Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie). 2023. 19(3)
Copyright © 2023 by Cherkas Global University
Published in the USA
Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie)
Issued since 2014.
ISSN 1994-4160
E-ISSN 1994-4195
2023. 19(3): 353-403
DOI: 10.13187/me.2023.3.353
https://me.cherkasgu.press
Theoretical Concepts of Film Studies in Cinema Art Journal: XXI Century
Alexander Fedorov a , *, Emma Camarero b, Anastasia Levitskaya c
a Rostov
State University of Economics, Russian Federation
University, Spain
c Taganrog Institute of Management and Economics, Russian Federation
b Loyola
Abstract
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the editors of Cinema Art apparently realized
that the attempts to transform the magazine into a socio-political one, made at the end of the
"perestroika" era and in the 1990s, had not yielded the expected dividends. As a result, the journal
returned to the format of a cinematic publication. Hence the increase in the number of theoretical
articles on cinema, which in the 21st century averaged eighteen a year.
Daniil Dondurey (1947–2017), who directed Cinema Art until 2017, maintained the journal's
course towards a sociological understanding of the media process, while attracting leading authors
in the field. The film critic Anton Dolin, who replaced him in the second half of 2017, on the one
hand re-emphasized political accents and also strengthened passages in the journal texts that
opposed the authorities, and on the other hand began to pay much more attention to the genres of
mass culture in film.
Our analysis of the concepts of film studies (in the context of the socio-cultural, historical,
political situation, etc.) in the journal Cinema Art in the 21st century has shown that the theoretical
works on cinematic topics in this period can be divided into the following types
- Articles, discussions devoted to the analysis of the theoretical heritage of the classics and the
history of Soviet cinema (A. Fomenko, N. Izvolov, N. Kleiman, O. Kovalov, E. Maisel, E. Margolit,
A. Medvedev, N. Sputnitskaya, V. Shmyrov, A. Shpagin, A. Shcherbenok and others);
- Articles attempting to understand the film process from a theoretical point of view
(O. Aronson, D. Golynko-Wolfson, E. Maisel, L. Manovich, etc.);
- articles devoted to the sociological and cultural problems of cinema, television, and film
distribution (O. Berezin, K. Bogoslovskaya, D. Dondurey, D. Golynko-Wolfson, E. Maisel,
I. Poluekhtova, K. Razlogov, V. Zvereva, etc.); at the same time, the analysis of the phenomenon of
the Internet and virtual reality has become a new theoretical trend of the journal.
- theoretical articles on foreign cinema (A. Artyukh, D. Komm, N. Tsyrkun, etc.).
In general, Cinema Art in the 21st century, as in the 1990s, offered new interpretations of the
history of Soviet and world cinema and tried to find theoretical approaches to the current film
process.
Keywords: Cinema Art journal, film studies, film criticism, theoretical concepts, cinema,
film, movie, cinematography, Russia, cinematic art.
Corresponding author
E-mail addresses: 1954alex@mail.ru (A. Fedorov)
*
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Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie). 2023. 19(3)
1. Introduction
This article focuses on the analysis of theoretical concepts of film studies in the journal
Cinema Art in the 21st century, when its chief editors were Daniil Dondurey (1947–2017) and
Anton Dolin.
Table 1 presents statistical data reflecting the changes (from 2001 to 2022) in the
organizations whose organ was the journal, its circulation, its periodicity; the names of the
journal's chief editors and the time intervals of their leading work in the publication, the number of
articles on film theory for each year of the journal's publication are also indicated.
Table 1. Cinema Art journal in the 21st century: statistical data
Year of
issue of
the
journal
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
The organization
whose body the journal was
(founders/publishers)
Journal
circulation
(in
thousand
copies)
Ministry of Culture of the
Russian Federation,
Cinematography Service,
Union of Cinematographers of
Russia, Editorial Board of the
Cinema Art journal
Ministry of Culture of the
Russian Federation,
Cinematography Service,
Union of Cinematographers of
Russia, Editorial Board of the
Cinema Art journal
Ministry of Culture of the
Russian Federation,
Cinematography Service,Union
of Cinematographers of Russia,
Editorial Board of the Cinema
Art journal
Ministry of Culture of the
Russian Federation,
Cinematography Service
(No. 1-5),Ministry of Culture
and Mass Communications of
the Russian Federation (No. 612), Union of
Cinematographers of Russia,
Editorial Board of the Cinema
Art journal
Ministry of Culture and Mass
Communications of the
Russian Federation,Union of
Cinematographers of Russia,
Editorial Board of the Cinema
Art journal
Ministry of Culture and Mass
Communications of the
Russian Federation,Union of
Cinematographers of Russia,
Editorial Board of the Cinema
Art journal
354
Periodici
ty of the
journal
(number
of issues
per year)
Chief
Editor
journal
Number
of
articles
on film
theory
*
12
D. Dondurey
28
*
12
D. Dondurey
19
*
12
D. Dondurey
29
*
12
D. Dondurey
13
*
12
D. Dondurey
16
*
12
D. Dondurey
14
Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie). 2023. 19(3)
Year of
issue of
the
journal
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
The organization
whose body the journal was
(founders/publishers)
Journal
circulation
(in
thousand
copies)
Ministry of Culture and Mass
Communications of the
Russian Federation, Union of
Cinematographers of Russia,
Editorial Board of the Cinema
Art journal
Ministry of Culture and Mass
Communications of the
Russian ederation (No. 1-5),
Ministry of Culture of the
Russian Federation(No. 6-12),
Union of Cinematographers of
Russia, Editorial Board of the
Cinema Art journal
Ministry of Culture of the
Russian Federation,Union of
Cinematographers of Russia,
Editorial Board of the Cinema
Art journal
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Periodici
ty of the
journal
(number
of issues
per year)
Chief
Editor
journal
Number
of
articles
on film
theory
*
12
D. Dondurey
11
*
12
D. Dondurey
13
*
12
D. Dondurey
19
*
12
D. Dondurey
18
*
12
D. Dondurey
17
*
12
D. Dondurey
27
*
12
D. Dondurey
16
*
12
D. Dondurey
14
*
12
D. Dondurey
16
*
12
D. Dondurey
11
D. Dondurey
(No. 1-3),
A. Dolin
(No. 4-8)
*
8
2.7-3.0
12 **
A. Dolin
23
3.0
12**
A. Dolin
34
355
10
Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie). 2023. 19(3)
Year of
issue of
the
journal
2020
2021
2022
The organization
whose body the journal was
(founders/publishers)
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Non-commercial partnership
"Editorial office of the Cinema
Art journal"
Journal
circulation
(in
thousand
copies)
Periodici
ty of the
journal
(number
of issues
per year)
Chief
Editor
journal
Number
of
articles
on film
theory
1.5-4.0
12**
A. Dolin
14
3.0
12**
A. Dolin
30
1.0-3.0
12**
A. Dolin
(No. 1-2),
S. Dedinsky
(No. 3-12)
22
Notes:
* From 2001 to 2017, the circulation of Cinema Art was not mentioned in the mastheads of the
issues. According to data found on the Internet, the journal's circulation from 2001 to 2017 was
around two to three thousand copies, which is even lower than in the 1930s and 1940s.
** For one year, from 2018 to 2022, Cinema Art was actually published six times a year, as all
issues were double issues.
Until 10 May 2017, the film sociologist D. Dondurey (1947-2017) was the editor-in-chief of
Cinema Art. Then (until spring 2022) the film critic A. Dolin took over the post of editor-in-chief.
2. Materials and methods
The methodology of the research consists of the main philosophical provisions on the
connection, interdependence and integrity of the phenomena of reality, the unity of the historical
and social in knowledge; scientific, cinematological, socio-cultural, cultural, hermeneutic, semiotic
approaches proposed in the works of leading scientists (Aristarco, 1951; Aronson, 2003; Aronson,
2007; Bakhtin, 1996; Bazin, 1971; Bessonov, 2012; Bibler, 1990; Casetti, 1999; Demin, 1966; Eco,
1975; Eco, 1976; Gledhill, Williams, 2000; Hess, 1997; Hill, Gibson, 1998; Khrenov, 2006;
Khrenov, 2011; Kuleshov, 1987; Lotman, 1973; Lotman, 1992; Lotman, 1994; Mast, Cohen, 1985;
Metz, 1974; Razlogov, 1984; Stam, 2000; Villarejo, 2007 and others).
The project is based on the content approach to research (identification of the content of the
process under study, considering the totality of its elements, the interaction between them, their
nature, appeal to facts, analysis and synthesis of theoretical conclusions, etc.), on the historical
approach – consideration of the specific and historical development of the declared topic of the
project.
Research methods: complex content analysis, comparative interdisciplinary analysis;
theoretical research methods: classification, comparison, analogy, induction and deduction,
abstraction and concretization, theoretical analysis and synthesis, generalization; empirical
research methods: collection of information related to the project topic, comparative-historical and
hermeneutical methods.
3. Discussion and results
History of Soviet and Russian Cinematography
D. Dondurey (1947–2017), editor-in-chief of Cinema Art, dramatically expanded the range of
sociological material of the journal in the 21st century. Another thematic field of the journal was
the publication of materials on foreign cinema (reviews, reports on international film festivals,
creative portraits of actors and directors, etc.). From year to year, the editorial line of Cinema Art
became more and more oppositional to the Russian authorities, especially against the background
of the Ukrainian events (from 2014).
Against this background, articles on the history of Soviet and Russian cinema occupied a
rather modest place in the magazine.
In the 21st century, Cinema Art continued to rethink the history of Soviet cinema.
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A number of articles were devoted to the films of the "Silver Age" (Grashchenkova, 2007),
Alexander Drankov (Pozdnyakov, 2008), the colors in the era of silent cinema (Izvolov, 2001), early
Soviet animation (Sputnitskaya, 2021), the work of Sergei Eisenstein (Fomenko, 2018; Kleiman,
2011), DzigaVertov (Izvolov, 2019; Izvolov, 2022; Kovalov, 2008; Medvedev, 2017; Shcherbenok,
2009; Shcherbenok, 2012), Lev Kuleshov (Kovalov, 2009), Mark Donskoy (Margolit, 2010),
AalexanderPtushko (Sputnitskaya, 2015), Marlen Khutsiev (Kovalov, 2008), the image of America on
the Soviet screen (Kovalov, 2003), the revolutionary Leninist theme in Soviet cinema (Maisel, 2017;
Shmyrov, 2017), the influence of Soviet cinema on the world film process (Razlogov, 2006), etc.
In particular, Alexei Medvedev (1969–2023) noted that D. Vertov's film Man with a Movie
Camera is the highest point of conflict between intention and reality, between the author and the
viewer, between the autonomy of film language and the orientation towards understanding,
between the visual and the verbal. "But let's not forget the socio-political side of this conflict. ...
Vertov himself called The Man with the Movie Camera an 'impossible possibility', initially
recognizing the utopian nature of his intention to purify film speech from literary impurities. It is a
utopia, but it is a utopia that has been realized, at least once. Further, there will be only
compromises, but The Man with the Movie Camera has forever established the possibility of a
different approach, a different path" (Medvedev, 2017: 123).
And A. Shcherbenok believed that Vertov's theoretical legacy can be imagined as a set of
justifications for the particularities of the film thing. Vertov's claim to its exceptional revolutionary
character is based on the documentary nature of the film thing. If a feature film can be both
progressive and reactionary, the film thing is progressive only because it directly reflects reality,
and reality is on the side of the proletariat. Vertov's specific innovations – the hidden camera, mass
amateur filming, synchronized sound, ideological and poetic editing of newsreel footage, reflection
on the characteristics of a movie camera and film language within the film – have long been widely
used by Soviet/Russian and world documentary film, having developed, among other things, under
direct influence. However, apart from the historical context of their origin, these documentary
filmmakers are confronted with a completely different, non-dialectical understanding of reality.
It is enough to read an interview with almost any modern documentary filmmaker, especially
a Russian one, to see an insoluble conflict between the passionate desire to show "life by surprise"
and the bitter realization of the fundamental impossibility of doing so, the dependence of the final
product on the director's design. The same tension underlies Vertov's theory, but for Vertov it is not
a tragic horizon that ultimately renders documentary cinema meaningless as a project opposed to
fiction. For Vertov, the antinomic duality of the filmic thing is not a verdict on cinema's ability to
reflect real life, but a powerful source of intellectual energy.
Comparing the theoretical approaches of S. Eisenstein and D. Vertov, A. Shcherbenok
reminded the readers. Shcherbenok reminded the readers of Cinema Art that while Eisenstein,
in his program theory of the montage of attractions, allowed "the weaving into the montage of
whole" images "and a coherent plot intrigue", even "not as something self-sufficient and alldetermining, but as a powerful attraction consciously chosen for a given purpose", Vertov
completely rejected it as an unacceptable vestige of literature and art, "a terrible poison of habit"
poisoning the "organism of cinematography". Vertov contrasted traditional cinema, based on the
adaptation of literary conventions to the screen, with cinema that took life by surprise – he shot
without sets or actors, showing real people going about their daily business. At the same time,
Vertov's aesthetic is directly opposed to passive representation. Vertov's films of the 1920s,
especially his famous The Man with the Movie Camera (1929), are characterized by abstract
montage dynamics, accelerated, slow-motion and reverse filming, and other formal devices that
reflect the specifics of the cinematographic "camera" – a set of technical means – from the film
camera to the editing suite and the projector. The apparatus, which Vertov referred to with the
metaphor of the "cinema eye", also becomes one of the main objects of the image. At the same time,
since the view of the "cinema eye" is conceptualized by the director as fundamentally different from
that of the human eye, Vertov's cinema depicts the everyday world from a non-human point of
view, from the perspective of a machine (Shcherbenok, 2009: 107).
With a thorough frame-by-frame analysis of Vertov's films The Man with the Movie Camera
and Lullaby, film critic and director O. Kovalov arrived at a scientific hypothesis about the
influence of Joyce's Ulysses on the poetics of these famous and still unresolved films: Man with a
Movie Camera (1929) by DzigaVertov. Even externally, it has so many points in common with the
general design of Ulysses that it is curious why this most obvious "similarity" has not been noticed
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by researchers, especially since it immediately had a reputation for being incredibly innovative.
This inexplicable blindness is probably due to the fact that readers and viewers traditionally live in
different reservations and their circles of artistic impressions simply do not overlap. Vertov's film
seems to meet these expectations perfectly: the author uses Joyce's experience rationally, as a
"bourgeois specialist" in production: he takes from him "useful things" – techniques and
equipment – and resolutely cuts off "spiritual decay" – we do not and cannot have it (Kovalov,
2008: 73-74).
In his article on S. Eisenstein's theory of montage, A. Fomenko also emphasized that in the
late 1920s and 1930s, processes were taking place in Soviet art that, although not in conflict with
the official line, were not the result of directives issued from above and could not be reduced to
their obedient implementation. There was room for artistic experimentation (even if it ran counter
to the principles of the classical avant-garde) and its conceptualization. One of the results of this
conceptualization is the theory of "deductive montage". Leaving aside the particular political aims
that Eisenstein allegedly had in mind, his article contains one of the most convincing and articulate
theories of the image in the history of aesthetic thought. By undertaking to rehabilitate montage,
Eisenstein transcends the level of the task at hand and defines this strategy as the universal basis of
any artistic practice, rooted in the functioning of human consciousness itself: in other words, contrary
to his initial modest remark, he concludes that montage is everything (Fomenko, 2018: 195).
When analyzing the history of Soviet cinema, E. Margolit wrote that if we try to determine the
key symbol that most fully expresses the phenomenon of Soviet cinema, then first of all a child can
claim this role. The explanation lies in the very nature of screen reality – the image of a completely
renewed ideal world. This symbol is common in Soviet culture, it is enough to remember it: Nikolai
Zabolotsky's "baby world" from The Feast of Agriculture, Mayakovsky's "teenage country",
Platonov's children.
However, the modifications of the symbol of the child are extremely diverse (and we are not
only talking about the actual images of children, but much more broadly – about the prevalence of
the childish principle in the character, regardless of his age), the appearance of the child as a
central character in cinema is always associated with moments of (one way or another)
liberalization of the Soviet regime, while for the cinema of Stalin's time it is the ideal embodiment
of a citizen of the new state, wholly devoted to the motherland and the father-leader as the central
figures of the narrative (Margolit, 2002: 76).
E. Margolit was convinced that the hyperbolic stability of both the political system and its
artistic model of those years was in fact based on a direct denial of historical time, which was
directly reflected in the policies of the pre-war Stalinist state. In this context, eternal youth is
transformed into a child's consciousness, arrested in one of the stages of its development,
in modern terminology – "juvenile consciousness" (Margolit, 2002: 82).
Е. Maisel rightly pointed out that the transformation of Lenin (and the revolutionary in
general) from a heroic to a thinking – and therefore tragic – figure, which took place in the early
1960s, signaled a new stage in the "humanization" of the leader of the world proletariat. From the
hero of epics (as well as of folklore and urban legends), a genius of thought and the possessor of an
inflexible will, leading the party and humanity along paths known only to himself towards the final
goal, Lenin was gradually transformed in the 1960s into a private individual, a solitary man,
a citizen of the world, a left-wing intellectual. This Lenin, who continued to direct the moods of the
masses, already treated "useful and necessary" violence with a certain distance, not to say
selectively and squeamishly. The contemplativeness, capriciousness, and dandyism of qualities
previously unnoticed and unlikely in this guise have mutated in some biographies into endearing
character traits. This Lenin often hesitates and makes hard decisions; he dreams of distracting
himself from the nightmare around him and reminds the strongmen, Dzerzhinsky and Stalin, that
there is no need to cut because people are not shards (Maisel, 2017: 111-112).
On a similar theme, V. Shmyrov emphasized that Mikhail Shatrov, the main inspirer and coauthor of films, performances and television series about Lenin in the 1960s and 1970s (including
his best film, The Sixth of July), through the mouth of the leader of the world proletariat and his
comrades-in-arms, tried to teach the playwright a lot about modern society, even to substantiate
and explain the need to liberalize the political system. But does this mean that the new mythology,
which was created in opposition to and in confrontation with the old mythology, could once and for
all take the place of historical truth, or at any rate prevent progress towards this truth already in a
new time, unencumbered by yesterday's conventions and restrictions? (Shmyrov, 2017: 87).
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In his analysis of Soviet films about the Great Patriotic War, A. Shpagin concluded that
M. Chiaureli's The Fall of Berlin was the culmination of the myth. One could boldly say that a new
religion crystallized on a single territory: the religion of the just war, the religion of the new world.
And there's no need for revolutions anymore – that's it, the world revolution has taken place –
if not in the whole world, then in a considerable part of it (Shpagin, 2005: 66). And in the era of the
'buried' Soviet filmmakers, paradoxically, they unconsciously sought a social ideal in the war.
Cinematographers of the mid-1950s, emerging from Stalin's hell, turned to this theme in the hope
of finding a foothold. The war in their films was a source of true light – it rallied the nation in a
great and just impulse. People united to dispel the darkness that followed and to find light in this
struggle – was this not the main dream of the revolution and, in general, the dominant feature of
socialism? And it is absolutely clear that they were sincere, because they were fighting a terrible evil
– fascism. Their actions were guided by something higher – it led to victory (Shpagin, 2005: 66).
But in the 1970s, as A. Shpagin rightly noted, the military theme on the screen took a form
convenient for everyone: it turned into an adventure genre (Shpagin, 2005: 83).
Recalling the period of the Thaw, O. Kovalov stressed that the split with power, reflected and
expressed in M. Khutsiev's Zastava Ilyicha (I'm 20 Years Old), was not along social, but moral
categories: not "Sovietism – anti-Sovietism", but "idealism – cynicism". It was this division of
society into romantics and cynics, believers and non-believers that made those in power more
vulnerable than if it had been a traditional social critique (Kovalov, 2008: 66).
