Download or read book The Cinema of Alexander Sokurov written by Jeremi Szaniawski and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the last representatives of a brand of serious, high-art cinema, Alexander Sokurov has produced a massive oeuvre exploring issues such as history, power, memory, kinship, death, the human soul, and the responsibility of the artist. Through contextualization and close readings of each of his feature fiction films (broaching many of his documentaries in the process), this volume unearths a vision of Sokurov's films as equally mournful and passionate, intellectual, and sensual, and also identifies in them a powerful, if discursively repressed, queer sensitivity, alongside a pattern of tensions and paradoxes. This book thus offers new keys to understand the lasting and ever-renewed appeal of the Russian director's Janus-like and surprisingly dynamic cinema – a deeply original and complex body of work in dialogue with the past, the present and the future.

Download or read book The Cinema of Alexander Sokurov written by Birgit Beumers and published by I.B. Tauris. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alexander Sokurov's 'Russian Ark' is generally acclaimed as a milestone in cinematography. In this film Sokurov reversed the idea of montage, creating instead the sensation of an uninterrupted flow of time encompassing three centuries of Russia's cultural history through a single, 90-minute take. Yet this film is but one milestone in the work of this versatile director. Since the 1990s, Sokurov's films have had international recognition at film festivals and through foreign distribution. In this, the first English-language book to cover Sokurov's full oeuvre, leading scholars on Sokurov unravel his work on documentaries; his early films and literary adaptations; his trilogy on leaders focussing on the decaying body; his films on passing youth and approaching age; and, of course, 'Russian Ark'. The book also provides samples of the major Russian-language studies of Sokurov's films to provide the reader with an insight into Russian approaches to Sokurov.

Download or read book The Heart of Russia in Cinema written by Pino Viscusi and published by Youcanprint. This book was released on 2017-01-23 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pino Viscusi, poet and literate lent to cinema, in this fourth essay presents important iconographic material to testimony of his passion for revisiting literary texts, paintings, and movie classics all seen as authentic expression of and recurrent need for the spirituality of the "Russian Soul", since the time of its evangelism.

Download or read book Russian Ark written by Birgit Beumers and published by Intellect (UK). This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Released in 2002, Russian Ark drew astonished praise for its technique: shot with a Steadicam in one ninety-six-minute take, it presented a dazzling whirl of movement as it followed the Marquis de Custine as he wandered through the vast Winter Palace in St. Petersburg--and through three hundred years of Russian history. This companion to Russian Ark addresses all key aspects of the film, beginning with a comprehensive synopsis, an in-depth analysis, and an account of the production history. Birgit Beumers goes on from there to discuss the work that went into the now-legendary Steadicam shot--which required two thousand actors and three orchestras--and she also offers an account of the film's critical and public reception, showing how it helped to establish director Aleksandr Sokurov as perhaps the leading filmmaker in Russia today.

Download or read book The Cinema of Alexander Sokurov written by Birgit Beumers and published by . This book was released on with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alexander Sokurov's 'Russian Ark' is generally acclaimed as a milestone in cinematography. In this film Sokurov reversed the idea of montage, creating instead the sensation of an uninterrupted flow of time encompassing three centuries of Russia's cultural history through a single, 90-minute take. Yet this film is but one milestone in the work of this versatile director. Since the 1990s, Sokurov's films have had international recognition at film festivals and through foreign distribution. In this, the first English-language book to cover Sokurov's full oeuvre, leading scholars on Sokurov unrave.

Download or read book Sense of Emptiness written by Pernilla Hallonsten and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2011-12-08 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human perception is often believed to function holistically, especially in the tradition of Gestalt psychology, involving a focused item and its surrounding. This holistic approach can allow us to explain something that is not directly experienced in our perception, meaning that the absence as well as the presence of something can have a significant impact on how we perceive the world. The way we perceive the presence is more or less the same cross-culturally, but the prominence of the absence, or what is termed emptiness in this volume, varies considerably from one culture to another. The aim of this volume is to identify what emptiness is like and how different cultures incorporate this concept from various perspectives. It turns out that emptiness plays a key role in identifying socio-cultural diversity in a broader sense, including arts and languages. This volume consists of contributions from different fields covering a wide range of topics such as history, literary studies, mythology, film studies, architecture, linguistics, social-anthropology, ethnology and cognitive science. Due to the range covered in this volume, studies presented here are highly interdisciplinary, but all chapters deal with the sense of emptiness, which suggest that the underlying idea of the significance of emptiness is pervasive. Yet, this topic has not previously been systematically compared across different disciplines. It is hoped that this volume will offer a first overview of the pervasiveness and integration of disciplines concerning the sense of emptiness.

