Film Theory Research Articles

랑시에르의 영화이론 재고

This paper aims to reconsider Rancière’s film theory by examining the meaning of image and fiction in Rancière’s aesthetic art regime. Rancière renews the traditional definitions of image and fiction. What Rancière defines as image and fiction is the action of connecting words and objects in a specific form on the basis of community, connecting individuals and groups and creating a common sense. In the aesthetic art regime since Romanticism, which reflects the equality established between thought and non-thought, consciousness and unconsciousness, active and passive, art and non-art, the image of art constitutes a unique dual system. Within a single image, meaning is produced and withdrawn, and perception, action, and emotion are simultaneously connected and dissolved. This dual system of images is manifested in cinematic art in the disfigurations and contradictory dramaturgy of classicist and romantic allegory.

러시아 문예이론과 웹툰 언어

This paper is an attempt to apply the main concepts of Russian film theorist and director Sergei Eisenstein's film theory to the analysis of webtoon language. Webtoons are currently the most popular pop culture genre and the most useful cultural content for OSMU (one source multi-use). Webtoons, which overcome the expressive limitations of existing published comics by utilizing digital devices, are representative content that is currently being used as the source content for numerous dramas.
 Due to the nature of the medium as a digital visual text, the language of webtoons is similar to the language of movies in many aspects. Therefore, attempts to analyze webtoons focusing on film language will have certain academic significance. Among film languages and theories, I believe that Eisenstein's theory can be a useful method for analyzing webtoons as potential audiovisual texts, and I would like to present the beginnings of this in this paper.
 This paper's attempt to utilize Eisenstein's theory in webtoon analysis is still in its early stages, and the analysis discussed in this paper does not deviate from the review format. Despite these limitations, it is believed that applying Eisenstein's theory, which holds a significant position in film history, to webtoon analysis will be an opportunity to prove the universality and expandability of Russian literary theory.

Sublime aesthetics in Philippe Grandrieux’s Un lac

ABSTRACT In this article, I assess Philippe Grandrieux’s Un lac (2008) through the lens of the sublime. I offer a formal analysis of the film supported by contemporary theorists who have previously articulated the stakes of Grandrieux’s work in the tradition of narrative cinema. Similar to prior research, my work sets out to understand Grandrieux’s aesthetics and how his filmmaking attempts to engage spectators’ sensory engagements and alter their perceptions of film. Where I diverge is in demonstrating how the theory of the sublime is useful for theoretical understandings of Grandrieux’s films and experimentations with narrative cinema more generally. Specifically, I turn to Un lac’s protagonist Alexi as an anchor to unpack Grandrieux’s experimental cinematography, editing, and sound. Following this, I examine the film through Cynthia A. Freeland’s conceptualization of sublime cinema. I conclude that the snowy landscapes, overwhelming woods, treacherous weather, and fragile bodies in the film work to diminish and dismantle the human figure. I draw on recent theories of cinema and affect to argue that the sublime encourages us to rethink our ontological presuppositions – Un lac posits an alternative to anthropocentrism.

A Contextual Analysis of Documentary Film as a Product and Tool for Academic Exercise

This paper examines the justifications for using documentary film as a product of academic exercise, using the films "Return of the Biblical Plague: Mosquitoes" and "Bitter Lake" as case studies. Through an analysis of the production and reception of these films, the paper explores how documentary can be used to visually tell stories that follow the replicability of academic research procedures, from the selection of subject matter and site to planning and interviewing subjects to data collection and analysis. The paper also addresses the challenges and ethical considerations associated with using documentary film as an academic exercise, including representation, power, and objectivity issues. Ultimately, the paper argues that documentary films have the potential to enhance academic exercise by providing a compelling, engaging medium through which to explore complex issues and promote critical thinking. The paper is structured into four segments of analysis. The initial segment encompasses the foundational aspects of documentary film production, which involves establishing the core argument and exploring its historical contexts. The subsequent segment delves into research as a reproducible methodology, establishing empirical evidence concerning a particular phenomenon. The third part also examines the essence of the documentary film-making process, accompanied by a comparative analysis juxtaposed with research as a scientific procedural endeavor, including the analysis of two documentary films, "The Biblical Plague" and "Bitter Lake". Using the Auteur film theory, the final segment centers on, culminating in a comprehensive conclusion that substantiates the contention that documentary film-making serves as both a creative output and a valuable tool within the realm of academic exploration.