Analyzing T. Lioznova's famous TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973),
M. Adamovich compared the protagonist of Moments... – with the popular super-agent of Western
spy novels and films James Bond, arguing that Bond-Stirlitz, like Osiris, is reborn with each new
series and is capable of endless rebirth. Because it is just a function whose indices can be changed
and changed again. In this sense, both super-agents have good reason to claim the status of hero in
the ancient sense of the word. Three dozen books, two dozen Bond films add nothing and do not
develop Fleming's character. Throughout the twelve episodes of Lioznova's film, despite the
outward claim to be psychological, the character of the Soviet intelligence officer remains static,
fixed – at the level of the dossier read in the first series. All series (or books) are not a deepening of
the character, but an illustration of the declared characteristic.The super-task of the hero function
is something like the task of the knight George: to overcome the evil of the world in the form of
fascism, communism, terrorism and every other "ism". In other words, all such series are based on
political, national and racial issues and contain a gigantic ideological potential. Obviously, the very
structure of the myth, based on binary oppositions, is ideal for ideological propaganda, especially
for creating the image of the enemy. Isn't that why the Bond saga is as successful today as it was
almost fifty years ago (Adamovich, 2002: 78-79).
Y. Bogomolov (1937–2023) published a kind of brief history of Soviet cinema in the pages of
Cinema Art. Turning to the post-Soviet history of national cinematography, he noted with
insightful bitterness that a new utopia has emerged in these times. The world is once again in
danger of toppling over into irrational idealism. If it hasn't already overturned and fallen. Only now
it will be based not on cinematic mythology, but on propagandistic television, aided by a trolleyactive Internet. As in the Soviet past, the superstructure will be the economy. Patriotic rhetoric and
demagogic geopolitics will be the tools for manipulating public opinion. Why "will" or "will be"?
This possible future is already partly our present. The hypothetical utopia is becoming a counterutopia before our very eyes. But no longer in an artistic form, but in the mode of the online
(Bogomolov, 2016: 113).
Theoretical film studies concepts
Theoretical articles on cinematography in the traditional sense of this type of text in the
Cinema Art journalin the XXI century are, unfortunately, few and far between. Gone are the
arguments about film language, editing, etc. that were so familiar in the 20th century. Instead,
articles of a culturological nature have come to the fore.
For example, the culturologist M. Kurtov published a detailed article on the phenomenon of
boredom in the cinema. Paradoxically (and, in our opinion, not very convincingly), he tried to make
the readers of the magazine understand that even entertaining cinema does not eliminate boredom,
since it is inherent in the very conditions of cinema. Such films only alleviate boredom by
organizing affective participation: the spectator feels entertained as a result of a change of mood
(a transition, according to Heidegger, from the second to the first type of boredom) but remains
imperceptibly bored. The boredom that drives people to the cinema only takes milder forms there.
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It is cured by films that deliberately deepen it. It is paradoxical that the machine, which is a source
of boredom, seeks to eliminate it. It can only eliminate boredom by secretly subjugating the
spectator. Cinema is the first cultural and social phenomenon whose ontological basis was
boredom. Therefore, to the extent that boredom is the "hidden purpose" of modernity, cinema has
a kind of privilege over other arts in revealing this purpose (Kurtov, 2009: 90-91).
Z. Abdullayeva proved to be much more radical in her theoretical messages, arguing that in
cinema fatigue – in the form of hysterical outbursts or nervousness, not always ecstatic – forms a
thin red line that pierces the beginning of the zero years. "Left" and "right", avant-garde art and
conservative art, poor and bourgeois, feature films and documentaries – all of this ceased to be not
only intelligible, but meaningful. Oppositions no longer work; they remain rhetorical figures of
speech that explain little in either social or artistic life. And – they do not take away where it is
worth thinking, practising. Reality itself is so strange and false that mythological images become
more spontaneous and authentic. And even truthful. Certain mythologies absorb a kind of reality.
Including a way of documenting reality, which is falsified not only on television, but also in the
author's – figurative – "real cinema". And which perhaps explores the combination of art (born
during the editing process) with non-art (Abdullaeva, 2006: 51, 53).
Reflecting on the problems of the art of cinema in the 21st century, S. Sivy believes that at a
time when the expansion of mass culture into the protected areas of intellectual cinema is clearly
observed, the author is forced to seek a compromise between entertainment and aesthetics. This is
the only strategy for the survival of art in the conditions of market globalization. Money has
become in modern conditions a much more significant obstacle to independent or experimental
cinema than, say, censorship (Sivy, 2006: 73).
In this context, I. Sukmanov bitterly noted that in the 21st century the watershed between
distribution and festival cinema is becoming more and more fatal. Now he sees less a clash of tastes
than a generation gap. Adolescent passions boil in multiplexes. The nature of human action is
translated into the language of comics. Fantasies replace reality. Life as such, in all its
manifestations, is lived out on the big screen, and with it, the spectator who has absorbed this
experience of life, is banished from the halls. In recent film realism, the marginal world is still the
main object of attention. And not only because in this environment a person is constantly in a
borderline situation, subject to strong passions and more natural than ever. He is a representative
of another society, which for most viewers is terra incognita. And when reality appears on the
screen in its ugliest form, the viewer's interest is motivated by the possibility of living an experience
that he does not have. We want to know another existence that we have safely avoided or are afraid
to experience. Under the influence of emotional stress, we shed our complexes and fears of hostile
vital elements. The more authentic the environment, the more fully we perceive it and soberly
evaluate it (Sukmanov, 2013: 85, 89-90).
I. Sukmanov drew attention to another cinematic trend of the new era: the mixing of playful
and non-playful spaces in cinema is another step towards the cherished dream of cinematographic
art to embrace the world and see it objectively. If each type of cinema is incapable of accomplishing
this task, perhaps they can come closer to the ideal by joining forces. The desire for an unattainable
cinematic truth is still one of the main tasks of art. In post-documentary and post-fiction cinema,
this problem is solved by a head-on collision of the opposites of fact and fiction: if one lies,
the other acts against it. In this case, the author tries to take the position of an observer. And when
the disoriented public asks about morality, they are more likely to be told that "modern art only
asks questions but does not give an answer". In their search for objectivity, modern authors prefer
to distance themselves from the image and at the same time hypnotize it, so as not to lose sight of
it, without being distracted by any side effects. Real sounds instead of music, a mobile handheld
camera that follows the characters and extends the action instead of the "American" montage,
natural people instead of honoured artists: the realist's arsenal, which has almost become a cliché.
The deadly unemotional space, the vacuum that remains between the image and the viewer, is like
a psychological attack. It is it that infuriates the audience, makes them fidget, worry – no less than
genre gadgets (Sukmanov, 2013: 90).
K. Fokina, in her article, turned to a topic that is rare for the Cinema Art journal – brand
transformation in cinema (Fokina, 2007: 72-77), recalling that, in the most general terms, a brand
is a well-known trademark that has a name (title), a logo (visual image) and specific attributive
characteristics (properties, qualities, the use of "branded" products). The way a brand is presented
in the market is called its positioning. Depending on the scope, price category and functional
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advantages of the product, a specific, fairly broad group of its consumers is formed, called the
brand's target group. For the interaction of the brand and its target group, for its promotion on the
market, it is common to use various types of symbols – specially organized audiovisual elements,
which are designed only to identify products of a certain brand in a series of similar products.
As "promotional" elements, legends (beautiful stories about the origin and development of a
brand), which form the basis of advertising and information activities, are widely used (Fokina,
2007: 73).
As for the "branded" film, K. Fokina believes that its name is primarily associated with the
emotions received before, during and after watching it, with what was written about it, what was
said about it, with the legends surrounding it, with the main storyline of the script, with those
techniques and imaginative solutions that made it bright and original, with its creators and
performers, with those slogans that "left the people" from the screen (Fokina, 2007: 77).
The philosopher and art critic B. Groys devoted his article to the theory of modern "auteur"
(cinema) art, which, according to him, is not only open to rationally thinking citizens, but is also
post-Fucaudian and post-Deleuzian in the sense that it does not forget madness and childishness.
In short, it seeks to integrate into its sphere what ordinary society cannot and will not integrate.
In this sense, art is not elitist, opposing itself to a wider sociality, but even more social than the
society around it. Such super-sociality leads to a rupture between the artist or thinker and his
environment. But this rupture is not caused by elitism, but precisely by the fact that the artist's
sociality is more radical than the sociality surrounding him (Groys, 2012: 132).
As far as mass cinema is concerned, B. Groys is convinced that while European cinema is
mainly concerned with "the human, too human", mainstream Hollywood is gradually concentrating
more and more on metaphysical issues. He is interested in gods, demons, aliens from outer space
and thinking machines. The heroes of these films are haunted by the question of who or what is
hidden beneath the surface of the visible world. In this way, Hollywood is moving towards the
thematization - and at the same time radicalization – of the traditional critique of the film industry.
As you know, this criticism accuses the film industry of offering us a seductive illusion, a beautiful
production whose purpose is to mask, hide, deny a repulsive reality. Many of the latest Hollywood
films, however, claim the opposite. There is no longer a cinematic "beautiful illusion", and the
everyday "real" world appears in them as a kind of dramatization. Consequently, Hollywood
responds to the suspicion of aesthetic manipulation by reactivating a much older and deeper
metaphysical suspicion, according to which the whole world around us may turn out to be a film
shot in some otherworldly Meta Hollywood. In this case, any Hollywood film would be more
"truthful" than any reality, because reality usually reveals neither its artificiality, its madness, nor its
underbelly. On the contrary, the latest Hollywood cinema, by thematizing its methods, offers a new
metaphysics that interprets the act of creation as a studio production. And in this respect, Hollywood
cinema is far superior to the majority of contemporary culture. After all, the question of whether
Hollywood is right or wrong in its metaphysical project is not so important compared to the fact that
the subject here is once again the other side of the world (Groys, 2005: 77).
Based on this kind of reasoning, B. Groys finally came to a very sharp and even outrageous
conclusion for the traditional theory of cinematography, namely that all attempts by theorists to
describe artistic practice as part of reality appear unsatisfactory, no matter how interesting and
original they may be. This applies both to Bourdieu's sociology of art and to systems theory
(the two most fashionable, programmatically anti-metaphysical sociological theories today) (Groys,
2005: 86).
No less paradoxical were the conclusions of E. Maisel, who studied the phenomenon of
"cinema and religion". According to E. Maisel, religious cinema is free from faith, but expresses
what happens to it and around it, where it happens (Meisel, 2012: 112).
The philosopher and film critic O. Aronson decided to examine the problem of violence on
the screen from a theoretical point of view, believing that this question is itself dictated by the spirit
of imitatio, in which violence is already present as a certain politics of images. For this political, the
manifestation of aggression is only one of the many affective manifestations of life... The forces of
politics depend on aggression and violence, which are constantly fed. Mimesis here has a dual
character: on the one hand, "violence is inescapable", there is even a certain need for it, and
therefore images of suffering bodies cannot be completely excluded; on the other hand, they are
constantly endowed with negative characteristics, demonized, condemned (Aronson, 2003).
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At the same time, we can probably agree that the borderline between positive and negative
violence on the screen is extremely blurred, floating. It is controlled by dominant values (ideology),
politics, morality. This boundary is the theatrical stage on which the performance unfolds, telling
us through the technologies of identification and the politics of the image: look, this is your
experience. And we're watching. And we agree and are practically certain that the experience is
really 'mine', that it belongs to 'my' body. In this way, sensuality becomes hostage to politics, in
which images of suffering bodies act as a substitute for desires and experiences that are not
controlled by the authorities. These images not only represent violence, demonstrate its danger and
threat, but also divert attention, locate violence in the realm of natural aggressiveness, and hide the
violence that emanates from the political and social order itself, in the form of "desired
prohibitions" and sometimes "sweet restrictions". When a tear wells up in the viewer's eye at the
next standard twist in a melodramatic plot, or when a child's smile in a yogurt advert elicits
programmed tenderness, we are present to the same politics of images that control and shape our
sensuality, which is no less violent than the negative images of aggression it produces (Aronson,
2003: 86-88).
Continuing the theme of screen violence, the culturologist E. Baraban wrote that in Russian
cinema about the war of recent decades, emotional and ethical messages are legitimized by
positions of pragmatic individualism, and the bearers of a sense of patriotism are individuals who
are not united and not united in the unity propagated by the Soviet reading of the war. The models
for reworking the Soviet war discourse in post-Soviet films are different.
These are aesthetic eclecticism against a background of anachronistic ideology, the inversion
of the ideology and aesthetics of Soviet war films, the construction of plot elements in the fantasy
genre, and the use of stylistic and genre elements of Soviet war history to revise the key tropes of
the Soviet idea of war. An analysis of the ways in which new films model the Soviet past helps to
recognize the disappearance of the previously unified perception and reproduction of war, and the
fact that nostalgia for the Soviet past actually occupies a rather limited place as a fact of post-Soviet
culture (Baraban, 2012: 83).
Reflecting on the ethics and aesthetics of war on the screen, D. Golynko-Wolfson (1969–
2023) emphasized that the recognition and legalization of the gestures of humanitarian
intervention made by the superpowers significantly modified the system of humanistic principles
that determined both the theory of war and the practice of military operations. Traditional military
humanism was based on the idea of civil society expressed in the Hegelian philosophy of history
and the corresponding idea of the sovereignty of the individual. The ultimate goal of military
conflict, whether driven by territorial claims or religious zeal, liberation or conquest, was to uphold
the norms of national sovereignty and the standards of human autonomy. The fact that the
movement towards this "sacred" goal was accompanied by the assertion of the demonic will of the
commander or the absolute dominance of the ruler always introduced into the rhetoric of military
humanism the effect of a contradictory duality. ... Today, war does not mean the clash of (more or
less) equal armies, but the clash of the military machine of a developed superpower with
detachments of rebels from economically backward regions that are disproportionately strong.
The doctrine of humanitarian intervention became the dominant military strategy during the
bombing of Yugoslavia. But military experts began to propagate it as early as the early 1990s, after
the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Iron Curtain, when the world became unipolar. ...
The war was transformed from a real event into a media show broadcast via satellite networks
(Golynko-Wolfson, 2004: 100-103).
Thus, both in cinema and in reality, in the ideology and tactics of modern warfare,
a significant detail has undergone a metamorphosis: the factor of protection (by the constitution or
the UN charters) has now disappeared. Now, potentially, any state found guilty of wrongdoing
before the world community can be subjected to a preventive military strike or an act of retaliation.
... The question of humanism appears as an indispensable core of many documentary or fictional
depictions of war. For better or worse, their authors have to soften and rationalize the absurdity
and chaos that characterize the real, aesthetically unadorned course of war. The structure of the
battle narrative – and the diegesis of a military action film – is based on a precisely calculated
contraction (or termination) of two levels: a highly symbolic level of militaristic rhetoric and a nonsymbolic level where horror and suffering are unalienable, and the individual is nothing more than
cannon fodder. The director's interpretation and evaluation of war is subject to an unstable balance
found by the author between the pathos of war, its symbolic, and the madness of war, its real...
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In military dramas, physiology and naturalism are paradoxically either almost excluded or
significantly muted, but ideology literally eats away at not only the heroized replica characters, but
also their physical plasticity. The configuration of the military experience in the genre of the
military thriller is given by one or another ratio of two inseparable plans – the heroism and
madness of war, its symbolic and real; the same correspondence predetermines the model of
humanism that prevails in a certain historical period (Golynko-Wolfson, 2004: 103-104).
Referring to the influence of mass media in general, D. Golynko-Wolfson writes that the
ultra-fast growth of telecommunication technologies contributes to the fact that humanistic views
become relative, appropriated by television, advertising or political PR, and begin to be reshaped to
suit market interests. ... Perhaps the era of information-computer wars, in which the regularity of
attacks and the number of "victims" can be watched with intrigue from the comfort of a television
chair or by buying a game console for a personal computer, would have dragged on for a long time.
Had it not been for the NATO bombings in Yugoslavia on 11 September, the overthrow of Saddam
Hussein's regime in Iraq and much more... Suddenly, the war did not seem funny and comical, but
a serious, too serious "event" that pointed to the personal responsibility of each and every one of us.
It suddenly ceased to be a monstrous anomaly, relegated to the cultural periphery, and instead
claimed to be an everyday norm, given the cynical "name" of an anti-terrorist operation and
spreading everywhere (Golynko-Wolfson, 2004: 106-107).
As part of the theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of serials, A. Korolev reminded
the readers of the Journal that the appearance of Mexican serials has given rise to a new
phenomenon of existence - the soft addiction to soap operas. Millions of housewives live from one
series to another... What does this violent passion mean? It's about not living your own life.
We want to live there! Do not beg in the nooks and crannies of your ordinary destiny, do not get
lost in an aging body, but always live your fate without yourself, outside your own destiny,
in a young body, in the space of radiant love... A virtual monster of otherness begins to emerge
from the depths of the universe to devour humans. Another century of genetics or techno genetics –
and a human being will be able to live life at the level of a chip connected to virtual reality. And I
assure you, there is no inhumanity and dehumanization in this evolution of society. A person will
have the opportunity to choose from several options of being. The first is life within the fate of
others... The second option is the real destiny in real time. This destiny will be chosen by a few,
those saints who will create programmed happiness for the sleeping billions. ... But still the third
way is the most probable – a mixture of two forms of being – real and imaginary. A symbiosis of the
possible and the impossible (Korolev, 2001: 47).
The sociologist K. Bogoslovskaya devoted her theoretical article to the topic of the
relationship between serials and the audience (Bogoslovskaya, 2007: 93-103).
Here she quite sensibly emphasized that the main metaphor characterizing the many ways in
which the modern viewer perceives serials can be recognized as their existence as an alternative to
the empirical world. It is precisely in this way – and primarily in this way – that regular viewers
begin to live in 'soap operas', and this is confirmed by years of focus group data. And this is not only
true of serials: a television program is largely perceived as an endless series, the main feature of
which is to "switch reality" from everyday life to television. This phenomenon is particularly
evident in the case of serials: many viewers describe soap operas as their "second family", in the
world of prime time, the fate of the heroes is not limited to romantic relationships, but includes a
wider context – it is the fate of friends who are deeply indifferent to you... Paradoxically, with the
introduction of "unreal", mystical, fairy-tale content into the plots of series, there are few magical
stories in the literal sense on Russian television. Serial 'fairy tales' are not based on fantasy, but on
real, sometimes quasi-documentary material, and this corresponds to the conscious and
unconscious desires of the audience (Bogoslovskaya, 2007: 93).
At the same time, we agree that serials do not shine with a variety of mythological eternal
plots. Out of the huge spectrum, three meta-plots are most often used: "Cinderella" (a heroine who,
after great suffering, finally finds happiness in the person of a handsome prince...), "Robin Hood"
(a hero who restores social justice by "expropriating" illicit wealth), "Rich they cry too" (proof that
the powerful of this world also have problems, extinguishing envy and, as a result, social
aggression) (Bogoslovskaya, 2007: 103).
On the basis of many years of sociological research, K. Bogoslovskaya comes to the
conclusion that in order to be successful for the masses, the world of serials must, first of all, have a
"general television quality": a clear and transparent plot, strong intrigue, vivid characters, good
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acting... Secondly, and this is not so obvious, the world of serials captures the feelings and thoughts
of the audience when it speaks in an understandable, transparent language about human destiny in
terms of its ultimate categories – life, death, love. They are important and recognizable to people
regardless of the specific time and space in which the series is set. They can be described in terms
of Jung's classic archetypes: "hero" and "shadow", "anima" and "animus". Directly translated into
the language of the plot, this is the relationship between hero and anti-hero, between man and
woman... The presence of these qualities in the world of the series is a necessary but not sufficient
condition for its success. Above the plot of the series there is a "superstructure": the ideals and
values to which its characters aspire and which the serial world as a whole follows. This
superstructure organizes what are commonly referred to as the show's basic messages, since they
answer questions about why the show's characters live, what they do, and how life works in general.
