Film Texts Research Articles

Film Naming: Book Titles and Film Titles

The studies of a film text as a polycoded textual phenomena involve the studies of its integral components, such as film story and screenplay, reflecting storyline or plot of a literary text that serves as a precedential text to filming and as an immediate constituent of a film itself. Film title combines the features of a book or story title and functions as a precedential phenomenon as well, but is an integral part of the process of film promotion and release, and in cinematographic sphere it’s of crucial importance. In fact, the original book or story titles used to change especially with time and audience involved, when filming remaking changes to TV series and miniseries, or films are followed by sequels and prequels so that not to make something like Jaws 3 or Indiana Jones 5 . Anyhow, most of film titles fully repeat or at least conserve the title of a literary text, still it’s often amplified to make difference or to emphasize the idea that the screenplay is a new one just the story to be continued, e.g., Jaws-3D: The Revenge. Not very often the changes are marked graphically as of Romeo + Juliet or Romeo & Julie t, so that to hint a new turnoff the plot to the audience. It’s obvious that film titles often use names of main characters either for series or episode titles or to form a film franchise like that of Jurassic Park or Indiana Jones ones. As people started to use different IT gadgets they used to read books less and less, and film stories tend to make a new book form when a book is no longer a precedent to a film. Thus the cycle of “book title → film title” was completed by a part of “film title → book title (or book itself” to reflect the reverse trend, which is known worldwide.

The Feminist Film: An Analysis of the Feminist Narrative Form in the Films of Rakshane Bani-Etemad, Pouran Derakshande, and Manijeh Hekmat

Purpose: In this paper, the aim is to examine film form and narrative in relation to gender identity and the politics of representation. Drawing distinctions between these methods make it possible to identify how feminist frameworks are used to examine identity, aesthetics, and ideology through film culture.
 Approach/Methodology/Design: Thematic analysis, employing a feminist perspective. Three films were selected for conducting this type of analysis: Rakshane Bani-Etemad’s ‘Nargess’, Manijeh Hekmat’s ‘Women’s Prison’ and Pouran Derakshande’s ‘Hush! Girls Don’t Scream.
 Findings: By understanding the representation of women in Iranian Cinema and the cultural/traditional norms and values of the Iranian Society, I argue that the narrative form identifies feminist perspectives, which create an Iranian feminist cinema. Combining textual analysis with a greater concern for the audience-text relationship, and the rejection of the male gaze, these films recognize texts as shaped by the struggle to make meaning amongst institutions which shapes the filmic text from different components of the socio-historical context, and which creates a relationship between feminist film and cultural studies.
 Practical Implications: Iranian female directors have been adopting a feminist approach in their films’ narrative structure dating back to the reformist period of the 90s. Through the social/political context of female characters and the counter-cinematic development of agents, circumstances, and surroundings of the systems of patriarchy and oppression, women directors have been applying feminist narrative form to their work as evident in Rakshane Bani-Etemad’s ‘Nargess,’ Manijeh Hekmat’s ‘Women’s Prison’ and Pouran Derakshande’s ‘Hush! Girls Don’t Scream.
 Originality/value: This paper analyzes the principles of female desire through these selected films, the patriarchal dominance of societal oppression, the female condition, and the examination of violence in the traditions and attitudes related to women while looking at the representation of this violence and oppression in the Iranian Society.

Wacana Identitas Disabilitas dalam Film What They Don’t Talk When They Talk about Love (2013)

This study is a film text analysis study that aims to describe the disability discourse in the film What They Don't Talk When They Talk About Love (2013), which is represented and distributed to the audience regarding disability identity discourse in Indonesia today. This research is significant because of the representation of people with disabilities rarely shown as a figure and central issue. The film What They Don't Talk When They Talk About Love (2013) is a film directed by Mouly Surya that raises the big theme of the life of a person with a disability that is rarely shown primarily in presenting representations of people with disabilities that are humanist. This research method is a qualitative text-based analysis using film discourse interpretation by Jenna Wildfeuer to uncover the discourse of identity of disability in the film by doing two stages to understand and construct the meaning of the film namely the formal description of the inference process and functional analysis of the communicative purposes. The results of this study indicate that identity of disability in this film is through social interaction as something that is not bodily, but an environment that is not inclusive or discourse on the limited access of persons with hearing impairments communicating in society, through social relations persons with disabilities are shown as sexual beings and empowered over his body or discourse on sexuality and the exploration of the body of persons with disabilities, and through character representations that exist in the community or depictions of stories encountered in daily life.

