Silent Film Research Articles

Biographies of Russian Writers as a Target of Post-Truth

The article examines the influence of the phenomenon of post-truth on the creation of artistic images of Russian writers in the novel and screen arts. The essence, tools and role of post-truth in the construction of political and cultural life were described by Plato in the “The State.” Having spread in modern times, post-truth seeks to replace the truth of history, to infiltrate real destinies and biographies, to act in their place, to operate with imaginary things instead of authenticity, to use the “bad is more interesting than good” principle. The experience of the first Russian silent film biography of A. S. Pushkin (1910) and all the subsequent eighteen biographical films about the poet’s fate showed the flaws of artistic adaptations dedicated to real heroes: historical unreliability, untruth of character, deliberate distortion of biography, the introduction of false, politically biased versions for the sake of greater showiness and scandalousness. The central plot of the article is devoted to artistic texts related to the image of F. M. Dostoevsky. Boris Akunin’s novel “The Turkish Gambit” (1998) touches on the events of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878, describing them from openly Ottomanophile positions, painting the characters fighting for Russian interests in dark colors. The novel author focuses on author of the “Writer’s Diary;” depicted namelessly, but with a full set of biographical signs, he is vindictively and scandalously defamed. Dostoevsky is present in J. M. Coetzee’s novel “The Master of Petersburg” (1994, translated from English 1999), also in the “shame and fall” perspective. The image of the real Dostoevsky is deliberately distorted, rather than elevated, in the created neo-myth — the debunking of the Russian writer was apparently the true goal of the novelist.

Review: Women’s Voices in Digital Media: The Sonic Screen from Film to Memes, by Jennifer O’Meara

Review: <i>Women’s Voices in Digital Media: The Sonic Screen from Film to Memes</i>, by Jennifer O’Meara

THE USE OF CARTOON SILENT MOVIE TO ENHANCE LEARNER IN SPEAKING PROFICIENCY

This research aims to determine the use of Cartoon Silent Movie as learning to improve students' speaking proficiency. This study uses a Pre-Experimental Research Design. This research was conducted in twelve meetings, namely pre-test, ten days of treatment, and post-test. There is one class consisting of 28 students. In collecting data, the researcher used instruments in the oral test, namely pre-test and post-test. Before conducting the instrument test, the researcher calculated the validity and reliability of the test using language to determine whether the test was reliable or unreliable to be used as a pre-test and also for normality. The results show that the test used is correct. Pre-test was given to students before doing the treatment. When the technique is applied the researcher acts as a teacher. After doing treatment using Cartoon Silent Movie in learning, the students gave a post-test. The results showed that students in the pre-test achieved a lower average score (25 VS 43.75) than in the post-test. From the calculation of the independent sentence sample T-test, it is known that the value of T = (10.283 is greater than 0.000), thus it can be concluded that the use of Cartoon Silent Movie in teaching speaking to students of SMA Maarif Lawang was found. In addition, based on the significance (to-tailed), it shows that 0.000 is lower than the 0.05 significance level. In the show, Cartoon Silent Movie can affect students' speaking proficiency.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Keyword: Silent movie, Speaking Proficiency

Bollywood Actresses’s Evolving Figure Consciousness &amp; Role in Hindi Cinema: Comparative Study From 1950 to 2020

Abstract: Bollywood is the name given to the Hindi film business because it is based in Bombay (Mumbai). For decades, Bollywood has been a popular source of entertainment for millions of people not only in India but also around the world. Dada Saheb Phalke launched the Indian cinema business with silent films, and from that time until now, Bollywood has experienced numerous ups and downs and undergone significant changes in terms of technology, fashion, and the impact of political, social, and cultural developments in the nation. The primary Hero (protagonist), The Heroine (his love interest), and the Villain (his enemy) are a few aspects that, despite all these variations, are consistent and common in Bollywood film plots. These components can be found in any Bollywood film from any era. Without it, a Bollywood film is incomplete. The Bollywood heroine has been the style symbol for decades, from Madhubala and Nargis of the 1950s to Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit of the 90’s to Deepika and Katrina of the 2020s. They might be seen as a reflection of the social and cultural attitudes about beauty parameters of the period. Women, in addition to young girls, also look up to and emulate these heroines for their beauty, fashion sense, and way of life. This study paper analyses the changes in the attractiveness and Physical appearance of Bollywood heroines, as well as the reasons for these changes.