In the case of linking these two worlds – the series and the viewer – it is the superstructure that
becomes the foundation of success (Bogoslovskaya, 2007: 94-95).
We share the opinion of K. Bogoslovskaya, who is convinced that the outlines of a successful
serial world, its ideals and values, should correspond to the content of the collective ideas in which
the majority of viewers live, to those "myths" that the audience consciously – and more often
unconsciously – shares. These collective ideas do not tell us what the world really is, but what it
dreams of, what it should be. In other words, they outline the constructions of a fairy tale that will
embody, on recognizable material, the hidden expectations of the audience.This is how the
"mythological quality" of the series is created, which determines whether it becomes an event or
goes unnoticed despite its high "television quality". ... The basic metaphors of a successful series
must be in line with the cultural and social currents that dominate society at the time. At the same
time, however, they do not correspond directly, but in such a way that the viewer sitting in front of
the television remains in a space of symbolic security – he personally, his image of the world,
his values, his identity at the time of watching should not be threatened by anything
(Bogoslovskaya, 2007: 95).
The last factor is very important, because the appearance in the series of a striking reality or
the actualization of too painful topics of our time immediately affects its popularity... The viewer
does not want to be reminded of his defenselessness, the proximity of death and other existential
problems. The worlds of the series are designed to extinguish this fundamental anxiety, not to fuel
it. The bitter truth, which exposes illusions, is not needed by the viewers of the series. ... However,
the complete exclusion of those parts of reality that evoke strong associations and arouse basic
fears from the serial worlds does not work either - the series lose their relevance, and the audience
already talks about them with disappointment... For the series to be successful, it must correspond
exactly to the most public ideas that were relevant at that moment, but at the same time did not
arouse basic anxiety (Bogoslovskaya, 2007: 97).
However, in the 1990s, the Cinema Artjournal liked to write about serials. In fact,
the analysis of the phenomenon of the Internet and virtual reality has become a new theoretical
trend of the journal in the 21st century.
It is characteristic that the very title of the article by the media researcher L. Manovich –
"YouTube and the Future of Film Theory" – was a kind of challenge to the previous ideas about film
studies.
L. Manovich wrote that the presence of "big data" is very important for the study of cinema as
an art form. The word "cinema" here means not only studio cinema, but also videos produced by
bloggers, music videos, educational videos, advertisements, etc. What unites all these products
(with an understandable difference) is the use of the parameters and resources of cinema – that is,
what we call cinematic language. The emergence of social media in the 2000s, as well as the
gradual digitalization of the works of the past, has caused a real revolution in the study of culture.
... The second common feature of this new paradigm is the use of statistical methods. ...
The statistical theory of cinema was proposed by David Bordwell in the 1980s of the last century.
He proposed to describe the language of classical Hollywood not as a set of rules, formulas or
recipes, but as statistical regularities. ... This very interesting idea has not been further developed in
film studies. But now that the statistical approach has become standard in the study of culture
through the analysis of "big data", such a theory looks quite attractive... If we are interested in
studying the artistic languages of cinema in its current manifestations (including all kinds of genres
and forms of what is so prevalent on YouTube), we now have truly unique opportunities to do so. ...
The presence of billions of video clips and films on the web means that we are potentially seeing
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not just one cinematic language, but many different dialects, their differences and all the variety of
forms of these languages. Unlike natural languages, which are rapidly diminishing in number on
the planet, in the world of media we are seeing a constant expansion and emergence of new dialects
and hybrids. And there is probably no other platform that presents such a variety as YouTube. This
video hosting site can be likened to a giant metropolis populated by people who speak many
hundreds of languages that influence each other. But if changes in natural languages can take
centuries, decades or years, modern media languages can change much faster. This rate of change
gives us all the more reason to study them and better understand the dimensions of human
creativity. This includes how it is affected by globalization, the development of media technology,
access to the cultural heritage of the past and the infinite number of works of the present, the use of
machine learning for search and recommendation, and many other factors that determine the
specificity of our cinematic civilization (Manovich, 2021: 12-13).
Thus, L. Manovich's theoretical approach and prognosis not only contradicted all previous
ideas about "classical" film studies as a science that primarily studies the theory and history of the
artistic peaks of cinematography, but also pushed aside “newer” (including – local) theoretical
approaches to the science of cinema related to semiotics, gender, Freudianism, etc. (Manovich,
2021: 12-13).
As if continuing L. Manovich's reflections, the film critic V. Lyashchenko argues that
YouTube has become a platform for film studies with a million viewers (Lyashchenko, 2021:
32-35), because wordy or wordless, suggestive or chewy video essays combine the analytical with
the sensual. They explain, they fascinate, they immerse, they assimilate what they talk about, that
is, they become metacinema. And in this capacity, they are in demand by millions of viewers... It is
unlikely that all these viewers will go on to make their own films, but the material from the film
schools, presented in this way, captivates them. Which, by the way, makes the distributors of
festival, copyright, independent, etc. cinema think of these people as their potential customers...
The video essay is not a substitute for film criticism, there is no such task, but it significantly
enriches the perception on both sides of the YouTube window. Both the person who sits down at
the digital editing table to dissect another director's technique and the person who waits for the
release of another video with such a dissection make the conversation about cinema more
meaningful (Lyashchenko, 2021: 35).
In this connection, however, O. Aronson drew the attention of the readers of the magazine to
the negative aspects of watching video files on YouTube, since a reasonable question arises: what
should we associate more with cinema today: films – works that make its history, or replicated bad
copies, films deformed by special programs, censored, shredded into fragments, and reassembled
in numerous video reviews? (Aronson, 2021: 16).
At the same time, in the modern audiovisual sphere (including the Internet), there is no
"internal censor" (i.e., one's own morality) that can prohibit the author from using this or that
means of expression. Morality never belongs to the subject, but every "I" is included in the world of
others, in which the forces of morality operate together with others (economic, erotic, etc.),
structuring the "I" as a subject. But even if we accept the existence of an "internal censor", it is still
not clear how it can forbid something to another? In any case, the introduction of an "internal
censor" implies the totalization of ethical principles, the recognition of certain values as
unshakable, universal, divine (Aronson, 2001: 81).
Reflecting on a similar issue, L. Uzarashvili recalled that withthe fact that YouTube doesn't
produce content like TV or film studios gives the impression that it doesn't control or participate in
shaping the content of its platform. ... On the one hand, it is clear that the myth of YouTube's
unconditional progressiveness is largely based on a democratic ideology that is embedded in the
company's positioning as a platform with the slogan "broadcast yourself". Despite this promise,
the platform's algorithms work in the opposite direction, discriminating against non-selling
content and prioritizing conforming blogs that can, or already do, earn from advertising. On the
other hand, as a result of the less lucrative and more meticulous work of individuals, alternative
content bubbles are indeed popping up on YouTube to create a more democratic and progressive
future. This is the merit of the people, not the technologies themselves, which resist such practices
rather than support them (Uzarashvili, 2021: 42, 44).
D. Golynko-Wolfson (1969–2023) focused on the negative characteristics of the Internet,
stressing that in the age of high technology it is the electronic media that become generators of
groundless panic and superstitious fear. Networks. The role of the infernal machine that spreads
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evil, not for selfish or moral motives, but according to its own infernal whims that cannot be
deciphered. Anxiety becomes the psychotic tuning fork of modern man, who has seen on Internet a
reservoir of the mysterious, the cruel and the uncontrollable, but has not found a way to contain
this mysteriousness and adapt it to his own advantage. Any attempt to give scientific explanations
to this mysterious, to apply an ethical scale to it, or to put it into a moral framework, and to call the
virtual to consciousness, is ridiculous and doomed to failure from the start – this is what modern
cinema diagnoses (Golynko-Wolfson, 2003: 96).
Film expert M. Terakopyan believes that the digital image changes our sense of the necessary
connection between the camera and non-film reality. The presence of both is no longer absolutely
necessary. Now it's much easier to 'photograph' what you can't see. Computer technology converts
the image into pixels that can be easily transformed, processed, altered. The line between
animation (which creates images where there were none before) and editing (which deals with the
rearrangement of fragments of events that occurred in front of the camera) is blurred. When the
artist is able to easily manipulate the digital image, either as a whole or frame by frame, the film
becomes a series of drawings. The ability to draw by hand on digitized images is a very serious
change in the status of cinema, paradoxically returning the "art of the moving image" to its origins
(Terakopyan, 2007: 71).
E. Maisel's theoretical article "The Mirror Stage: VR and Cinema" focused on the
phenomenon of virtual reality (Maisel, 2019: 169-182).
In it, E. Maisel writes that although this technology has entered the life of a person of the
XXI century, virtual films or art objects have not become a public cultural event... Cinematography
is not afraid of VR and is ready to eat it with all the giblets, but there is one small detail, the ability
of the viewer to somehow participate in the action of the picture. Undoubtedly, in terms of its
significance, such a transformation, if it occurs, will not yield to the problem of sound, nor even to
digitalization, because we are talking about a change in the basic and still untouchable pattern of
consumption: from a viewing session, watching a film becomes an active search session. On the one
hand, this innovation guarantees the demand for a normal 'observational' cinema (just as painting
and photography survived with the advent of cinema and television), on the other hand, this
transition itself will radically change the functions not only of the viewer, but also of the image, and
possibly in general the whole image system of what we now call cinema (Maisel, 2019: 181-182).
The same E. Maisel further noted that the modern "video mass" is increasingly turning to the
subject of more and more minorities that were previously ignored or misrepresented on the screen,
such as homosexuals, queer audiences, colour and ethnic minorities, representatives of postcolonial societies, and further down to people with one or another disability. This process is not yet
complete, its logic and pathos are far from exhausted, but at the beginning of the 2000s of our
century it is reaching a kind of climax in the rediscovery of our animal neighbours on the planet,
with their subjectivity, with their time, with their expressive silence, long abandoned by a man who
knew the necessity of work and with it the bitterness of alienation (Maisel, 2020: 101).
As far as theoretical approaches to Russian cinema are concerned, M. Lipovetsky, in the
pages of Cinema Art, argued, in full accordance with the "Western critical view" of Russia, that
today's culture is trying to get rid of the Soviet legacy, understood as a failure into archaic savagery,
and return to modernity. But, firstly, there is nowhere to take modernity except from the Soviet
experience. Secondly, these attempts are superimposed on postmodern trends coming both from
their own aesthetic underground and from the wide-open doors to the West – to postmodern
Europe.If the postmodern consciousness offers a constant problematization and deconstruction of
the norms and absolutes of its culture – also from the point of view of other consciousnesses –
then, for example, a pronounced nostalgia for empire and imperial greatness, characteristic not
only of the older but also of the younger generation of filmmakers, could not but stand in the way
of, say, postcolonial discourse. It seems that it should naturally accompany the collapse of the
empire, but it does not, because it is not accompanied – at least in Russian culture – by a critical
reflection on the colonizing role of this very culture; on the contrary, it is Russia and the Russians
who are always offended and suppressed in the mass consciousness and in the most popular works'
(Lipovetsky, 2003: 79-80).
Within the framework of the same theme of theoretical understanding of the processes in
post-Soviet cinema, E. Maisel quite rightly noted that in recent Russian cinema, as a reaction to
these socio-historical traumas, post-topic moods are clearly distinguished, and sometimes even a
complete reduction of the utopian dimension in general – to the extent that it is possible...
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So, in general, young Russian cinema is post-topic. If there is a utopian motif in it – as a hope for
the best, as a hero's search for himself, as a belief in certain forms of self-realization – it is usually
escape. Modern heroes believe in escape: from society, from the metropolis, from degraded urban
(that is, simply public) relations (Maisel, 2010: 35).
Despite all this, according to E. Maisel, in the Russian cinema of the first two post-Soviet
decades there were no images of many hot, painful topics, and this is also a syndrome of a posttopic state of mind. In particular, we almost never make films about the value of freedom, either
individual or public. The latent apology of liberalism can only be found in retrospective films about
the thawed perestroika reality, that is, about the last three decades of the USSR, when the "West"
symbolized for our relaxed compatriots such blessings that are scarce in their world, such as
freedom of speech, style, lifestyle, purchasing and travelling...There is no honest socialist cinema in
the sense of some Ken Loach... The rejection of many current issues by young authors,
the emphasis on "non-principle" and the flight from clear semantic accents are the result of the
rigidity of our general post-shock state. All these gaps are the result of a huge public
disappointment, the extent of which we have yet to grasp (Maisel, 2010: 35, 39).
The articles by K. Razlogov (Razlogov, 2002: 83-92) and N. Sirivlya (Sirivlya, 2001: 69-76)
were devoted to the attempt of post-Soviet cinema to reflect on the screen the glamorous life of the
so-called "new Russians", which had minimal contact with the everyday life of ordinary Russian
citizens. In this regard, I. Mantsov believed that Russian filmmakers "need only look carefully at
the social reality of their country and reflect it on the cinema and television screen to the best of
their ability and talent. Everyone. No formal frills, no such genius required. Just an honest look.
Not into the abyss of my subconscious (which, by the way, is absolutely predictable, like the
subconscious of almost everyone, or like modern Russian cinema), but into the abyss of everyday
reality. I promise you that the selectors of the largest Western festivals will immediately reach out
to you, the national audience, and even to cunning producers with great financial resources.
Because the truth always costs more. More than anything else. Unfortunately, this point of view is
still unpopular in Russia' (Mantsov, 2002: 73).
Interesting in this regard is the article by the ethnologist E. Romanova, devoted to the study
of the mythopoetic chronotope of Yakut visuality (Romanova, 2021: 38-45) in the context of its
reflection of the real world. In particular, E. Romanov wrote that the agia of Yakut language,
the fragility and fluidity of time, the permeability of profane and sacred boundaries, the flow of
spaces and symbols, the appeal to the culture of memory, ontological symmetry as the organization
of the world, plurality of choice, co-creation: these components of the traditional Yakut mentality
set a new visual program of aesthetic experiences. Understanding the author's imaginary
landscapes and the transformation of reality reveals the film language of Yakut cinema as a
phenomenon of co-spatiality. Its sign system demonstrates a spatial perspective, and the
transcendent quality of the mutual flow of space and time, characteristic of archaic traditions,
creates a special mythopoetic language of visual narrative. One of the key visual techniques of
Yakut auteur cinema is a metaphorical model for describing the hero's inner world through
landscape topoi. The directors' appeal to spatial archetypes has an internal logic and refers to the
traditions of national culture. The experience of spatial visualization in Sakha culture can be
described as a kind of media archaeology. The visual method of superimposing one cultural layer
on another, where the past breaks through the new, becomes for Yakut cinema a window into the
modern world film process (Romanova, 2021: 44-45).
Discussions about the problems of cinema and society
Never before has there been so many discussions in the Cinema Art journal as in the first two
decades of the 21st century. To a large extent, they were devoted to socio-political problems,
however, to no lesser extent – cinema problems.
For example, during the discussion "Film distribution: mission (im)possible?" (Kinoprokat...,
2002: 5-18), D. Dondurey (1947–2017), editor-in-chief of the Cinema Artjournal, recalled that in
our country the production economy exists in complete isolation from the distribution economy.
Russian producers realize all their economic interests at the stage of film creation. It's like making
shoes you don't wear and sausages you don't eat. Multiple premieres in several cinemas cannot
recoup real production costs. There are only a few known cases of Russian films paying off...
So, our production exists in abnormal conditions, but there are good cinemas, there are more and
more audiences, and rental incomes are growing... Since 1988, filmmakers have been saying: the
problem is that, by adopting a new model of cinema, we have missed out on the distribution,
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we have handed it over to "foreign" hands, to the local authorities. Now it is clear that this was the
only right decision. Today, rental is already "recovering" and production is on the verge of a
complete collapse (Kinoprokat..., 2002: 6).
During another discussion, D. Dondurey noted that in this situation he saw three customers
who were quite powerful, both in terms of quantity and in terms of authority and economics.
The most influential of these is the commercial cinema audience, mostly American... This audience
doubles almost every year, represents the main contingent of theatrical distribution, and feeds our
entire film industry. ... The second segment of the audience is those post-Soviet people who live
mainly in memories of the past, who explicitly or indirectly hate the very principles of present life.
They concentrate on cinema, which can be called commerce in the old sense. They do not go to
cinemas, old or new, but sit in front of their televisions and watch series that are indistinguishable
from each other. They love Soviet cinema, of course... But the cinema designed for such an
audience has no future either in the cinema or on video, because its content, in encoded "versions
of reality", can only live on television. Finally, the third part of the audience is made up of
professionals and film lovers who can perceive auteur cinema and who place all their expectations
on it. Of course, there are not many of these audiences, but they are very influential because,
through the institution of criticism, they hold the evaluation of modern cinema in their hands.
Their representatives sit on the juries of all the European film festivals and make the weather there.
One of the fundamental, strategic problems of modern Russian cinema is that these audiences
practically do not touch each other. Each lives its own life and looks at the world and the functions
of cinema in its own way. It turns out that our cinematography today literally appeals to three
different nations, even though these people live in one country and speak the same language
(I..., 2004: 5-6).
Similar positions were expressed by D. Dondurey in the discussion "The Code is Unknown"
(Cod..., 2004: 99-108), adding that in Russia there is an incredible boom in TV series, which make
up 20 percent of all broadcasts, and together with feature films, documentaries, and animation,
they make up 54 percent of all film broadcasts. It's not so easy to kick ER (Emergency Room) or
Sex and the City off the TV screen, to "put up" the world's best TV shows from our prime time,
but it has happened: Russian TV shows won (Cod..., 2004).
Film critic V. Fomin argued with D. Dondurey: "I was struck by the wording of the
discussion: 'The code is unknown'. And it is famous! This is the code of the Russian artistic
tradition, which, in spite of official ideological pressure, found its way into our national cinema,
albeit in a limited, truncated form. And our whole cinema was based on it. With the beginning of
perestroika, we lost this code. The system of artistic values that dominates our cinema today is
something imitatively cosmopolitan. The system of values that was alien to us, that led us into a
blind alley, is not only not disappearing, on the contrary, it has been adopted by the majority of
young Russian filmmakers' (Fomin, 2004: 101).
By 2005, the situation in film distribution began to change with the appearance of several
Russian box office hits. And in 2005, the Cinema Art journal reflected these changes in its pages
with a discussion on blockbusters (Blockbuster..., 2005: 6-23).
At the beginning of the discussion, D. Dondurey rightly noted that a year and a half ago there
were no films in Russia that could be called blockbusters: films with big budgets, stars, special
effects, full-scale advertising, films that could compete with Hollywood products at our box offices.
With the arrival of the Night Watch, a new era began... As a result, in just one-year Russian cinema
tripled its presence at the annual Russian box office. And if in 2003 the fees were no more than
5 percent, in 2004 our films were already earning 15-16 percent, and these are serious figures. If in
1997 our cinema market was estimated at 8 million dollars, in 2005 the fees were at least
370 million. The rate of growth in this industry over six years is so great that even the oil and gas
industry has not seen anything like it. But although Russian cinema has made progress thanks to a
few blockbusters and has increased its presence on the screens, it has still done little to impress the
Americans, who continue to receive up to 80 percent of all box-office receipts in our country
(Blockbuster..., 2005: 6-7).
Y. Bogomolov (1937–2023) drew attention in his speech to the problems of film globalization
and the role of cinematic mass culture in Russian society: "It seems to me that our cinematography
will indeed have a very difficult, difficult, contradictory path ahead of it. After all, what makes the
20th century and the beginning of the 21st century different from previous eras? In the past, high
culture and its genres were visible, they were representative, and low culture existed and developed in
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the fields of mass high culture. It existed, it developed, but it was treated condescendingly. Now there
has been a castling, which consists in the fact that mass culture has, strangely enough, become the
center of all culture, and authorial culture exists on its periphery" (Bogomolov, 2005: 20).