Audiovisual Rhetoric: The Montage Techniques and Artistic Effects of Jia Zhangke’s Movies

This article supplements the research methods of visual restoration rhetoric and montage theory. It analyzes the texts of Jia Zhangke’s many films, sorts out the details of the use of visual montage and audio-visual montage in Jia Zhangke’s films, and understands the visual and auditory senses accordingly. Through careful reading of the film text, this article believes that in Jia Zhangke’s films, the “feeling” such as audiovisual and audio-visual is a kind of strength, and montage exerts a rhetorical effect that strengthens artistic expression. The dislocation tension caused by the use of image rhetoric such as video montage and audio montage.

Роль киноискусства в эстетическом образовании молодежи

The paper discusses the influence of the art of cinema on the aesthetic education of the younger generation in the current context of informatization, technization and commercialization. The study analyzes both positive and negative factors that affect the implementation of aesthetic film education at present. The features of the organization of the educational process of aesthetic courses focused on the study of works of cinema are determined. Specific methods of educational and educational activities using the potential of cinematographic art are represented. Examples of films and specific activities aimed at a thorough study of the film text and contributing to the development of aesthetic taste in students are given. The authors emphasize the relevance of film education for the younger generation as an important element of socialization, familiarization with the socio-cultural heritage, the formation of a system of values, aesthetic, moral, ethical and Patriotic education.

Letter Writing and Space for Women’s Self-expression in Janet Frame’s Owls Do Cry and Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table

ABSTRACT This essay engages with life writing in Janet Frame’s 1957 novel, Owls Do Cry and Jane Campion’s 1990 film biopic of Frame’s autobiographies, An Angel At My Table. It aims to consider the physical and socio-political constraints on women’s writing, and how these may be deconstructed through non-conventional forms of intellectual exploration. Communication between women is explored in the formats used in both Frame’s novel and Campion’s film. With a primary focus on letter writing, this essay also considers diary entries, published literary work, the film text, and silence as areas of interest. This essay employs the form of letter writing in attempt to explore the medium used by Frame and the characters in Owls Do Cry as an alternative form of intellectual scholarly practice. In doing so, it aims to consider Frame’s literary legacy as a paradigm for academic study, in which women’s varied creative practices can be considered for academic exploration. The letter form also signifies an attempt to recontextualise the letter form, in order to compare the constraints on women’s writing in 1940s and 1950s New Zealand with twenty-first-century concerns about gender equality in academia and creative writing.

Building a Parallel Corpus for English Translation Teaching Based on Computer-Aided Translation Software

This paper conducts an in-depth study on the construction of parallel corpus for English translation teaching through computer-aided translation software, and this study adopts a combination of corpus statistics and analysis to portray and study the system. In the corpus statistics, we carried out a detailed data analysis of the translated text and the original text with the help of corpus statistics software to find out the linguistic characteristics of the translated text and the areas that can be improved from the perspective of data statistics. After that, based on frequency, mean value, grading value, and multiplication analysis, we carry out qualitative analysis to study the movie subtitle translation strategy and its causes from multiple perspectives. This thesis aims to make research on film and television translation from a new angle with the help of corpus translation and to make up for the gap in the research direction of film and television translation. Firstly, through the corpus analysis methods such as frequency value, mean value, graded value and multiplier value, a quantitative analysis of film texts is carried out from three levels, namely, high frequency, medium frequency and basic, and it is found that Chinese films have many distinctive characteristics in terms of long words and sentences, words and sentences, beginning and end of sentences, idioms and the use of four-character words.

Philip K. Dick bajo la mirada de Spielberg: Minority Report, una idea, dos narraciones

Minority Report (Philip K. Dick, 1956/ Steven Spielberg, 2002) es un trasvase filmoliterario con algunas particularidades. Las divergencias entre el relato y su adaptación dan lugar a dos obras contrapuestas: mientras que P. K. Dick enfrenta el individuo al sistema, Spielberg sitúa al individuo frente al individuo con el clásico esquema héroe vs. villano. Las causas de las diferencias deben buscarse en los propios textos literario y fílmico, pero no podemos perder de vista otros factores extratextuales como el contexto, el perfil autorial de ambos creadores y algunas nociones vinculadas tanto al propio género de la ciencia ficción como a cada uno de los subgéneros cultivados: la novela corta y la superproducción cinematográfica.

