Feature Films Research Articles

Can't read my broker face?—Tracing a motif and metaphor of expert knowledge through audiovisual images of the financial crisis

AbstractBased on the question of the representability of economy and economics in audiovisual media, developments on the financial markets have often been discussed as a depiction problem. The abstractness and complexity of economic interrelations seem to defy classical modes of storytelling and dramatization. Nevertheless, public opinion about economic changes and dependencies crucially relies on audiovisual media. But how can the public communicate in images, sounds, and words about forces that are out of sight and out of reach, and can supposedly only be adequately grasped by experts? In a case study on audiovisual images of the global financial crisis (2007–), this paper tracks and analyzes a recurring motif: the staging of expert knowledge as close‐ups of expressive faces vis‐à‐vis computer screens in television news, documentaries, as well as feature films. It draws on the use of digital tools for corpus exploration (reverse image search) and the visualization of video annotations. By relating and comparing different staging strategies by which these “broker faces” become embodiments of turbulent market dynamics, the paper proposes to not regard them as repeated instantiations of the same metaphor, but as a developing web of cinematic metaphors. Different perspectives (news of market developments or historical accounts of crisis developments) and affective stances toward the global financial crisis are expressed in these variations of the face‐screen constellation. The paper thus presents a selection of different appearances of “broker faces” as a medium for an audiovisual discourse of the global financial crisis. A concluding analysis of a scene from Margin Call focuses on its specific intertwining of expert and screen as an ambivalent movement figuration of staging insight. Between the feeling of discovery (of a potential future threat) and the sense of being haunted (by a menacing force), the film stages the emergence of a “broker face” in an atmospheric tension between suspense and melancholy. We argue that the film thereby reframes the motif and poses questions of agency, temporality, and expert knowledge.

ЭТНОПОЭТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ ПЕРВОГО ИГРОВОГО ФИЛЬМА В РЕСПУБЛИКЕ АЛТАЙ

The article presents an analysis of the first feature film “The Path”, created in the Altai Republic. The stylistic searches of M. Kulunakov in recreating on the screen a visual picture of the life of the Altai people are revealed. The author of the study, highlighting some features of national cinema, examines the visual principles in the film “The Path”, its ethnic identity, and interprets the images of the characters. Based on the analysis of film language, the originality of the artistic and figurative embodiment of national identity is revealed.

Synaesthesia of Sergei Parajanov’s Works (a Director’s Musical and Artistic Consciousness)

The article focuses on the possibilities of examining the works of Soviet director Sergei Parajanov in the aspect of synaesthesia — a phenomenon studied by musical psychology, the re-expression of information received through one perceptual channel (such as, for instance, the visual) into information actualized through another channel (such as, for instance, the auditory). Making use of a methodology that incorporates biographical and comparative analysis, interpretation and intertextuality, the author aims at drawing the attention of synaesthesia analysts of different types of art towards Parajanov’s most representative works: the feature films The Flower on the Stone, The Color of Pomegranates, Shadows of the Forgotten Ancestors, The Legend of the Suram Fortress, and Ashik Kerib. The system of argumentation of the article is founded on statements by of the director himself as well as materials presented in, Kora Tsereteli’s monographic study, Parajanov’s scripts for feature and documentary films that have never been released (Miracle in Odense based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, Intermezzo based on the short story of the same name by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Pectoral, and The Demon based on Mikhail Lermontov’s poem), as well as the libretto for the unrealized ballet The Mother. The author’s special focus is on Parajanov’s short story Swan Lake and the film with the same name by Yuri Ilyenko, based on it. A comparative analysis of the verbal source and its film adaptation reveals how the creators work with the dominant colors — white and black — for both the story and the film. The author of the present study discerns in these particular objects of verbal discourse and screen art a kind of reverberation of the ballet Swan Lake by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

Women Breaking into the South Korean Film World: A Study of Female Filmmakers in the 1990s