During a discussion entitled "In Search of Meaning: New Patriotism" (V..., 2006: 5-25),
D. Dondurey noted the paradoxical situation that had developed in Russia by the beginning of the
21st century: the population of our country perceives the processes of renewal as unjust, wrong,
unbearable. As a result, the understanding of what is happening is totally inadequate to what is
happening in reality itself. People who have been in the market for many years have a very negative
perception of private property (there are many sociological studies on this subject). Entrepreneurs
are portrayed – on television, in the imagination, and therefore in life itself – exclusively as
bandits. This is confirmed by more than two thousand episodes filmed in the last three years,
in most of the nine hundred films made since 1991. Intellectuals and artists have offered virtually
no productive models to help their compatriots adapt to a new life. In the minds of the people,
a whole worldview system has grown up, according to which work, creativity and activity are not
values (V..., 2006: 7). On the other hand, according to D. Dondurey, it seems strange that in Russia
in the 21st century patriotism is mainly associated with war and sports, to the detriment of a
peaceful understanding of patriotism in a vast and complex peaceful life (V..., 2006).
The film critic and culturologist K. Razlogov (1946–2021) drew attention to the fact that the
possibilities of the state and artists to influence the processes of real cultural life are minimal, since
we are really talking about some unconscious forces and impulses (Jung called it the "collective
unconscious"), which sooner or later lead to the same results, despite the fact that all participants
of the socio-cultural action seem to want to lead society towards something completely different.
It seems that some stable structures of the psyche are reproduced in the structures of social
relations. No matter how hard we try to break them up and make them turn the other way, we fail.
They can only be washed away, buried, sometimes even blown up, but after decades a remake is
built again, just as it was (V..., 2006).
The film expert D. Komm wrote in this connection that at the beginning of the 21st century
on Russian television almost all the more or less sane political scientists disappeared, and in their
place figures like Leontiev and Dugin took over, tirelessly singing a song about how "the enemies
burned their own huts"... Individual journalists who mistakenly believed that their duty was not to
spread patriotism but reliable information were driven out of the profession. Naturally, filmmakers
could not remain aloof from these titanic efforts. Moreover, love for one's homeland is not a cheap
affair, and the budgets allocated to it are so large that it would be a sin not to control them.
The result was the revival of the good old military-patriotic cinema, which was hastily consigned to
the archives (Komm, 2006: 113).
In this respect, however, the opinion of the film critic M. Turovskaya (1924-2019), expressed
in an earlier discussion in the pages of Cinema Art, seemed very reasonable: "The task of our
cinema is not to create some kind of ideological project. I do not believe in such ideological
projects, I do not believe that with the help of television, the media, etc., one can present an
ideological project to the people. I believe that this ideological project can only take root if it
corresponds at least to some extent to the expectations of the masses. You can add something to it,
you can reject something, but if the ideology does not meet people's expectations, they will not
accept it. ... I think that if our cinematography were to describe everyday reality, and we are living
in an amazing reality, in a transitional period, – that would be its invaluable contribution to the
creation of our mythology, ideology, etc. But our real everyday life remains uncovered, it is not
described on the screen. The screen basically expresses itself" (Turovskaya, 2001: 169).
In a discussion of violence in cinema (Ves..., 2003: 5-22), film critic and director O. Kovalov
recalled that there was simply no crueler and more naturalistic cinema than Soviet cinema in the
1920s – 'bourgeois censorship' would not have allowed a hundredth of the atrocities depicted in
Russian films about the revolution to be shown. German censors made banknotes in the film
Battleship Potemkin (Ves..., 2003: 11-12).
Turning to the present, O. Kovalov stressed that the rivers of blood in today's genre cinema
are not at all surprising: it has always supplied the market not only with dreams, but also with
"cutting, slashing, stabbing" and "terrible stories". Today it is the same kind of booth, a mixture of
fairground attraction and computer game. This machine operates according to the laws that have
always been laid down for it. It does not change its nature because the notorious new technologies
have entered the world of farce. It makes little difference if a papier-mâché head flies off the
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shoulders of a character or if a mass of bodies writhes on the screen as laser beams cut through
them. From such spectacles one falls into an addiction similar to that of a drug: the first shock
becomes numb, the user waits for a stronger injection, and this process is endless" (Kovalov, 2003:
14). However, in the "auteur genre", the cinema of aesthetes and refined intellectuals,
the sophisticated consciousness, teasing and provoking, will indulge in aesthetic games with
violence: it will give rise to its most bizarre forms or provocatively exchange good and evil. This is
the realm of salon violence. "And here our humanistic views come into paradoxical conflict with the
aesthetic sense. We admit that the famous scene from Hitchcock's Psycho, in which the female
body writhes under the blows of a madman's knife, gives us aesthetic pleasure... Simply put,
we enjoy looking at it' (Kovalov, 2003: 14).
One of the most notable discussions in the pages of Cinema Art of the 21st Century was
entitled "The End of Arthouse?" (Konets..., 2005: 16-29), in which film critic A. Shpagin argued
that arthouse today is the direction in art that used to be called "avant-garde". Avant-garde (and
now art-house) is a kind of split form (usually with a very complex structure, or even without it):
a deliberately confusing language, a cascade of coded and strangely combined images, often
something artificially slowed down, boring, developing according to the whims of the author, who
openly deceives the audience with his originality and mystery. In any avant-garde work,
the moment of provocation plays an important role: a confrontation with the usual myth and the
destruction of hardened clichés of perception.
And film critic A. Plakhov emphasized that there is a movie with a high concentration of the
author's principle, and there is a movie with a minimal concentration... At one time they liked to
talk about elitist (festival) and mass cinema. But even this is not the most accurate opposition, it is
more accurate to define it as high-budget and low-budget cinema, high-paying and low-paying
cinema… In the same way that Soviet ideologists spoke of “diffusion of ideological and commercial
cinema in the West”…Today, after postmodern expansion, everything is mixed up in the Oblonsky
house, including art house with the mainstream. The new aesthetic centaur – art mainstream –
is actually not so new and is a compromise product suitable for display in more halls...
The mainstream also includes many taboos and reservations of modern culture, such as
pornography (Konets..., 2005: 7-8).
On the problems of film criticism and film studies
In 2001, the Cinema Art journal celebrated its 70th anniversary. In this regard, a number of
materials devoted to the history of the journal were posted on its pages. Film critic and cultorogist
M. Turovskaya (1924–2019) wrote about the Cinema Art of the 1930s (Turovskaya, 2001: 15-18),
film historian V. Fomin wrote about the journal in the 1940s (Fomin, 2001: 19-22), film critic and
culturologist N. Zorkaya (1924–2006) – about the journal periods of the 1950s and 1970s (Zorkaya,
2001: 23-25; 31-35), film historian E. Margolit – about the 1960s (Margolit, 2001: 26-30),
journalist and writer T. Moskvina (1958–2022) – about the 1980s (Moskvina, 2001: 36-39), writer
and film critic D. Bykov – about the 1990s (Bykov, 2001: 40-43). The history of the different
periods of the Cinema Artjournalwas touched upon in the articles by film critics Y. Bogomolov
(1937–2023) (Bogomolov, 2001: 5-7), A. Zorky (1935–2006) (Zorky, 2001: 8-10), V. Kichin
(Kichin, 2001: 11-13), A. Medvedev (1938–2022) (Medvedev, 2001: 14-16), N. Sumenov (1938–
2014) (Sumenov, 2001: 18-20), P. Shepotinnik (Shepotinnik, 2001: 20-22), K. Shcherbakov
(Shcherbakov, 2001: 23-24), R. Yurenev (1912–2002) (Yurenev, 2001: 25-29). Due to their
specificity, these articles were analyzed and cited by us earlier (Fedorov, 2022; Fedorov,
Levitskaya, 2022; Levitskaya, 2022), so here we only note that all these texts were small in volume
and written in a rather free style of an essay.
But, as before, the most heated discussions in the Cinema Art journal were about the
problems of film criticism and film studies.
One of the most heated discussions in the journal on this topic was called "Criticism as PR"
(Kritika..., 2003: 13-29).
Here, the film critic N. Zarkhi (1946-2017) drew attention to the mutation of criticism,
the disappearance of still relevant genres, the loss of almost the main components of our
profession, its ontological properties. Traditional critical methodology, case-based analysis, critical
intrigue and individual style are increasingly giving way to the power of public relations, designed
to present a film or a name as a tidbit and promote it to the consumer. Pressure, a snappy word,
a biting, slogan-like and actually meaningless phrase imprinted in the brain – all these techniques
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turn into criticism, and concepts such as depth, for example, become almost a curse (Kritika...,
2003: 13).
The writer and film critic D. Bykov was not so categorical: "I have nothing against honest PR.
We all do it one way or another, and certainly people who are interested in technology are
convinced that every word I say here is PR for me, and not an attempt to understand the subject.
I have nothing against that approach. From a certain point of view it is. The problem is that most of
the time our critic is not doing PR for the product, but for himself. He tries to show what words he
knows, what festivals he has been to recently, what parties he has been to... If there is such a PR for
oneself, one's party or one's generation, it is not only not very meaningful, it is simply dishonest in
relation to the image one is writing about. Because it is necessary to see it, the image, and not you.
That is how it seems to me. And the tasks of critics, as opposed to PR people, I think there have
always been two, and Blok formulated them in Pushkin's speech. One, of course, is to help the artist
understand himself, and the second is not to call art what is not art. And these tasks, in my opinion,
will always be relevant" (Kritika..., 2003: 14).
Film critic V. Matizen recalled that "there is no such thing as a completely independent critic,
but we must strive for it. Every critic is dependent on certain aesthetic concepts. And not only from
them... The dependence of the critic on friendship with filmmakers is a reality. Andrei Plakhov
wrote well about this with reference to Truffaut's criticism. And he came to the same conclusion:
it is better to be a traitor who has lunch with the director today and criticizes his new film
tomorrow, than a true friend who praises his unsuccessful work. ... Of course, no one has the right
to forbid a person to combine the role of critic with the role of film critic, journalist, advertising PR
specialist, and even with the role of screenwriter or director. But there is such a thing as a critical
reputation, which is not easy to gain and can be lost overnight' (Kritika..., 2003: 16).
The philosopher and film critic O. Aronson agreed that most of the people we call critics out
of inertia will, to one degree or another, serve the interests of some kind of capital:
cinematographic, production, festival, whatever - that is obvious. Moreover, they will all be called
(and call themselves) critics, and we have to come to terms with that somehow... So, even though
all these critics will exist under the name of critics, the question remains of the professional
position of the critic, of the critical position and the critical statement that does not belong to this
service of the interests of capital. ... If independent professional criticism is possible today, then it
implies, in a certain imperative order, the suspension of judgement from the point of view of taste.
... The professionalism of the critic turns out to be closely linked to his ability to maintain a certain
social moment in his statement, considering a certain impossibility of trusting the primary impulse
of sensuality. Today there are practically no professional critics in this sense... Criticism is
necessary. It is always PR, but PR in the literal sense of the word, that is, public relations, because it
establishes, in one way or another, a link with society. ... So, a critic is someone who, first of all,
forms a kind of community around himself. This community may be arbitrarily small, but it listens
to him because it knows that it agrees or disagrees with the critic's statement, that it has the
possibility of thinking and feeling. It is this kind of socially significant statement that is important
in criticism (Kritika..., 2003: 18-19).
V. Shmyrov noted that in Russia of the 21st century, film criticism in its former form is
probably no longer needed in large newspaper pages... On the other hand, another, new critic has
not appeared. After all, look at the boom that television is experiencing, how many series are being
shown. And, it seems, people are switching channels and writing about it. This is also a reality that
should be of interest to critics and readers. But the profession of the columnist, the television critic,
who would describe the state of the art of telecinema, is unfortunately simply absent today. There
doesn't even seem to be a need for this specialization. Moreover, the very formulation of such a task
will be perceived as deeply offensive by the majority of those present. And here we are faced with a
paradoxical phenomenon: the fewer people can see the film; the more critics write about it. ...
Today, the life of criticism continues on the Internet. It is carried out by very different people,
whose names we do not always know and whose language is very specific. But this is what makes
film criticism a real thing, in demand. This is film criticism that focuses more on aesthetics and
technology than on ideology or "general civic principles". And this, it seems to me, is the guarantee
that today not everything is so hopeless (Kritika..., 2003: 19-20). Thus, V. Shmyrov concluded that
Russian professional film critics are far from readers who like to read about cinema, that is, they
have absolutely nothing to do with the public to whom they should represent our film process.
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Film expert A. Artyukh drew attention to the fact that in the 21 st century, in contrast to the
situation in Russia twenty years ago, the film process is assessed by critics as much more complex,
branched and multidimensional. Due to their specialization, critics are forced to rely on the
knowledge of their colleagues on issues that they themselves do not have time to study due to the
unprecedented multidimensionality of the film process. The first thing we have gained in the
current market situation is an understanding of the need to study and analyze the audience, which
is the consumer of film products. Critics, along with distributors and creators, began to bear serious
responsibility for how films are perceived by the audience, how high the degree of trust of the
viewer is (Kritika..., 2003: 27-28).
But I. Mantsov, in fact, ignoring the main target of film criticism – the public, believed that
for the film critic is the guardian of the hearth, the person who controls the real film process, and
only in the second, third place is the writer. A film critic works directly with filmmakers: directors,
producers, scriptwriters, officials of the Ministry of Culture. The real task of the film critic is:
sometimes by cunning, sometimes by rudeness, sometimes by flattery, sometimes by Aesopian
speeches, as they say, to "breed" practising filmmakers and officials into actions, plots, style, form
and content that seem optimal to him (the film critic) ... Under the guise of "film critics" in Russia
there are "scientists" and "writers". Well-trained scientists are not concerned with the construction
of cinematography, with the process of filming, but with individual written discourse. They are
interested in the smoothness of the presentation, the logical chain, the writing as such. Our film
writers compete. They write to show each other their training. Unconsciously, but no less
aggressively, they imitate "scientific" discourse and play clever. There is a competition between the
subjects of written university culture, which parasites on cinema, which these subjects often
despise (Mantsov, 2002: 5-6).
Unlike I. Mantsov, film critic D. Komm believed that the main audience for film criticism was
not directors, producers, and officials, but the general population, which had not lost interest in
cinema. "The previous generation of film fans and film clubs," wrote D. Komm, "had mixed feelings
of envy and reverence for the critic, because he (according to their ideas) was admitted to the inner
sanctum: he went to special screenings, went to foreign festivals, could see the classics and even
communicate with them... For the older generation of filmgoers, who gleaned their information
from Polish and Bulgarian magazines, the critic was about the same as for the rest of the citizens,
the shopkeeper who could pull carefully hidden imported goods from under the counter...". Then,
at the beginning of the 1990s, when a flood of foreign films arrived, the critic turned out to be even
more in demand, because people wanted to be guided by this flow" (Komm, 2005: 15).
However, as D. Komm rightly continues, by the beginning of the 21st century a completely new
type of cinephile had emerged in Russia. Modern cinephiles are young, independent people who have
grown up without a lack of both cinema and information about it, who speak foreign languages, travel
abroad and actively use the Internet. This is a demanding, not at all superficial audience, which has
already decided on its tastes and preferences and does not tolerate stupidity in critical texts... And for
these young people, the authority of film criticism is unfortunately extremely low... Meanwhile, we
are discrediting ourselves in the eyes of thinking young people, and criticism is being actively
squeezed out of the media on the pretext that, as they say, "the people are not interested in your
fabrications". It turns out that people only need to know the budgets of films, the novels of stars...
Maybe most viewers don't really need film criticism (although no one has proven this), but even if
they do, we are now losing an interested minority, which is sad (Komm, 2005: 15-16).
However, film critic A. Artyukh reminds D. Komm that such tendencies are not unique to
Russia: "According to FIPRESCI general secretary Klaus Eder, criticism in the West is also
beginning to lose its former positions in the press". And in Russia, "it is not that the older
generation of critics is leaving, and the younger ones do not want to become their heirs. By and
large, there is nothing to inherit: our older generation of film critics has gone no further than
structuralism and semiotics... Neo-formalism, feminism, queer studies, case studies, poststructuralism, post-modernism – all these things evoke horror mixed with hatred in many
patriarchs.... The deplorable state of Russian criticism is only a reflection of the general confusion
and vacillation in the humanitarian sphere. Film criticism always feeds on the ideas of academic
writing. But if academic writing is limited to the historical texts of the journal Film Studies Notes,
what do we expect from critics? Of course, the most advanced members of the film press have long
since abandoned the local context and are inspired by Western studies. But such enthusiasts are
few and far between. Moreover, they are often unappreciated. There are no serious analytical
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assignments. There is Russian cinema, for example, on which the magazine Seance tries to base its
cultural strategy. But it is still boring to write about our cinema because, with rare exceptions,
it exists outside the global context" (Artyukh, 2005: 16-17).
Pessimistic sentiments about the demand for film and television criticism were also reflected
in a number of other articles (Sekretnaya..., 2008; Stishova, 2005: 27-31; Tsyrkun, 2005: 77-79 and
others).
Meanwhile, film critic V. Belopolskaya was convinced that those who say that we have the
death of criticism ignore the obvious fact that we have a flourishing of criticism. When, under what
other political, social, or technological conditions, could literally any half-wit get a podium? And
that is exactly what has happened - and that is why criticism has flourished. We have so much
criticism in print, electronic and other media, so many critics accredited to international festivals,
so many professional people at press screenings, so many warriors of the invisible front of film
journalism, that it is simply impossible not to notice the rapid flowering (Belopolskaya, 2005: 80).
At the same time, V. Belopolskaya emphasized that she meant film criticism and not PR, not
announcements in various kinds of reference and poster publications, not notes on cinema in
glamorous glossy publications.
Commenting about film criticism at the beginning of the 21 st century, V. Belopolskaya noted
that the Internet has caused "irreparable mental damage" to Russian "classical" film criticism:
"Some write to it unlimitedly, others read it unlimitedly. So there are: a) mountains of critical
rubbish, texts marked by the cosmically idiotic arrogance of the authors – sites, unlike paper and
broadcast publications, are rubber, and b) non-virtual criticism, containing mountains of
information rubbish, gleaned virtually... Blooming criticism is concerned only with its positions
and its position in social reality" (Belopolskaya, 2005: 81).
Similar tendencies were also noted in the discussion of the role of Russian film criticism in
the Internet space (Versiya..., 2011: 87-97).
Culturologist M. Davydova, reflecting on the role of "ordinary film criticism" in social media,
understood it as reviews by Internet users on various works of art or events. She argued that, as a
rule, the authors of such materials have neither professional status nor special education.
The quality of the reviews, if judged from a professional point of view, leaves much to be desired in
most cases. Nevertheless, such texts are in great demand. The novelty of this phenomenon does not
lie in the appearance of critical texts written by non-professionals. The boundaries of the
professional have always been more or less blurred. The very possibility of trying one's hand at
writing a literary or critical text is attractive. The classical amateur critic could not remain in this
role for long. Either he received recognition from the public and/or his colleagues, or he refused to
experiment any further, or he resigned himself to the stigma of being a loser and a graphomaniac.
Today, the texts of everyday criticism take on a fundamentally different status. From a private
creative experience, which in rare cases can develop into something more, everyday criticism
becomes a self-sufficient and institutionalized system that ensures the reproduction and
consumption of relevant texts (Davydova, 2012: 9).
Film critic R. Korneev was in many ways in solidarity with M. Davydova, noting that with the
advent of the mass Internet in the 21st century, professional film criticism, which had stopped
somewhere deep in the 1990s in its ideas about its own attitude towards the viewer-reader, when
"you say and they listen", was dealt the same blow as torrent trackers for film distributors. And
while graduate film critics, along with the rest of journalism, were slowly moving out of the pages of
magazines and into virtual space. A community of millions of film fans had already formed on the
web. Today, this vast army, which has its own hierarchy and its own system of values, is itself an
active source of the same evaluative consensus that was once the prerogative of an exclusively
professional environment. ... The availability of video media and, above all, of broadband Internet
for their distribution has, in recent years, created a broad layer of incredibly savvy viewers whose
experience of watching film classics exceeds all the possibilities of specialized film universities. ...
