Cinema Screen Research Articles

Michelangelo Antonioni’s tetralogy of alienation on cinema screens in the People’s Republic of Poland: A study of the critical reception

The People’s Republic of Poland, an undemocratic state that existed from 1947 to 1989, was politically dependent on the Soviet Union. It relied on its cultural policy of heavily rationing access to products made in capitalist countries; few exceptions were made to this policy, but of them, Italian director and filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni’s filmography was one of the most important, even though not all of his films were released to the Polish public until 1989. This article focuses on the critical reception of Michelangelo Antonioni’s ‘tetralogy of alienation’ in the People’s Republic of Poland during the 1960s and 1970s. Antonioni’s tetralogy comprises L’avventura (The Adventure), La notte (The Night), L’eclisse (The Eclipse) and Deserto Rosso (Red Desert). In this article, I examine how Polish critics grappled with the differences between the cinematic world depicted in these films and the realities of the ‘people’s democracy’ in Poland. I focus on the cultural reception of these films, utilizing reviews published in film magazines, cultural magazines and the daily press from the period.

Film review: All Of Us Strangers

The film All Of Us Strangers hit our cinema screens in January 2024, and made an instant big impact on the public and critics winning multiple awards. On the surface, it is the story of a gay screenwriter who begins to face the grief of the loss of his parents through writing. He recently moved in a new, empty building. He met the other occupant in the building, and embarked on an intimate relationship together. This film is much more than the surface description above. It is not what it seems at first glance. It is not only a love story or a grief story, it is actually a film that shows the deeper layers of the inner world of many gay men through symbolic representations.

Startegic Decision Making to Enhance Film Distribution Channel and Minimize Lack of Cinema Screen Problem in Indonesia

Startegic Decision Making to Enhance Film Distribution Channel and Minimize Lack of Cinema Screen Problem in Indonesia

«Отелло» Орсона Уэллса и Сергея Юткевича: интерпретации трагедии мавра в США и СССР

The following article examines the characteristics of two film adaptations of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello shot by Orson Welles in 1951 and Sergei Yutkevich in 1955. The article analyzes the sociopolitical and historical context of the period in which both interpretations of Shakespeare’s tragedy were filmed, as well as its influence on Welles’ and Yutkevich’s direction: their methods of adapting the original text for the cinema screen, working with actors and creating an artistic world of their adaptations. For both directors, Othello became a film summarizing their careers, views, and ideas about creative and human freedom. Both adaptations of the tragedy reflected the years of searching, toiling and persecution that Welles and Yutkevich went through, one in the USA, and the other in the USSR. The goal of this article is to show how directors with similar creative biographies, interpreted the same text to create two fundamentally opposite worlds of ideas, images and characters; how they engaged all the artistic means available for them to express through this work of their beloved author their own ideas of justice, society, choice, love, faith and freedom.

Elasticity of Investment Financing Policy towards the Growth of Film Distribution Networks as an Effort to Redesign the Film Industry

This research aims to analyze the influence of investment financing policies on the growth of film distribution networks. Investment financing policy is seen from the aspect of setting investment credit interest rates in banking. Meanwhile, the growth of the film distribution network can be seen from the aspect of the number of cinema screens in Indonesia. This research uses several variables, such as: Investment Credit Interest Rates at Bank Persero, Regional Development Banks, National Private Banks and Foreign and Joint Venture Banks. The time range used in this research is from 2014 – 2022. This research uses quantitative methods using multiple linear regression. The explanation of the analysis results uses Keynes and Schumpeter’s theoretical approach. Based on the results of data analysis, it was concluded that the investment credit interest rate variable had a significant negative effect on the variable number of cinema screens, especially on the National Private Bank Investment Credit Interest Rate. The results of the coefficient of determination (adjusted R2) show that the influence of the number of cinema screens is 0.9492175. The higher the interest rate on investment credit, the lower the number of cinema screens.