In the 1990s, four women made their debut as film directors in South Korea. Considering that there were only five female directors from the beginning of Korean film history in 1919 until the 1980s, their debut was a remarkable phenomenon. This change was due to the structural innovation of the South Korean film field that began in the mid-1980s. With the collapse of the apprenticeship system, networks of cinephiles such as the Munhwawon sedae functioned as a new source of relational capital. In order to deepen our understanding of the emergence of the celluloid ceiling in South Korea, this study focuses on the experiences of three women filmmakers who made their first feature films in the 1990s: Yim Soon-rye, Lee Jeong-hyang, and Byun Young-Joo. Compared to male directors who had equivalent cultural and academic capital, and who entered the field during the same period, these women directors were unable to acquire sufficient relational capital to promote their careers as directors. It was the authorities of the field, such as film festivals and the media, that acknowledged them and established their reputations, allowing them to release their first films in the South Korean cinematic field. In other words, even in the new system, women remained excluded from the benefits of relational capital in the South Korean cinematic field, and they could only find their place as directors by demonstrating exceptional individual abilities.

Эффективность использования различных средств визуализации в зависимости от стиля мыш-ления студентов

Abstract. The active development of the scientific world leads to an increase in the amount of neces-sary information for the successful study of any disciplines. New innovative technologies aimed at more effective use of individual characteristics of students are required for a better implementation of pedagogical activities. In this research, as one of the individual characteristics of students we consider students’ thinking styles according to A. Harrison and R. Bramson classification. Based on the presented thinking styles, we analyze effectiveness of using visualizing learning tools, namely: presentations, excerpts from feature films or documentaries, materials from video hosting sites and graphs. We analyze results obtained in the study of students’ perception of two groups of information through visualization, depending on their thinking style. The obtained results are applicable in pedagogical practice as an auxiliary tool, especially when teaching groups of up to 20 people or for more effective use of several visualization tools in groups of any size, taking into account the existing ratio of students with different styles of thinking, regardless of the group size.

Кельтская триада: кинематографии британских национальных меньшинств и «внутренний колониализм»

The global success, both in viewership and expert community, of auteur feature films Belfast, directed by Kenneth Branagh, and The Banshees of Inisherin, directed by Martin McDonagh, and produced by independent Northern Irish companies in 2022–2023, prompts a closer examination of the challenges faced by the national minority cinemas of Great Britain. Specifically, we focus on the culturally and linguistically related regions of Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, collectively referred to in this article as the Celtic Triad, which represent a significant presence in the world cinema landscape. A number of British film historians and sociologists argue that national film industries are on the verge of survival, highlighting two main trends in the context of national cinema: inclusivity and sovereignty. From the perspective of the dominant ethnic group and its major production companies, inclusivity entails assimilation into the mainstream, while sovereignty involves preserving distinct national cultural characteristics. The representatives of national minorities are striving to safeguard these characteristics in the face of what American sociologist Michael Hechter termed internal colonialism—a policy implemented by the dominant Anglo-Saxon ethnic group towards cultures of national minorities and expressed in their marginalization and Anglification. A negative consequence of these dynamics, according to Hechter, is ethnocentrism, that is, the prevalence of one’s own culture in shaping perceptions of the world. Nevertheless, as this article demonstrates, the strategies employed by the Celtic Triad in pursuit of economic independence and artistic self-determination not only ensure the survival of national cinema but also establish its distinct sovereignty and success beyond the borders of Great Britain. Television broadcasting in national languages, which has gained popularity with the advent of digital broadcasting, plays a significant role in this process. An important contributing factor here is the economic and socio-cultural collaborations of these cinemas with both domestic and international partners, relying primarily on the influence of soft power and implying adaptation not only by adjusting to them, but also by active interchange and cross-fertilization of cultures.

Образ героя в сучасному українському кінематографі. Інтерв'ю з Дмитром Сухолитким-Собчуком

His feature film debut was Pamphyr (2022), which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was nominated for the EFA Prize for Best First Feature and won more than 30 awards at over 70 festivals. His short films have been selected for the most prestigious festivals, including Sundance Film Festival, DOC NYC, IDFA, Toronto International Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films and others. He is a member of the Ukrainian (since 2017) and European (since 2018) film academies, the founder and organiser of the Terrarium screenwriting platform.