Harry Piel, the icon of Ukrainain students

The article is devoted to personality popular in the 1920– 1950th actor Harry Piel, who starred in the adventure films with many stunts. As confirmed by numerous facts presented in this article and based of the media in this time (for example, essays and articles in papers, magazines, the poet-futurist Alexey Kruchenykh, the writer-patriot Ulas Samchuk and the publicist-communist Yaroslav Galan also wrote about him) he was a role model for Soviet (also Ukrainian) students, including those who came from Donbass region. However, his films were of mediocre films, none on which became a blockbuster. His works is an example of mass petit-bourgeoisie culture of the era of the silent movies. Although many actors in a similar stock character roles (like Douglas Fairbanks, with whom Harry Piel was often compared) surpassed him in skill. This article attempts to explore the phenomenon of his screen success. Having understood it, we will understand the mental level of our ancestors who were looking for salvation from Soviet reality in these films. This article is a continuation our other articles dedicated to the stars of silent films (Anna Sten, Rudolpho Valentino, Vera Kholodnaya, Alla Nazimova etc) and their connection with Ukrainian realities. In this case, it is not the artistic qualities in Harry Piel’s films that are emphasized, but the sociological, psychological tendencies that can be traced in their example. Harry Piel is not just the only one of the forerunners of popular celebrity culture (or culture of “One-Dimencional Man” as described by German-American philosopher Herbert Marcuse), but he is the most strange and paradoxical of them, because there was nothing unusual about it. He is the monster of screen mediocrity. That is why he should remain in the history of movie-art.

Archiving Black Diasporas

Archiving Black Diasporas

‘Now you are one of us’: Mafia fashion on-screen

This article examines the role popular media have played in disseminating images of mafia fashion. Through the representation of criminal apparel on-screen spectators are encouraged to identify with the societal transgressions of the mafioso, engendering an abiding fascination with mafia style. By looking at Italian and Italian American productions from early silent cinema through contemporary television crime series, menswear becomes a primary means of harnessing spectatorial desire and identification that embraces enduring associations that link southern Italian identity with criminality and style. In the analysis of these texts it becomes apparent how costuming communicates a series of semiotic properties that reflect the complex interplay of masculine identities in an environment based on violence, power and appearance.

“Liberty or Death!”

“Liberty or Death!”

무게 중심 알고리즘(Barycenter Algorithm)을 활용한 무성 영화 분기 검출 - 지가 베르토프의 [카메라를 든 사나이]를 중심으로

In today's media environment, there is an increasing demand for a method capable of technically analyzing moving images. In the field of film, which contains vast amounts of data, an efficient method and structure for analyzing moving image information is indispensable. This study presents short segmentation and film analysis methods and results, focusing on sequences through Barycenter algorithms and machine learning methodologies, in Dziga Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera," a director representing the silent film era. The existing proposed machine learning methodology simultaneously utilizes the Barycenter algorithm method in short segmentation due to its limited accuracy, although the time required for short segmentation is short. The Barycenter algorithm is a method of finding the center of gravity in an image by brightness and saturation; it has high short segmentation accuracy compared to the machine learning methodology that relies on center movement. It is proved that the method of using the Barycenter algorithm presented in this study is more accurate than the existing method. This study aims to contribute as a criticism tool based on quantitative indicators of film as well as to improve our understanding and characterizations of films.

Nip, snick, cut! Decoding film censorship in India 1920-1928

ABSTRACT The debate on film censorship in colonial India is rife with assertions that censorship was introduced to empty Indian films of their nationalist content. But the examination of the Bengal Board of Film Register shows that for the period between 1920 and 1928, indigenously produced films counted for much less than American films, and film censorship during the silent era was more focused on female sexuality rather than nationalism and politics. Most of the cuts affected in films exhibited in Bengal Presidency were sexual rather than explicitly political in nature. And by the end of the 1920s, the discourse of film censorship in India would metastasize around the moral need to protect the white woman.

The Development of Documentary Film Language from the Silent Era to the Present

Documentary films are aesthetical representations of actual material or the direct sound recorded with video and presented aesthetically with the help of editing. The language of fiction film is very close to that of documentaries, as these two are the audio-visuals. Prior to the film made by Robert Flaherty, The Nanook of the North people used to call documentary films by different names, like academic film, Exotica etc. Documentary film has been around for 100 years. From the silent era to the sound era, it covers a long way, and the means of communication to the audience have changed with the time. Silent documentaries or sound documentaries, God voice documentaries to synk sound only diegetic sound documentaries, auteur documentaries have taken place. This paper will examine the evolution of documentary film and the changes in its form and language of representation through an examination of the works of some notable documentary filmmakers from various eras.