What's more, the new generation of formally non-professional film critics has always been given a
walking distance to modern cinema, from the most exalted art house to television series, which a
dozen years ago were not at all within the scope of interests of professional film criticism (Korneev,
2012: 6-7).
R. Korneev aptly noted that in a rather conflicted Internet space, top film bloggers, who,
unlike venerable professionals, have passed through the hellish forge of selection by millions of
ordinary moviegoers, are not only ready for these challenges, but they also cannot imagine life in a
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less aggressive environment. They are well aware that the modern reader is only interested in
someone else's opinion, however weighty, if it coincides with his own. For the average cinema-goer,
the best opinion is his own. The art of presenting a non-banal thought in such a way that others,
after reading it, say: "There! Just as I thought!" is the most important thing for a film critic blogger.
This is the only way to earn a name and an audience. ... The ultimate art is to get readers to come
over to your side. To do that, you must be more weighty, more conscientious, more readable. At the
end of the day, just to have a polemical gift. And it is completely pointless to complain about the
dominance of non-professionals. And at the top, as always, are those who, within the framework of
large online publications, have managed to combine academic knowledge with the ability to
conduct a dialogue with their audience. Or, on the contrary, those representatives of the nonprofessional writing community who have managed to save face and go beyond the confines of their
"cosy blog" or social network community.Those who themselves created first quasi-, and then fullfledged thematic Internet publications, where the name, as always on the Web, is identical to the
audience(Korneev, 2012: 8).
Problems of documentary and popular science cinema
TheCinema Art journal published very little about documentary and popular science in a
theoretical vein in the 21st century. At the same time, only one article was published about popular
science cinema at the level of theory, and that one was about the work of the one of French
cinematographers (Fomenko, 2014: 113-121).
Referring to the Russian documentary cinema of the post-Soviet years, film critic L. Malkova
wrote that the "Factory of Facts" was embodied on television in the fullness of Vertov's concept,
taking on all the functions of the newsreel, with which analytical functions have increasingly
merged in recent years. ... Losing its social function, the newsreel is transforming itself before our
eyes into a style of screen thinking, gravitating towards two models: The Soviet film journal,
reflecting the inertia of mass consciousness, and the pre-revolutionary, mute-laconic journal,
consciously playing with cheap black-and-white film and resorting to inscriptions to avoid
narration. St. Petersburg documentary filmmakers have been subjecting their newsreels to this
kind of deliberate stylization for a number of years, although this style has not been fully
maintained since 1998 – life dictates its own. In general, the national film journal is gradually
becoming a separate trend of modern documentary cinema, for which the direct chronicle is almost
an ideological and aesthetic credo, eliminating the conceptualization of the flow of life and political
conclusions (Malkova, 2001: 96, 99).
Film critic S. Sychev has argued conclusively that in the 21st century the lack of access to
documentary films for the viewer (on television ... it is shown not only extremely rarely, but mainly
at night) has a detrimental effect on the state of national documentary filmmaking itself. Authors
lose contact with the audience because they do not expect their film to be seen by anyone other
than a small circle of professionals... TV bosses shy away from a good film. Television
documentaries function solely on the principle of infotainment unpretentiousness: the three most
common genres on television today – investigation, portrait film and popular science program –
are made according to the same templates, without any hint of artistry" (Sychev, 2008: 75).
Meanwhile, according to S. Sychev, without successful film distribution, nothing seems to be
able to force the viewer and television to change their attitude towards non-fiction films... A new
stage in the distribution of non-fiction films can be digital distribution – a system of distributing
film copies to cinemas not on film, but on any digital medium, when there is no need to spend
money on printing film copies of the film, which was one of the significant obstacles to the
distribution of low-budget films... It should not be forgotten that during the perestroika period the
films of Podnieks, Goldovskaya, Uchitel, Govorukhin attracted many more viewers to the cinemas
than many feature films. Nor should we forget Vertov... Perhaps we are at the stage of a serious
tectonic shift for non-fiction cinema in Russia, and it is now very important to make sure that the
earlier alarm is not false (Sychev, 2008: 79).
Alas, time has shown that the hopes of S. Sychev did not come true at all: documentary films
in Russia have not managed to take root in cinema halls, and on television it is still shown mainly
in the formats listed above by the film critic. Of course, quite a few documentaries are shown on the
Culture channel, but its rating in relation to the leading TV channels of the Russian Federation is
very low, and its audience does not exceed 2 % – 3 % of the total number of television viewers.
In general, in relation to documentary cinema, the position of the Cinema Art journal was
very politicized, especially after the Ukrainian events of 2014.
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Hence, it is not surprising that in 2017 the journal published an article by the biased
Ukrainian film critic D. Desyaterik “Between Fiction and Trench. Ukrainian documentary after the
Maidan” (Desyaterik, 2017: 24-35), where he, being completely on the side of the Kyiv “Maidan”
of 2014, wrote that “revolution is a spectacular and effective experience of joint mass living, if by
effect we mean not only the overthrow power, but also changes in the collective consciousness.
Accordingly, Ukrainian documentarians do not regain their language – they master it again, not
without the risk of falling into journalism… For Ukrainian cinema, the Maidan and the ATO remain
the most important generators of plots and characters” (Desyaterik, 2017: 25, 29).
Animation issues
Theoretical aspects of animated cinematography in the Cinema Art journal of the 21st century
were devoted to several more publications.
In 2001–2003, from issue to issue, the Cinema Art published chapters from the book by
animation director Y. Norshtein, where he, in particular, wrote that when writing a new film, the
director must assume practical shooting. The new film is a new aesthetic, that is, a sensual space.
Aesthetic magic can become as intriguing as the action itself. The new aesthetic is not a way of
painting. It is a new behavior of the image in action, coupled with new psychological tasks. Every
detail of a character originates in the space of the frame (Norshtein, 2003: 127).
Film critic N. Sputnitskaya wrote about early Soviet animation (Sputnitskaya, 2021: 92-99),
Russian commercial animation and blockbusters (Sputnitskaya, 2017: 34-43; Sputnitskaya, 2018:
193-202). At the same time, she noted that in the twenty-first century, the total reworking of
Russian fairy tale plots and Soviet rarities in jingoistic animated films can only be compared to the
persistence of directors who redraw the past, not always glorious but quite worthy, according to the
meagre patterns of the present (Sputnitskaya, 2018: 202).
And thinking about Russian internet animation, N. Sputnitskaya was convinced that if we
return to the idea of national identity, then analogues of Russian-language web animation can be
found in ancient Russian face collections and popular prints. Everything that advertising
recommends introduces the cinematic mainstream, everything that is mass is an object of mockery,
of deconstruction, which the blogosphere indulges in with visible pleasure and finds ardent
sympathy from the public. So what? Why is the ideology of postmodernism (and the blogosphere is
postmodern in its purest form) worse than the correct forms of Russian democratic realism – from
advertising to news? (Sputnitskaya, 2018: 258).
In his theoretical article "3D and view. Full-length animation: from Disney to modern times",
the film critic N. Krivulya, in our opinion, very sensibly noted that digital technologies have taken
animation to another level, significantly changed it. Today, it is dominated by visual appeal, often
to the detriment of artistic expression. ... To surprise the audience, filmmakers rely on technical
improvements and the development of new software. After overcoming the short format and
mastering the field of full-length animation, computer technologies define a new style and set new
artistic criteria. Films were no longer just fairy tales for children, but spectacles that could be
enjoyed by children and adults alike. At the same time, the content of these films has lost its former
edifying quality, and the plot is built on different levels: it has something that can be understood by
a simple spectator and something that can attract an "advanced" film fan. Among the favorites
techniques that fill the dramatic scheme are film quotations and parodies of famous films, cult film
characters and well-known motifs of classical and modern cinema. Often, the seemingly simple and
traditional plot is interspersed with episodes dealing with current issues in modern politics, mass
culture, national-racial problems, and relations with the authorities. Again, this is not lost on adult
viewers. As a result, animated films expand their audience and become a product of mass
consumption (Krivulya, 2008: 69).
Also referring to the phenomenon of full-length animation, which has found a mass audience
in the 21st century, the film critic L. Malyukova drew the attention of the Journal's readers to the
fact that a sense of exhaustion of ideas and techniques is forcing filmmakers to stop considering
animation as a younger sister (especially since it is much older). The art of animation is now
regarded by thoughtful filmmakers as an alchemical laboratory in which the substance of film
aesthetics is created, molecularly reformed. Cinematography, in line with the general movement of
the arts, merges into a stream of unprecedented syncretization (Malyukova, 2009: 83).
In 2021, L. Malyukova turned to another audiovisual phenomenon of the 21st century:
animation: "Until recently, many authors and artists had an arrogant attitude towards
documentary animation. And it conquers new aesthetic and semantic spaces... It beckons with the
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possibility of expanding and transgressing the boundaries between life and art. Penetration into
spiritual vibrations charged with the current of reality. The reality that disappears in the
overproduced documentary is transformed, as Baudrillard so aptly observed, into something else,
albeit visible. Entering the spiral of multiplication (author's point of view + camera selection +
montage + voice + mode of expression, film language), the physical world, the character with his
experiences is transposed into post-memory, drawn through the eye of a suggestive, figurative.
Animadoc – atmosphere. Another way of witnessing. An attempt to penetrate the subtle settings,
the shimmering details, to contemplate the hidden, the opaque. A grandiose art laboratory for
searching, for discovering oneself in the haystack of the global world with its white noise"
(Malyukova, 2021: 253).
And two extensive theoretical articles in Cinema Art were devoted to a very popular Russian
comedy-satirical series of flash cartoons by O. Kuvaev called Masyanya.
D. Golynko-Wolfson (1969–2023) wrote that for millions of viewers "Masyanya appeared as a
touchingly defenseless and self-confident sexual fetish... Why did Masyanya, and no other "devils
and evil spirits" from flash cartoons, acquire an aura of hyper-popularity? What is the teleology of
fame? What are the mechanisms of selection and choice in the top ten ratings? Multiple socioeconomic concepts of public relations are unlikely to help us deal with the "Masyanya incident" –
we are probably not dealing with a mathematically verified, but an unconsciously impulsive one. ...
The general "goodness" of computer comics about the adventures of a "mean girl" is motivated by
the fact that they inadvertently allow users to investigate the real, and to recoil immediately from
the bleak prospects opened up to them. Prospects (and here we find an important key, know-how,
for the interpretation of Masyanya's public confession) of the total internal failure of modern man,
which is not amortised, but on the contrary, exacerbated by his social arrangement, the
comfortable interior of well-being and security" (Golynko-Wolfson, 2002: 98-99).
Moreover, D. Golynko-Wolfson points out that the cartoons about Masyanya, using various
layers and clichés of urban folklore, anecdotes and stories of the kitchen intelligentsia, or jokes and
witticisms of an apolitical lumpen, are unlikely to imply a calculated target audience. The cartoon
series about Masyanya (unlike the "soap operas") seems to consciously evade the choice of a clear
target group; Masyanya is caressed and warmed by everyone, from the young to the old. Adult
sceptics adore her in spite of (or perhaps because of) her infantile absurdity, and children forgive her
a certain obscene, cynical unruliness. Masyanya's nationality and mass character can compete with
the visual genre of hard pornography, demanded by polar and kaleidoscopic consumer groups,
satisfying the tastes of picky university intellectuals and businessmen as well as vulgar bartenders
and inhabitants of the working suburbs. Such an unexpected parallel is not surprising: pornography
in the modern media space points to the tragic impossibility of a healthy transmission of the
emotional and bodily experience of sex, and ultimately to an irreversible internal failure, a conscious
crisis of love in the unifying conditions of a market economy (Golynko-Wolfson, 2002: 100).
D. Golynko-Wolfson further reveals the image of a character named Masyanya, noting that
she seems to be a trivial type of yuppie woman for a post-industrial economic metropolis, advanced
and frustrated at the same time, claiming independence and remaining a chip in the amusements
of the multiplied male fantasy... Masyanya is not, of course, as dangerous and destructive as a
vampire. As a wayward and rebellious girl, she seems to signal that the virtual is no longer a "dead
zone" of the unknown but is already firmly established and domesticated in each of us (GolynkoWolfson, 2002: 101, 103).
E. Petrovskaya wrote that “Masyanya lives safely in his native element, not counting on
expansion into other media. But even with such natural modesty, her existence is endowed with a
binding meaning: created by a few cursory strokes, the (anti)heroine is elevated to the category of
the bearer of a new national idea. (This is how one of the Internet journalists interprets it.) ...
Masyanya really takes us by surprise, capturing our emotions and at the same time determining
their further development. It is like a phenomenon of mass culture… The more understanding, the
higher the degree of emotions. ... We fell in love with Masyanya because there is a particle of
Masyanya in everyone. That, despite her cheeky manner of speaking and frankly bad habits, she is
kind, good, vulnerable... sincerity peeps through this irony... Not hidden anywhere, on the contrary,
clearly and even defiantly superficial, which can only be encouraging, since the "new" sincerity is
equally open to all. This is the designation of the collective as openness itself (as opposed to
sectarianism) or a commonwealth endowed with neither the essence nor the image of the ultimate
goal, but, to use a well-known metaphor, the commonwealth of idle people who are not concerned
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about the convention. Masscult is most sensitive to such invisible pulsations. He always deals with
form in the making, and this form is social in the original sense” (Petrovskaya, 2002: 93-94, 97).
Theoretical articles about foreign cinema
In the 21st century, the Cinema Art journal devoted a record number of materials to foreign
topics, but these were mainly reviews of foreign films and reviews of international film festivals.
There were few theoretical articles on foreign cinema.
In 2007, A. Artyukh turned to the problem of film noir, reminding the readers of the Journal that
the emergence of this film style was marked by a series of dark films, not so much in the canon of police
or gangster genres, but offering "new criminal adventures" or "new criminal psychology". Strangeness,
eroticism, nightmare, cruelty, ambivalence: these were the key words that had already been found for
American noirs. Most of them revolved around murder. The latent obsession with death or the
dynamics of cruel death found its impressive visual solutions in noirs" (Artyukh, 2007: 94).
At the same time, we can agree that "fate or destiny, which thwarted the plans of the heroes
faster than the police could break them, meant a lot in noirs. Moral determinism, leading to
retribution, kicked in as soon as the hero made a wrong move: he usually fell under the spell of a
femme fatale or (which meant almost the same thing) undertook the task of an absurd rich man to
make money and go far, far away with a beloved beauty. The heroes did not immediately
understand that this was a fatal step. And when they understood, they couldn't do anything about it
(Artyukh, 2007: 94-95).
A. Artyukh has been very accurately identified as the main character of classic film noir:
a woman who embodies fantasies and obsessions, who fights "for her place under the sun, believing
that any means are good for it. For the women of noir, the man was a means to an end: whether it
was an older, rich man, whom they usually married, or a young hero, through whose hands they
sought to eliminate a rich spouse as an obstacle to their long-awaited independence. The triangle
here is the basic form of the relationship between the characters" (Artyukh, 2007: 97-98).
A. Artyukh was absolutely right that hopelessness, alienation, claustrophobia, a sense of
fatalism are key words for noir. All this is supported, among other things, by the black-and-white,
almost graphic style of the films, which creates what can be called a noir look... Noir's favorite
technique is to half-light the protagonist's face, creating the effect of a collision between light and
darkness, which can be interpreted as the visual embodiment of eternal moral dilemmas. Noir loves
the streets at night, the play of shadows on the walls of dimly lit rooms and, following German
Expressionism (another precursor of Noir), prefers vertical lines to horizontal ones... For example,
noir had in common a low-key lighting technique in which the actors' figures were simultaneously
illuminated by strong beams from above, creating black shadows, and by soft, diffuse light from the
front (the light source was placed in front of the camera), which made the shadows more
pronounced, filled them in, and made them more contrasting and expressive. In this way, light and
darkness collided, darkening faces, rooms, the cityscape, creating an effect of mystery, suspense,
danger. Varying the overhead lighting (it could be at a 45-degree angle, or placed behind the actors'
backs), as well as eliminating the front light (which creates an area of darkness), provided different
lighting possibilities... The noir favorite technique – deep focus and shooting with a wide-angle lens
in intense lighting – allows to "stretch" the frame, create multi-figure compositions and avoid
"figure-eight" montage during dialogues (Artyukh, 2007: 98-99). Understanding film noir as a style
rather than a genre, A. Artyukh noted that noir continues to surprise with its new transformations
even in the twelfth century.
Culturologist J. Lurie also analyzed film noir, noting that in it acts of destruction and
violence... are aestheticized and given a dark, but extremely refined romantic coloring. Murder
scenes, as an example of the highest level of destruction in terms of the degree of sophistication of
visual techniques, are often perceived as separate, colorful showstoppers... Noir can be seen as an
example of a crisis of social principles, the space where they do not work is perverted. The ideas of
freedom of choice and dreams of success, key to American ideology, are subjected to cynical
retribution in noir: plans do not work, and every choice leads to wrong steps or death.
The characters and plots of the films embody Heidegger's idea of "being towards death", in the
context of which death is a possibility, rendering all other possibilities impossible, revealing the
meaninglessness of any project. In the land of possibility, no possibility is realized, and the selfmade man becomes the self-destroyed man (Lurie, 2013: 100-102).
The film critic D. Komm has written that American noir, French polar or Italian giallo are not
genres at all, but only different styles within one genre: a crime film, a thriller. Indeed, if we
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compare the typical examples of noir and giallo, it turns out that on the level of the genre formula
they are not so different: a brutal murder, a private or police detective, his investigation, a beautiful
and mysterious woman who often turns out to be a criminal, an unexpected and shocking clue, etc.
The stylistic difference is enormous. But the stylistic difference is colossal, and thanks to it, no one
will ever be afraid of noir and giallo. In this case, the style defines the genre (Komm, 2009: 85).
In 2010, A. Artyukh turned to Hollywood in the era of the formation of media industry
conglomerates and identified two main trends: one is an attempt to preserve the model of
traditional spectacular blockbusters aimed at everyone and based on simple plots, powerful special
effects and the associated opportunities for franchising... The second is the active exploration of
complex, elite themes and unusual visual aesthetics, including computer games. ... Artificial
blockbusters competing with traditional hits ... uphold the idea of "cinema for the elite". In contrast
to the concept of "Hollywood for the whole planet", they bring back the idea of audience
segmentation (Artyukh, 2010: 86).
As we well remember, in Soviet times, the articles of film critics and experts in the Cinema
Art journal on foreign cinema were mainly about "high genres" and outstanding "progressive
masters" of film art. When the journal wrote about film noir and giallo, for example, it was in a
passing, dismissive, negative way, exposing the "degradation of bourgeois cinema".
In the Cinema Art journal of the 21st century, "low genres" have become the subject of
numerous articles. And film critic D. Komm, for example, became a consistent researcher of giallo
and horror films, once despised by Soviet film studies (Komm, 2001: 83-90; 98-107; Komm, 2003:
108-115; Komm, 2004: 101-105; Komm, 2006: 71-81; Komm, 2008: 69-79).
As early as 2001, D. Komm defined the cinematic "technology of fear" as a complex set of
dramatic, stylistic and technical devices involving constant experimentation with the language of
narration, the psychology of perception, the use of archetypes and myths of mass consciousness.
It is the presence of this mechanism, and not the presence of the actual object of fear, that
ultimately ensures the genre identification of the work as a horror film. ... Technologies of fear
must overcome the localization of the object of fear, destroy its boundaries and release the basic
fear contained within it. To make the spectator see what cannot be shown, even for a second,
to release the energy of chaos on the screen: this is the most important task of any horror film,
whether its creators are aware of it or not. Only in this case is the aesthetic experience of fear
possible, which is associated with the birth of horror as a work of authorship (Komm 2001: 98-99).
