Nabil Ayouch,the golden boy of Morocco cinema

Après trois années de cours de théâtre, Nabil Ayoub s'oriente vers la réalisation.Il débute par la publicité en 1992 et la même année signe son premier court-métrage Les pierres bleues du désert avec Jamel Debbouze, suivent deux autres court-métrages en 1994 et 1996, tous largement primés dans divers festivals internationaux. En 1997, il réalise son premier long-métrage Mektoub qui remporte un énorme succès au Maroc et qui sera le premier film à représenter le Maroc à l'Académie des Oscars. Ali Zaoua est son deuxième film.
( Allocine.com)


نبيل عيوش: المغاربة يعشقون الأفلام الهندية والأمريكية


جمال الخنوسي

Monday, September 17, 2007

أغلبية المغاربة عرفوه من خلال فيلمه الذي حقق نجاحا واسعا، وكان مفاجأة كبيرة للجميع، ف"علي زاوا" الذي أخرجه نبيل عيوش صنع هو الآخر مجده وشهرته. فلم يدع المخرج الشاب الفرصة تفوت وأطل منذ سنة ونصف بفكرة مجنونة ومشروع انتاج 30 فيلما في ظرف سنة ونصف.


في الحوار التالي يتحدث المخرج نبيل عيوش عن الفيلم الجديد الذي تقوم ببطولته الممثلة الأمريكية نيكول رامسي و الفرنسية كارمين لوفوس، ومن الممثلين المغاربة سناء عكرود وبشرى أهريش وغيرهم. كما يتحدث عن العراقيل التي صادفت مشروعه وسبب خلافاته مع المركز السينمائي المغربي.
في البداية نريد الحديث عن فيلمك السينمائي الجديد وموضوعه؟
إنها قصة صداقة بين امرأتين، الأولى مصرية والثانية أمريكية، ومن خلال هذه الصداقة التي تجمعهماهناك لقاء بين عالمين: الشرق و الغرب. وأظن أنه اليوم وأكثر من أي وقت آخر يحتاج العالم أولا إلى التعارف، وإلى اللقاء وفي الأخير إلى التحاور. فأغلبية المشاكل والصراعات سببها أننا لا نتعارف بما فيه الكفاية، ولا نقبل اختلافنا، وهذا الفيلم هو لقاء بين عالمين وثقافتين من خلال لقاء امرأتين.
لماذا تعمدت إعطاء هذا البعد "العالمي" للفيلم؟
بكل بساطة لأنها مسألة شغلتني دائما، فانا ولدت من أب مغربي وأم فرنسية، ازددت في فرنسا وعشت فيها طويلا، لكن مرتبط دائما بالمغرب ويسكنني هاجس الشرق والغرب، الشمال والجنوب. لقد ترعرعت وسط هذا التناقض والتقاطع في الوقت ذاته وإشكالاته وصراعاته. أنا على يقين أن الحوار هو الحل الأمثل لكل الصراعات، فالابتسامة التي تتبادلها مع غريب في الشارع كافية لزرع الاطمئنان وخلق نوع من الألفة. إن شعور الريبة من الآخر غريزة بشرية وعلينا أن نقوم بجهد من أجل مساعدة الناس على اللقاء والحوار والتعارف، وهذا دورنا نحن أيضا كمخرجين ومبدعين. إن الشعب الأمريكي مثلا ليس انعكاسا لصورة الإدارة التي تسيره، فهناك فرق كبير بين الشعب وحكومته. حقيقة هناك أمريكيون منغلقون وفي المقابل هنا كثيرون متفتحون ومستعدون للحوار والتفاهم وهذا دور تلعبه السينما أيضا. ومن خلال هذا الفيلم أحاول أن أقرب لهم العالم العربي بايجابياته وسلبياته. أردت أن أنقل صورة حقيقية وصادقة ما أمكن واصدقك القول، إن العديد من الأمريكيين الذين كتب لهم مشاهدة فيلمي عبروا عن رغبتهم في زيارة المغرب أو أي بلد عربي آخر.
كيف كان اختيار الممثلين؟
لقد كان اختيار الممثلين صورة للفيلم الذي أنجزت، ويدل على التعددية والاختلاف الذي أردت.، لأنه فيلم يمسني في العمق. لقد قمنا بمجموعة من حصص "الكاستينغ" في عدة مدن حول العالم مثل لندن في بريطانيا، ولوس أنجلس ونيويورك في الولايات المتحدة، وبيروت في لبنان والدار البيضاء وعمان بالاردن ودمشق في سوريا وتونس.
ننتقل الآن إلى موضوع مختلف، أين وصل مشروع "فيلم أنديستري"؟
لقد تم تصوير 30 فيلما بأكملها في شهر يونيو الماضي، البعض منها أنتهى العمل فيه نهائيا بينما البعض الآخر مازال في طور المونتاج أو توضع له اللمسات الأخيرة، وسيوزعون في السوق الأسبوع المقبل.
ما هي العراقيل التي واجهتكم من أجل إنتاج هذا المشروع؟