P. Ramlee’s Cinematographic Auteurship of Cultural Values Representation in Antara Dua Darjat and Ibu Mertua-Ku

This paper looks into an investigation on auteur theory’s model of cultural representation through visual narrative employment in P. Ramlee’s two heavy-dramas: Antara Dua Darjat and Ibu Mertua-Ku . By employing a qualitative approach, case study embedded and thematic analyses implored two concepts; film syntax and cultural values in both film texts. The findings found that P. Ramlee employed and manipulated visual narrative conventions in his motivated choices of synchronic (space) and diachronic (time) shots in both film texts. In representing cultural values such as communal, brotherhood, responsibility and manners, P. Ramlee portrayed them through distinguishable utilization of cinematography tools – i.e. taking advantage of deep depth of field in layering actions and emphasizing carriers (actors) of values in medium shots. Finally, through the exhaustive exploration of Antara Dua Darjat and Ibu Mertua-Ku ’s visual narrative, it was manifested that P. Ramlee fulfilled the characteristics of an auteur as technically competent, infused personality in his works and idiosyncratically instilled interior meanings across his masterpieces. Though studies on P. Ramlee are somewhat saturated, this exploration was initially a challenge to the glorified realm in which P. Ramlee was placed by critics and fans. True to the nature of research, this exploration summed up to an outcome which not only concurs to the filmmaker’s adoring critics but also theoretically accords P. Ramlee into the realm of the auteur. Keywords: Film studies, Auteur theory, film syntax, P. Ramlee, cultural values representation.

Incest in Contemporary Literature

Incest in Contemporary Literature

Implementation of hermeneutic circle in heterogeneous screen text

The object of this research is the hermeneutic circle of screen text. The subject of this research is the peculiarities of its implementation in screen text through the plot in terms of dramaturgical representation of the reality. Particular attention is given to the analysis of playing form of screen narrative – such heterogeneous screen texts as film-, tele- and video texts on the Internet. The course of the research is demonstrated on the example of the movie “Green book”, the news broadcast of 05.03.2020 “Weekly events in 60 minutes”, TikTok videotext by the user @darimbs of 03.08.2020. The author meticulously describes and analyzes the plotline of these texts, through which is implemented the hermeneutic circle. The novelty of this work consists in viewing the heterogeneous screen texts from the perspective of their implementation in linear explication of multi-component structure of hermeneutic circle on the screen. The author's special contribution to examination of heterogeneous screen texts lies in inclusion into the corpus of research materials of Interne text, besides the film texts and teletexts, which allows to comprehensively study the peculiarities of dramaturgical representation of the reality in all forms of screen narrative. It is discovered that the narrative is incorporated into the screen text – in terms of its creation, the author selects an event line of the objectively true reality, which places the constitutive elements of hermeneutic circle on the screen in the sequence of frames, and the meaning is conveyed indirectly through the plot. The conducted analysis of screen text from the standpoint of implementation of hermeneutic circle, allows identifying the latent meanings, as well as reconstructing the broad idea of the text.

The Strategies of Adaptation of Ivan Bunin in the Cinema: Interpretation and Reinterpretation

The article discusses the strategies of interpretation and reinterpretation of fiction on the case of the film adaptation of I. Bunin’s novel Dry Valley (Sukhodol) (1911) by the modern Russian director Alexandra Strelyanaya. In Bunin’s novel and the film of the same name (2011), the focus is on the character of the “Russian soul.” The authors demonstrate that there are two strategies of fiction adaptation - interpretation and reinterpretation. The experience of the director combines both strategies in such a way that, within the framework of the interpretation, which preserves the artisitic integrity of the literary source, a local reinterpretation takes place. If a global reinterpretation leads to a complete rethinking of the basic text, including its deformation, which initiates the formation of a new artistic integrity in which the source is recognized only partially, then a local reinterpretation affects exclusively individual elements of the literary basis. Such an experience opens up new horizons in the process of exploring the original source, setting a new different look at the classical model. After a comparative analysis of the text of the source and film text, the authors come to the conclusion that, unlike the novel’s character of Natalya, who has a “beautiful and miserable” soul, Natalya in the film appears in all the grandeur of her spirit. In this context, the once undivided love for the young gentleman, which arose in the soul of the main character, eventually becomes for her the source of divine Love, which Natalia keeps up to the end of her days and which permeates her whole being. Therefore, nothing else than Love acts as a criterion for the authenticity of the Russian soul of the central character of Bunin’s novel, and such love is the unshakable foundation of the individual’s spiritual independence.