Special Effects and German Silent Film: Techno-Romantic Cinema by Katharina Loew

Reviewed by: Special Effects and German Silent Film: Techno-Romantic Cinema by Katharina Loew Sean Lambert Special Effects and German Silent Film: Techno-Romantic Cinema. By Katharina Loew. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. Pp. 320. Paper €117.00. ISBN 9789463725231. As Katharina Loew points out in the introduction to Special Effects and German Silent Film, the term "effect" has a peculiar meaning in the context of film studies. Not only does it index a response to the provocation of a film, it also refers to a quality in the production itself. An image on-screen can not only have an effect on a viewer, [End Page 587] but can show, itself, an effect: "That 'special effects' … came to prevail in everyday language is likely due to the fact that that phrase seems to simultaneously refer to production and reception" (24). In this confusion of the categories of production and consumption—this short-cut or short-circuit in the "work" of filmmakers and film audiences—the special effect recalls Sianne Ngai's description of the gimmick: "devices that strike us as working too little (labor-saving tricks) but also working too hard (strained efforts to get our attention)" (Ngai, 2020). Just over a year after Ngai's groundbreaking work on gimmicks, Loew's new monograph directs our attention toward cinematic tricks and special effects. Like Ngai, Loew unpacks the cultural significance of these oft-overlooked devices, showing through extensive historical examples how special effects in German silent cinema intervened into debates about the artistic value of the cinematic apparatus and furnished filmmakers with an aesthetic vocabulary to respond to the conditions of modern life. Not only will this book be of great value to scholars of Weimar and early cinema, but for anyone interested in studying the interplay of film aesthetics, capitalism, and theories of modernity. The subtitle of Loew's monograph is "Techno-Romantic Cinema." Loew argues that special effects demonstrate the application of romantic ideas to the new technology of the cinematic apparatus. Loew sees special effects or cinematic "tricks" as intervening in a vital debate in the first few decades of cinema: is a film materialistic or idealistic? Does cinema lay bare the soulless "triumph of rationalization, mechanization and market economy" or offer an "imaginative refuge from the harsh realities of modern society" (13, 41)? In other words, is film an art or a technology? Loew argues that it was the special effect, which gestures doubly toward the hyper-material (the medium itself) and the immaterial (images with an ambiguous indexicality to the world) that allows cinema to develop a language to articulate "ideas in a sensual form" (25) and show that the cinematic apparatus is both mechanical and soulful: techno-romantic. The trick or special effect, Loew argues, demonstrated that films could be not only neutral disseminators of meaning, but could perform meaning through techniques or devices, like in theater or literature. A particularly important milestone in the establishment of cinema as an art form came from Der Student von Prag (1913), which Loew analyzes in detail in Chapter 3. The film's doppelganger effects went a long way toward persuading many critics for the first time of cinema's artistic potential: "the film not only succeeded in generating unusual affective responses, the doppelganger motif also evoked a range of readings related to notions about identity and self, demonstrating that a silent, visual medium was in fact capable of addressing philosophical questions" (26). Loew's methodology is rigorously historical, and frequently makes use of "both/and" arguments to resolve apparent impasses between sources. Is film art or technology? Special effects show that it can be both. Is the camera a piece of soulless machinery, [End Page 588] or can it be expressive and emotional? Special effects let cinema express emotions through machinery. Is film idealist or materialist? Via special effects, "machine technology fulfilled the requirements of idealist aesthetics" (22). The hyphen in the word "techno-romantic" can function as a figure for Loew's overall critical project: the excavation of hyphens in the archive that hold together seemingly contradictory ideas about the cinema. This structure of argument holds Loew, the critic herself, at a distance from the...

Visual attention does not affect the reliability of otoacoustic emission or medial olivocochlear reflex.

This study investigated whether visual attention affects the reliability (i.e., repeatability) of transiently evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) magnitudes or of medial olivocochlear reflex (MOCR) estimates. TEOAEs were measured during three visual attentional conditions: control (subject were seated with eyes closed); passive (subjects looked at a pattern of squares on a computer screen); and active (subjects silently counted an occasionally inverted pattern). To estimate reliability, the whole recording session was repeated the next day. The results showed that visual attention does not significantly affect TEOAE or MOCR magnitudes-or their reliability. It is therefore possible to employ visual stimuli (e.g., watching a silent movie) during TEOAE experiments, a procedure sometimes used during testing to prevent subjects from falling asleep or to keep children still and quiet.