حقيقة واجهتنا الكثير من العقبات والعراقيل أمام ضخامة المشروع الذي كان في البداية فكرة "مجنونة" ومشروعا "خياليا وغير واقعي". لقد كان علينا أن نغير كلية طريقة عملنا وتفكيرنا وإنتاجنا، وعوض أن ننتج فيلما واحدا مع مخرج واحد وكاتب سيناريو واحد سننتج 30 فيلما دفعة واحدة. وبدل كاتب واحد أنشأنا خلية كتابة ضمت 20 كاتب سيناريو، وقس على ذلك. تصور أن المغرب ينتج 10 أفلام في السنة بينما مع مشروعنا أنتج 30 فيلما في سنة ونصف. لقد أحسسنا فعلا بحاجة المغرب إلى تقنيين في مهن السينما ووجدنا صعوبة في الوصول إليهم، ولذلك اعتمدنا سياسة تكوين داخلي، إذ لا يمكن أن تجد عملية تصوير دون وجود ثلاثة أو أربعة متدربين، لذا تجد مساعد مخرج في بداية المشروع ينتهي به المطاف مخرجا لعمل كامل. لقد كان هناك تطور شخصي كبير خلال السنة ونصف من عمر المشروع واستطعنا بذلك أن نوفر للمغرب مهنيين لهم تكوين وتجربة لا يستهان بها.
لقد تعرض المشروع منذ الإعلان عنه لعدة انتقادات .. لماذا عيوش بالذات؟ ولماذا 30 فيلما كلها من نصيبه؟ ولماذا لم يتم الإعلان عن عروض أثمان؟
بكل بساطة لأن الفكرة فكرتي والمشروع مشروعي أنا، وأنا من عرض على وزارة الاتصال والشركة الوطنية للإذاعة والتلفزيون. كما تعلم فإن المغاربة يحبون الصورة ويعشقون السينما ومحبون للأفلام الهندية والأمريكية والمصرية ونحن في المغرب نقدم لونا آخر من الأفلام، في حين لا نقدم أفلاما بوليسية أو غنائية أو التاريخية، لماذا كل هذا الفراغ ونحن بلد كبير وغني بثقافته وتاريخه . لقد انطلقت من هذه الفكرة وغامرت وطلبت من مجموعة من الكتاب صياغة 30 سيناريو تحترم القواعد المهنية وتستوفي جميع الشروط، وفي الوقت ذاته تكون شاملة لكل الألوان السينمائية لحسابي الخاص. وبعدها بحثت عن شركاء في القطاع الحر قبل أن يتم الاستقرار على الشركة والشركة الوطنية للإذاعة والتلفزيون، ووزارة الاتصال. لقد منحنا للمشاهدين خيارا واسعا الآن، فمن المستحب مشاهدة أفلام أمريكية أو غيرها فذلك يغني ثقافتنا جميعا، لكن من الضروري أيضا أن نشاهد أفلاما مغربية تشبهنا وتعبر عنا.
حسب ما تم التصريح به من قبل فإن مجموعة من الأفلام سيتم عرضها في القاعات السينمائية قبل نزولها إلى الأسواق على شكل "دي في دي" ثم عرضها على شاشة القناة الأولى. وهو أمر لم يتم حتى الآن .. ما هي طبيعة الخلاف بينكم وبين المركز السينمائي المغربي حول هذا الموضوع؟
إنهم يطلبون منا التقدم بطلب ترخيص خاص باعتبار أفلامنا لم تصور كفيلم سينمائي مغربي "كلاسيكي"، ولم نمتثل للقواعد التي يحددها المركز من أجل التصوير كضرورة حصول كل التقنيين على بطائق مهنية. لقد تقدمنا بطلبنا منذ شهر نونبر من السنة الماضية ولم نحصل على شيء ومازلنا ننتظر الى حدود اليوم. أظن أنهم "قربوا ياخدوا قرارهم !
بماذا تفسر هذا؟
في الحقيقة لست أدري. ولا افهم كيف أن المركز "يتفرج" على القاعات تموت وتطلب قارب النجاة بواسطة الأفلام المغربية التي تحقق مداخيل ولا يشجع مبادرة تحمل 30 فيلما جديدا.
ألا يمكن اعتبار تهميش المركز السينمائي منذ البداية سببا في هذا الخلاف؟
تهميش؟ أنا لا أرى تهميشا لأن المركز لم يكن قط طرفا في العملية. لقد استدعيناه يوم أعلنا عن المشروع وكلمت شخصيا نور الدين الصايل. وحضر (Hespress.com

In memory of Charles Chaplin.

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977), better known as Charlie Chaplin, was an English comedy actor. Chaplin became one of the most famous performers as well as a notable director and musician in the early to mid Hollywood cinema era. He is considered to be one of the finest mimes and clowns ever caught on film and has greatly influenced performers in this field.

Chaplin was also one of the most creative and influential personalities in the silent film era. He acted in, directed, scripted, produced, and eventually scored his own films. His working life in entertainment spanned over 65 years, from the Victorian stage and music hall in England as a child performer, almost until his death at the age of eighty-eight. Chaplin's high-profile public and private life encompassed highs and lows with both adulation and controversy.