Music as an Element of the Screen Language of the Director. Part 2. Ennio Morricone's compositional practices in screen directing models

The purpose of the article is to determine the peculiarities of the use of music in the screen plane through the study of artistic director-composer tandems. Research methodology. In the development of the topic, the methods of scientific analysis, comparison, and generalisation were comprehensively applied. Analytical and systematic methods in their unity were involved to consider the art-historical aspect of the problem. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the director's creativity is investigated in the context of composer practices of creating music for audiovisual art; the appropriateness of using the systematic method in studying the features of composers' creativity in the context of audiovisual art and production has been proven. Conclusions. The materials presented in the article expand the arsenal of knowledge regarding the specifics of the co-creation of the director and composer in the screen arts and enable their application in educational courses, the creation of educational and methodological literature on the theory and history of music, film and television, directing, composition.
 Keywords: musical art, composer's practices, screen arts, directing creativity, musical image, symphonic music, composer's technologies.

GANGUBAI KATHIAWADI (2022): THE EMPOWERING RESISTANCE

The paper argues that we can view the filmic representation of Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022) as a symbolic 'empowering resistance' to injustice in forced prostitution in Asia. The analysis relies on an empowering feminist point of view throughout an investigation of film elements of narration, language use (as translated into English), and symbolization. The paper demonstrates that the resistance is based on three reasons: (1) Depictions of traumatic realities in prostitution with four factors related to India's prostitution, (2) Representation of the objectification of female bodies observed through Catherine Barry's four stages of dehumanization in prostitution, and (3) Portrayal of Gangubai as a moral character, being a virtuous leader and mother figure, which contradicts her conceived social stigmas as a 'devalued prostitute' and the underworld 'Mafia Queen of Mumbai.' Adding to the study, the symbolic analysis reveals that the representation of the color 'white' signifies the character's morality and purity, highlighting her position as an alleged victim. Furthermore, the color endorses a resisting message against prejudice against women in prostitution. The study sheds light on the social conduct of female prostitution that traumatizes women. Most importantly, it offers an alternative interpretation of the representation of a prostitute character, not as a woman in vulnerability, but as a victorious powerful feminist figure.

ANALYSIS OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, AND DRUG CONSUMPTION SCENES IN THE TAMIL FILM 'VIKRAM' BY PSYCHOANALYTIC FILM THEORY

Psychoanalytic film theory, developed by Sigmund Freud, posits that viewers take on the perspectives of onscreen characters. The film appeals to the 'Id,' the unconscious part of the mind that seeks pleasure, by suggesting that it would be good to acquire and then resolutely repress any desires the audience might have. The 'Ego' of the conscious mind is the conduit through which the subconscious desire to mimic the actions of the film's characters manifests Jung (2007). Kamalhasan starred in the recently released Lokesh-directed Tamil film Vikram. There is a high probability that viewers will favor repressed desire above Id consciousness due to the film's high concentration of drug, tobacco, and alcohol consumption sequences. This research is therefore conducted. This study uses purposive sampling and bases its findings on the theoretical framework of psychoanalytic film theory. Films with depictions of substance abuse were subjected to qualitative and quantitative content analysis to determine the prevalence of these behaviors throughout the medium (Duration of consuming, consuming scene description, the character that is consuming, and the sense that represses the consuming behavior over Id consciousness). The consumption scenes were then discussed in depth by a focus group of five academics (Scene interpretation and capacity of consuming behavior). When everything was said and done, the result was determined by the number of Id awareness variables (desire, violence, Heroism, joy, power, etc.) repressed by the film scenes.

Images which are not there. The Representations of the Final Solution in the Examples of Son of Saul and Kornblumenblau


 
 
 Since the problem of representing the Holocaust first emerged, philosophers, writers and filmmakers have tried to find appropriate aesthetic methods of expression. Two approaches dominate the thinking about the Shoah: Claude Lanzmann’s claim of “the event without images” and George Didi-Huberman’s “images in spite of all”. The author’s analysis deconstructs these two theoretical approaches through the interpretation of two films: the Polish Kornblumenblau and the Hungarian Son of Saul and the notion of “the images which are not there”, that is, the non-existent photographs of the Nazi “Final Solution”. The main thesis of the essay states that cinematic representation and artistic expression can substitute for the lack of historical and visual (mostly photographic) depictions of the Holocaust. With the inspiration of theory (Giorgio Agamben, Siegfried Kracauer), I consider different methods of dealing with the dilemma of “unimaginable Auschwitz” and the concept of “bare life” as an aesthetical problem.
 