Sessiz Oyunlar: Alman Dışavurumculuğun Distopik Oyunlardaki Etkisi-Inside, Little Nightmares, Monochroma

As tools of game development become accessible to more people, video games come closer to being an art form, rather than mere entertainment, without losing their entertainment value. Albeit the artistic value of video games has been accepted in time, the word ‘game’ causes people to overlook its relationship with art. The aim of this paper is to focus on this problem by analyzing Little Nightmares, Inside and Monochroma, in the context of German Expressionism as well as other art movements and the silent movie era, and try to explain how these games use art as a means of artistic expression while creating psychological horror and dystopian worlds. Studied games are independent games that are similar both visually and thematically. These aspects determined the boundaries of the study. In this qualitative study, chosen games are analyzed through semiotic analysis. The study showed that expressionist techniques such as distorted images, and strong contrasts in lighting have been used to build the game world and create an uncanny, totalitarian atmosphere; developers took advantage of the silent movie era and cinematic techniques to convey the narrative visually, without using dialogs. Their interactivity and unique mechanics transform art into a medium that can be experienced rather than a spectacle.

Digit Recognition Using MNIST Dataset

Abstract: In this paper, we have performed handwritten digit recognition using MNIST datasets using Support Vector Machines (SVM), Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) and Convolution Neural Network (CNN) models. Our main goal is to compare the accuracy of the above models along with their execution time to obtain the best possible model for digit recognition. Reliability of humans over machines has never been so high that from classifying objects in photographs to adding sound to silent movies can all be done using deep learning and machine learning algorithms. Similarly, handwriting recognition is one of the important areas research and development with a range of possibilities that could be achieved. Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is a capability computers to receive and interpret comprehensible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photos, touch screen

Attentional M100 gain modulation localizes to auditory sensory cortex and is deficient in first-episode psychosis.

Selective attention is impaired in first-episode psychosis (FEP). Selective attention effects can be detected during auditory tasks as increased sensory activity. We previously reported electroencephalography scalp-measured N100 enhancement is reduced in FEP. Here, we localized magnetoencephalography (MEG) M100 source activity within the auditory cortex, making novel use of the Human Connectome Project multimodal parcellation (HCP-MMP) to identify precise auditory cortical areas involved in attention modulation and its impairment in FEP. MEG was recorded from 27 FEP and 31 matched healthy controls (HC) while individuals either ignored frequent standard and rare oddball tones while watching a silent movie or attended tones by pressing a button to oddballs. Because M100 arises mainly in the auditory cortices, MEG activity during the M100 interval was projected to the auditory sensory cortices defined by the HCP-MMP (A1, lateral belt, and parabelt parcels). FEP had less auditory sensory cortex M100 activity in both conditions. In addition, there was a significant interaction between group and attention. HC enhanced source activity with attention, but FEP did not. These results demonstrate deficits in both sensory processing and attentional modulation of the M100 in FEP. Novel use of the HCP-MMP revealed the precise cortical areas underlying attention modulation of auditory sensory activity in healthy individuals and impairments in FEP. The sensory reduction and attention modulation impairment indicate local and systems-level pathophysiology proximal to disease onset that may be critical for etiology. Further, M100 and N100 enhancement may serve as outcome variables for targeted intervention to improve attention in early psychosis.

Anna May Wong and Sessue Hayakawa: Racial Performance, Ornamentalism, and Yellow Voices in Daughter of the Dragon (1931)

Abstract This article provides a comparative study of Anna May Wong and Sessue Hayakawa—the two most iconic stars of Asian descent of American cinema's silent era—by examining the reception history around their rare collaboration, the early sound film and yellow peril thriller Daughter of the Dragon (dir. Lloyd Corrigan, US, 1931). The on-screen collision of these two stars associated with the imaginary East reveals incongruities between a homogeneous Orientalist image and heterogeneous—culturally acquired, professionally trained, mechanically reproduced, and gendered—yellow voices. Situating the star personae of Wong and Hayakawa in the geopolitical environments of the interwar era, the essay foregrounds the plasticity of voice as a form of cultural capital fetishized as an exchangeable commodity through the heavily marketed product of the new sound cinema. In this case study, the accented voice serves also as a contact point between European, American, and Asian film industries. A close analysis of the differently accented yellow voices in Daughter of the Dragon demonstrates the artificial homogeneity of the Orient embodied by the supposedly “authentic” stars of Asian descent and complicates the established configurations of the gendered “Orientals”: the Janus-faced Japanese man and the ornamentalist yellow woman.