His principal character was "The Tramp" (known as "Charlot" in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Turkey). "The Tramp" is a vagrant with the refined manners and dignity of a gentleman. The character wears a tight coat, over sized trousers and shoes, a derby, carries a bamboo cane, and has a signature toothbrush mustache.
(Wikipedia)

Russian Cinema between the Old and the New.

sokurov

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/12528201/sokurov












An ignored cinema Renaissance in Russia .

By Allal El Alaoui.

Russian cinema has influenced many film-makers around the world especially its twentieth century cinema beginning with Vertov and Serge Eisenstein via avant-garde Perestroika not of course going with communist ideologies Andrej Tarkovski until new waves of cinema spearheaded by Nikita Mikhalkov and Pavel Loughlin.
War,Youth,drugs ,love and crimes seem to dominate cinematic subjets in Russia .In fact,in 2005 « The Nineth Secret ‘ has been primed and revealed an aliented country,Russia which is bombed by war images ,and surprisedly this movie was released at home theatres around the country by the president himself, vladimir Potin.
The termometer of Russian cinema varies according to local and International viewers ,forexample « the musical conductor’ was well welcomed abroad but badly receaved at home .The interference of the state does not match with the passions and the likings of the youth in Russia , « and cinematically, it is similar to the imperial time when Catherine the great wanted to implement potatoes in Russia but none was interested to do so, states Irena Robinova,a famous film critic in Russia » .
Russia cinema has overcome many handicapped mentalities ,defy old styles and fashions of teaching schools, especially now there is new push of capitalistic movement that begins to emerge under the influence of Konstantine Eanest who is speaheading the first TV Channel, also the Mafiosi sponsors and finally french producers who show tremendous interest to Russian movies .

ALLAL EL ALAOUI.











At the beginning of 1985, the underground audience accessed to Parallel Cinema. Secret festivals were organized until 1987, even after the phenomenon came to the West. The movement was first associated to Igor Aleynikov's name, who's dead nowadays. His partners were his brother, Gleb Aleynikov, the director Boris Yukhananov, the musicologist Peter Pospelov, and the actor/director Yevgeniy Kondratev.
Parallel cinema was developped in Moscow and St Petersburg in many different streams and various styles. The St Petersburg Group is an example of expressionist cinema and necro-realism.








The New Russian Cinema
Christina Stojanova

FALL 1998
HOME
THE transition to market economy and the dismantling of the USSR created an unprecedented crisis in Russian film industry. The awesome All Union Ministry of Cinematography (Goskino) was dismembered. This almost paramilitary institution, whose senior officials were also allegedly senior KGB officers, directed, or rather policed, the Soviet film production process with the stick of censorship, and the carrot of lucrative awards. Understandably, the censorship is not going to be sorely missed. What is missed, however, are the generous state budgets and the firm general line, drawn by the military from the Ministry, in accordance with the ever-changing Kremlin ideological vision.
Distribution-wise the situation in Russian cinema followed the pattern characteristic for the other post-communist countries. American films, kept for so long beyond the ideological pale, took over the repertoire, occupying around 75% of the programming time, with a tendency to reach 85% during the next decade. In the Russian Federation, the number of film theatres has dwindled from 3,000 to 1,500, and continues to fall.

After the production boom from the early 1990s (300 films for 1991-92 alone), the figure has stabilised around 50-60 per year. To say that the government has entirely ceased to finance Russian cinema will be wrong. But the traditional mismanagement of state funding, the need to support an enormous army of redundant administrators, and pay salaries to non-working, tenured film-makers, renders government funding far from sufficient vis-à-vis runaway inflation and constantly rising costs.

One explanation of the initial film-production boom is that the film industry offered the first ever possibilities for privatisation and legal investment. Another explanation, or rather a rumour, is that the budding Russian Mafia used film production for money laundering.

The New Russian businessmen, however, gave up on film soon after Gaidar's government introduced in 1993 valorous legal venues for privatisation and investments. As for Mafiosi -- they quickly realised that film producing was not worth the effort, and even the most expensive blockbuster ensures only a modest money laundering operation.

While enthusiasm with artistic (and entrepreneurial) freedom was running high in unexpected quarters, boosting quantity over quality, more experienced Russian filmmakers saw the salvation of Russian cinema in the hands of Western investors.

The beginning was rather encouraging. The films, exposing the lower depths of Soviet reality and penetrating into the mysterious Russian soul, were met with real enthusiasm by Western audiences. It seemed that no visual excess (Alexander Sokurov's Days of Eclipse, 1988, Visitor Of A Museum, 1989, by Konstantin Lopushansky), no lapse into explicit naturalism (Bouge pas, Meurs et Resuscite, 1990, Vitali Kanevsky) or intensity of social conflicts (Taxi Blues, 1990, by Pavel Lungin, Sergei Bodrov's Freedom Is Paradise, 1989), were extreme enough to satisfy the hunger for more knowledge about post-perestroika Russia. Russian films were hot item at most prestigious international festivals. Films that were made without foreign financial participation would immediately find We stern distributors.

The time of euphoria ended with a rough awakening. Most Russian directors became increasingly reluctant to succumb to producers and their impossible demands. The magic formula of a universally marketable hybrid, made with Western money and Russian artistic sensitivity seemed impossible to find. Those who did bend under the pressure, never repeated the success of earlier films that made them famous. The subsequent works of Kanevsky, Lungin and Bodrov (Independent Life, Luna Park and Russians, respectively, all from 1992) teemed with recycled images and ideas from their previous works.

