Film Criticism Research Articles

The Eroticism of the Face: Covers of Film Periodicals Ekrano Naujienos and Kinas (1955–1986)

Summary Soviet cinema magazines covers played a crucial role in shaping the cinematic star system of the Soviet Union, yet their significance has been largely overlooked in academic discussions. This article examines the covers of two periodicals, Ekrano naujienos (News of the Screen) and Kinas (Cinema), published in Soviet Lithuania from 1955 to 1986, focusing specifically on covers featuring a single face. The analysis situates these covers within the broader context of the close-up of the face, which held a prominent position in Soviet cinema culture. Additionally, the article explores the unique context of eroticism associated with the face in Soviet cinema criticism. Quantitative analysis reveals that cover images featuring women’s faces would eventually emerge as the predominant image type on the covers of both Ekrano naujienos and Kinas. By employing qualitative analysis, which divides images into descriptive and narrative categories, the aesthetic evolution of these covers is investigated. In the first half of the period from 1955 to 1972, narrative images were more prevalent. However, in the second half of that time, descriptive photographs depicting the faces of actresses, particularly those that were eroticized, became more prevalent. On the contrary, cover pages followed a standardized logic and avoided visually explicit images during the Stagnation period. The establishment of a cinema star system in Soviet Lithuania and the tightening of the Soviet cinema system are factors that contributed to these aesthetic shifts.

Feminism, Capitalism, Death

This piece works as a critique of neoliberal feminist ideology through an analysis of Anna Melyikan’s 2007 film Mermaid. It begins with a close reading of several scenes in the film and how they operate as a criticism or representation of neoliberal post-Soviet existence. Alissa, the protagonist, is subjected to a series of events which shape her life as a post-Soviet woman—these events ultimately lead to her untimely death. The theme of labour, financially, domestically, and sexually, defines Alissa’s life in Moscow. I use a sociological study on Russian post-Soviet self-help literature written for women as the ideological lens to study the film, drawing connections between the events of the film and the real contents of several self-help books, which are analysed and critiqued by the article’s author. The film visualises a patriarchal double-bind where post-Soviet women are expected to be both patriarchally subordinate and independent economic subjects. This paradox is present in the self-help literature. The essay forges a connection between real-life feminist critique and film criticism, exploring how film criticism can be a vehicle for feminist thought. The essay also interrogates ideas of what a feminist text is and how the creation of a feminist text is an act of discursive meaning-making, a relationship to the viewer/reader as opposed to a definitive quality which takes shape during the text’s creation.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: Deconstruction of Female Identity

Abstract: Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a drama film directed by Cline Sciamma and starring Adle Haenel and Nomie Merlant. The film centers on the passionate love story between Heloise, a bride on the brink of marriage, and Marianne, the painter commissioned to create her portrait. This paper analyses the construction and deconstruction of female identity in Portrait of a Lady on Fire through the lenses of gaze theory and feminist identity theory. It begins by exploring Heloise's resistance to the objectifying male gaze, illustrated through her defiance against the passive model identity and her challenge to the myth of Orpheus, which traditionally casts women in powerlessness and rescue role. The paper then delves into the film's critique of the roles of wife and mother within the patriarchal, heteronormative family structure, drawing on Simone de Beauvoir's ideas in The Second Sex to further contextualize the film's feminist discourse. Through these analyses, the paper reveals how the film reimagines and challenges traditional female identities, offering a detailed and subtle portrayal of women's autonomy and identity.

Metamodernism as a Tester of New Creative Stimuli

The purpose of the research is to analyse metamodernism as a tester of new creative stimuli. The methodology of the research is based on general scientific research principles; terminological and systemic. The purpose and tasks of the publication determined the use of such research methods as analysis, synthesis, generalisation, which made it possible to clarify the meaning of a number of concepts and terms. Scientific novelty lies in the study of a new cultural phenomenon, namely metamodernism. Since a significant part of domestic cultural experts as well as art critics such as film critics, musicologists and specialists dealing with various genres of fine art ignored those works that appeared in the corresponding spheres of metamodernism. The first assessments of this cultural phenomenon start publishing only from 2015–2017. Their authors were mostly philosophers and estheticians, not representatives of cultural knowledge. Conclusions. In the field of Ukrainian humanities, cultural studies are developing quite actively and dynamically, constantly expanding the research area. We consider it necessary to develop the practice of adding the prefix "post" to stable concepts or categories, namely: postmodernity, postculture, postart, postmodernism. The problem of conceptual and categorical provision of cultural studies, meaning the practice of arguing new concepts, the introduction of which is connected with a specific author's surname, is attributed to their personal development, the ideas of which are supported by other specialists. Work in this direction is one of the most important theoretical perspectives of Ukrainian cultural studies.