Влияние современного язычества и экофеминизма на женские образы в российском игровом кино

This paper displays the results of a system-typological and structural-semiotic analysis of female pagan images in Russian feature films, shown in interrelations with religious movements and ideological trends of modern culture. The relevance of this research is determined by the need of ensuring the ideological security and sociopsychological well-being of modern society. The research was conducted on the material of mystical series, folk horror, ethnographic cinema, and historical fantasy. The study highlights static and dynamic types of female pagan images. The static type exists in two contexts: rural and urban, and the dynamic type develops in two directions: progressive and regressive. The paper detects connection of the victim's motif, which characterizes dynamic female images, with gender and postcolonial issues. Comparison of the ways of representation of female pagan images, discourses of modern paganism and ecofeminism allowed us to conclude about the mutual influence of these three discursive systems. The connection of the system of female images with the modern processes of the revival of paganism follows the pattern of isomorphism. The study shows that Russian cinema has experienced the influence of Western ecofeminism, yet the relationship of the sexes here does not have the character of an open confrontation. The author focuses in this case on the new role and gender identity of women, which is best expressed by the static heroines of mystical series and historical fantasy.

СЮЖЕТНЫЙ АНАЛИЗ ОБРАЗА СЕМЬИ И СЕМЕЙНОГО ВОСПИТАНИЯ В ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОМ ИГРОВОМ КИНЕМАТОГРАФЕ (1920-2020) В КОНТЕКСТЕ МЕДИАОБРАЗОВАНИЯ

The article contains a plot analysis of the film image of the family and family education in Russian feature films (1920-2020). The thematic variety of plots is associated with the representation of family and family education. It includes such traditional topics as intergenerational conflict (the problem of “fathers and sons”), the preservation of family values in the light of their historical transformation in the lives of several family generations, challenges of young families and their relationships with representatives of the older generation, the film image of adoptive parents and the problems of adopted children, social orphanhood and homelessness, hardships of large families, loss of family members, family reunions, the film image of a happy family. Further analysis of the transformation of the theme of family and family education in Russian audiovisual texts remains relevant both in cultural and media education aspects.

Ghost in the Shell as a Cyberpunk Rhapsody

The article proposes a reading of one of the constituent aspects of the feature film Ghost in the Shell (2017), its plot, as a compendium of influences of what is usually considered to belong to the science fiction genre. According to the reading, the movie presents ideas and an aesthetics that points to the newest trends of science fiction, such as cyberpunk, suggesting passages of many previous films, something that can help draw the constitutive master lines of the plot as similar to the concept of rhapsody, an old, if not ancestral concept. In an attempt to understand this pendulum-like movement that presents the new but is made up of the past, one of the canons of Western literature of all times was sought as the theoretical support for an attempt to explore this old facet in a futuristic film. From this point of view, concepts such as mimesis and emulation were used in this approach to the filmographic version of the homonymous manga published in Japan in 1982, a film that presents itself as a challenging puzzle whose resolution finds, in this article, a beginning and also an incentive for future studies.

“And you think you’re so clever and classless and free” : Television and the working class in British films (1959-2021)

Many British feature films have presented a rather critical view of television since its development, especially when related to the representation of the working class, because of its ambivalent ideological damage. Since 1959, television has thus often been presented as both a tool to depoliticise and indoctrinate its audience. Yet, over the decades, the representation of television and its impact on British working-class households has morphed and become more nuanced as the medium went mainstream. By the late 1960s, television was less of a vehicle for the directors’ and their heroes’ misogyny and fear of “dumbing down” through advertising and consumerism. Instead, it was associated with more positive aspects of working-class culture and family entertainment. But the advent of real TV shows has proved to be the latest development in the class opposition that has always underlain the representation of television in British films. The irony being that television in films was initially criticised for its potentially damaging classlessness yet it has always remained a channel for cinema to express its class-related bias. Because whether British cinema looks at how the working class watches television or at how television shows the working class, the representation mostly results from one class (the upper-middle class) watching another.

Satyajit Ray: A Film Director and Filmmaker.

Satyajit Ray is well known as one of the greatest film directors or filmmakers in the world. He directed thirty-six movies, of which there are twenty-nine feature films, five documentary films, and two short films. He was inspired by a Hollywood film named ’Bicycle Thieves', also known as ‘The Bicycle Thief', directed by Italian film director Vittorio de Cica during his trip to London. Returning to India, Ray made his ultimate decision to make his first film, ‘Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) (1995). He became famous for his three films, ‘Pather Panchali(1995), ‘ 'Aparajito' (1956), ‘Apur pur Sangsar' ( also known as the Apu Trilogy. The Apu Trilogy is one of his masterpieces. This paper aims to bring up Satyajit Ray’s contribution and his reflections on the Indian film industry.