Naturally, the co-operation with foreign producers continues. French producers seem to have a special affinity for Russia, and the films usually reflect this benevolent spirit of co-operation (Burnt By the Sun, 1994 by Nikita Mikhalkov and Window in Paris, 1994 by J. Mamin). The co-production, however, has lost its exclusive status as the shortest cut to fame and glory, and is being treated for what it is -- an arduous business partnership.

The good news is that Russia's own neophyte producers, private sponsors and investors have recently appeared to save the day. They certainly are not Mafiosi with a hidden agenda but cinephiles with money. On the other hand, as Nikita Mikhalkov rightfully noted, "there is no 'clean' money in today's Russia!" There is nothing wrong, indeed, if some newly acquired wealth is spent on keeping the national culture going, instead of being mindlessly wasted in Côte d'azur.

The First Avant-garde and the Passion For Destruction
The vanishing of the Kremlin ideological imperative caused a serious crisis in the New Russian Cinema much graver than the dismantling of the generous state budget. The general line used to create order in the communist world of ideas. It compelled filmmakers to take a stand: abide by it and get carrots, or step beyond it and get the stick. In the early '90s, however, it became relatively easier to raise money for a film than to think of ideas and stories.

Most established directors chose to wait for a couple of years until the dust settled. Sokurov, for example, remembered his early career and returned to documentary film-making. The younger and the inexperienced were naturally eager to test the limits of the newly acquired freedom before a new set of ideological restrictions bolted the door. St. Petersburg's Lenfilm studio took the lead. In comparison to Mosfilm, Lenfilm has always enjoyed the reputation of being ideologically the more open studio. It is no coincidence that Sokurov has made all his films at Lenfilm.

The directors from the first, or perestroika, avant-garde (1984-1989) were busy breaking taboos -- from political and ideological to sexual, necromantic and scatological. Theirs were predominantly short films -- from 4 to 20 minutes, low budget and produced in cinema-clubs. The most notorious and radical trend is necrorealism. Evgeni Jufit is its father and also the non-contested leader of Leningrad's underground. In 1985 he made Hospital Attendants-Werewolves, a manifesto of necrorealist aesthetics, produced by the independent Mzhalalafilm studio he founded himself in 1984. It was followed by a few short works in the same naturalistic-nihilistic vein. Later he made his first feature length film, Daddy, Father Christmas Is Dead (1991) -- a sadomasochistic tale of psychological perversion, resulting in physical mutation of the human species.


The Second Avant-garde and the Obsession With Remakes

The second avant-garde (1989-1995) came after perestroika and deployed a frontal attack against "daddy's cinema". This attack targeted two fronts -- the idols of totalitarianism, and the patriarchal status quo -- in art and society. The attack was marshalled under the closest guidance of the Russian Film Critics Guild. One should be reminded that the New Russian Critics -- as better informed and well-travelled people -- have been playing a vital role in the New Russian Cinema. They have encouraged, scripted, consulted, even directed experimental films. The New Russian Critics are a powerful and strong-minded lot and have made themselves indispensable in shaping all radical trends.

The second avant-garde was launched with parodies of Soviet film classics. Young directors were exorcising the awesome myths of classic Soviet cinema through witty games of free association. These films are hermetic and inaccessible for lay viewers for they served mostly as group therapy for post-communist filmmakers. They were also meant not to entertain, but to relieve the New Russian Cinema from its fears and complexes. In Comrade Tchkalov's Passage Across The North Pole (M. Pezhemsky, 1990), the famous Soviet explorer Valery Tchkalov is crawling towards the North Pole, dragging the psychoanalytic burden of Buñuel's Un chien Andalou. Animated frame by frame, the civil war hero Chapaev kisses the drowning Brezhnev, while Che Guevara descends from heaven on papier-mâché wings to rescue him. The excessive irony and blasphemy of such films(1), however, are lost on audiences unfamiliar with the reverent pomposity of the originals. In this case, the film in question is Valery Tchkalov (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1941), a Communist cult movie and one of Stalin's favourites.

The centrepiece of this trend is Scorpion's Gardens (1991). It is written and directed by a prominent Russian critic -- Oleg Kovalov. He overcomes the trendy temptations of buffoonery à la Monty Python, reduces the avalanche of iconoclastic references, and gets down to business: to expose the sinister mechanism of totalitarian myth-making through cinema. He deconstructs not to ridicule, but to analyse. He takes apart a '50s detective movie, The Case With Corporal Kochetkov (A. Razumni, 1955), then edits its frames within the context of other spy films, musicals, as well as medical and propaganda documentaries from the '50s. The unexpected montage juxtapositions enable Kovalov to analyse the mind of an ordinary man, manipulated by totalitarian propaganda. Brainwashed for years on end by relentless anti-Western fear-mongering, the hero is thrown into confusion by the thaw from the mid-1950s. His mind breaks down and turns into a battlefield between living and dead, thought and dogma, common sense and paranoia.