After analyzing dozens of films that can be classified in one way or another as giallo,
D. Komm came to the logical conclusion that, in terms of narrative structure, giallo resembles a
pornographic film. In this type of film, scenes that serve to develop the plot and do not carry a
fundamental semantic load alternate with the actual acts of love when the action freezes and the
choreography of the flesh turns out to be the main content of the film. The same principle can be
observed in giallo: narrative scenes serve only as a basis for the demonstration of self-sufficient
shows – murders. ... If gialli are structurally similar to porn films, then the depiction of murders in
them evokes associations with a fashion show. The female body is fetishized in these scenes, as the
object of the perverted fantasy of a madman – director – spectator. The way the victim is dressed,
the way the light falls on her body as she writhing in agony, and the way her corpse fits into the
bizarre ornamentation of the frame mean much more here than any psychological motivations for
the behavior of the killer and the victim. This is a far cry from Hitchcock and his "love murders".
In giallo, the victim is actually a model in a surreal act of creativity – a murder performed on the
screen by a mad artist. The corpse, in its completeness, is an ideal object for the application of the
killer's creative fantasy, his work of art, a kind of artefact (Komm, 2001: 103).
Referring to horror films, D. Komm noted that modern horror is a bizarre phenomenon.
Constantly mimicking, borrowing formulas and techniques from other genres, it has little in
common with what was commonly understood as horror thirty years ago, let alone the static and
uniformly created "monster stories" of Hollywood's "golden age". There is no clear hierarchy within
the genre itself... The horror film is truly conservative: in the sense that it is closely linked to the
dominant cultural and religious tradition, to symbols, mythology and mystical ideas. The blurring
of these ideas, their mixing with a different cultural tradition each time, puts horror in a crisis,
forcing a radical revision of the foundations of the genre (Komm, 2003: 108, 112).
D. Komm was convinced that multiculturalism was the main enemy of the horror film. In a
situation of coexistence of different, often mutually exclusive religious practices and mythological
systems, each of them loses its claim to universality and becomes one of the many "propagandas"
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struggling for survival. Accordingly, they lose their clear contours of ideas about the nature of evil and
methods of combating it, without which a horror film is simply unthinkable (Komm, 2003: 112).
In 2006, D. Komm, analyzing the so-called cinematic, wrote that the Gothic style,
inconceivable without hallucinations and daydreams, was to the taste of the followers of the
esoteric revolution... and the followers of the sexual revolution actively used the Gothic's ability to
wrap forbidden subjects in a fantastic package. They also discredited the genre in the 1970s, when
the victorious sexual revolution expelled the spirit of romanticism from cinema, and gothic
(in name only) films became platforms for the demonstration of perverse sex scenes. ... The result
of these processes is the disappearance of gothic from the screens in the era of Reagan
conservatism – as morally obsolete and ideologically dubious (Komm, 2006: 76), and only Francis
Ford Coppola, with his 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula, marked the neo-Gothic stage...
In his commitment to the "lower genres", D. Komm was so consistent that in 2012 he came to
the radical conclusion that when cinema is caught between Scylla and Charybdis, that is, between
the marketing-oriented, calculated and predictable concept of a Hollywood blockbuster and the
irresponsible, charlatan production of the "art house", only showstoppers remain small islands of
creativity on which the embodiment of original artistic ideas can still take place. And since showstoppers belong exclusively to genre cinema, this leads us to the inevitable conclusion that today
the realization of true authorial potential is only possible in genre works (Komm, 2012: 123).
An article by the sociologist E. Davydova was devoted to the semiotics of eroticism in
American cinema, where she noted that, however different the sacred Hollywood monster may be
from its audience, it is, like any idol, a gigantic projection of its desires, fantasies and fears.
The erotic icons of the 1950s are characterized by a strange, almost schizoid duality. On the one
hand, they are sex-obsessed, neurotic products of censorship; on the other, they are a premonition
and prediction of the sexual revolution that the Swinging Sixties will soon rock the world with
(Davydova, 2001: 82).
At the same time, E. Davydova expressed the reasonable opinion that, contrary to the
postulate widespread in feminist film criticism that the gaze of the camera is always a male gaze,
having in mind a woman as a sexual object, cinema from its first steps proved the opposite,
seducing both female and male eroticism. The seducer has never left the screen. That's why he's a
seducer who is attracted by traditional masculine qualities, but only by beauty... Eroticism is the
only effective weapon of the seducer, whether he has power, whether he occupies a high social
position, and whether his goal goes beyond the satisfaction of his own desires. More precisely,
in this case beauty is power (Davydova, 2001: 86).
But then, according to culturologist D. Golynko-Wolfson (1969–2023), "a postmodern vision
of ambivalent sexuality emerged, with the obligatory ironic escape from the object of attraction,
with a carnival change of cultural masks, with parodic quotes and theatrical props", and in the
21st century a "new intimacy" appeared on the screen, in which the reversal of the roles of man and
woman became an unalterable leitmotif. The image of the cautious seductress passes to the woman,
and the man is cast as an unapproachable narcissist, an object of long-term conquest... or a tiny toy
of whimsical desire (Golynko-Wolfson, 2003: 98).
B. Lokshin's article was also devoted to the theme of cinematic sex, recalling that the sexual
revolution of the 1960s promised universal sexual freedom, but ended with freely distributed
pornography. Capitalism digested the sexual revolution, packaged it commercially and sold it
wholesale and retail. As for sexual repression, American universities, paranoid about rape, have
begun requiring students to get written permission from each other before having sex.
The revolution ends in reaction. Sexual permissiveness becomes sexual repression (Lokshin,
2017: 190).
Several theoretical articles by the authors of the Cinema Art journalin the 21st century were
devoted to film comics (Bektemirov, 2019: 36-44; Golynko-Wolfson, 2003: 100-107; Gorelikov,
2019: 20-28; Khitrov, 2019: 228-231; Loginova, 2019: 239-247; Sputnitskaya, 2019: 232-238;
Tsyrkun, 2010: 131-137; Tsyrkun, 2012: 124-135; Shorokhova, 2019: 29-35).
D. Golynko-Wolfson believed that in the 1990s, the gradual displacement of comics from the
heights of mass culture coincided with the confident entry into the forefront of the postmodern
genre of film comics, which often makes fun of the canonized techniques of comic stamping
themselves. Cinematography borrowed from the comics its manner of presenting fairy-tale puppet
reality in a nostalgic key, its conditional decorativeness and mannequin psychosomatics of the
characters (Golynko-Wolfson, 2003: 102).
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At the same time, according to D. Golynko-Wolfson (1969–2023), the comic in cinema acts as
a legislator of the moral and ethical code of the builder of liberal democracy. At the epicentre of his
plots there is always an apocalyptic-cosmogonic struggle between a tireless advocate of humanistic
justice (in everyday life a shy schoolboy, a dandyish gentleman) and an unrestrained monster who
personifies the fiend of totalitarian evil... Using the "atlas" of psychotic types and behavioural
pathologies... It is most appropriate to include comic characters in the "autistic schizoid" column:
hence their anchorage and detachment from worldly pragmatics, hence the confusion of their
socio-symbolic roles. They are eternally and polarly divided into human and non-human avatars,
which is evident in their masquerade-inspired, prop-shaped wardrobe and in their remarkable
talent for acting out a trivially respectable life scenario during the day and transforming into elastic
and demonic "ghosts of revenge" at night (Golynko-Wolfson, 2003: 105-106).
Film critic A. Gorelikov reminds us that the image of the jester, the trickster, the harlequin is
one of the key images of world culture... The analysis of the archetype can lead to a bad infinity, but
at least it should be noted that the jester is associated with transgression, a transitional state,
a carnival space where everything is turned upside down and laws are abolished. That is why even
the kindest clown contains the potential of horror and there is an element of diabolical ambiguity
(Gorelikov, 2019: 21).
Film expert N. Tsyrkun, in our opinion, has rightly pointed out that even the aged and sad
Batman remains a beloved hero in film comics, because his fans still see their own reflection in him
in one way or another. They see him as a person, unlike Superman, and identify with him, learning
from his example how to deal with their own fragmentation, disorder, etc. In the postmodern
situation, people need this kind of protection almost every minute, and in this sense the therapeutic
function of comics is unique (Tsyrkun, 2012: 134).
Continuing the study of genres that in Soviet times were considered low and unworthy of the
attention of film studies, the Cinema Art journalin the 21st century wrote extremely seriously and
scientifically about films about zombies (Arkhipova, 2019: 146-151; Sandanov, 2011: 53-62) and
vampires (Kushnareva, 2012: 136-141), about grindhouse (Pavlov, 2013: 61-70), camp (Tsyrkun,
2013: 55-60) and "vulgar authorship" (Pavlov, 2013: 54-63) in cinema.
Film critic A. Sandanov, analyzing film narratives about zombies, came to the bold, but in our
opinion very controversial conclusion that it is rotten and mindless corpses that help modern man
look at his insecurities and fears from the outside (Sandanov, 2011: 53).
Then A. Sandanov proceeded to a detailed systematization of the zombie theme, arguing that
1) unlike previous monsters, zombies are apocalyptic. Any other monster is a local disturbance in
the normal picture of the universe... The very concept of the modern zombie implies the ubiquity
and irreversibility of its presence; 2) zombie films are not limited to exploiting basic animal fears.
The zombie apocalypse involves a series of real fears generated by an excess of insecurity. These are
not just fears, but unresolved informational contradictions: Fear of global catastrophe in any form;
fear of microbes, epidemics, radiation, "chemistry"; fear of alien, incomprehensible cultures; fear of
irrational violence, street crime; fear of xenophobia, racism and other prejudices; fear of one's own
and others' madness, nonconformity; fear of conformity; religious fear of retribution; fear of
destabilization of society, anarchy, helplessness of the government in the face of global challenges;
dependence of the individual on the infrastructure of civilization, lack of control over one's life, fear
of state violence" (Sandanov, 2011: 55-56).
Thus, films of the "classical" zombie model, on the one hand, serve to playfully live out real
"apocalyptic" fears, eliminating uncertainty, and, on the other hand, they are effective as raw
material for identity formation through identification with obviously imperfect heroes...
The therapeutic function of the film is therefore not only and not so much to show the fears and to
overcome them. It is the "training" of a new identity. Mobile, maximally open and minimally
burdened with abstruse models of behavior and self-identification (Sandanov, 2011: 62).
In our opinion, A. Sandanov's article is a vivid example of how, with a strong desire, any trash
can be provided with a "deepest scientific basis", which in fact has (almost) nothing to do with the
mass of primitive tapes about zombies.
In this sense, A. Pavlov was more cautious when trying to understand another phenomenon
of "low genres" – grindhouse. In particular, he noted that grindhouse was, on the one hand,
sexploitation films of various genres - from vulgar comedies, strange melodramas, light erotica, and
hard pornography; on the other hand, horror films of various shades and films with taboo themes.
Another type of grindhouse cinema were the tapes known as blaxploitation. Another popular theme
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of exploitation cinema was the Nazis and all the possible atrocities and perversions that could be
attributed to nazisploitation. Roughly on the same theme, but without the Nazis, there were images
of "women behind bars", we can talk about the revival of the grindhouse in a postmodern sense.
Unlike remake films, here the emphasis is on deliberate stylization and irony in relation to the
legacy of the grindhouse (Pavlov, 2013: 64).
In the distant 1980s, film critic N. Tsyrkun liked to criticize and expose the "destruction of
the spirit" in bourgeois cinema (Tsyrkun, 1986). But in the 21st century, on the pages of the Cinema
Art journal, she was already seriously and with emphasized scientific piety analyzing Western film
comics and camp and queer.
For example, she wrote quite profoundly that "queer theory, which exists in various forms,
whether or not it is included in the umbrella term 'camp', is nevertheless applicable as an explanatory
framework for 'being different' in a variety of ways, when it comes to exploring otherness or diversity,
as a critique of rigid identity frameworks, but also as a tool for thinking about (and deconstructing)
mechanisms of power. In particular, the historically established system of power relations that
affirms the dominance of heterosexuality over all other forms of sexuality, that is, the heterosexist
cultural matrix as a variant of totalitarian dictatorship" (Tsyrkun, 2013: 60).
A. Pavlov recalled that "vulgar auteur cinema" is usually ignored by critics because of the
supposedly frankly low intellectual level of their films. It is also believed that the critics' rejection of
these "authors" may be due to a personal aversion to the violence that "vulgar directors" preach.
What is very important is that this violence is almost always not softened by irony, and when it is
presented as "fun", it still tends to repel those who are used to watching more "serious" films.
Supporters of "vulgarism" strive to find high art where it has not been customary to look for it
(Pavlov, 2013: 56). And then he comes to the paradoxical conclusion that the supporters of "vulgar
auteur cinema" ultimately bring the concept of authorship back into broader cultural spheres, trying
not to limit the discussion to discussions of feminism, race, and queer culture... So, there is much
more to the new phenomenon than it seems at first glance. And no matter how fragile the concept
may be, it must be taken seriously and perhaps even sympathetically (Pavlov, 2013: 56, 63).
Of course, in the twenty-first century, the Cinema Art journal could not pass without a
detailed analysis of the adaptations of the Harry Potter novels (Golynko-Wolfson, 2002: 65-71),
the phenomena of the Toy Story franchise (Lugovoy, 2020: 188-201), and the Game of Thrones
series (Meisel, 2019: 281-289). Once again, the Journal turned to the James Bond franchise
(Brileva, Brilev, 2021: 231-237; Fomochkin, 2021: 211-230; Kartsev, 2021: 240-251). The mass
success of these media texts allowed the authors of Cinema Art to practice a lot of psychoanalysis,
scientific formulations, and meaningful conclusions.
Here, D. Golynko-Wolfson believes that the novels and films about the adventures of Harry
Potter have managed to adapt precisely and elastically to the neo-sentimental ideological trend that
prevails today... Moreover, Harry Potter had become the best spokesman for the new ideological
"truth" about a person: a wizard, a sorcerer. It is not difficult and shameless for a modern person to
become a mystagogue and, in general, a supernatural creature, one only has to make sure that
armadas of glamorous puppet-board evil spirits scatter and burst at the wave of the most
"ordinary" wand (Golynko-Wolfson, 2002: 66).
And the film critic E. Maisel wrote that despite the fundamental and irrevocable connection
of media franchises to literature, the key to creating and launching a franchise is not the art of
storytelling and not the mastery of the show, but what researchers call transmedia world building –
"transmedia construction of fictional worlds" (Dan Hessler – Forest). It sounds grandiose, but what
it really means is that the previous art forms (the novel and the serial) have been replaced – in full
accordance with the prophecies of the ideologists of postmodernism – not by a new actual form,
but by a production concession that unites and adapts all art forms, old and new, with the same
indifferent efficiency ("nothing personal") with which capital imperturbably transforms everything
it touches into itself. Without this in mind, the innocent practice of franchising reveals to us a
rather monstrous truth about the total convergence of this world, which denies any individual value
by placing it in a kind of common market register (Maisel, 2019: 283).
Furthermore, E. Maisel, in our opinion, rightly points out that, using the example of Game of
Thrones, one can also observe such a trend as the greatly increased role of franchise
fans:“a common occurrence in our everyday life, fans have been in the center of attention in recent
decades. From previously despised urban lunatics with a dash of masochism, they have turned into
venerable evangelists actively involved in the creation of fantasy, superheroes and other universes
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of Big Hollywood. Giants such as Fox or Disney enter into agreements with them and coax
exclusives, and theorists try to see through a magnifying glass: who are they? fans? enthusiasts?
cultists? But whoever they are, the paradoxical existence of fans is determined by the fact that their
consumption coincides with the immaterial labor they produce, which is the basis of post-Fordism.
It turns out something like an asymmetric symbiosis between producer and consumer. In any case,
it is through the feelings and devotion of the fans that the brand establishes its authenticity,
authenticity and, ultimately, value” (Maisel, 2019: 284).
Looking back on the history of Bond, the translator and film critic P. Kartsev wrote that the
creator of the image of James Bond is the writer Ian Fleming, who created a literary hero whose
basic quality and condition of existence is the need to be a loner, also because any contact with him
is destructive. The main dynamic of his image is the initially impossible, doomed attempt to share
this solitude with someone who is both opposite and identical to him; he confronts himself, armed
with a big gun and an infallible ability to choose treacherous or doomed women as partners. His
inner psychological conflict – like any psychological conflict – is insoluble, but through the Jungian
transcendental function, which allows the integration of differently directed desires, and with the
help of the initially false technology of capturing shadows and light on celluloid film, the lonely
hero, destined to be a ritual sacrifice to the dark mother, becomes the property of the world and
finds salvation in the infinite renewability of the life-affirming creative act (Kartsev, 2021: 351).
In this connection, O. and A. Brilev drew the attention of the magazine's readers to the fact
that, despite all the dubious aesthetic and pedagogical value of the Bond character, he excellently
fulfils a function that is usually not even mentioned in textbooks of literary criticism: ritual.
The strict formality of Bond plots corresponds almost exactly to what Vladimir Propp describes in
Morphology of a Fairy Tale: the hero is given the task of correcting some misfortune, he crosses
the symbolic boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead, receives magical
gifts and a guide (usually a woman), is tested, enters into a confrontation with a monster (many
Bond villains are outright monsters), receives a mark (wound or identification), wins and returns to
the world of the living. What is the nature of this journey? It is a description of a primitive initiation
rite in which a person symbolically died and was reborn in a new status. Passing through all the
stages of the trials with the hero gives the audience a feeling of renewal, of a new beginning. But for
this to happen, the formula of the ritual must be followed with minimal deviations. A spy in our
world is an analogue of a shaman in the primitive world. He exists on the borders between worlds,
dangerous and mysterious, terrifying, and necessary. His ability to transform himself at any
moment into a beast, a dead man, a stranger, an enemy, repels and attracts him at the same time.
Things are acceptable to him that are unacceptable to other members of society: he is allowed to lie,
kill, steal, come into contact with the ritually unclean. The tribe needs him as a gate to the Other:
but the gate, to keep the Other beyond the threshold, must come into contact with the
Other.Therefore, a shaman cannot live among the people, he lives on the outskirts, has no family,
does not participate in the daily affairs of the people. He is an instrument of the tribe's will, but not
part of it. But when the social structure changes, the image of the shaman merges with that of the
warrior. A hero is born – the victor over the monsters, often a half-monster himself, but also a
demigod... Yes, we are talking about Odysseus, the "wise Ulysses" (Brileva, Brilev, 2021: 234-235).
One of the articles by the film critic E. Maisel was devoted to the history of the American
underground through the prism of the theoretical works of T. Adorno (1903–1969).
E. Maisel came to the reasonable conclusion that for about thirty years, the American
underground, resisting the standards of commercial cinematography, carried out something like a
comprehensive "negative dialectic" of cinema (Adorno's terminology). This negative dialectic was
achieved 1) aesthetically – through the development of any form other than realism – this
discourse of power, saturated with lies and full of them, even at the stage of imaginary mimesis;
2) economically – through the refusal to participate in the struggle for people's love, through the
voluntary choice of directions that are far from being the most accessible to the general public and
not the most "turnable" directions, through the refusal to turn both cinema and art into a market
commodity; 3) politically - by free thinking and ignoring censorship restrictions, by independence
from mass media and distrust of the consumer world, by contempt for power, for capital and its
manipulation under the guise of cultural and educational expansion; 4) ethically – by preferring
the personal to the personal, the private to the mass, art to industry, and honest research to
manipulative entertainment. Taken together, this characterizes the American underground –
and non-commercial avant-garde practice in general – as a kind of exception to the rule, as an
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antidote that neutralizes the evil inherent in cinema by its very magical nature; as the other side of
cinema, revealing its ability to be aesthetically non-offensive, economically non-corrupt, ethically
sound, politically non-reactionary (Maisel, 2021: 68).