Beyond the Horizon

Beyond the Horizon

Latin Blackness in Parisian Visual Culture, 1852–1932 by Lyneise E. Williams

Reviewed by: Latin Blackness in Parisian Visual Culture, 1852–1932 by Lyneise E. Williams Lena Hill Lyneise E. Williams. Latin Blackness in Parisian Visual Culture, 1852–1932. New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019. $130.00 (cloth); $34.95 (paper); $31.45 (eBook). Whoever thought Josephine Baker's banana skirt might represent a sly critique of the commercial inadequacy and declining colonial power of France? In Latin Blackness in Parisian Visual Culture, 1852–1932, Lyneise Williams begins her keen analysis of French visual interpretations of Latin American immigrants in Paris by provocatively rereading Baker's iconic fruity attire. Miguel Covarrubias, the Mexican designer of the skirt, had long challenged European claims of artistic superiority. Noting this, Williams traces the conspicuous increase in banana imports to France from the Caribbean from 1897 to 1924—drawing attention to the specific banana varieties that likely comprised Baker's skirt—to suggest Covarrubias's familiarity with banana commerce inspired his decision to drape an African American woman in a skirt that symbolically embodies a failure of French capitalism in the Spanish Americas compared to rising US commercial dominance. In other words, Williams argues that as a Latin American's creative work, Baker's heavily codified banana skirt symbolizes much more than primitive sexual potency. With this disruption of established readings of Baker as the French epitome of primitivist modern Black femininity, Williams provocatively poses the broader question her study probes: what do we miss about French depictions of modern identity when we fail to understand their aggressive regulation of popular interpretations of elite immigrants from Latin America arriving in Paris from 1852 to 1932? Williams recovers what she describes as the Parisian "Latinizing" tendency, or their application of visual strategies that justified their promulgation of the inferiority of the Spanish and Portuguese populations they encountered during the eighty-year period when France pursued control over Latin America. Focusing on three case studies, Williams patiently peels back the layers covering distinct Latin American figures to reveal the complicated projections Parisians developed to define these immigrants as Black outsiders regardless of their phenotypic appearance. With careful historical contextualization, Williams details the Parisian attempt to affix a tripartite marking of European, African, and Indigenous Indian ancestry to the Latin American arrivals they sought to exclude from French society. In building the foundation for her study, Williams returns to critical venues such as the 1855 Exposition Universelle to demonstrate the sometimes subtle but persistent methods Parisians employed to substantiate their disparaging characterization of Latin Americans. For instance, A. Marc's 1885 engraving of Francisco Laso's Habitante de las cordilleras del Perú (Inhabitant of the Peruvian Highlands) reveals how the French artist and critic A. J. Pay intentionally revises Laso's depiction of a figure who appears more distinctly indigenous and African than Laso's original portrayal of the character with a more pre-Colombian appearance. Turning to the stage, Williams examines the play Le Brésilien (The Brazilian) to trace the creation of the character Acapulco, a wealthy Brazilian coffee planter whose appearance and inelegant speech highlight his desperate need for French guidance to assimilate into high society. Photographs from the production show Acapulco with darkened skin and prosthetics that exaggerate his mouth and nose. Williams explains that the stereotype that emerged made a lasting impression on Parisian audiences that evolved into the development of the term "rastaquouère" which was an "over-the-top comically showy depiction of Latin Americans" (37). This derogatory characterization quickly migrated beyond the stage to magazine covers and other popular visual media. With this established stereotype, Williams devotes chapter 2 to a nuanced examination of Chocolat the clown, and in so doing she exposes the intricate blossoming of the seed planted by the rastaquouère. While a cursory consideration of Rafael Padilla's performance as Chocolat might place him in the well-established role of a Black minstrel or primitive, Williams investigates Chocolat's character in stage performances, silent films, and print advertisements to reveal the multifaceted ways Parisian audiences interpreted the clown over the years in different venues. Chocolat rose to fame as part of a pantomime duo with British performer George Footit, and for the most part, his character assumed...

Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy, and Legacy

Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy, and Legacy