Despite its artistic clarity, the conceptual deconstruction of the totalitarian mind in Kovalov's film cannot be fully grasped without thorough knowledge of Soviet ideological and cultural mythology. And more important, without knowledge of the cruelty that sustained this mythology.

The subsequent films are more inclusive both geographically and culturally. They are made in Lenfilm and Mosfilm studios as well as in Almaty (Kazakhstan), and reclaim the severed cultural links with Western cinema.

Nicotine (1993), scripted by another prominent Russian critic, S. Dobrotvorsky, is a remake of Godard's Breathless, situated in present-day Leningrad. The plot and the structure of the original are preserved, but the adaptation of characters to a different social milieu have transformed the genre: from film noir to melodrama. Belmondo's character is a low class joyrider who steals a car and smokes Gitanes, shoots a cop, falls in love with a literary lady, and dies from a shotgun wound. While Jean Seberg's character quotes names and ideas, he measures his profile against Bogart's. His Russian counterpart is an upstart New Russian, who drives a fancy car, smokes trendy Montechristos, and while being persecuted by other Mafiosi, hangs out in the fashionable St. Petersburg's House of Cinema. He meets a snobbish starlet at a discussion of Breathless, attended personally by Godard. And while she flirts to make him jealous, he measures his profile against Belmondo's. She leaves him for an influential filmmaker. He is caught by Mafiosi.

The pleasure here lies in recognising Russian cultural signs, like the axe from Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment; and in decoding the transformations suffered by Godard's original characters in the post-Soviet version -- which is difficult, if not impossible, without knowledge of New Russia's social mythology.

The triumph of the conceptual remake is Children Of Iron Gods (1993, T. Tat), an anti-utopia about the end of history. The young director (it is his first film) uses the visual language of communist mythology, but follows the grammar rules of classic adventure film genres, the Western and the Futuristic anti-utopia, to create a new conceptual meaning.

Amongst impressive ruins of gigantic steel works -- an icon of once great Soviet industry -- there lives a tribe of heavy drinking people. Like their ancestors from the early Middle Ages, they survive according to the law of jungle. Their main concern is how to get arms and vodka, and contemplate female flesh. The plot is centred on the upcoming wrestling tournament: Ignat, a hybrid between Superman, Russian folk tale Bogatyr, and socialist-realist "positive hero", is to fight on behalf of the steel workers' guild. His victory, however, is senseless. In spite of his strength and the respect he commands in the community, he -- contrary to his image -- is a puppet, manipulated by anonymous masters.

The director moves away from the anecdotal games, characteristic of the conceptual remake, to reveal the awesome prophecy of his tale. Ignat's masters have brought his world to destruction and continue their ruthless reign. The source of their power is a mysterious brief-case. It does not take long to recognise -- even under the army fatigues -- familiar faces from Russia's current political elite. It is they and not the simple-minded strong man who are the real heroes on and off-screen.

The influence of Orwell's 1984 is strongly felt in Tat's film. The masters of the conceptual remake recognise Orwell, not Solzhenitsyn, as their literary inspiration. Hammer and Sickle (Sergei Livnev, 1995) relates to Animal Farm in viewing Soviet Union from the 1930s as Stalin's playground for social engineering. The metaphor of a case of enforced sex-change stands for Stalin's arrogant determination to subdue human nature. The film, however, fails to transcend the fixation with Stalinist myths, and remains on the surface of a human tragedy, hidden behind the (otherwise scrupulously reconstructed) lustrous totalitarian film aesthetics.


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Hammer and Sickle by Sergei Livnev

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The Fables of Transition to Responsibility
As an integral part of the cultural elite, Russian film-makers have an exclusive sense of mission, and have always proudly considered themselves the consciousness of the nation. And while many are still obsessed with the fallen idols of totalitarianism, others have accepted the challenge to answer the eternal Russian question "What is to be done?" Should Russia follow its own Slavic path or take the Western way towards modernisation? It seems impossible to stay away from the notorious dispute between Westerners and Slavophiles, raging in Duma and dating back to the times when Peter the Great forced his grand boyars to cut off their beards as tribute to Westernisation. Taking sides in this dispute could be a risky enterprise for a film-maker. Nikita Mikhalkov, for example, was severely punished for his nationalist fling with the Slavophile political wing in Parliament. Russian critics met his film Burnt By the Sun with open contempt, which did not soften even after the film received an Oscar.

A post-modernist salon, on the other hand, has noisily proclaimed itself as the only proponent of Western values, thus alienating most of the filmmakers who happen to think and believe otherwise.

Andrei Konchalovsky made his contribution to the heated dispute about Russia's future with Ryaba, My Little Hen (1994). According to his pseudo-folk fable about the woes of transition to market economy, Russia should look for its own way out of the crisis. Liberalism and democracy are Western inventions, and are therefore alien to the Russian people. They will fail in Russia, as Marxism did.

Directors like Nikita Mikhalkov, Vadim Abdrashitov (Play For a Passenger, 1995), and Vladimir Khotinenko (The Muslim, 1995) prefer to ask first "What have we done?", before pondering what to do next. None of them offers a global solution. What emerges, however, is an attempt to see Russia's current spiritual and moral crisis as a cumulative effect of misguided best intentions and total absence of individual responsibility. It is not the West and its ideologies that have caused Russia's woes. It is not Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, neither Lenin nor Stalin. It is not God, not the Jews either. It is the fault of each and every Russian who has ignored his or her common sense in the name of grand delusions.