Reflecting on the religious theme in Hollywood cinema, film critic N. Sirivlya noted that for
the mass consciousness, Christianity today is just a set of universally accepted ethical norms and
humanistic principles, a metaphor for abstract philanthropy. At the same time, modern civilization
is not so far removed from paganism in its ideas about the supernatural as a source of dubious
power and an undeniable threat to human existence. And it turns out that, at the level of
anthropology, we already exist, so to speak, in the post-Christian era: "God is dead". And according
to His commandments, human beings must save themselves (or, as they used to say: "Man is
descended from an ape, so let us love each other!"). And at the level of vague, poorly articulated
religious feelings – into pre-Christian and perhaps even pre-Biblical times. "A civilization with such
an internal gap in the ideas of God and man cannot exist normally, it always falls into a kind of
schizophrenia, when philanthropy inevitably turns into violence, and attempts to collect, unite and
order the world make its destruction more and more real. Perhaps this is the obsessive expectation
of the inevitable end? (Sirivlya, 2001: 93).
One of the issues of Cinema Art in 2021 was devoted to media art, video art and audiovisual
avant-garde (mainly foreign).
Art historian A. Krasnoslobodtseva recalled that, historically, video art is the art of resistance.
From the moment of its birth more than sixty years ago, video art began to work closely with social
issues, criticism of mass media, illusionist cinema, consumer society, comprehended political
events, was the most important tool in the feminist struggle. Video art makes it possible to record
events in real time without time limits, to edit images quickly and without a large team of narrow
professionals, to create multi-layered statements with comments of various formats
(Krasnoslobodtseva, 2021: 160).
Art critic T. Fadeeva wrote that media art offers us a unique experience: the experience of
"expanding" ourselves through sensations that testify to new, unusual facets of reality, so that we
go beyond the usual automatic perception. Like Deleuze and Guattari's postmodern subject, "born
out of the states it consumes and reborn with each state"... Media art can thus be seen as an
apparatus for generating "extensions" of our sensory interface, transit zones and even paradigms,
and the apparatus is constantly improving and modernizing (Fadeeva, 2021: 49).
Media art specialist M. Dantsis, referring to the topic of feminist video art, noted that
feminism today is not only a struggle for equality. First of all, feminist video art is a versatile study
of society, introspection and self-observation, rethinking of personal experience, self-irony and
humour. Today's video artists are working with a feminist agenda, using the possibilities of new
technologies, their art is communicative and controversial, it offers the viewer a unique experience
regardless of genderand social attitudes (Dantsis, 2021: 132).
4. Conclusion
In the years 2001–2017, the circulation of Cinema Art was not mentioned in the imprint of
the journal. According to data found on the Internet, the circulation of the journal in 2001–2017
was around two to three thousand copies, which is lower than even in the 1930s and 1940s. Since
2018, the journal's circulation initially remained at about the same level, but by the end of 2022 it
had fallen to one thousand copies.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the editors of Cinema Art apparently realized that the
attempts to turn it into a socio-political journal, made at the end of the era of "perestroika" and in
the 1990s, did not bring the expected dividends. As a result, the magazine returned to the format of
a cinematic publication. Hence the increase in the number of theoretical articles on cinema, which
in the 21st century averaged eighteen a year.
Daniil Dondurey (1947-2017), who directed Cinema Art until 2017, maintained the journal's
course towards a sociological understanding of the media process, while attracting leading authors
in the field. The film critic Anton Dolin, who replaced him in the second half of 2017, on the one
hand re-emphasized political accents and also strengthened passages in the journal texts that
opposed the authorities, and on the other hand began to pay much more attention to the genres of
mass culture in film.
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Our analysis of the concepts of film studies (in the context of the socio-cultural, historical,
political situation, etc.) in the journal Cinema Art in the 21st century has shown that the theoretical
works on cinematic topics in this period can be divided into the following types.
- Articles and discussions devoted to the analysis of the theoretical heritage of the classics and
the history of Soviet cinema (A. Fomenko, N. Izvolov, N. Kleiman, O. Kovalov, E. Maisel,
E. Margolit, A. Medvedev, N. Sputnitskaya, V. Shmyrov, A. Shpagin, A. Shcherbenok and others);
- articles attempting to understand the film process at a theoretical level (O. Aronson,
D. Golynko-Wolfson, E. Maisel, L. Manovich, etc.).
- articles devoted to the sociological and cultural problems of cinema, television and film
distribution (O. Berezin, K. Bogoslovskaya, D. Dondurey, D. Golynko-Wolfson, E. Maisel,
I. Poluekhtova, K. Razlogov, V. Zvereva, etc.); at the same time, the analysis of the phenomenon of
the Internet and virtual reality has become a new theoretical trend of the journal.
- theoretical articles on foreign cinema (A. Artyukh, D. Komm, N. Tsyrkun, etc.).
In general, Cinema Art in the 21st century, as in the 1990s, offered new interpretations of the
history of Soviet and world cinema and tried to find theoretical approaches to the current film
process.
5. Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the grant of the Russian Science Foundation (RSF, project No.
22-28-00317) at Rostov State University of Economics. Project theme: “Evolution of theoretical
film studies concepts in the Cinema Art journal (1931–2021)”. Head of the project is Professor
A.V. Fedorov.
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Kovalov, 2003 – Kovalov, O. (2003). Zvezda nad step'yu. Amerika v zerkale sovetskogo kino
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Kovalov, 2008a – Kovalov, O. (2008). “Chetvertyj smysl”. Gipoteza prochteniya
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Krasnyashchih, 2005 – Krasnyashchih, A. (2005). Igraem v kino. Personazhi kul'tovogo kino
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Kritik…, 2005 – Kritik kritiku – kritik [Critic for Critic is Critic]. 2005. Iskusstvo kino. 11:
32-41. [in Russian]
Kritika…, 2003 – Kritika kak PR [Criticism as PR]. 2003. Iskusstvo kino. 12: 13-29.
[in Russian]
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Disneya do novyh vremen [3D - and watch. Full-length animation: from Disney to the new times].
Iskusstvo kino. 6: 64-75. [in Russian]
Kruglova, 2016 – Kruglova, T. (2016). Stokgol'mskij sindrom v rossijskoj shkole [Stockholm
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Kushnareva, 2007 – Kushnareva, I. (2007). Drugaya istoriya “Kaje dyu sinema” [Another
Story of Cayeux du Cinéma]. Iskusstvo kino. 5: 74-83. [in Russian]
Kushnareva, 2011 – Kushnareva, I. (2011). Chto ugodno, tol'ko ne TV [Anything but not TV].
Iskusstvo kino. 11: 5-15. [in Russian]
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New Academia Publishing.
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house]. Iskusstvo kino. 6: 87-93. [in Russian]
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Lipovetsky, 2003 – Lipovetsky, M. (2003). V otsutstvie mediatora. Syuzhet vnutrennej
kolonizacii [In the absence of a mediator. The plot of internal colonization]. Iskusstvo kino. 8:
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Loginova, 2019 – Loginova, K. (2019). Katalog zla. Superzlodei i ih transformaciya
[Catalogue of Evil. Supervillains and their transformation]. Iskusstvo kino. 9-10: 239-247.
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Lokshin, 2017 – Lokshin, B. (2017). Kratkij kurs totalitarnogo seksa [A short course in
totalitarian sex]. Iskusstvo kino. 7-8: 183-194. [in Russian]
Lotman, 1973 – Lotman, Y.M. (1973). Semiotika kino i problemy kinoestetiki [Semiotics of
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the Screen]. Tallin. [in Russian]
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toys. Introduction to psychoanalysis]. Iskusstvo kino. 3-4: 188-201. [in Russian]
Lurie, 2013 – Lurie, J. (2013). Formula amerikanskogo nuara. Nuar — zhanr i li stil'?
[The formula of American noir. Noir - genre and whether style?]. Iskusstvo kino. 4: 99-109.
[in Russian]
Lyashchenko, 2021 – Lyashchenko, V. (2021). Kazhdyj kadr – kartina. Kak YouTube stal
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Lyubarsky, 2003 – Lyubarsky, G. (2003). Ispugat', chtoby uspokoit' [To frighten to calm
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Maisel, 2009 – Maisel, E. (2009). Beda kommunizma. ZHZH kak zerkalo russkoj evolyucii
[Trouble of Communism. LiveJournal as a mirror of Russian evolution]. Iskusstvo kino. 6: 135-141.
7: 139-147. [in Russian]
Maisel, 2010 – Maisel, E. (2010). Otschet utoplennikov [Counting of drowned people].
Iskusstvo kino. 5: 33-39. [in Russian]
Maisel, 2012 – Maisel, E. (2012). Vsyudu Bog? Probnye zametki o religioznom kino [God
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Maisel, 2017 – Maisel, E. (2017). Glavnyj geroj. Leniniana 60-h: Na odnoj planete i drugie
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Maisel, 2019a – Maisel, E. (2019). Kto zdes' vlast'. Igra prestolov kak fenomen
sovremennosti [Who is the power here. Game of Thrones as a phenomenon of modernity].
Iskusstvo kino. 7-8: 281-289. [in Russian]
Maisel, 2019b – Maisel, E. (2019). Stadiya zerkala: VR i kino [The stage of the mirror:
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Maisel, 2020 – Maisel, E. (2020). Zookino ot Lyum'erov do YouTube. Zhivotnye kak novye
geroi kinematografa XXI veka [Zoo-movies from Lumiere to YouTube. Animals as new heroes of
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Maisel, 2021a – Maisel, E. (2021). Avangard 2.0. Iskusstvo kino. 9-10: 194-200. [in Russian]
Maisel, 2021b – Maisel, E. (2021). Doroga peremen [The road of change]. Iskusstvo kino.
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Maisel, 2021c – Maisel, E. (2021). Uroki amerikanskogo andergraunda. Negativnaya
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Malkova, 2001 – Malkova, L. (2001). Mezhdu Vertovym i Putinym [Between Vertov and
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Malyukova, 2009 – Malyukova, L. (2009). Up! Iskusstvo kino. 9: 83-94. [in Russian]
Malyukova, 2021 – Malyukova, L. (2021). Nekto animadok [A certain animadok]. Iskusstvo
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Manovich, 2021 – Manovich, L. (2021). YouTube i budushchee teorii kino [YouTube and the
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Mantsov, 2001 – Mantsov, I. (2001). Belyj tanec [White Dance]. Iskusstvo kino. 4: 67-76.
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Mantsov, 2002a – Mantsov, I. (2002). Aktual'nyj triptih [Actual triptych]. Iskusstvo kino. 1:
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Mantsov, 2002b – Mantsov, I. (2002). Braziliya – Argentina [Brazil – Argentina]. Iskusstvo
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Mantsov, 2002c – Mantsov, I. (2002). Svidetel' [Witness]. Iskusstvo kino. 5: 65-73.
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Margolit, 2001 – Margolit, E. (2001). 60-e. Vospominaniya o pochtovom yashchike na
vorotah [The 1960s. Memories of the mailbox at the gate]. Iskusstvo kino. 1: 26-30. [in Russian]
Margolit, 2002 – Margolit, E. (2002). Prizrak svobody: strana detej [Ghost of Freedom:
The Country of Children]. Iskusstvo kino. 8: 76-85. [in Russian]
Margolit, 2010 – Margolit, E. (2010). Nevedomomu bogu. Soprotivlenie. Kinoversiya Marka
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89-97. [in Russian]
Medvedev, 2001 – Medvedev, A. (2001). Za Novogrudskogo! [To Novogrudsky!]. Iskusstvo
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Medvedev, 2010 – Medvedev, S. (2010). Shtirlic v shokolade [Stirlitz in chocolate]. Iskusstvo
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Medvedev, 2017 – Medvedev, A. (2017). V poiskah kinogammy. 15 tezisov o Vertove
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Metz, 1974 – Metz, C. (1974). Language and cinema. The Hague: Mouton.
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Mikhalkovich, 2004 – Mikhalkovich, V. (2004). Blazhenna li strana za dal'yu nepogody?
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Morozov, 2009 – Morozov, M. (2009). Istoriya v stile “pop”. Simulyaciya nacional'noj idei
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Moskvina, 2001 – Moskvina, T. (2001). 80-e. Nado by raspolovinit' [1980s. We'd have to
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Moskvina, 2003 – Moskvina, T. (2003). Net nichego luchshe horoshej pogody. “Papino kino”
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Muratov, 2005 – Muratov, S. (2005). Vverh po lestnice, vedushchej vniz [Up the Stairs
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Muratov, 2008 – Muratov, S. (2008). Zemnovodnye vyhodyat na sushu [The amphibians
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Norstein, 2001 – Norstein, Y. (2001). Sneg na trave [Snow on the grass]. Iskusstvo kino.
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Novozhenova, 2010 – Novozhenova, A. (2010). Mnogoserijnye ubijcy: man'yaki v krugu
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81-87. [in Russian]
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Pavlov, 2013b – Pavlov, A. (2013). Vul'garnyj avtorskij kinematograf [Vulgar author's
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Petrovskaya, 2002 – Petrovskaya, E. (2002). Dusha Pautiny: Masyanya i “novaya”
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Plakhov, 2001 – Plakhov, A. (2001). Evropa – territoriya kino. Evropejskoe kino na vhode v
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Poluekhtova, 2001 – Poluekhtova, I. (2001). Dohodnoe “mylo” [Profitable "soap"]. Iskusstvo
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Poluekhtova, 2003 – Poluekhtova, I. (2003). Telemenu: kompleksnyj obed ili a la carte? [TVmenu: complex dinner or a la carte?]. Iskusstvo kino. 6: 105-113. [in Russian]
Poluekhtova, 2007 – Poluekhtova, I. (2007). Mozhno li obojtis' bez rejtingov? [Can one do
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Poluekhtova, 2014 – Poluekhtova, I. (2014). Teleprosmotr eshche zhiv [Television viewing is
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Pozdnyakov, 2008 – Pozdnyakov, A. (2008). Nachalo. Pervaya russkaya fil'ma i ee rezhisser
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Profit…, 2005 – Profit ili profitizm? [Profit or profittism?]. 2005. Iskusstvo kino. 3: 105-107.
[in Russian]
Prokhorov, 2004 – Prokhorov, A. (2004). Novosti kak mistifikaciya [News as a
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Prokhorov, 2011 – Prokhorov, A. (2011). Publichnaya sfera: kinovedenie v prostranstve
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Proshchaj…, 2002 – Proshchaj, oruzhie! [Farewell, Arms!]. 2002. Iskusstvo kino. 11: 5-21.
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Razlogov, 2002 – Razlogov, K. (2002). Novo(e)russkoe kino [New Russian Cinema].
Iskusstvo kino. 11: 83-92. [in Russian]
Razlogov, 2006a – Razlogov, K. (2006). Geopolitika kul'tury [Geopolitics of culture].
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Rezhisser…, 2002 – Rezhisser protiv kritika [Director versus the Critic]. Iskusstvo kino.
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Romanova, 2021 – Romanova, E. (2021). Okno zemli. Mifopoeticheskij hronotop yakutskoj
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1-2: 38-45. [in Russian]
Salnikov, 2004 – Salnikov, V. (2004). Kul'turnye vojny v SSSR [Culture wars in the USSR].
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Sandanov, 2011 – Sandanov, A. (2011). Zombi-apokalipsis. Lekarstvo ot straha i rolevaya
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Sandanov, 2012 – Sandanov, A. (2012). Nuzhnaya veshch'. Chto vzyal u vesterna
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– and why?]. Iskusstvo kino. 2: 142-151. [in Russian]
Savvina, 2021 – Savvina, S. (2021). Kratkaya istoriya yakutskogo kino [A Brief History of
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Scherbenok, 2009 – Scherbenok, A. (2009). Pesni o glavnom. Estetika travmy u Dzigi
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Scherbenok, 2012 – Scherbenok, A. (2012). Dziga Vertov: dialektika kinoveshchi [Dziga
Vertov: Dialectics of the film-thing]. Iskusstvo kino. 1: 76-86. [in Russian]
Sekretaya…, 2008 – Sekretnaya sluzhba televideniya. O funkciyah telekritiki [Secret service
of television. On the functions of TV criticism] (2008). Iskusstvo kino. 4: 63-83. [in Russian]
Senchenko, 2021 – Senchenko, A. (2021). Kartiny ideal'nogo miroustrojstva. Satiricheskie
(i ne tol'ko) komedii 1920h [Pictures of the ideal world order. Satirical (and not only) comedies of
1920s]. Iskusstvo kino. 7-8: 100-104. [in Russian]
Shaw, Youngblood, 2010 – Shaw, T., Youngblood, D.J. (2010). Cinematic Cold War:
The American and Soviet Struggle for Heart and Minds. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Shcherbakov, 2001 – Shcherbakov, K. (2001). Nash avgust 1991-go [Our August of 1991].
Iskusstvo kino. 2: 23-24. [in Russian]
Shepotinnik, 2001 – Shepotinnik, P. (2001). Memuarnoe vremya [Memoir time]. Iskusstvo
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Shlapentokh, Shlapentokh, 1993 – Shlapentokh, D., Shlapentokh, V. (1993). Soviet
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Shorokhova, 2019 – Shorokhova, T. (2019). Ulybka Betmena [Batman's smile]. Iskusstvo
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Shpagin, 2005 – Shpagin, A. (2005). Religiya vojny [Religion of War]. Iskusstvo kino. 5:
57-68. 6: 73-89. [in Russian]
Shumakova, 2010 – Shumakova, A. (2010). Vpered v proshloe. Cifrovye tekhnologii i
poliekran [Forward to the past. Digital technologies and poly-screen]. Iskusstvo kino. 6: 80-86.
[in Russian]
Silnaya…, 2001 – Sil'naya vlast' – posledstviya dlya kul'tury [Strong power: implications for
culture] (2001). Iskusstvo kino. 3: 150-174. [in Russian]
Sirivlya, 2001a – Sirivlya, N. (2001). Evangelie ot Gollivuda [The Gospel of Hollywood].
Iskusstvo kino. 3: 85-93. [in Russian]
Sirivlya, 2001b – Sirivlya, N. (2001). Glamur krepchal [Glamour grows stronger]. Iskusstvo
kino. 8: 69-76. [in Russian]
Sivy, 2006 – Sivy, S. (2006). Deti podzemel'ya [Children of the Underground]. Iskusstvo
kino. 6: 73-81. [in Russian]
Smirnova, 2006 – Smirnova, V. (2006). Amnezicheskoe kino [Amnesic cinema]. Iskusstvo
kino. 3: 82-89. [in Russian]
Smirnova, 2009 – Smirnova, V. (2009). Nemec, kotorogo ne bylo v Marienbade
[The German who wasn't in Marienbad]. Iskusstvo kino. 11: 97-106. [in Russian]
Sputnitskaya, 2015 – Sputnitskaya, N. (2015). Gulliverkino: obratnaya storona skazki.
Aleksandr Ptushko – innovacii [Gulliver-movie: the reverse side of the fairy tale. Alexander
Ptushko – Innovation]. Iskusstvo kino. 5: 105-117. [in Russian]
Sputnitskaya, 2017 – Sputnitskaya, N. (2017). Ovech'ya shkura. Animacionnyj blokbaster
[Sheepskin. Animation blockbuster]. Iskusstvo kino. 5-6: 34-43. [in Russian]
Sputnitskaya, 2018a – Sputnitskaya, N. (2018). Animaciya protiv interneta [Animation
against the Internet]. Iskusstvo kino. 2018. 1-2: 249-259. [in Russian]
Sputnitskaya, 2018b – Sputnitskaya, N. (2018). Dikaya, no milaya. Rossijskaya
kommercheskaya animaciya [Wild but sweet. Russian commercial animation]. Iskusstvo kino. 1112: 193-202. [in Russian]
Sputnitskaya, 2019 – Sputnitskaya, N. (2019). Proshchaj, bikini! Supergeroini v
kinokomiksah [Goodbye, bikini! Superheroines in film comics]. Iskusstvo kino. 9-10: 232-238.