American Neocolonialism on the Soviet Cinema Screen (Based on Films About Latin America)

Introduction. The scientific relevance of the topic is due to the fact that the concepts of colonialism and neocolonialism are currently becoming part of the official Russian political discourse. The article examines how film representations of the struggle against American neocolonialism in Latin America are used to create the image of the American enemy in the context of the Cold War, which determines the novelty of this work. Methods and materials. The article is based on Soviet features and documentary films about Latin America. Analysis and results. The author comes to the following conclusions: images of neocolonial exploitation of Latin America contributed to the creation of the image of the American enemy, endowing it with such features as immorality, greed, cruelty, and contempt for the population of the Third World. In addition, the images of Latin America and the struggle of its population against neocolonialism were used in the politics of Soviet identity. A demonstration of solidarity with the people of Latin America maintained the image of the USSR as the leader of the liberation struggle against (neo)colonialism. The struggle against pro-American governments in Latin America acquired legitimacy through images of the plight of the countries ruled by powers accomplishing American neocolonialism. Films about the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions served to predict victory over neocolonialism in the region in particular and the American enemy in the Cold War in general.

Photography and non-fiction pre-revolutionary cinema

The purpose of this work is to identify the essence of cinema in the process of its formation in the pre–revolutionary period of time in comparison with its predecessor - photography. The author examines in detail the main properties of photography and the main properties of cinema, which do not coincide with each other, as well as their functioning in pre-revolutionary Russian society. The use of photography in mass illustrated magazines of that time is analyzed. Attention is paid to the formation of the properties of cinema at an early stage, when the audience of the first illusions was still mastering the perception of a new spectacle, which at the same time led to mastering the ability to read the language of screen reality. It is emphasized that mass cinema, in fact, used and developed the techniques of mass illustrated magazines. The special properties of cinematography related to the qualities of photogeny are also considered. The available documents on the functioning of the first cinemas are being studied. The issue of the emergence of the alienation effect in application to pre-revolutionary cinema, which leads to the mythologization of screen images, is discussed. The questions posed are studied on the basis of the art historical research method using the historical analysis of the available facts. What is new in this work is that the studied properties of photography and cinematography at an early stage allow us to develop the results obtained on the process of using archival photo and film documents in the modern cinematographic process. On the basis of the conducted research, it was found that cinematography, in comparison with photography, has the property of serving to identify the lost historical reality with giving the on-screen reality the qualities of myth, since there are no reliable verification techniques for visual paintings on the cinema screen. Photography reproduces mirrored pictures of existence with a demonstration of the smallest details and details, but cinema overshadows it due to its inherent photogeny, which does not have adequate verbal descriptions. Cinematic photogeny helps to reproduce the breath of life itself on the screen. In the course of the work, the empirical properties of photography and cinematography were studied with the disclosure of certain important historical circumstances that help to better understand their functioning in society.The results obtained contribute to a better understanding and decoding of pre-revolutionary film documents.

Screen vision of a public funeral ritual before and after the revolution

The subject of research in this work is the so-called "funeral" documentaries, the creation of which was initiated before the revolution. At all times, they carried an important informational and semantic load. They fixed the authority of the deceased in the eyes of the mass public. There were public and private funerals. The ritual was canonical in nature, which was first resonantly violated during the funeral of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, as evidenced by the preserved films. The article examines the features and modification of "funeral" films over time. They underwent a radical transformation with the advent of modern times after the February revolution of 1917 and the Bolsheviks came to power. A new funeral ritual with its own peculiarities and new meanings has been established on the cinema screen. The methodological basis of the research is a system analysis. The work used a cultural-historical method and an art historical analysis of preserved films and film materials. The novelty of this study is due to the fact that it has now become possible to use not only the most general impressions in the analysis, but to take a closer look and describe in sufficient detail the films and film documents being studied. This allows you to avoid annoying mistakes and inaccuracies in understanding and interpreting what you see. And it also reinforces the role of visual evidence in understanding history. This article is devoted to an overview of how the paradigm of the funeral ritual vision has changed since pre-revolutionary times during the transition to a new world after the 1917 revolution, as well as to the identification of meanings. Her conclusions are connected with a fundamental change in the main idea of the funeral ceremony – from saying goodbye to the deceased before sending him on a long journey, a transition was made to the idea of sacrifice and swearing an oath to continue the struggle for a bright future. The results of the research can be useful to professional documentary filmmakers, archivists and can be used in practical work and in training courses.