Against the backdrop of a huge portrait of Stalin, unfurled under the bright sun, the hand-cuffed enemy of the people, former Bolshevik Commander Kotov, breaks down at the realisation that he is a victim of his own deeds and in a way -- no better than his hired torturers. His noble social delusions have blinded him and turned him into a zealous instrument of the evil that is destroying him and his country (Burnt By the Sun).

Nikolay from Play For... is obsessed with revenge against the judge who had sent him to prison years ago. In the process, however, he inflicts much more suffering on himself and his loved ones than he could ever inflict on the malicious judge.

An Afghanistan war hero comes home after having been declared missing for years. His arrival causes a shock: he has become a Muslim. His life style has become so pious that he becomes an embarrassment for his family, for the village folks, possessed with post-perestroika consumerism, and for his war buddies who consider him traitor. The genre of these films could be loosely defined as moral parable, with a simple, somewhat apocalyptic message -- what goes around, comes around. This message could be also concisely expressed in any famous quote from the Bible: thou shalt not kill; whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; turn the other cheek; be thy brother's keeper.

In tune with the 19th century Russian literary and artistic tradition, the presence of God is strongly felt in these films. God is the redeeming image of a fiery ball that crosses the frame at each crucial turn of the narrative (Burnt By the Sun). The mystical merge of personalities in Piece For... comes directly from Manichean Christianity. Nikolay takes the role of the judge, punishes the judge, becomes the judge. The chain of injustices is closed. The chastiser and the chastised, God and Devil, all in one.

In the grand eloquent mannerism of Mikhalkov's sensual universe, God is the absolute moral imperative existing outside the world of his characters. Whether they would recognise his existence or not is irrelevant to the deity's existence, while the act of religious awakening is purely a voluntary one, an expression of personal responsibility.

In Abdrashitov's ascetic world of pure reason, God is a higher moral principle, existing within his characters. They could choose to respect it and live in harmony with their conscience, or ignore it and face the consequences. The recognition of this higher principle is also a question of personal responsibility.

Not so, says Khotinenko. In his eclectic film experience, religion is a will power. It requires special energy to believe in God and become a responsible human being. It is a strenuous act, alienating most people. If you have the stamina to believe, you will find your God sooner or later. Khotinenko makes sure several times over that this is what he meant and has his Muslim to repeat it: "God is one, only His names are different!"

It is much safer for Mikhalkov and Abdrashitov to resolve issues of tragic or intentional guilt in clear-cut historical situations: the Great Terror from 1934-37 or the period of stagnation ('70s and '80s). Khotinenko's task is much more difficult -- he treads the volatile post-Soviet reality.

Khotinenko therefore prefers to create an original conflict situation and then watch it develop, without much venturing into philosophical or theological realms. He is brilliant, however, when examining the "idiocy" of village life or when revealing the mechanism of Russian xenophobia. The villagers openly hate the Muslim for being different and yet one of their own. But most of all they hate him for reminding them with his very presence how corrupt they are. Even his own mother says with reproach: "We know it is bad to steal, you do not have to remind us!"

Paradoxically, the Muslim is a post-modern reincarnation of Christ himself -- loving, forgiving, suffering for the sins of others, and finally murdered by them. But here Khotinenko's search for God runs out of steam. He cannot make his Muslim a Messiah since he doubts a priori his villagers' propensity for acts requiring will power -- they drift with the flow. And even if some of them do find stamina to believe, Khotinenko would not know what to do with them.

Khotinenko is reluctant to take any responsibility for the further developments in the life of the Muslim or the villagers. He has his hero killed, but somewhat reluctantly, to preserve his integrity. In any case, the Muslim is doomed both on the existential level and on the level of narrative. After all, what could he do with him if he stays alive and does wake pious feelings in the villagers? It would not have been a good idea considering the current political circumstances and all these tensions amongst Russians and Muslims in the former Soviet Republics. Khotinenko certainly would not have liked to see the villagers building a Muslim community or sending a regiment of volunteers to Bosnia -- he would not go for such cheap resolutions. That is why he leaves the advent of the Muslim and his death without any effect on the infantile villagers. They will go on stealing, lazing around, drinking themselves into oblivion, and waiting for another chance to find dollar bills swirling down the river. With the only difference that there will be no one around to point out how irresponsible they are. Only rarely, on a full moon night, they would wake up to the sight of a huge grinning head of a pig rising from the dark waters. It is unlikely, however, they would recognise their guilty conscience in it.


The New Cinematic Image and the New Russians

The hero of Limita (1994, Denis Yevstigneyev) is Ivan P. Voroshilov. He belongs to the marginal social stratum of the so-called limitchiki -- thus the title. He is a computer whiz, not indifferent to the redistribution of the New Russian wealth. The Russian initials of his name read VIP, and he stands up for it with a dangerous combination of primordial evil, high professionalism and personal charisma. With equal cool-ness he breaks a complicated computer code, steals a cheap can for the sake of stealing, purchases a river station, makes love to a pretty stranger, fights...