Download or read book Russia and its Other s on Film written by S. Hutchings and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-04-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russia's interactions with the West have been a perennial theme of Slavic Studies, and of Russian culture and politics. Likewise, representations of Russia have shaped the identities of many western cultures. No longer providing the 'Evil Empire' of 20th American popular consciousness, images of Russia have more recently bifurcated along two streams: that of the impoverished refugee and that of the sinister mafia gang. Focusing on film as an engine of intercultural communication, this is the first book to explore mutual perceptions of the foreign Other in the cinema of Russia and the West during, and after, communism. The book's structure reflects both sides of this fascinating dialogue: Part 1 covers Russian/Soviet cinematic representations of otherness, and Part 2 treats western representations of Russia and the Soviet Union. An extensive Introduction sets the dialogue in a theoretical context. The contributors include leading film scholars from the USA, Europe and Russia.

Download or read book Revisiting the Past in Museums and at Historic Sites written by Anca I. Lasc and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revisiting the Past in Museums and at Historic Sites demonstrates that museums and historic spaces are increasingly becoming "backdrops" for all sorts of appropriations and interventions that throw new light upon the objects they comprise and the pasts they reference. Rooted in new scholarship that expands established notions of art installations, museums, period rooms, and historic sites, the book brings together contributions from scholars from intersecting disciplines. Arguing that we are witnessing a paradigm shift concerning the place of historic spaces and museums in the contemporary imaginary, the volume shows that such institutions are merging traditional scholarly activities tied to historical representation and inquiry with novel modes of display and interpretation, drawing them closer to the world of entertainment and interactive consumption. Case studies analyze how a range of interventions impact historic spaces and conceptions of the past they generate. The book concludes that museums and historic sites are reinventing themselves in order to remain meaningful and to play a role in societies aspiring to be more inclusive and open to historical and cultural debate. Revisiting the Past in Museums and at Historic Sites will be of interest to students and faculty who are engaged in the study of museums, art history, architectural and design history, social and cultural history, interior design, visual culture, and material culture.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought written by Caryl Emerson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-04 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought is an authoritative new reference and interpretive volume detailing the origins, development, and influence of one of the richest aspects of Russian cultural and intellectual life - its religious ideas. After setting the historical background and context, the Handbook follows the leading figures and movements in modern Russian religious thought through a period of immense historical upheavals, including seventy years of officially atheist communist rule and the growth of an exiled diaspora with, e.g., its journal The Way. Therefore the shape of Russian religious thought cannot be separated from long-running debates with nihilism and atheism. Important thinkers such as Losev and Bakhtin had to guard their words in an environment of religious persecution, whilst some views were shaped by prison experiences. Before the Soviet period, Russian national identity was closely linked with religion - linkages which again are being forged in the new Russia. Relevant in this connection are complex relationships with Judaism. In addition to religious thinkers such as Philaret, Chaadaev, Khomiakov, Kireevsky, Soloviev, Florensky, Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Shestov, Frank, Karsavin, and Alexander Men, the Handbook also looks at the role of religion in aesthetics, music, poetry, art, film, and the novelists Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Ideas, institutions, and movements discussed include the Church academies, Slavophilism and Westernism, theosis, the name-glorifying (imiaslavie) controversy, the God-seekers and God-builders, Russian religious idealism and liberalism, and the Neopatristic school. Occultism is considered, as is the role of tradition and the influence of Russian religious thought in the West.

Download or read book Screen Nazis written by Sabine Hake and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2012-08-31 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the late 1930s to the early twenty-first century, European and American filmmakers have displayed an enduring fascination with Nazi leaders, rituals, and symbols, making scores of films from Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) and Watch on the Rhine (1943) through Des Teufels General (The Devil’s General, 1955) and Pasqualino settebellezze (Seven Beauties, 1975), up to Der Untergang (Downfall, 2004), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and beyond. Probing the emotional sources and effects of this fascination, Sabine Hake looks at the historical relationship between film and fascism and its far-reaching implications for mass culture, media society, and political life. In confronting the specter and spectacle of fascist power, these films not only depict historical figures and events but also demand emotional responses from their audiences, infusing the abstract ideals of democracy, liberalism, and pluralism with new meaning and relevance. Hake underscores her argument with a comprehensive discussion of films, including perspectives on production history, film authorship, reception history, and questions of performance, spectatorship, and intertextuality. Chapters focus on the Hollywood anti-Nazi films of the 1940s, the West German anti-Nazi films of the 1950s, the East German anti-fascist films of the 1960s, the Italian “Naziploitation” films of the 1970s, and issues related to fascist aesthetics, the ethics of resistance, and questions of historicization in films of the 1980s–2000s from the United States and numerous European countries.

Download or read book Soviet and Post Soviet Identities written by Mark Bassin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh look at post-Soviet Russia and Eurasia and at the Soviet historical background that shaped the present.

Download or read book Intermediality in European Avant garde Cinema written by Loukia Kostopoulou and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book proposes a new perspective on avant-garde cinema, utilising approaches from intermediality to explore how the spirit of experimentation, a hallmark of historical avant-garde and post-war artistic movements, is still present in contemporary filmmaking today. The volume explores how contemporary avant-garde filmmakers have brought innovation to modern cinema. Filmmakers, such as, Jean-Luc Godard, Lars von Trier, and Alexander Sokurov and their contemporary works will be analyzed, reflecting on their experimentation with cinematic techniques and the mixing of the film medium with other media, such as literature, theatre, and painting. Important research questions considered throughout the book include: How do intermedial experiments convey meaning in films? What is the impact on the spectator of the mixing of various media forms in cinema? And how are the contemporary films of Jean-Luc Godard, Lars von Trier, and Alexander Sokurov innovative and experimental? The book is devoted to all these themes and provides a thorough analysis of contemporary films examined through an intermedial perspective. Providing a comprehensive analysis of contemporary avant-garde filmmaking from an intermedial perspective, this book will be of interest to graduate students and scholars working in intermedial studies, film and media studies, and cultural studies.