"There's no cure for the Internet" - Surveillance, Spectatorship, and Sanctuary in Black Mirror

The British-American anthology series Black Mirror (2011-2019) constructs delicately balanced worlds that are “just realistic enough to get under the viewer’s skin, yet just extreme enough to grab attention and not let go until [the] bleak resolution” (33). The episodes that I will examine here may be read as examples of surveillance capitalism’s modus operandi. “Hated in the Nation” and “Fifteen Million Merits” present over-technologized societies characterized by a complete lack of privacy, eliminating both sanctuary and exit—which, as Zuboff also contends, is closely correlated with the individual’s lack of agency in- or outside the (social) hive (444). Although the selected episodes are characterized by substantial differences in tone, setting, plot, and aesthetic and psychological strategies, surveillance and spectatorship— complicating boundaries between externality and internality—have central functions in both. Concerned both with the characters’ experience and with the audience’s position(ality) and identification processes in the act of viewing, this essay analyses the mechanics of the filmic text in the episodes, looking at how it problematizes the central issues of spectatorship, surveillance, and (the lack of) sanctuary.

作家•導演•出版：多重主體“合謀”下的九十年代中國電影小說

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 發軔于二十世紀初葉的中國電影小說在 1940 年代中後期出現發展的第一次高潮，但在此後長達近半個世紀囿於多重因素發展相對緩慢。進入1990年代以來，在影像文本的電影和紙質文本的文學二者共同誘導與塑造下，電影投資方、製作方等製作主體，導演編劇、作家等創作主體以及圖書出版方等媒介主體這些與電影小說相關的各方對電影小說的本質屬性、生成機制、價值作用等有了充分而深入的認識，以“作家主動參與”、“導演自覺利用”、“出版争相涉足”爲三大表徵，電影小說的創作與行銷成爲電影界、作家界、出版界等多方聯袂協作、互利共贏的一種“合謀”與“狂歡”，由此促使電影小說逐步勃興，並爲在新世紀出現第二次發展高潮奠定了堅實基礎。
 Chinese film novels debuted in the early twentieth century and saw their first climax in the mid-to late 1940s, but for various reasons had been relatively slow to develop for nearly half a century. Since the beginning of the 1990s, as the production of film and film texts underwent some reciprocal developments, there was much more interaction among film investors, producers, filmmakers, directors, screenwriters, writers, and other media subjects, such as book publishers. Stakeholders from all walks of life started to have a full and in-depth understanding of the essential attributes, generation mechanisms, and value of film novels. This new development is reflected in three major phenomena, namely, “writers’ active participation,” “directors’ conscious use of these novels,” and “publishers’ contests for publication.” Characteristically, the creation and marketing of film novels have become a kind of “collusion” and “carnival” of the reciprocally beneficial collaboration of the filmmaking industry, writers, and publishing circles, which have led to the gradual rise of film novels and laid a solid foundation for its second peak of development.

A Comparative Study of Liu Zongyuan"s “Yongzhou Eight Notes” and Liu Ji"s “Shaoxing Eight Notes”

In China, discussing the contemporary significance of director Jia Zhangke and his films cannot leave the topic of “Town Youth”. His film uses a variety of expressions to collage and realist narrative methods to blur the reality. The perspective of “Town Youth” shows a contemporary China but also unfamiliar and realistic. This article introduces the “thick description” concept of ethnographic research, looks for details from different film texts in different periods of Jia Zhangke, analyzes the modern landscape and era fables shown in the film, and tries to use the metaphor theory on the basis of sorting out the film’s narrative content. And then summarize the philosophical significance behind the narrative details.

Dark-Skinned Servants Through the Eyes of a White Author: a case study of K. Stockett’s Novel “The Help”

If white authors speak on behalf of dark-skinned characters in their texts, African-American critics and writers often accuse them of attempting cultural appropriation. In this case, according to African-Americans, white people describe them only stereotypically and thus deprive them of a voice. Despite this, such attempts continue. In 2009, K. Stockett released her novel “The Help”, which is narrated by three women, including two dark-skinned maids (Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson). These characters tell about their experiences working for white masters in the early 1960s, in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, during a time of severe racial segregation. Newly arising after every release of such literary or film texts (just remember the recent film “Green book”), the ongoing controversy over cultural appropriation determines the relevance of addressing this topic. K. Stockett presents these characters as anti-racism fighters, with the word as their main weapon. Minny bluntly tells her employers what she thinks of them, which is in line with how African-American authors describe in their texts a way of speaking boldly to those you obey, called “to sass”. On the other hand, Aibileen tries not to show her attitude to white people and, in conversations with them, encodes the true content of her statements as much as possible, in fact using the practice of “signifying”, also characteristic of African-American culture: persuading other maids to tell a white girl about the relationship between masters and servants in their city, in order for it to be published. She deems the written preservation of an ethnic group history as a way to fight against racism. The author comes to the conclusion that K. Stockett follows, consciously or not, the traditions of African-American literature, in which many dark-skinned characters appear as tricksters.