Voir venir the New Wave: Plasticity in Jacques Rivette’s Film Criticism

This article shows that Jacques Rivette’s film criticism recalls the Hegelianism of Catherine Malabou’s formulation of plasticity in The Future of Hegel. Enlarging the scope of a previous article on Hegel’s influence on Rivette (Douglas Morrey’s “To Describe a Labyrinth”), and taking a cue from Rivette’s distinction between analytic and synthetic directors (the latter being those who work on the dialectical bond between contingency and necessity, accidents and essence, the conceptual and the sensuous and so forth), I argue that Rivette considered true auteurs only those directors capable of expressing through their films a specific kind of temporality (thus, by extension, of cinematic action) that is reminiscent of the self-dividing temporality which Malabou highlighted in her take on Hegel’s substance-subject (i.e. a temporality which already in Hegel’s own formulation subverted what Heidegger would later call, contra Hegel, “vulgar time”). This calls, among other things, for a revision of Rivette’s conception of mise-en-scène.

A linguist among cineastes: Roman Jakobson on the moving image

ABSTRACT The article presents a critical review of the texts on cinema and the moving image written by Roman Jakobson between 1921 and 1980, gathered under the following headings: sound film; Soviet cinema; semiotic approach; metonymy/metaphor; synchrony/diachrony; film criticism and film comparisons. It is concluded that for Jakobson the cinema, as a semiotic system, establishes a link between linguistics and poetics.

Cinematic Desire and Fantasy in Adolfo Bioy Casares’ La Invención De Morel (1940)

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the concepts of desire and fantasy, as understood by Lacanian theory, and their manifestation in cinema. In order to do so, it explores and discusses cinema’s influence over literature, focusing on how this relationship is reflected in the novel La Invención de Morel ([1940] 1953), written by Argentinian author Adolfo Bioy Casares. The analysis employs scholarship from film critics McGowan (2007), Metz (1982), Zizek (1989, 2006), Mulvey (1975, 1989), and others through the lens of Psychoanalytic Film Theory.

Biopics of Female Hollywood Stars Speak to #MeToo Era: The Case of Judy (2019) and Blonde (2022)

This article analyzes two recent biopics, Judy (2019, Rupert Goold) and Blonde (2022, Andrew Dominik), which reimagine the icons from the Hollywood Golden Era, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe respectively, under the prism of the #MeToo movement. By examining the way in which these movies treat abusive experiences within the film industry, along with their placement in the public arena, this paper exposes how contemporary biopics dedicated to female movie stars face the consequences of #MeToo in Hollywood. In terms of textual construction, both movies presumptively adopt a female perspective in portraying actresses’ experiences of exploitation –such as sexual harassment, eating disorders, substance abuse, and more– under a male-dominated Hollywood studio system. Meanwhile, directors’ articulated intentions, promotional campaigns, reviews, and film critiques seeking to convincingly place the films in the domain of public discussion around #MeToo. Despite this ‘feminist’ assumption, this article will argue that these movies, while appearing to confront and re-address injustices in Hollywood through revisiting the mythical narratives of well-known female stars, fail to challenge the melodramatic victimization plot familiar in traditional biopics about women. In doing so, it will explore how they reinforce a representation of the female Hollywood star after #MeToo as a mentally troubled woman struggling to survive in an exploitative film industry.

The Kino magazine and the parable of Ukrainian film criticism of the 1920s

ABSTRACT The article endeavours to uncover the lesser-known history of the Kino magazine, the principal professional film publication in Soviet Ukraine during the 1920s. As a companion to the All-Ukrainian Photo and Film Administration VUFKU, the magazine stands out as a unique emblem of Ukrainian socialist culture. It plays a crucial role in decentralising the dominant Russo-centric narratives of the era, offering valuable research sources that have been largely ignored in established film studies traditions.