Download or read book The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture written by Tom Brown and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-17 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The biographical film or biopic is a staple of film production in all major film industries and yet, within film studies, its generic, aesthetic, and cultural significance has remained underexplored. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture fills this gap, conceptualizing the biopic with a particular eye toward the "life" of the genre internationally. New theoretical approaches combine with specially commissioned chapters on contemporary biographical film production in India, Italy, South Korea, France, Russia, Great Britain, and the US, in order to present a selective but well-rounded portrait of the biopic’s place in film culture. From Marie Antoinette to The Social Network, the pieces in this volume critically examine the place of the biopic within ongoing debates about how cinema can and should represent history and "real lives." Contributors discuss the biopic’s grounding in the conventions of the historical film, and explore the genre’s defining traits as well as its potential for innovation. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture expands the critical boundaries of this evolving, versatile genre.

Download or read book The Making of Russian Ark written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This documentary reveals how the unique feature-length Russian Ark was created in a single take: Alexander Sokurov's extraordinary masterpiece is a unique journey through time and Russian history. Filmed entirely in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, this groundbreaking film recreates 300 years of history in a single, unedited, feature length take. Sokurov's camera glides through 33 rooms of the Hermitage, covering three centuries of Russian history and European art. Everything unspools in one single, unbroken travelling shot, moving sinuously around the museum, roaming down corridors, nosing into chambers, peering up and down stairwells - encountering scenes from Russian history from the 17th to the early pre-Revolutionary 20th centuries: from Peter the Great to Nicholas. It is acted out by battalions of players and musicians in full costume. And all of it seamless; not a single cut or edit. Cinematographer Tilman Büttner had to carry a specially modified Steadicam capable of recording up to 100 minutes of high-definition video on to a hard disk. Russian Ark is a fluid dream-epic with no special effects. What you see is what you get. If there had been a single mistake, if someone had fallen over or if a door was jammed - or if the camera had blundered across a mirror or reflective surface - then Sokurov and his army of actors would have had to go right back to first positions. .

Download or read book Caught In Between written by Petho Agnes Petho and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-04 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays explores intermediality as a new perspective in the interpretation of the cinemas that have emerged after the collapse of the former Eastern bloc. As an aesthetic based on a productive interaction of media and highlighting cinema's relationship with the other arts, intermediality always implies a state of in-betweenness which is capable of registering tensions and ambivalences that go beyond the realm of media. The comparative analyses of films from Hungary, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Russia demonstrate that intermediality can be employed in this way as a form of introspection dealing with complex issues of art and society. Appearing in a variety of sensuous or intellectual modes, intermediality can become an effective poetic strategy to communicate how the cultures of the region are caught in-between East and West, past and present, emotional turmoil and more detached self-awareness. The diverse theoretical approaches that unravel this in-betweenness contribute to the understanding of intermedial phenomena in contemporary cinema as a whole.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film 3 Volume Set written by Ian Aitken and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-18 with total page 1663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film is a fully international reference work on the history of the documentary film from the Lumière brothers' Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1885) to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 (2004). This Encyclopedia provides a resource that critically analyzes that history in all its aspects. Not only does this Encyclopedia examine individual films and the careers of individual film makers, it also provides overview articles of national and regional documentary film history. It explains concepts and themes in the study of documentary film, the techniques used in making films, and the institutions that support their production, appreciation, and preservation.

Download or read book Mythopoetic Cinema written by Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Mythopoetic Cinema, Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli explores how contemporary European filmmakers treat mythopoetics as a critical practice that questions the constant need to provide new identities, a new Europe, and with it a new European cinema after the fall of the Soviet Union. Mythopoetic cinema questions the perpetual branding of movements, ideas, and individuals. Examining the work of Jean-Luc Godard, Alexander Sokurov, Marina Abramović, and Theodoros Angelopoulos, Ravetto-Biagioli argues that these disparate artists provide a critical reflection on what constitutes Europe in the age of neoliberalism. Their films reflect not only the violence of recent years but also help question dominant models of nation building that result in the general failure to respond ethically to rising ethnocentrism. In close readings of such films as Sokurov's Russian Ark (2002) and Godard's Notre Musique (2004), Ravetto-Biagioli demonstrates the ways in which these filmmakers engage and evaluate the recent reconceptualization of Europe's borders, mythic figures, and identity paradoxes. Her work not only analyzes how these filmmakers thematically treat the idea of Europe but also how their work questions the ability of the moving image to challenge conventional ways of understanding history.