[in Russian]
Sputnitskaya, 2021 – Sputnitskaya, N. (2021). V strane malen'kih chelovechkov. Rannyaya
sovetskaya animaciya [In the country of little men. Early Soviet animation]. Iskusstvo kino. 7-8:
92-99. [in Russian]
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Appendix
The main dates and events related to the historical, political, economic, ideological, sociocultural and cinematic context in which the publication of the Cinema Art journal was carried out
in the 21st century.
2001
January 20: George W. Bush Jr. becomes President of the United States.
June 16: First meeting (Ljubljana) of US President George W. Bush and President of Russia
V. Putin.
June 3–14: Festival Kinotavr-2001. Main prize: Tender Age (directed by S. Solovyov). Grand
Prix: Poisons, or the World History of Poisoning (director K. Shakhnazarov).
June 21–30: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": The Believer (USA, director G. Bean).
July 16: Russian and Chines Presidents signed an agreement on good neighborliness,
friendship and cooperation.
September 11: Air attacks in New York and Washington.
October 7: The US starts the war in Afghanistan.
November: V. Putin's visit to the USA.
2002
May 23–26: visit of US President George W. Bush Jr. in Russia.
Establishment of the NATO-Russia Council.
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June 5–14: Festival Kinotavr-2002. Main prize: War (directed by A. Balabanov). Grand Prix:
Lover (directed by V. Todorovsky).
June 13: The US denounces the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
June 21–30: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Resurrection (Italy-France, directors P. and V. Taviani).
October 23–26: Chechen terrorists take hostages in the House of Culture during the musical
performance Nord-Ost in Moscow.
November: visit of US President George W. Bush Jr. in Russia.
2003
March 20: The US starts the war in Iraq.
May 31 – June 1: visit US President George W. Bush Jr. in Russia.
June 3–17: Festival Kinotavr-2003. Main prize: Old Women (directed by G. Sidorov). Grand
Prix: Chic (directed by B. Khudoynazarov).
June 20–29: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Divine Fire (Italy-Spain, director M. Hermoso).
September 26–27: meeting of George W. Bush Jr. and V. Putin in the USA.
2004
January 4: M. Saakashvili won the presidential elections in Georgia.
June 5–15: Festival Kinotavr-2004. Main prize: Driver for Vera (director P. Chukhrai).
Grand Prix: My stepbrother Frankenstein (directed by V. Todorovsky).
July 18–27: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden George":
Ours (Russia, director D. Meskhiev).
September 1–3: Chechen terrorists take hostages at a school in the city of Beslan.
November 13–16: Russian President V. Putin's first official visit to the United States.
November–December: the victory of the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine.
2005
January 23: V. Yushchenko became the President of Ukraine.
February 24: Meeting of Presidents George W. Bush Jr. and V. Putin in Bratislava.
May 10: Russia-EU summit (Moscow).
June 2–12: Festival Kinotavr-2005. Main prize: Poor Relatives (director P. Lungin).
July 17–26: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden George":
Space as a presentiment (Russia, director A. Uchitel).
July 7: Attacks on the London Underground.
August 8: Iran resumed its uranium enrichment program and pulled out of negotiations with
the EU.
September 16: Meeting of Presidents George W. Bush Jr. and V. Putin in the USA.
2006
January 1–4: "gas crisis" between Russia and Ukraine.
January: Russian President V. Putin announced the end of the counterterrorist operation in
Chechnya.
May 4: US Vice President R. Cheney in his speech accused Russia of using its natural
resources as a foreign policy weapon of pressure, of human rights violations by Russia and of its
destructive actions in the international arena.
June 4–12: Festival Kinotavr-2006. Grand Prize: Playing the Victim (directed by
K. Serebrennikov).
June 23 – July 2: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": About Sarah (Sweden, director O. Karim).
July 14–17: G8 summit in St. Petersburg.
2007
Political conflict between the United States and Russia over the intention of the United States
to deploy missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.
February 8: US Secretary of Defense said that the United States "should be prepared for a
possible armed conflict with Russia".
February 10: Russian President V. Putin sharply criticized US foreign policy at the World
Security Conference in Munich.
June 3–11: Festival Kinotavr-2007. Main prize: Simple Things (directed by A. Popogrebsky).
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June 21–30: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Traveling with pets (Russia, director V. Storozheva).
July 14: President of Russia V. Putin signed the Decree "On the Suspension by the Russian
Federation of the Treaty on Conventional Arms in Europe".
2008
March 2: D. Medvedev is elected President of Russia.
April 5–6: meeting of George W. Bush Jr. and V. Putin in Sochi.
May 8: V. Putin is confirmed as prime minister of the Russian government.
June 7–15: Festival Kinotavr-2008. Main prize: Shultes (director B. Bakuradze).
June 19–28: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Easier than simple (Iran, director R. Mir Karimi).
July: World oil prices reach a new peak of over $140 per barrel.
August 8–16: Armed conflict between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
August 26: Russian President D. Medvedev signed a decree recognizing the independence of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
December 18–20: The seventh congress of Russian filmmakers, at which an attempt was
made (in the absence of the necessary quorum) to remove the director N. Mikhalkov from the post
of Chairman of the Union of Cinematographers and elect director M. Khutsiev (1925–2019) to this
position.
August – December: with the fall in world oil prices (first to $100 per barrel, and then below)
and the collapse of key US credit and banking consortiums, the worst global economic crisis since
the 1930s begins, especially felt in the export-dependent oil to the Russian economy. World oil
prices are falling sharply (4.6 times): from $140 per barrel in July to $30 per barrel in December.
August – December: a sharp depreciation of the ruble (by 30 %) against world currencies.
2009
January 20: B. Obama becomes President of the United States, the beginning of the "reset" of
US-Russian relations.
January: another "gas crisis" between Russia and Ukraine.
March 30–31: The Extraordinary Congress of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia
canceled the illegitimate (due to lack of quorum) election of M. Khutsiev (1925–2019) and by a
majority of votes again elected director N. Mikhalkov to the post of Chairman of the Union of
Cinematographers of Russia.
May: The editorial staff of the Cinema Art journal received a letter signed by the chairman of
the Union of Cinematographers N. Mikhalkov with an order to vacate the premises on the first floor
of the house on Usievicha Street (Moscow), owned by the Union of Cinematographers of Russia.
In August of the same year, the editorial office rented another office, also located in Moscow.
The main reason for the eviction of the Cinema Art editorial office was the active participation of
the editor-in-chief of the Cinema Art journal D. Dondurey (1947–2017) in an attempt to remove
director and actor N. Mikhalkov from the post of Chairman of the Union of Cinematographers of
Russia at the congress on December 18-20, 2008.
June 7–15: Festival Kinotavr-2009. Main prize: Spinning Top (directed by V. Sigarev).
June 19–28: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Petya on the way to the kingdom of heaven (Russia, director N. Dostal).
June: World oil prices rise to $70 per barrel.
July 1: In Russia, gambling establishments are allowed to operate only in special gambling
zones.
July 6–7: US President B. Obama's first visit to Moscow, his meetings with Russian President
D. Medvedev and Prime Minister V. Putin.
September: US President B. Obama announced the reversal of the US decision to deploy
missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.
December 5: Fire at the Lame Horse nightclub in Perm, Russia (156 people died).
2010
February 7: Presidential elections in Ukraine were won by V. Yanukovych, who officially took
office on February 25.
April 8: US President B. Obama and Russian President D. Medvedev signed in Prague an
agreement on the limitation of nuclear weapons.
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March 18: The Clay Institute of Mathematics announced the award of $1 million to
G. Perelman for proving the Poincaré conjecture.
April 8: Russian President D. Medvedev and US President B. Obama signed the Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty in Prague.
April 10: a plane crash near Smolensk, which killed the President of Poland L. Kaczynski and
his wife, and several other Polish statesmen.
June 6–13: Festival Kinotavr-2010. Main prize: Truce (directed by S. Proskurina).
June 17–26: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Brother (Venezuela, director M. Raskin).
August 31: US President B. Obama officially announced the end of the military operation in
Iraq.
September 9: Ministry of Justice of The Russian Federation issued a certificate of state
registration of the Regional Public Organization "Union of Cinematographers and Professional
Cinematographic Organizations and Associations", which included less than two hundred
filmmakers who disagree with the decisions of the Extraordinary Congress of the Union of
Cinematographers of Russia dated March 31, 2009 and with the candidacy of N. Mikhalkov.
The Film Union included directors A. German (1938–2013), Y. Gusman, B. Khlebnikov,
N. Khomeriki, P. Lungin, V. Mansky, A. Mitta, G. Natanson (1921–2017), Y. Norshtein,
A. Popogrebsky, A. Proshkin, E. Ryazanov (1927–2015), A. Sokurov, V. Todorovsky, E. Tsymbal,
A. Zeldovich, screenwriters Y. Arabov, A. Gelman, editor-in-chief of the Cinema Art journal
D. Dondurey (1947–2017), writer, publicist and film critic D. Bykov, film critics and film experts
L. Arkus, Y. Bogomolov (1937–2023), N. Kleiman, V. Matizen, N. Nusinova, L. Pavlyuchik,
A. Plakhov, E. Stishova, K. Shcherbakov and others.
September 28: Moscow Mayor Y. Luzhkov dismissed "due to the loss of confidence of the
President of the Russian Federation".
2011
January 25: The Russian State Duma finally ratifies the Start-3 treaty.
March 1: The law "On Police" comes into force in Russia.
April 16: A visa-free regime between Russia and Turkey comes into force.
June 4–11: Festival Kinotavr-2011. Main prize: Indifference (director O. Flyangolts).
June 23 – July 2: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Waves (Spain, director A. Morais).
December 16: Protocol on Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization is signed.
O. Sentsov, co-owner of a computer club in Simferopol, made an amateur feature film Gamer
at his own expense.
2012
March 4: V. Putin became the winner in the presidential elections in Russia.
May 7: V. Putin officially takes office as President of Russia.
May 8: D. Medvedev is approved for the post of Prime Minister of Russia.
June 3–10: Festival Kinotavr-2012. Main prize: I'll be there (director P. Ruminov).
June 21–30: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Junkhearts (Great Britain, director T. Krishnan).
July 10: The State Duma of Russia ratified the treaty on Russia's accession to the World
Trade Organization.
2013
January 20: B. Obama takes office for a second term as President of the United States.
June 2–9: Festival Kinotavr-2013. Main prize: The Geographer Drank His Globe (directed by
A. Veledinsky).
June 20–29: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Particle (Turkey, director E. Tepegoz).
August 1: The Anti-Piracy Law came into force in the Russian Federation.
2014
February 7–23: XXII Winter Olympic Games (Sochi, Russia).
February 18–21: "Maidan" conflict in the center of Kyiv (77 people died).
February 22: The Verkhovna Rada deprived the President of Ukraine V. Yanukovych of
presidential power.
February 23: Interim duties of the President of Ukraine are assigned to A. Turchynov.
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February 27: Russian special military operation begins in Crimea.
March 8–13: Kinosoyuz website publishes a letter in support of the new leadership of Ukraine
and against the Russian special military operation in Crimea.
March 11–13: A letter from some famous Russian cultural figures in support of the policy of
the Russian Federation in Crimea was published on the website of the Ministry of Culture of the
Russian Federation.
March 11: The Crimean Parliament adopted a declaration of independence from Ukraine.
March 16: A referendum on the status of Crimea was held in the Republic of Crimea and
Sevastopol. According to the official results of the referendum, 96.77 % of the voters of the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea and 95.6 % of the voters of Sevastopol chose to include of Crimea
to Russia.
March 17: Russian President V. Putin signed a decree recognizing the independence of
Crimea.
March 18–21: the reunification of Crimea with Russia, Crimea became part of the Russian
Federation on the rights of autonomy.
April 7: Proclamation of the Donetsk People's Republic, which declared itself independent on
May 12.
April 27: Proclamation of the Lugansk People's Republic, which also declared itself
independent.
April – December: armed clashes in the Donbass between the formations of the DPR and
LPR and the Ukrainian army.
May 2: in Odessa, there were clashes between supporters and opponents of the Ukrainian
authorities, dozens of people died.
May 10: O. Sentsov, former co-owner of a computer club in Semferopol and amateur director,
was detained in Crimea by the Russian Federal Security Service on suspicion of terrorism.
May 25: P. Poroshenko won the early presidential elections in Ukraine, officially taking office
on June 7.
June 1–8: Festival Kinotavr-2014. Main prize: Test (directed by A. Kott).
June 19–28: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": My man (Japan, director K. Kumakiri).
September 5: The Minsk Agreements on Donbass are signed.
2015
February 11–12: A meeting of the presidents and representatives of the Foreign Ministries of
Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France took place in Minsk. A Declaration on Donbass was adopted
and steps were developed to implement the Minsk Agreement.
June 7–14: Festival Kinotavr-2015. Main prize: About Love (directed by A. Melikyan).
June 19–26: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Losers (Bulgaria, director I. Hristov).
August 25: The North Caucasus District Military Court sentenced amateur director
O. Sentsov on charges of terrorism to 20 years in prison in a strict regime colony.
September 30: Russia launches first airstrike against ISIS positions in Syria, launching
Russia's special military operation in Syria.
November 16: Premiere of the first season of the series Servant of the People with comedian
V. Zelensky, which later became part of his presidential election campaign in Ukraine.
January-December: continuation of the "frozen" conflict in Donbass.
2016
March 15: Russia begins withdrawing a military group from Syria.
June 6–13: Festival Kinotavr-2016. Main prize: Good Boy (directed by O. Karas).
June 23–30: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Daughter (Iran, director R. Mirkarimi).
July 14: In Nice, during the celebration of Bastille Day, a terrorist in a heavy vehicle rammed
a crowd of people, killing 85 people, about 200 were injured.
July 15–16: unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey (about three hundred people died).
December 19: Berlin bombing: truck plows into crowd at Christmas market, killing 12, ISIS
claims responsibility.
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December 25: after taking off from Sochi airport, a TU-154 plane crashed, killing 92 people,
including artists of the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Russian Army, well-known public figure
E. Glinka, and others.
January – December: continuation of the "frozen" conflict in Donbass.
2017
January 20: D. Trump takes office as President of the United States.
May 7: E. Macron wins the presidential elections in France.
June 7–14: Festival Kinotavr-2017. Main prize: Arrhythmia (directed by B. Khlebnikov).
June 22–29: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Crested Ibis (China, director Ts. Liang).
October 14–22: XIX World Festival of Youth and Students (Sochi).
October 23: premiere of the second season of the series Servant of the Peoplewith comedian
V. Zelensky, which later became part of his presidential campaign in Ukraine.
January – December: continuation of the "frozen" conflict in Donbass.
2018
March 4: The incident with the poisoning of the former British spy S. Skripal and his
daughter in Salisbury, which led to a political conflict between Russia and the UK.
March 18: V. Putin again won the presidential elections in Russia.
March 25: Fire at the Winter Cherry shopping center in Kemerovo, resulting in loss of people
life.
April 19–26: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": The Tsar Bird (Russia, director E. Novikov).
June 2–10: Festival Kinotavr-2018. Main prize: Heart of the World (directed by
N. Maschaninova).
July 16: Meeting between Russian President V. Putin and US President D. Trump in Helsinki.
October 3: President V. Putin signed the Federal Law on amendments to pension legislation,
including raising the retirement age.
October 11: The Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople officially announced the start of
granting autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, in particular, lifting the anathema
imposed by the Russian Orthodox Church on the leaders of the canonically unrecognized "Kiev
Patriarchate" and the UAOC Filaret and Macarius, canceling the decision of 1696 on the accession
of the Kiev Metropolis to Moscow Patriarchate.
October 15: break of the Eucharistic communion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the
Patriarchate of Constantinople.
October 17: massacre at the Kerch Polytechnic College; 21 people (including the studentkiller) were killed, more than fifty were injured.
January-December: continuation of the "frozen" conflict in Donbass.
2019
January 1: The US decision to withdraw from UNESCO comes into effect.
January 4–6: schism of the Orthodox Church – Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople
signed the tomos on autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, thereby legitimizing the
granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine; this decision was not recognized and
condemned by the Russian Orthodox Church and a number of other local Orthodox churches.
February 2: US suspends Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Russia responds
symmetrically.
March 27: premiere of the third season of the TV series Servant of the People with comedian
V. Zelensky, which became part of his presidential election campaign in Ukraine.
April 18–25: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Personal growth training (Kazakhstan, director F. Sharipov).
June 9–16: Festival Kinotavr-2019. Main prize: Bull (director B. Akopov).
May 20: comedian V. Zelensky, who won P. Poroshenko, took office as President of Ukraine.
July 21: The Servant of the People party of President V. Zelensky won the early parliamentary
elections in Ukraine.
August 2: The United States formally withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces Treaty with the USSR.
September 7: Imprisoned amateur director O. Sentsov was released early from his place of
detention as part of an exchange of detainees between Russia and Ukraine and left for Ukraine.
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December 8: The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, which causes COVID-19, begins.
December 9: The summit of the Normandy Four (Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine) was
held in Paris, following which the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which are under
the control of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR, are extended the status of a “special region”.
January-December: continuation of the "frozen" conflict in Donbass.
2020
January 8: Russian President V. Putin and Turkish President R. Erdogan opened the Turkish
Stream gas pipeline.
January 15: The Russian government headed by D. Medvedev resigned.
January 21: A new government is formed in Russia headed by Prime Minister M. Mishustin.
January 31: The UK left the European Union (Brexit).
January 31: World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a public health
emergency of international concern.
February 29: The US and the Taliban sign a peace agreement to end the war in Afghanistan.
March 17: The European Union closes the external borders of the community for 30 days due
to the coronavirus COVID-19.
March 18: Russia restricts entry for foreigners due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
May 25: African-American J. Floyd dies during arrest in Minneapolis, sparking massive
protests against racism in the US and elsewhere.
July 1: Freight rail traffic on the Crimean bridge across the Kerch Strait was opened.
August 20: Russian oppositionist A. Navalny was hospitalized in the Omsk hospital with
poisoning, from where he was later transferred to Germany for treatment.
September 11–18: Festival Kinotavr-2020. Main prize: Scarecrow (directed by D. Davydov).
September 27: Beginning of the armed conflict in Karabakh.
October 1–8: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": Siege Diary (Russia, director A. Zaitsev).
November 10: Armenia and Azerbaijan sign a ceasefire declaration. Armenia handed over
territories in Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.
January – December: continuation of the "frozen" conflict in Donbass.
2021
January 6: Trump’s supporters seize the US Congress building in Washington to reject the
official results of the 2020 presidential election and support Trump's demand for Vice President
Michael Pence and Congress not to recognize Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 elections.
January 20: J. Biden officially takes office as President of the United States.
January 23: opposition actions in support of A. Navalny in several Russian cities.
January 29: Russian President V. Putin signs the law on the ratification of the agreement
extending START-3 for five years.
February 2: the court in the case of "Yves Rocher" replaced the oppositionist A. Navalny with
a suspended sentence for a real one lasting 3.5 years – in a penal colony.
April 10: A. Navalny’s political videos, prepared by him with the help of Western media
professionals in Germany, I called my killer (2020) and Palace for Putin (2021), received a special
award from the White Elephant from group of Russian film critics.
April 22–29: Moscow International Film Festival in Moscow. The main prize "Golden
George": #asshole (Romania, director A. Khutsulyak).
September 18–25: Festival Kinotavr-2021. Main prize: The sea worries once (director
N. Khomeriki).
December 8: German Chancellor A. Merkel resigned. O. Scholz was appointed the new
Federal Chancellor of Germany.
January-December: continuation of the "frozen" conflict in Donbass.
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