The segregated gun as an indicator of racism and representations in film

Film emphasizes an ironic history of racism in gun control and ownership and a justification for seeking justice among the Black community, but film also perpetuates structural racism and bias, segregating Black from White, and failing to promote equality, solidarity, and progress. The gun is both a symbol of structural racism, and an expression through which critical attitudes and political statements can carry greater meaning and lead to positive action, empowerment, and desegregation. The symbolic meaning of guns in the hands of Blacks as violent, exceptional or some other stereotypical character trope is illustrated using three selected films including: Django Unchained, John Q., and Proud Mary. This paper is divided into three acts: Act I: The gun as symbol of structural racism in film; Act II: Stereotypical characters and their guns; Act III: Desegregation of the gun in film. These sections illustrate the meaning and representation of the gun as a theatrical object in film, and when in the hands of stereotypical character tropes, has perpetuated racist beliefs and attitudes that have not been adequately addressed in the film industry. To desegregate the gun in film, filmmakers need to critically examine the overt and hidden film texts and how the gun, and the characters wielding it, are perceived among audiences.

Sexualidad, política del cuerpo y función socioeducativa del cine en Touch Me Not (Adina Pintilie, 2018)

Este artículo analiza la ópera prima de la cineasta Adina Pintilie, Touch Me Not (Nu mă atinge-mă, 2018), ganadora del Oso de Oro y del premio a la Mejor Ópera Prima en el Festival de cine de Berlín. En primer lugar, contextualizamos el texto fílmico, abordando su distanciamiento de la tradición del denominado “nuevo cine rumano” y su planteamiento estético híbrido, a medio camino entre el cine observacional y experimental. En segundo lugar, analizamos las tesis que el discurso fílmico plantea en su tematización de la sexualidad y el cuerpo. Para ello, nos servimos de la teorización freudiana de la sexualidad y la reflexión foucaultiana sobre el biopoder, siguiendo el planteamiento de Teresa de Lauretis (2008) de combinar a ambos autores. A lo largo del texto, abordamos la forma en que el cuerpo se convierte en un espacio desde el que pensar la relación entre lo individual y lo social, lo privado y lo público, la relación con el otro o con uno mismo. Finalmente, concluimos subrayando cómo, con una clara motivación política y socioeducativa, la película plantea un uso de una interpelación fílmica que pretende involucrar a los espectadores e implicarlos tanto intelectual como emocionalmente.

Algumas considerações sobre o Multilinguismo na legendagem fílmica: um estudo de caso

O multilinguismo é uma realidade do mundo contemporâneo e como tal tem o seu reflexo nas diversas manifestações artísticas. O estudo que nos ocupa tem como objetivo principal estudar o modo como é traduzido este fenómeno na legendagem em português da filmografia de Pedro Almodóvar. A partir da reflexão sobre a funcionalidade da presença de outras línguas no texto fílmico, analisamos a tradução dos casos de multilinguismo encontrados no corpus selecionado. Por último, com os dados obtidos, procuramos encontrar as tendências ou normas de traduçãoque prevalecem no processo de transposição para legendagem num corpus concreto e numa combinação linguística específica.

A memória enquanto ato teórico dos 'making of' documentários

Este artigo discute a dimensão da memória nos processos de criação cinematográficos através dos making ofs documentários, compreendendo-os enquanto índices de pensamento teórico e criativo, cujos vestígios temporais reverberam e disseminam sentidos de uma memória do (e para o) cinema, ultrapassando o texto fílmico ao qual se refere. Admitimos o making of como processo e obra, donde a memória desponta enquanto um ato teórico no ambiente de criação cinematográfica possível de desvelamento. O percurso teórico-metodológico revela uma breve explanação acerca dos conceitos de memória e dialética do olhar para, num segundo momento, conjugar determinados aspectos com as noções de imagem crítica e dupla distância, a partir de Didi-Huberman (2010). A reflexão sobre os agenciamentos da memória audiovisual nos making ofs documentários se dá através do seguinte corpus: Burden of Dreams (de 1982, direção de Les Blank) e The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys (de 1996, direção de Keith Fulton e Louis Peppe).