decoration and attempts to imitate the surrounding space with “adult” (capital) images. The “unofficial” side of the artistic world is exposed by its permanent presence on the periphery of the frame and the stubborn, but not articulated desire to return to familiar forms. The film traces the idea that regardless of the hierarchical way of life, the form of statehood, the existence of a Russian person remains unshakable, only external attributes change in accordance with ideological dominants, but at a fundamental level, the established way of life does not undergo significant changes. Incognito from St. Petersburg can be described as the intellectual apogee of the interaction of various aesthetics and comedic dominants. Masterfully alternating escalation and aggravation with containment and smoothing Gaidai keeps tension and dynamic of the dramaturgy. Eccentric elements, subtly woven into the artistic fabric, allowed the director to inscribe and remove Gogol’s motifs in the prism of his own era and its problems.

Toward New Feminist Aesthetics

Toward New Feminist Aesthetics

Introduction

James E. Cutting (S. L. Sage Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Cornell) has made an outsize contribution to the Society for the Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image. Since he first attended the society's yearly conference in 2010 to give the keynote address, titled “Attention, Intensity, and the Evolution of Hollywood Film,” Cutting has presented at every SCSMI conference, often in collaboration with his students, and he was elected a Fellow of SCSMI in 2013. Some of his numerous articles on film have been published in Projections, and his work has become highly influential on our membership. In its integration of film aesthetics and psychology, Cutting's work exemplifies the “consilience” that the founders of SCSMI hoped would occur in bringing together humanistic film scholars and psychologists.

Cud w Mediolanie Vittoria De Siki na tle recepcji włoskiego neorealizmu w polskim piśmiennictwie filmowym do 1956 roku


 
 
 After the end of the Second World War, cinema culture in the People’s Republic of Poland underwent a crucial transformation. One of the aspects of this change was the new movie import model: most international sources were replaced by films from the Communist bloc, principally the Soviet Union. Italian movies constituted an important exception. In addition, translations of works by C. Zavattini and U. Barbaro were published (the latter was even appointed a professor at the Film School in Lodz). However, some movies deemed neorealist were either not permitted by the censorship bodies (it banned several of Rossellini’s works) or appeared on Polish screens with a significant delay (which was the case of Umberto D.).
 The article focuses on the reception of the film Miracle in Milan (dir. Vittorio De Sica) in the Polish movie magazines and books published before 1956. The case of this film seems particularly interesting, as opinions on it have changed over the years (as has the assessment of the neorealist movement as a whole), and the film itself has provoked controversy. In the Stalinist period in Poland, critical opinions dominated, and Italian neorealism (and De Sica’s film) was accused of pessimism and losing sight of “great revolutionary perspectives”. The film’s fairy-tale formula and the “transcendental” themes present in the plot were also difficult to accept. This negative attitude changed during the Thaw, when neorealism became something of a positive example of progressive film aesthetics, an example to follow; the authorities then allowed neorealist films (including Miracle in Milan) to be framed in religious terms.
 
 

The Russian Movie T-34: a duel between soldiers and their tanks.

The aim of this essay is to exploratory analyze the Russian film Russian War T. 34, by Alexey Sidorov, as a symbolic duel between two individuals, a Nazi German and the other one Soviet, employing their tanks, their backgrounds, their industrial cultures, and ideologies. The Dominant Explain Comes from the Curzio Malaparte reports that, at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa of 1941, advocated Nazi defeat. We use the works of Steve Zaloga to analyze the use of tanks as a combat machines. John Erickson, Brandon Schechter's reading, explains the victory of the Red Army and the USSR, mobilizing industrial, human, and cultural means employing, according to Lewin, the memory of the Russian victory over Napoleon in 1812. Our Findings indicate that the consolidation of an accelerated industrial mindset produced a new ethics where Tank Crews were soldiers and mechanically inspired and, like an elite, along with industrial technique, employed tricks as a tactic weapon, according to Michel de Certeau. Narrating the dynamic plastic of the battle between tanks, Sidorov's film holds the viewer's attention by employing the narrative aesthetics of silent cinema and visualizing his scenes dispensing with the reading of Russian subtitles. The film puts the tank, the top product of the 1930s and 40s celebrated industrial development, as a complex war tool whose employment requires exceptional individuals endowed with cunning and technique of fighting, simultaneously soldiers and mechanical.

Research and analysis of the development of news film and television based on the integrated media environment

The expansion of the digital integration mode of contemporary digital cinema from creation to projection and the change of cinematic language both herald the breakthrough of technology once again and the opening of a new era of digital cinematic art. From the aesthetic point of view, digital cinema has overturned and dismantled some of the theoretical essentials and important concepts of traditional film aesthetics about film ontology, and the changes and progress of digital cinema’s generation principle, audiovisual environment and media properties have profoundly influenced film art creation and audiences’ aesthetic approach. Digital reproduction and regeneration can realistically simulate reality and transcend reality to construct the story world in film, forming a higher level of aesthetic composition and aesthetic concept. The innovation of film media and the transformation of digital film machines enable audiences to develop an embodied experience at a super close distance or without distance, thus falling into the “immersion of the here and now” and “playable story”. The digital anthropomorphic film phenomenon experience and the immersive viewing mode of multimedia sound and image have perfectly realized the freedom and transcendence of digital film aesthetic experience and become an important force to promote the development and evolution of film aesthetics. It is the original purpose of this dissertation to explore the relationship between digital film technology development and film aesthetic discourse under the new digital technology conditions, to sort out the aesthetic implications and aesthetic characteristics of digital films, to explain the film concepts and aesthetic issues in the digital era, and to try to complete the systematic construction of contemporary digital technology film aesthetics.