Quer Ver Como Montar um Jogo de Cena na Pesquisa Educacional? Escuta!

ABSTRACT 1In this essay, I explored connections between Eduardo Coutinho’s documentary feature film ‘Playing’ (Jogo de Cena) and a type of academic-scientific research carried out in the Brazilian educational field. Faced with the paradoxical game where in order to see one needs to listen and in order to listen one needs to see, I outlined the following working argument: by oscillating between memory and documents, the documentarist’s procedural gesture includes archives and frictionizes the ways of carrying out a type of research in education, especially the research based on archival material, presenting possible assemblies of the enunciative perimeters of contemporary educational research.

ARTISTIC HYPERPLANE. GIOVANNI ARPINO – DINO RISI, NARTIN BREST – GIOVANNI ARPINO

The article considers current cultural problematics – connections and interrelationships in the field of “literature and cinematography”. The importance of literary works as one of the foundations of the activity of modern cinematographers is emphasized. The significance of successful feature (artistic) cinema for raising the status of individual literary texts is identified. The article singles out the figure of the Italian writer and journalist Giovanni Arpino, provides a brief outline of his life and work, and emphasizes the diversity of his literary interests. Of special interest in the context of the research is the fact that prose works of Giovanni Arpino were repeatedly addressed by film directors and that feature films based on his works oftentimes turned into cultural events on a European and worldwide scale. The article pays special attention to Giovanni Arpino’s novel “Darkness and. Honey” (“Il buio e il miele”), which at the time of its publication in 1969 did not receive the same recognition as a number of his earlier prose works. The characteristics of the main plot and psychological properties of the novel “Darkness and Honey” are presented. The research points out the eloquent fact that the novel in question aroused wide social interest after first the Italian director Dino Risi staged a psychological story called “Profumo di donna”, and then the Hollywood director Martin Brest staged a psychological thriller “Scent of a Woman”. The compositional and conceptual features of each of these films are analyzed in detail, while the gender specificity realized in the films “Profumo di donna” and “Scent of a Woman” is identified. The article justifies the conclusion that the plane of “literature and cinematography” can be transformed into the hyperplane of “literature – cinematography – literature”.

Powidoki twórczości Federica Felliniego w "Mieście Snu" Krystiana Lupy

Afterimages of Federico Fellini’s Works in Krystian Lupa’s The City of Dream The main purpose of this article is to analyze Krystian Lupa’s production The City of Dream (TR Warsaw, 2012), based on the novel The Other Side by Alfred Kubin, relative to the work of Federico Fellini. The Polish director, who very often refers to the medium of film in his theatre productions, this time turned to the work of Federico Fellini. One of the themes of the play is the process of making a fictional documentary film by the Italian director. Lupa refers to Fellini’s work by stylizing some scenes from his films. He “borrows” characters from the filmmaker’s motion pictures and the Italian’s biography. He also adapts scenes from Fellini’s feature films and commercials. The purpose of the text is to highlight, analyze, and interpret the intertextual references found in the play.

상업영화 공동제작 네트워크 내재성(Network Embeddedness)과 흥행 성과 간 역 U자형 관계 탐구

In this study, we analyze the impact of embeddedness in co-production networks within the film industry on the commercial success of movies. We aim to determine whether the success in the popular culture industry, particularly in the film industry, is attributable to the network characteristics of suppliers. To this end, drawing on insights from network theory and related prior research, we propose a set of hypotheses regarding the relationship between the structural embeddedness within the network among film production companies and their box office performance. To test these arguments, we collected detailed information on feature films shown in US box offices from IMDB, resulting in a dataset of 2,752 movies for analysis. We utilized network constraint as an indicator of network embeddedness, Employing OLS regression analysis, we confirmed an inverted U-shaped relationship between network constraint and box office revenue, as hypothesized. However, we also found that this relationship varies depending on the characteristics of the movie. In the case of movies with high artistic quality, multiple genres, or large production budgets, we observed a mitigation in the pattern of the inverted U-shaped relationship. The results of our study indicate that while network embeddedness at a moderate level provides movie production companies with ease of access to resources and information, excessive embeddedness can hinder creative diversity and innovation. Our research offers valuable insights, emphasizing the importance of maintaining balance and diversity in supplier networks for the healthy development and sustainability of the cultural and arts industry.