 

Filmowość Marii Antoniego Malczewskiego


 
 
 The aim of this article is to analyse the poetics of Antoni Malczewski’s Maria in terms of its cinematic qualities. The author uses various film theories, including those formulated by Siegfried Kracauer, Béla Balázs and Jean Mitry, in order to approximate the meaning of a text being cinematic and to find tools for the analysis of a literary text through this lens. Six features are distinguished: (1) fragmentariness of the plot structure, (2) editing within scenes, (3) a focus on movement, (4) transcending the limitations of human perception, (5) quasi-reproduction of reality and (6) giving images meaning as parts of a larger composition. These can be found in different passages from Maria, the analysis of which leads the author to conclude that the key to the cinematic qualities in Malczewski’s novel is the quasi-impersonal reproduction of reality achieved thanks to the withdrawn narrative perspective, the descriptions of empirical reality and the behavioural characteristics of the characters. In the summary, the cinematic qualities of Maria are put within a context of the history of literature and linked to the break with classicistic poetics and the move towards Romanticism.
 
 

Filmmaking as Cultural Aggression


 
 
 The article discusses cinematic depopulation, the strategy of appropriation of the colonized by the colonizer widely used in the Soviet and post-Soviet cinema made in Ukraine and Russia and, until now, never analyzed in academic literature. The cinematic depopulation is a mode of filmic representation whereby a given ethnoscape (Ukraine) is cleansed of its national community (Ukrainians) and instead is populated by the colonizer (Russians) as if it were an integral part of his historical territory. As a form of cultural imperialism, this strategy has, until quite recently, been widely used in both Soviet and post-Soviet Russian and Ukrainian filmmaking to promote the idea of Ukraine conceivable outside of and without the Ukrainian language, culture, and other attributes of Ukrainian identity.
 
 

Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Ivan Kavaleridze, Leonid Skrypnyk: The avant-garde and philosophical explorations of Ukrainian filmmakers of the 1920s


 
 
 The filmmakers Oleksandr Dovzhenko and Ivan Kavaleridze created bold avant-garde works at the time when Ukrainian cinema was being established, at the end of the 1920s and early 1930s. In effect, the works of these two directors shaped the defining features of Ukrainian cinema. This article discusses the creative methods used by Dovzhenko in his three films Zvenyhora (1927), Arsenal (1929) and Earth (1930), which clearly depict Ukrainian worldviews and mentality. Kavaleridze’s approach is considered in the light of two of his films, Downpour (1929) and Perekop (1930). Already a recognized sculptor at the time, Kavaleridze sought unique forms of expression in film. The approaches these directors took towards framing scenes, montage, lighting and rhythm underpinned the theoretical propositions of their contemporary, Ukrainian film theorist Leonid Skrypnyk. The author suggests that this testifies to a deliberate and comprehensive search for new means of expression in all phases of filmmaking.
 
 

Streaming Black girlhood: biculturality, nostalgia and hypervisibility in Cuties

ABSTRACT The era of streaming services and online distribution of independent films have offered more varied representations of the African Diaspora than were previously available through traditional media. Within this context, Maïmouna Doucouré’s acclaimed 2020 film, Cuties, presents a poignant and nuanced, yet controversial representation of Black immigrant biculturality, girlhood, and puberty. In this essay, we engage with Cuties through the lens of nostalgia as an escape from uncomfortable realities. Set in France, the film centres the immigrant experience. The protagonist Aminata (Amy), a French-Senegalese preteen, witnesses her mother’s sadness at her husband’s impending wedding. Amy embarks on a journey of body agency and rage that demonstrates her navigation between cultures. We critically engage with how Amy disrupts her mother’s and community’s immigrant nostalgia: a longing and idealizing for the culture of their homeland in opposition to the dominant culture of their adopted country. We also examine how the U.S. release of Cuties on Netflix got caught, perhaps unintentionally, in the crosshairs of a U.S. culture war. The marketing for Cuties presented a sexualized, feel-good depiction of the girls in the film which distracted from Doucouré’s true aim of depicting the rage of girlhood and the negative influences of sexualized popular culture, hypervisibility, and imagery on adolescent girls. We consider this backlash from the perspective of nostalgia as well: We unpack how this controversy reflects some Black viewers’ desire for a ‘return’ to polite and tame filmic representations of Black girls. Despite Doucouré’s efforts to explain herself and sympathetic critics’ campaign to defend the film, there was some preoccupation with the young girls’ display of sexuality. We perceive Doucouré as challenging audiences to stay present in the challenges facing young Black girls, particularly as they are increasingly exposed to online models of sexuality and femininity.