Yevstigneyev seems insensitive to the moral ambiguity of his characters. He sees them as the heroes of the New Barbarian Revolution and openly admires their cow-boy ethics. He is acquitting them with the same argument, used by the classic Soviet cinema from the '20s to acquit the ruthless Bolshevik commissars, or by the classic American cinema from the '30s to acquit the murderous depression gangsters. They restore social justice so they must be right. The visual leitmotif of the morning ritual dance says it all. It is a climactic self-assertion of the New Russians as masters in post-communist Russia. But it is also the ultimate triumph of the morally ambiguous New Cinematic Image over the preoccupation of the old, message-oriented Soviet Cinema.

The attempt to show the New Russians as latter day heroes is taken further by Dykhovychny. He certainly does not share Yevstigneyev's romantic concept of them as knights of sorts imposing their tough code on the unruly post-communist jungle. But he does believe they are tragic figures, and victims of unpredictable times. Again, the story is irrelevant -- a certain Larin (Montréal's own Grigory Hlady), a successful artist, returns to his native post-perestroika St. Petersburg after years in emigration. In the wake of his unexpected return, he becomes a reluctant participant in a succession of dramatic events. His still beautiful but neurotic former mistress (Dark Eyes' Elena Safonova) has married a rich, bully-like businessman, who is permanently drunk and suicidal. The mistress's daughter has grown into a beautiful, but arrogant creature. No one else on the scene is any better, including the artist himself, who cherishes a guilty passion for the daughter. The characters, as in Limita, are undergoing their existential crisis clad in expensive designer clothes, driving luxurious cars, dining under the watchful eye of bodyguards, and served by maids.

The suicidal New Russian finally succeeds in killing himself, the mistress goes mad on account of a suddenly awoken conscience, the artist dies as a collateral victim in a restaurant shoot-out. The greedy daughter is punished by losing control of her stepfather's estate. ..

The story thus told discloses a life whose cynicism could be summarised in Chekhov's famous expression: "Ours is a pathetic life, gentlemen." But the exquisite imagery openly admires this lush life style, sabotaging the analysis of the narrative. (It is not coincidental that both Limita and Music For December are shot by Sergei Kozlov, the most fashionable D.O.P. in Russia). Instead of conveying the idea of a deserted inner-city jungle, Kozlov's vision of post-Soviet St. Petersburg acquires the romantic allure of an exciting urban frontier, up for grabs. Instead of suggesting spiritual homelessness, the images of expensive dachas, studios and home interiors under (re)construction convey the promising thrill of new money.

This time around Dyckhovychny, one of the masters of the conceptual remake, was misguided in his attempt to criticise a phenomenon using its own imagery. The scrupulous reconstruction of the totalitarian facade with its monumental architecture, brightly lit by the sun; with elegant fashionable clothes, and optimistic songs and dances, served as a powerful counterpoint to the brutal destruction of human lives in Moscow Parade (1992). But what worked there has failed in Music For December. Unlike their totalitarian predecessors, New Russians are neither respected nor feared. Unlike the Soviet communist elite, they lack a sense of mission and ideology to build their own culture. Unlike Stalinists, the New Russians emulate Western life style, and are transfixed by Western consumer myths. At best, they could be ridiculed and at worst -- envied. In any case, they are too greedy to qualify as romantic heroes and too cynical for tragic demons.


The Classic Film Genres and the New Russian Poor

If the films discussed above allow for a glimpse into the New Russian life at the top, a significantly larger group of films opens a broader window into the life of the New Russian poor. The life of the lower classes is viewed suitably in "lower" genre forms. These genre forms are not always "pure"; professionalism and taste are not always their strong points, but they offer ample sociological evidence about the frustrations and contemporary mythology of ordinary Russians. In spite of their genre diversity, they basically fit in this generalised scheme: an emigrant (or a visitor) arrives from the West. He/she provokes -- or witnesses -- a string of melodramatic or burlesque events, and then resolves them as deus ex machina.

In the burlesque comedy Everything Will Be OK (Dmitri Astrakhan, 1995), a rich New Russian visits his high-school flame after many years with his son -- a mathematician, and a Nobel Prize winner (sic!). The son falls in love at first sight with the daughter of the flame. The girl, however, is about to marry the boy next door. The businessman resolves the problems of the numerous inhabitants of the tumbling communal apartment block, his son gets the girl with the blessing of the boy next door, and everybody lives happily ever after. Some, like the newlyweds in America with lots of money. Others, like the boy next door, with humble salary in a run-down St. Petersburg's factory.

In Moscow Vacation, a romantic comedy directed by Alla Surikova (1995), a beautiful Italian comes to Moscow to bury her Russian grandmother's favourite dog, falls in love with a handsome taxi-driver, and after series of not-so-hilarious events, sneaks him on the plane with her.

In the melodrama American Daughter (Karen Shakhnazarov, 1995), this pattern is turned upside down: A Russian father arrives in California to visit his daughter who lives with his ex-wife and her rich American husband. Happiness is not a question of money, the director suggests, and the warmth of the Russian babushka is much more precious to the girl than all the expensive toys, private schools and fashionable clothes. Therefore she clings to her poor Russian father, and helps him organise her own abduction. On their way to Russia they get arrested at the Mexican border, the father is imprisoned for trespassing and kidnapping, and here the film ends. The escape from prison by helicopter, flown by the daughter, is from another opera.