Tarantino’s eloquent villains

Abstract Suspense as an aesthetic effect is a key narrative strategy of thriller movies, serving the function of entertainment for wide audiences. As the plot unfolds, arcs of suspense rely on triggering an appealing sense of anticipation that calls for a resolution. The present study examines the creation of suspense throughout fictional dialogue in Quentin Tarantino’s popular feature films Pulp Fiction (1994), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and Django Unchained (2012). In these movies, dialogic interaction is often dominated by eloquent villains who skilfully flout the conversational maxims of Grice’s cooperative principle, thereby exercising verbal power over other interlocutors. As is demonstrated in a qualitative pragma-stylistic framework, the villains’ discursive strategies amount to stylistic deviation resulting in suspenseful implicatures. In particular, suspense is commonly caused by digressing from current topics, by giving too little information or too many details, by being insincere or ironic, and by making equivocal or redundant statements.

Atminties politika ekrane: istorinės traumos estetika filme „Izaokas“ (Isaac) (2019)

This article analyses the Lithuanian feature film Izaokas (Isaac, 2018) as an expression of memory activism. The film actualised heated debates on a national level over the role of ordinary Lithuanians in the Holocaust and collaboration with Nazi Germany, in spite of the fact that the filmmakers did not intend to engage in historical debates. Nonetheless, by generating an immersive experience and engaging viewers at the level of affect, the film effectively engages in polemics with public narratives of the Second World War.

Visual Interpretation of Film Translation

Which references are considered necessary for understanding and empathy in visual interpretation of translated feature films? This is the starting point for this article on audiovisual translation and visual interpretation. Visual interpretation is a scientifically relatively unexplored field of research that can be linked to both cognitive science, semiotics, and audiovisual translation. Just over a decade ago, there was little or no research into visual interpretation in Sweden or the Nordic countries. The first Swedish research initiatives started in the form of workshops in sight interpretation organized by Jana Holsanova, Mats Andrén and Cecilia Wadensjö (2010-2014) and resulted in a report on sight interpretation (Holsanova et al. 2016). The task of the visual interpreter is to select and describe relevant information such as events, environments, people, characters and their appearance, facial expressions, gestures, and body movements in television programs, cinema, or theater performances by giving verbal descriptions of visual scenes to evoke vivid mental images and audience empathy. Visual interpretation should contribute to our understanding and convey impressions and mood. It is a so-called intermodal translation, because the visual interpreter transfers content from image to words (Jakobson 1959; Reviers 2017). Through the language, those who listen should be able to follow along in the action. But they should not only know what is happening, but also be able to laugh at the same time as everyone else, understand why a certain sound occurs when it is heard and know who is doing what. It is thus about a completion of what is missing in the multimodal interaction (Holsanova 2020: 4). According to professional visual interpreters, the aim is to use a neutral voice to be clear, concise, and descriptive, so that the target group can imagine what something looks like with the help of internal images. In today’s rapid technological development, we also want to reflect on the opportunities and challenges of automated visual interpretation and translation, using ChatGPT.

Обучение иностранных студентов пересказу на основе кинотекста (в аспекте русского языка как иностранного)

The aim of the study is to substantiate the need and possibility of using the method of retelling film texts in one’s own words as one of the means of mastering oral monologue speech in the practical course of Russian as a foreign language at an advanced stage of training. The paper provides rationale for using the method of retelling based on authentic feature films, describes the content of teaching retelling by considering all its components, presents a set of practical tasks aimed at developing the skills and abilities of processing the original text by reduction, simplification and expansion. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the following: it is the first time that the content of teaching foreign students how to retell based on film texts in the Russian language course has been clarified, the specifics of interpreting linguistic and non-linguistic components of the film text in secondary oral text production has been revealed, which made it possible to develop a set of exercises aimed at forming the speech skills and abilities necessary for the construction of a narrative-descriptive monologue. As a result of the study, it was found that teaching retelling based on films is directly linked to the work on reconstructing a text perceived by ear taking into account the presented paralinguistic information and the formation of the corresponding skills of organizing the content and choosing linguistic means of narration/description, namely, the skills of conveying the statements said by other people and using text compression means.