The Influence of the Film "KKN Desa Penari" on Tourist Visit Interest in Film-Induced Tourism in Plunyon Kalikuning Destination, Sleman, Yogyakarta

Film-induced tourism has emerged as a dynamic facet of the contemporary tourism landscape, leveraging the visual and cultural appeal portrayed in films to enhance the attractiveness of destinations. This study delves into the impact of the Indonesian horror film "KKN di Desa Penari" on tourist visitation in the picturesque Plunyon, Kalikuning, Cangkringan, and Sleman regions of Yogyakarta. The research methodology involves an exploration of the nexus between the film's scenes and tourists' destination choices. The study gauges the impact by analyzing tourists' interest in film locations and their expectations regarding the benefits of engaging in film-induced tourism. The research uses a mixed-methods approach, encompassing surveys, interviews, and data analysis to discern patterns in tourist behavior and motivations influenced by the film. Understanding the interplay between cinematic representation and tourist decision-making is crucial for the tourism and film industries. The findings aim to contribute insights into the dynamics of film-induced tourism, providing valuable information for stakeholders to optimize the potential of cinematic representations in attracting and retaining tourists in the captivating landscapes showcased in "KKN di Desa Penari."

Metal-soil interface adhesion in clay clogging during shield tunneling: Theoretical model and experimental validation

Clogging is a major geohazards risk in mechanized tunnelling through cohesive soils. Clay clogging results from the high adhesion between the clay and metal. Based on the water film theory and Reynolds fluid equation, the interfacial adhesion between metal and soil is simplified in this study as viscous hydrodynamic behavior between planes. Considering the influence of capillary force and the viscous force of water film at the interface between metal and soil, a theoretical calculation model of interfacial adhesion between metal and soil is established. The influence of water film thickness and separation rate on the interfacial adhesion between metal and soil is qualitatively analyzed. Then, the adhesion stress between the clay and the metal surface was tested with a pullout test and the influence of moisture content, pullout rates and types of clay minerals on the adhesion stress was analyzed. Finally, the calculation model of adhesion force was compared with the experimental results. The calculation model of soil adhesion stress established in this paper can quantitatively describe the relationship between soil adhesion force and moisture content and can also qualitatively reveal the influence mechanism of soil moisture content on adhesion stress.

Emissivity and Optical Properties of Thin‐Film Metallic Glass in the Thermal Infrared Region

AbstractThis study displays the emissivities and optical properties of thin‐film metallic glasses in the thermal infrared (IR) region. It is found that the amorphous structure of the metallic glass hinders the movement of electrons, leading to unique optical properties in the thermal IR region. Measurements of the optical constants of NiNb thin‐film metallic glasses reveal that a high processing pressure and sputtering power yield high optical conductivity and a low damping constant. Adjusting the parameters of the sputtering processes allows the fabrication of thin‐film metallic glasses with a range of damping constants and also the change in the reflectance and emissivity. Applying optical thin film theory, the emissivity of thin‐film metallic glass in the thermal IR region can be modulated. The measured emissivity of the thin‐film metallic glass (45.35%) is significantly enhanced when compared with that of a Si substrate or metal film. Furthermore, the cooling ability of the optimal metallic glass is much higher than that of Si and metal films. These findings reveal that metallic glass films can display thermal radiative properties superior to those of metals and semiconductors, making them promising materials for use in electronic devices with excellent mechanical characteristics and heat dissipation properties.

Theorising TikTok cultures: Neuro-images in the era of short videos

Instead of viewing TikTok as a platform, in this article we borrow Dutch film theorist Patricia Pisters’s concept of neuro-images to approach TikTok as a cultural form that is deeply participatory, platform contingent, and algorithmically engraved. In the co-production between algorithms and users, TikTok becomes an enormous database and generates personalised narratives about individuals and the world onto and through its ‘brain-screen’ interfaces, which simulate our conscious and unconscious mind, and actualise the idea of creativity based on repetition. TikTok thus enables a quasi-automated cinema, whose non-stopping filming of everyday lives does not seek to reduce desires and tastes into a singular and coherent structure, but instead uncovers, releases and contains them in its vast database and interfaces, leading to a fluid and modulating categorisation of identities. It is within this quasi-automated, deeply participatory digital cinema that TikTok constitutes neuro-images, producing a distinctive experience of time, and unpredictable and unstable futures.