Film Aesthetics and Humanistic Values Presented by the Narrative Structure of Beautiful Life

Film Aesthetics and Humanistic Values Presented by the Narrative Structure of Beautiful Life

The World Turned Upside Down, Again: Hauntings of the English Revolution and Archaeologies of Futures Past in Contemporary British Films

In the 1960s and 1970s, the period of the Civil War and the English Revolution featured prominently in a variety of films ranging from the mainstream historical drama Cromwell to the independent Winstanley and the folk horror film Witchfinder General. Film-makers’ interest in the period at that time coincided with the cultural, social and political turmoil of 1968 as well as with the increasingly popularised revision of the period in Marxist historiography, such as Christopher Hill’s seminal book The World Turned Upside Down. Recently, there has been a renewed interest of British film-makers in Hill’s focus on the subcultures of the English Revolution, such as the Diggers, as well as in the aesthetics of earlier films about the period. This article analyses two contemporary films about the period, Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England and Thomas Clay’s Fanny Lye Deliver’d, and through historicisation and contextualisation within film, genre and media history seeks to understand the significance of their return to the historical material of the seventeenth century as well as to the style of their filmic models from the 1960s and 1970s. The article argues that the two films perform an ‘archaeology of the future’ (Jameson) that excavates utopian ‘futures past’ (Koselleck) in British cultural history as well as in British film and media history. By analysing Wheatley and Clay’s films as hauntological and archaeological texts, the article explores the potential of the cinematic image for engaging with national and film history as well as with visions of the past and the future.

페터 바이스 초기 연극 『보험』의 매체 연출과 감각성에 관하여

The purpose of this study is to examine the directing techniques of the German playwright Peter Weiss. Weiss' documentary theater theory is well known in the field of Korean theater, but there have been few theoretical discussions on his plays. Therefore, this study aims to reveal the overall aesthetic theory of Weiss plays. Weiss was influenced by the historical avant-garde of the early 20th century. He created his own stage production theory by working in multiple media across paintings, prose, films, and plays. He also performed a total play that stimulates not only sight and hearing but also smell by combining his film aesthetics. In particular, the early work Insurance was a sensuous media play influenced by surrealist films, which laid the foundation for the aesthetics of Weiss directing. Therefore, this paper analyzes the stage production method using film techniques, focusing on Weiss' early play Insurance. First, this paper explores the unique principles and methods of stage reproduction of Weiss, and next, examines the function of media production in relation to sensory expression. The finding of the research suggests a new possibility of how the problems of sense and politics, which have been explained only aesthetically in the play, can actually cause an effect between the actor and the audience. This study demonstrates how senses function politically in Insurance by taking philosophical and neuroscience views beyond aesthetics. The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the media production method of Insurance and the sense, revealing another way of resistance from the protest performance of documentary plays in Weiss's political drama.

Research on the Influence of the Expansion of Traditional Film Aesthetics on Alleviating the Psychological Anxiety of the Audience in the Era of Digital Technology

In recent years, due to the spread of COVID-19, various problems caused by college students’ anxiety are common, which has attracted the attention of many researchers. Research shows that the anxiety level of social groups is getting higher and higher, and the mental health status is also decreasing year by year. It can be seen that anxiety has become one of the important obstacles to people’s mental health. At present, the intervention research on anxiety focuses on medical psychological nursing, and the intervention research specifically aimed at film audiences is relatively few. Tibetan Buddhist teacher Jongsa Chiang Yangkhin Chol Rinpoche said: film is the modern thangka. It is like a smart clown, opened the bathrobe of civilization, mouth hanging a strange smile, it is like an elegant wise man, insight into the secret of life, eyes full of compassion. Touching films are like realistic psychological cases, which are the analysis, disclosure and treatment of human nature, but also the guidance, inspiration and encouragement of the soul. Movies show us the rich and unique personality and complex and subtle emotions in three dimensions. Through movies, we examine the changes in our hearts and find the scale for self-revelation. Through movies, we travel in our own spiritual world and thus obtain the observation of our mind. This is the secret of movie healing.The development of high-tech film, especially the application of digital technology in film production, is the new trend of film technology development and the result of the concept change of the combination of science and art under the condition of post industrial revolution. In the digital technology era, the expansion of traditional film aesthetics can become a new means of psychological counseling and treatment, which has its unique advantages.

The Brutalist Architecture of Dune: Rule-breaking Designs for the Future

The grandeur and rawness in architecture can be traced to the brutalism style raised up in soviet kingdom before ward war II. It seems that the post-war coldness in such design’s associates with the setting of the Dune, leading to the pivotal climax: the Battle of Arrakeen. But why does Denis Villeneuve and Patrice Vermette, the director of production designer of Dune, choose to embrace brutalist architecture in the film? This paper will examine the legacy of brutalist architecture and its relationship to modern film aesthetics. This is because this paper wants to put off implication introduced by the Dune with its incorporation of such architecture, that is to fantasize a different style of modern architecture that adheres to the doctrine of the soviet architects from the past. in other words, to contemplate the potential of our society if the functionalist element didn't suppress the innovation of the soviet architects; if we are able to keep utilizing and developing the style of brutalism until now. Simultaneous, this paper intends to help recognize the limitations on today's architects and the potential for societal transformation that might result from giving them more freedom to create. Breaking convention is necessary if we are to go forward, even if the general public does not always find it appealing. Fortunately, many architects are starting to put this concept into practice and are reclaiming their creative independence in the field of architecture.