Colonial Entanglements and Ecological Power: Spice Commodification in Dune Movie

This study examines the themes of colonial entanglement and ecological power in the film Dune (2021), focusing on the commodification of the spice "melange" on Arrakis. Using postcolonial ecocriticism and cultural studies frameworks, it explores how the film portrays environmental exploitation and the marginalization of the indigenous Fremen. The analysis reveals how colonial powers, like House Harkonnen and House Atreides, dehumanize and oppress the Fremen, ignoring their ecological knowledge and cultural significance. By drawing parallels to real-world colonial histories, the study highlights the film's critique of environmental degradation and cultural marginalization. It underscores the importance of recognizing indigenous knowledge and rights for sustainable and equitable resource management. This interdisciplinary approach provides insights into the ongoing relevance of colonial power dynamics and resource commodification in contemporary society.Keywords : Dune, Ecocriticism, Colonialism, Exploitation, Cultural Marginalization

Expressions of a backlash: Challenging the story of success in Norwegian cinema of the 1980s and 1990s

Abstract In this article, we ask if there was a backlash against film feminism in Norway in the 1980s. In Norwegian film history, this decade is known as “the helicopter period” and is associated with a turn towards commercial genre film and classical dramaturgy. This has usually been narrated as a success story for Norwegian cinema. It is, however, also a decade connected to a loss of position for the women directors who had gained a footing in Norwegian cinema in the 1970s. We thus question the idea of progress associated with this decade in film history and propose avenues of investigation. We explore the loss of position of female directors by looking at film reception and film criticism. We further present and discuss a numerical breakdown of women directors and female lead characters in the 1980s and 1990s and point to thematic readings of the on-screen portrayal of women characters in this time span. We find evidence of aggression towards women and a disappearance of women’s film and argue that this points to an anti-feminist pushback in Norwegian cinema of the 1980s and 1990s.

The Rivals? A Treatise on Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert’s Howard Stern Appearances and an Extended Commentary on Opposable Thumbs

In his book, Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever, Matt Singer provides readers with a thoughtful examination of the twenty-three-year collaboration of two of the most successful and widely known film critics ever to appear on television. As the author discusses, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert worked at rival newspapers—the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times—and they were fiercely competitive, even “mortal enemies” (3). They fought with each other to write the best reviews and land the biggest interviews. In 1975, this sense of competition became even more pronounced when Roger Ebert won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. One year later, however, the two newspaper journalists set aside their differences to argue the merits of current films face-to-face on a small screen pilot on WTTW, Chicago’s public television station.

A Survey of Tunde Kelani's Interpretations in the Adaptations of Akinwumi Isola's O Le ku (It is Complicated) and Yinka Egbokhare's Dazzling Mirage for the Screen.

Adaptation is an age long phenomenon in the arts. Life writings were adapted into novels and largely novels to plays. The trends continue to date. Adaptations are meant to artistically metamorphose a previous creative endeavour into a new one. An artistic work from one genre is transformed into another genre without losing sight of the thematic preoccupation of the source. Tunde Kelani adapted Akinwumi Isola's classic Yoruba Novel O le ku (It is Complicated) and Yinka Egbokhare's novel, Dazzling Mirage into films of the same titles, thus bringing the thesis of both works to a wider and heterogeneous audience. Despite the artistic and box office success of both films, and many essays on the film versions of the two novels, the extent of Tunde Kelani's fidelity to the thematic preoccupations and aesthetic considerations of the original works has not been academically interrogated. Therefore, this study examines the extent of Kelani's faithfulness to the ideology and aesthetic qualities of the original works. The primary data for the study depended on content analysis, structured interview and focused group discussion (FGD). Thus, the Akinwumi Isola's O le ku and Yinka Egbokhare's Dazzling Mirage and Tunde Keleni's cinematic adaptations were content analyzed. Both the literary and audio-visual versions was subjected to seasoned focused group discussion (FGD). The film producer and director; Tunde Kelani was interviewed. Secondary data were sourced from a review of relevant literature. Sarris' Auteur Theory was adopted to drive the discourse. The paper argues that the differences in the media of expression significantly influenced the minor discrepancies between the literary texts and their screen versions. It also argues that Kelani's box office target distracted him for a flawless fidelity to the original works. The study concludes that cineastes should enlist literary experts, who are knowledgeable about the principle of adaptation, and film critics in their production crew.