Values and symbolization of success in modern cinema

The subject of the study is the figurative and symbolic reflection and transformation of the dynamic reality of life in the cinematic space of modern culture. The purpose of the work is to identify and substantiate trends in the development of cinematographic cultural texts based on the figurative and symbolic representation of the phenomenon of success in the existential space of human existence. The scientific novelty of the work is represented by the evidence base of the study, which determines the figurative correspondence of the philosophical and sociological representation of cinematic texts to the phenomenon of success as a value-symbolic aspect of personal activity. Based on the analysis of cinema screen products created at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries and devoted to the characterization of the image of a subject whose existential level of being is characterized in the symbols of success/ failure, several trends in the development of cinematic culture can be identified. Firstly, the characteristic of the "sunset" of the previously dominant ideological trend of symbolization of the actual phenomenology of success. Secondly, the stage of axiological instability and ambivalence in the evaluation of the symbols of success, unevenly implemented in the scenario and staging part. And, thirdly, the formation and consolidation of new cinematic paradigms through the constant convergence of private symbols of success, manifested in different ways both in reality and on the cinema screen, and accompanied by constant attempts at their non-contextual universalization.

POLITICIDADES ESTÉTICAS: O CINEMA DISTÓPICO NO BRASIL DA ASCENSÃO EVANGÉLICA

Assuming the cinema as a field of symptoms, this study aims to investigate and analyze how the intersection between 'politics' and 'religion' is presented through a dystopian aesthetic adopted in the following Brazilian films: Branco Sai, Preto Fica, directed by Adirley Queirós, released in 2015 after Dilma Rousseff's troubled presidential re-election in 2014; and Divino Amor, released by Gabriel Mascaro in 2019, the year in which Jair Bolsonaro assumed the presidency of the country. Thus, starting from the premises of French semiotics, it is observed how the reffered aesthetic strategies in the films establish communicational links that provide the audience the opportunity to recognize a specific Brazil on the cinema screen.

Obraz służb mundurowych w kinie PRL (1968–1990)

The article discusses film motifs focused on the image of a militiaman, a Security Service agent, a prison guard, a soldier, a border guard, and a fireman in Polish television and cinema films. In order to capture the image of the uniformed services of the Polish People’s Republic as broadly as possible, all such motifs available to the Polish viewer were analyzed, but film genres were not distinguished as a separate criterion. In a chronological sense, the author focuses on films shot after March ’68, only mentioning earlier ones. This caesura seems important because after the brutal actions of the Citizens’ Militia against Polish intellectuals in March 1968 and the intervention of the Armed Forces of the Polish People’s Republic in Czechoslovakia in August of that year, the party and state authorities wanted to influence a positive image of the uniformed services among Polish society. The chronological framework ends in 1990 – the last year when it comes to the cinema screens of works shot in the People’s Republic of Poland. The image of uniformed services that emerges from the analysis is multicolored and multifaceted. Certainly, a common feature is the portrayal of Poles wearing uniforms as punitive, disciplined, and humble towards the authorities. There are many more differences. It is basic to distinguish between rank-and-file officers or soldiers and officers. The former are often not very intelligent and are often ridiculed, especially the militiamen. Officers are often portrayed in an exemplary manner, as intelligent men with a high level of personal culture. Both of them have courage. The image of a militiaman was presented most fully, while the image of a customs officer, a border guard, and a fireman was presented least well.

Interpretation of a Literary Text in the Cinema: V.S. Rozov's Play “Forever Alive” and M.K. Kalatozov's Film “Cranes Are Flying”

The article explores film screening as a special form of literary text. Within the framework of the study, the concept of cinema screening, its classification and features of types, “strengths” and “weaknesses” of this format are considered. The problems arising during the transfer of literary works of art to the cinema screen are also characterized, which are the subject of controversy at the present time. The study of these issues is carried out not only in theory, but also in practice, which is presented in the form of a comparison of V.S. Rozov's play "Forever Alive" (1943) and the movie M. K. Kalatozova “Cranes are Flying” (1957). In addition to identifying the differences between the original literary work and its transfer to the language of cinema, expressed in deviation from following the literary fiction text, added episodes and expansion and reduction of individual storylines of the original, the creative task is determined, and how exactly it was achieved. The main research methods: analysis of scientific literature on the subject of the study, used for a detailed examination of film screening as a special form of literary text, analysis of critical studies, biographical literature, archival documents, as well as comparative analysis (they were used when comparing the original literary text (V.S. Rozov's play “Forever Alive”) and its film adaptations (M.K. Kalatozov's film “Cranes are Flying”)). As a result of the conducted comparative analysis, a conclusion is drawn that contains answers to the questions: which type of film adaptations does this film belong to, what is it expressed in, and also the reasons that led to this result are revealed.