Lost and Beautiful or the (Environmental) Ethics of the Lyric Essay Film

This article contributes to a theory of the lyric essay film by bringing studies of the essay film and lyricism to bear on Pietro Marcello’s Lost and Beautiful (2015). We argue that the lyric essay film delivers its argument by leveraging the tension between words and images, narrative and counter-narrative components, and the (non)human subjectivities (i.e. the director’s, characters’ and camera’s) its text embodies and enacts. These tensions generate interstitial sites from which the ethics and politics of the lyric essay film emerge. Insofar as the lyric essay film is marked by the intrusion of subjectivity in the genre’s argumentative structure, the polyvocality that this intrusion allows in terms of both critical and affective contribution to the film’s argument is what enables the lyric essay film to undermine ideological homogenisation and the naturalisation of situated subjective positions. Moreover, the felt participation of the subjectivity of the camera in the rendering of reciprocal processes of subjectivation becomes ethically meaningful as it embodies a conception of subjectivity as co-determined by otherness. The ethical significance of this interaction is also relevant to contemporary environmental thought, as it maintains that human subjectivities are co-determined by human and nonhuman others.

The Practice of Virtual Reality Technology in the Teaching of Film and Television Art

With the progress of science and technology, virtual reality technology has gradually been integrated into People’s Daily life. As a technology that can provide immersive experience, the application of virtual reality in the field of film and television art has gradually attracted attention. For film and television art colleges, the introduction of this technology has brought revolutionary changes to teaching and creation, and brought new possibilities for teaching and creation. This paper will discuss the application practice of virtual reality technology in film and television art colleges and its influence on film and television art education. This paper first introduces the concept and characteristics of virtual reality technology, and then expounds the practical application of virtual reality technology in the teaching of film and television art universities, including the application of film and television production, film and television theory teaching and distance education. Finally, this paper discusses the effects and challenges of virtual reality technology in the college teaching of film and television art, and prospects the future development trend of film and television art.

'Hello Darkness, My Old Friend ': The Company of Music in a Cinema of (Shared) Loneliness

How have cinema's representations of loneliness changed over time, in keeping with the changing technological mediation of loneliness? What can these representations tell us about how the experience of loneliness is made sense of in everyday life? And, crucially, how has cinema's own technicity remediated loneliness in the process of representing it? In order to unpack some of these complexities, this article narrows its focus to a mere two minutes of screen time: the opening of The Graduate (1967), with its iconic representation of a lone character traversing Los Angeles International Airport to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel's 'The Sound of Silence'. The Graduate opens an important window into a particular sociohistorical moment when technologies, techniques, industry concerns and social conditions placed the audio-visual aesthetics of loneliness at the core of American cinema. I interpret this moment as the symbolic beginning of what Robert Kolker has termed 'a cinema of loneliness', a body of films that frequently featured solo drifters at plot level and that were made by directors working in isolation due to the collapse of the old Hollywood studio system. Notably, The Graduate forces us to deal with a fundamental aspect of the 'cinema of loneliness' that Kolker intentionally sidesteps: the use of preexisting popular music to offer a glimpse into a character's state of mind. Moving beyond the confines of film and narrative theory, and situating the film in broader histories of listening, cinema-going and audio technologies, I argue that the soundtrack of The Graduate reflected new ways of listening 'alone together' that were developing both within and without the cinema theatre. I show that the film employs music in a manner consistent with how transistor radios were being used and discussed in 1960s America, and I explore how – in the very process of placing loneliness at the centre of its audio-visual aesthetics – it enabled heavily mediated experiences of shared loneliness. More specifically, I propose that 'The Sound of Silence' is central not only to how The Graduate conveys loneliness but also to how the film provides a provisional and non-political way out of it.

No Time to Die, the Bond Franchise and Global Hollywood: Film Release Patterns during Covid-19

No Time to Die ( NTTD), the 25th entry in the Bond franchise, became central to the plight of theatrical film exhibition during the Covid-19 pandemic. Produced as one of MGM’s and the wider industry’s biggest commodities, a tent-pole film, it was due to be released in April 2020. One of the first big film casualties of the global lockdowns, NTTD endured several delays before finally reaching cinemas in September 2021. The Bond franchise and the disruption to NTTD’s release are symptomatic of developments in global Hollywood and the entertainment business. Covid-19 had a huge impact on film exhibition and provoked all sorts of radical experiments by the Hollywood studios with online releases for blockbuster films that would previously have been key players at the global box office. As EON and MGM held out for a theatrical release, the hype around the film in the UK and the USA suggested it might single-handedly save the film exhibition business and finally bring audiences back to cinemas. Indeed, its eventual success at the box office suggested to some that Covid, streaming platforms and the home entertainment business had not after all killed off cinemagoing. But the writing was on the wall, and the extended periods of lockdown in the UK, the USA and elsewhere allowed the digital disruptors to establish an even firmer foothold. Amazon’s purchase of MGM and the Bond IP are prime indicators of that shift.