A Survey of Tunde Kelani's Interpretations in the Adaptations of Akinwumi Isola's O Le ku (It is Complicated) and Yinka Egbokhare's Dazzling Mirage for the Screen

Adaptation is an age long phenomenon in the arts. Life writings were adapted into novels and largely novels to plays. The trends continue to date. Adaptations are meant to artistically metamorphose a previous creative endeavour into a new one. An artistic work from one genre is transformed into another genre without losing sight of the thematic preoccupation of the source. Tunde Kelani adapted Akinwumi Isola's classic Yoruba Novel O le ku (It is Complicated) and Yinka Egbokhare's novel, Dazzling Mirage into films of the same titles, thus bringing the thesis of both works to a wider and heterogeneous audience. Despite the artistic and box office success of both films, and many essays on the film versions of the two novels, the extent of Tunde Kelani's fidelity to the thematic preoccupations and aesthetic considerations of the original works has not been academically interrogated. Therefore, this study examines the extent of Kelani's faithfulness to the ideology and aesthetic qualities of the original works. The primary data for the study depended on content analysis, structured interview and focused group discussion (FGD). Thus, the Akinwumi Isola's O le ku and Yinka Egbokhare's Dazzling Mirage and Tunde Keleni's cinematic adaptations were content analyzed. Both the literary and audio-visual versions was subjected to seasoned focused group discussion (FGD). The film producer and director; Tunde Kelani was interviewed. Secondary data were sourced from a review of relevant literature. Sarris' Auteur Theory was adopted to drive the discourse. The paper argues that the differences in the media of expression significantly influenced the minor discrepancies between the literary texts and their screen versions. It also argues that Kelani's box office target distracted him for a flawless fidelity to the original works. The study concludes that cineastes should enlist literary experts, who are knowledgeable about the principle of adaptation, and film critics in their production crew.

The Politics of Transgression in De Humani Corporis Fabrica

The film De Humani Corporis Fabrica has repeatedly been dubbed in the English-speaking film criticism media as a “non-fiction shocker” (Chang, 2023), a sample of “tactile cinema” (Mullen, 2023) with “ample gore on display” (Mintzer, 2022). This paper, firstly, aims to contradict these claims, as the film’s goal is not to elicit an immersive representation of the human body but a reflection on how it is instead objectified, abstracted, and interpreted by means of deconstructing the medical gaze and via a complex interplay between the viewer’s quasi-identification and alienation. To this end, it closely analyses the patterns in the camerawork, the various degrees of remediation of the medical imagery, and the relationships between denotation and connotation, highlighting the prevalence of de-dramatization strategies, which run counter to societal taboos and conventional representations of the hospital in popular culture as a sensationalized site of emergencies. As such, we argue that De Humani Corporis Fabrica is an essay film that seeks neither to “shock” viewers nor to mount a narrow institutional critique of the French sanitary system. By delving into the film’s intricate biopolitics, we outline how the various levels of transgression, the emphasis on “malfunction,” and the pervasiveness of technology are framed as symptoms of broader tensions between paternalistic modes of interaction and patient-centred approaches within the Western sanitary system at large. Finally, by interpreting the ending as a counterpoint to the objectifying gaze that the film lures us into adopting throughout, we consequently stress the film’s defiant sense of “anarchy,” as it urges us to reclaim “our” bodies, be them individual or collective.

John Boorman’s “Excalibur” as a Quasi-Jungian and Eclectic Story of Arthurian Psyche

Abstract For four decades John Boorman’s “Excalibur” has been either partially analyzed by scholars in Jungian categories or just described as a Jungian-inspired film in more general terms by film critics. The six-stage model of King Arthur’s personal and archetypal development in “Excalibur” was first published by Jungian analyst Al Collins in 1981, but remained unknown in mainstream scholarship. This article describes this significant absence and argues for a shift to significant presence, merging many Jungian approaches to “Excalibur” with Piotr Toczyski’s own depth-psychological vision of Boormanian quasi-Jungian Arthurianism. The scholars globally may get further inspiration to relaunch new interpretations of this classic Arthurian retelling in terms of dynamics of conscious and unconscious, meeting the shadow, coping with anger, underlying projections, withdrawal of projections as the moment of lysis similar to psychotherapy, and the self-awareness of archetypes. The process of projection withdrawal is the hero’s journey on its own, bringing some similarities with well-known Joseph Campbell’s post-Jungian model.