Hegemonic Femininity: Negotiating the Stereotypes of Gender in the Indian Movies Fire (1996) and Shakuntala Devi (2020)

Bollywood, or the mainstream Indian Cinema, has been presenting the idealised image of male characters as machismo or super-hero, revered and emulated by all, while simultaneously demoting women to trivial or insignificant roles. However, during the last two decades, celluloid developed new experiments projecting its female characters as redefining and reconstructing the stereotypes redundantly dominating the silver screen. In this article, I propose to explore femininity through the lens of hegemony in opposition to the emphasised femininity of Connell and alignment with Mimi Schippers and Carrie Paechter’s understanding of hegemonic femininity by looking at its depiction on the panoptic silver screen of Indian cinema. The article will reconnoitre, discuss and compare the femininity of the female protagonists in the select Indian movies Fire (1996) and Shakuntala Devi (2020) and will analyse how there is a scope and space for the discourse on hegemonic femininity portrayed as having significant overlap with hegemonic masculinity instead of standing in diametrical opposition. The article will also analyse the construction of hegemonic femininity to hegemonic masculinity and other forms of femininity, fidgeting with the reality of weaving the prospects and probability of surviving the lead roles while continuing to nurture and maintain the traditional hierarchy of gender binary. The meticulous perusal would keenly try precipitating the truth or the repercussions of the role portrayal of women leads in the Indian Cinema—whether these female leads are concomitantly deconstructing the gendered stereotypes associated with male/female binary or operating in tandem with hegemonic masculinity to safeguard a still patriarchal and binary gender order.

Western Cinematography on the Pages of the Soviet Cinema Screen Magazine: 1939–1941

Western Cinematography on the Pages of the Soviet Cinema Screen Magazine: 1939–1941

Interpretation of a Literary Text in Cinema: V.O. Bogomolov's Novel “Ivan” and A.A. Tarkovsky's Film “Ivanovo Childhood”

The article explores film screening as a special form of literary text. Within the framework of the study, the concept of cinema screening, its classification and features of types, strengths and weaknesses of this format are considered. The problems arising during the transfer of literary works of art to the cinema screen are also characterized, around which discussions do not stop to this day. The study of these issues is carried out not only in theory, but also in practice, which is presented in the form of a comparison of V.O. Bogomolov's novel "Ivan" (1957) and the film A.A. Tarkovsky's Ivanovo Childhood (1962). In addition to identifying the differences between the original literary work and its transfer to the language of cinema, expressed in deviation from following the literary artistic text, changing individual scenes, added episodes and expanding some storylines of the original literary work, the creative task set by the director is determined, and how exactly it was achieved. The main research methods are the analysis of scientific literature on the research topic (used for a detailed examination of cinema screening as a special form of literary text) and comparative analysis (used when comparing the original literary text (V.O. Bogomolov's novel Ivan) and its film adaptation (A.A. Tarkovsky's film Ivanovo Childhood)). Because of the comparative analysis, a conclusion is drawn that contains answers to the questions: which of the types of film adaptations does this film belong to, as it is expressed in the film, and the reasons that led to this result are revealed.

Debunking anti-Chinese stereotypes in Italy: intersectional perspectives and intermedial aesthetics in Sergio Basso’s Giallo a Milano (2009)1

ABSTRACT In this essay I analyse Sergio Basso’s documentary Giallo a Milano (Made in Chinatown, 2009), which took part in a wide-ranging media debate following the April 2007 protest of the Chinese community in Via Paolo Sarpi in Milan. In particular, my focus is on the various intermedial strategies employed within it, which, on the one hand, offer an extremely multifaceted and aesthetically sophisticated counter-narrative of its subject and, on the other, allow to debunk many of the stereotypes circulating about the Chinese in dominant mass media and popular discourse, powerfully bringing to light a series of portraits of migrant and post-migrant subjectivities in contemporary Italy, in which the complex intertwining of their identities of ethnicity and race, gender, social class and sexual orientation are constructed and performed on the cinema screen.

Film exhibition for indigenous people in Soviet Siberia: ‘cinema-coming’ and political enlightenment in the red yurt

ABSTRACT How can we get insights into early Soviet cinema screenings for indigenous audiences in the Siberian taiga at the end of the 1920s? Preserved by the Grodekov Khabarovsk Regional Museum (Russia), the recently published diaries of Alexandra Putintseva, a cultural worker posted at the ‘Far Eastern red yurt’ from 1929 to 1932, are a valuable source to investigate the issue. Putintseva’s diaries provide a wealth of information on movie screenings within these particular Soviet institutions, as well as their reception by indigenous audiences. They show that, far from the common colonial stereotype, indigenous audience was not astonished or frightened in front of the cinematic spectacle or apparatus. Furthermore, they also offer essential information on the immediate context within which these screenings took place, an issue of equal importance in understanding what cinema as a social practice meant for indigenous audiences. Performed in a multifunctional building aiming to radically change (‘modernise’) indigenous (‘traditional’) way of life, cinema was classified as political enlightenment work. As a result, for the indigenous audience, watching films was intimately intertwined with the new Bolshevik society and its modernising endeavour. Ultimately, the diaries illustrate what I have termed ‘cinema-coming’ (when the expected audience does not go to the cinema, cinema ‘comes’ to the audience), in which film exhibition was closely linked to state ideology and the formation of modern citizens.

“Beauty and the Beast”: Romance, Reform, and Mystery in the Films of Lon Chaney

“Beauty and the Beast”: Romance, Reform, and Mystery in the Films of Lon Chaney

Специфіка контенту рубрики «Весела сторінка» у журналі «Кіно» за 1928 рік

The article aims to determine the specifics of the content of the «Funny Page» column published in the «Kino» magazine for 1928. Methodology. Descriptive, systematic methods, methods of analysis, synthesis, statistical, and hermeneutic methods were used during the research. Using the descriptive method, the information necessary to cover the topic of the scientific article was recorded. The hermeneutic method made it possible to propose an interpretation of the analyzed texts. Thanks to the statistical method, the frequency of use of creolized texts and texts without creolization in the «Funny Page» section was found. Research results. In the magazine «Kino» for the year 1928, on the sixteenth page, the editors of the publication placed creolized texts (18 – 72 %): poetic sketches (6 – 24 %), illustrated poems (2 – 8 %), illustrated dialogues (3 – 12 %), cartoons (2 blocks in two issues – 8%), cartoons (1 – 4%), caricatures (1+1 block in two issues – 8%), bikt (bipolar creolized text – 1 – 4%), creolized game (1 – 4%). Conclusions. The specificity of the content of the «Funny Page» section in the magazine «Kino» for 1928 is the genre diversity of creolized texts and texts without creolization, the use of illustrations that correlate with the verbal part and sometimes significantly complement it, detailing the psychological states of the main characters, performing a character-building function, expressing extreme situations, reminiscent of the films shown, reveal the outlined problems more deeply. The texts posted in the «Funny Page» section raise the problem of the Soviet cinema screens being filled with militants, their negative impact on the viewer (loss of self-identification, the emergence of suicidal thoughts), the problem of filming a sensation with a risk to life, the script crisis, the problem of the moral degradation of people, in particular mental callousness, due to the pursuit of an interesting frame, the problem of movie mania, the unprofessionalism of film directors, actors, the fleetingness of cinematic fame, the problem of a superficial perception of the object of filming, low-quality film advertising, the problem of a low-quality film product. Keywords: creolized texts, «Kino» magazine, texts without creolization, illustrations, «Funny Page» section.

‘I Read My Dickens’: Agatha Christie’s Unproduced Film Adaptation of Bleak House

In May 1962 Agatha Christie completed a rough draft of a screenplay that adapted Charles Dickens’ novel Bleak House. The intention was that the film would be produced by MGM, which at the time was adapting Christie’s own works for the screen. This article looks at the surviving material related to the unrealised project and considers what it tells us about Agatha Christie and film adaptations. The previously unexplored surviving material includes correspondence and the film’s draft screenplays and film treatments, which all offer an insight into how Agatha Christie considered that a novel could be adapted for cinema screens. This is of particular interest because Christie did not write for the screen at any other point in her career, and was also sharply critical of most adaptations of her work. Therefore, this material gives an indication of how Christie felt adaptations should operate. This article looks at the context of the film project, Christie’s screenplay writing process, and finally the contents of the scripts.