The Myth of Stalin and the Death of Hitler: André Bazin and The Fall of Berlin’s Transnational Travels

This essay explores aspects of the transnational and transhistorical impact of The Fall of Berlin (Padenie Berlina, Mikheil Chiaureli, 1949). Although the film is late Stalinist propaganda, and an outstanding manifestation of the Stalin personality cult, it cannot be reduced to those descriptors. It has had an ongoing impact upon viewers within different cultural contexts who do not necessarily subscribe to its politics. André Bazin’s seminal, frequently translated and reprinted essay ‘The Myth of Stalin in the Soviet Cinema’ (‘Le cinéma soviétique et le mythe de Staline’, 1950), is the most famous and frequently quoted piece of writing on Stalin personality cult films, but it is not the final word on them. It needs to be understood within the specific context of French film culture during the immediate postwar period. This essay therefore highlights the cultural specificity of ‘The Myth of Stalin in the Soviet Cinema’ by contrasting the debates within which Bazin’s essay was enmeshed with the equally culturally specific British reception of The Fall of Berlin in the early 1950s, exemplified by leading film critics and historians such as Dilys Powell, Fred Madjalany and Hugh Trevor-Roper.

National identity in Italian westerns and post-westerns

Since Schatz defined the western genre as America’s foundation ritual, several film critics have emphasized the role of the western as a foundational fiction. Interestingly enough, just like American westerns deal with American identity and its foundational myth, one can find westerns and post-westerns made in other countries that are also concerned with these countries’ national identities. This article analyses how spaghetti westerns set in the United States deal metaphorically with Italian identity and foundational myths, and how post-western films set in Italy approach similar topics more directly. The article considers several films, by directors like Pietro Germi, Sergio Sollima, Florestano Vancini or Pasquale Squitieri, from the perspective of transnational post-westerns in order to scrutinize the way they deal with the difficulties of integration of the North and the South of Italy and present different perspectives on the Italian foundational myth of Risorgimento.

INSTRUMENTALITY OF A WOMEN IN DAMSEL MOVIE (2024)

In the film Damsel (2024), directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, the traditional damsel in distress narrative is subverted by the character of Princess Elodie, who transforms from a passive pawn to an empowered individual. The film critiques societal structures that objectify women by exploring Elodie’s journey from being a tool in an arranged marriage and a sacrificial victim to confronting a dragon. This study aims to explore how the film portrays the instrumentalization of Elodie through qualitative descriptive methods, grounded in Nussbaum's theory of objectification, particularly the concept of instrumentality. As the result, the study identifies three forms of Elodie's instrumentalization: subjected to an arranged marriage, subjected to a life sacrifice, and subjected to a target for revenge. From these three forms of Elodie's instrumentalization, this film shows Elodie's gradual assertion of autonomy and rejection of the roles assigned to her, deconstructing conventional girl tropes and highlighting the broader implications of challenging patriarchal norms. The finding of the instrumentalization of Elodie in the film Damsel is shown to become more complex along with the resistance carried out to oppose the prevailing patriarchal norms.

PERCEPTION OF SALVADOR DALí’S CREATION AND ITS INTERPRETATION IN THE TEXTS OF THE 20TH-21ST CENTURIES

The object of discourse is an extraordinary person with all his creations, which is constantly replenished by reviews of every subsequent generation of spectators revealing their attitude to the author and his works. The legacy of the great Spanish artist Salvador Dalí is a unique asset of the world artistic culture, which has come under scrutiny not only by his contemporaries, but also by a wide audience, art historians, scientists, film critics, literary scholars, poets and writers of the following generations. Due to the fact that the works of the great artist involve countless acts of interpretation and revision, and form an open space around the hitherto unsolved questions by the creator himself, the authors of the article proceed from the assumption that the discourse about Salvador Dali will continue to be enriched in the future cultural and historical context by the works of representatives of art and science. The present article focuses on the discourse about Salvador Dalí and his creations, which has been named the Dalinian discourse in the Spanish-language art tradition. The subject of the research are texts written by Dalí himself, his friends, and artists, as well as those written by the representatives of other sciences dwelling on the creations of the artist. The article attempts to systematise the main corpus of texts in Spanish about Dalí’s visual and literary work and to present its typology.