Even this brief revision of the plots reveals the depths of social desperation of the New Russian poor. Everything Will Be OK is a rather ironic title for a film which is no more than a catalogue of Russia's most painful social issues: alcoholism, violent crime, unemployment, prostitution, lack of perspective for the young and security for the old, horrifying poverty. It takes nothing short of a miracle to resolve a problem -- any problem. From taking an elderly invalid in wheelchair down the stairs to attending a ballet performance to curing a violent alcoholic. And the princes and princesses who perform these miracles are in short supply, and, as they say in Russian, all ot tuda, from the affluent West. Russia's own nouveaux riches are just beginning to provide their share of miracle makers, but the demand -- as in any area of post-communist Russian economics -- exceeds the supply.

Usually melodramas cater to women's unfulfilled desires. But Moscow Vacation and American Daughter could be understood as attempts (although rather unconvincing in both artistic and sociological sense) to restore the waning self-esteem of Russian men. Moscow Vacation offers the consolation of the sexual triumph of a Russian man, who takes a beautiful Italian by storm. But sexual self-realisation has never been a singular priority for Russian men. Many of them feel frustrated for lacking the "special" qualities required to become New Russians, and are ready to identify with the humiliation, suffered by their country with the loss of its super-power status. They take the downfall of their country as proof of their double failure -- at home and abroad. In this sense American Daughter is a melodrama for men, geared to their anxieties and hurt pride. Its ending represents a threefold triumph -- emotional, social and patriotic. The Russian father wins his daughter over her mother, her social status, and affluent America. The last being his sweetest triumph.

Soviet cinema has been predominantly male-oriented since the early 1930s. The films on women's issues were most often made by male directors. Only during late 1970s and 1980s there appeared a few women directors, who presented the Soviet reality through female gaze and perception. That is why the images of women did not suffer great transformation in post-Soviet Russian cinema -- they are there to help their men out, to support and love them, humble and submissive, traditionally "feminine". For refusing to stand by her husband, a drunk, professional failure and a petty criminal, the mother and ex-wife from American Daughter is pictured as an evil woman. A beautiful vamp who dared marry a foreigner and build a new life for herself and her daughter is expected to be despised by the Russian audiences.

Russian perestroika film culture has boasted inclusive egalitarianism until recently. The leap it has taken to cheap melodramas and sentimental comedies, preying on basic escapist myths about male and female cinderellas, actually matches the leap Russia took from super power to impoverished third world country.

Against this bleak backdrop one is tempted to look for sociological revelations, complicated messages and a cross-section of the "mysterious" Russian soul everywhere, even in the hilariously funny adventures of a student from Finland on an academic research trip to present-day Russia (Peculiarities of Russian Hunt, A. Rogozhkun, 1995). In such an atmosphere, even the good-natured humour and inventive gags of this very humane film could look ominous: the Finn gets attached to a diverse social group of seasoned hunters, but they hardly ever fire a gun. He has come to research the customs of modern hunting in Russia, but all he does is drink himself silly in the company of his Russian friends. The only harmonious vision, inserted into this surreal alcoholic nightmare, are his serene dreams of an 18th century stylish hunting event. Who knows, maybe there is some moral in this. But what?

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Identity of oneself is the identity of Arab cinema

ARAB CINEMA: THE STRUGGLE TO BE SEEN



"The Arab cinemas are both the product and the expression of a long and unresolved struggle for the control of the image, for the power to define identity. That identity is clearly rooted in the crossroads of culture of the region, extending as it does between Europe and Black Africa, between the Atlantic and the Arabian Gulf, but also between the city and countryside and desert ... between a colonial past and a nominally independent present." - film critic Mariam Rosen.

mise-en scene and grammer in Cinema

The 'Grammar' of Television and Film

Television and film use certain common conventions often referred to as the 'grammar' of these audiovisual media. This list includes some of the most important conventions for conveying meaning through particular camera and editing techniques (as well as some of the specialised vocabulary of film production).
Conventions aren't rules: expert practitioners break them for deliberate effect, which is one of the rare occasions that we become aware of what the convention is.


Camera Techniques: Distance and Angle

Images and text (c) 2001 Daniel Chandler - no unauthorized use - this image is watermarked

Long shot (LS). Shot which shows all or most of a fairly large subject (for example, a person) and usually much of the surroundings. Extreme Long Shot (ELS) - see establishing shot: In this type of shot the camera is at its furthest distance from the subject, emphasising the background. Medium Long Shot (MLS): In the case of a standing actor, the lower frame line cuts off his feet and ankles. Some documentaries with social themes favour keeping people in the longer shots, keeping social circumstances rather than the individual as the focus of attention.

Establishing shot. Opening shot or sequence, frequently an exterior 'General View' as an Extreme Long Shot (ELS). Used to set the scene.

Medium shots. Medium Shot or Mid-Shot (MS). In such a shot the subject or actor and its setting occupy roughly equal areas in the frame. In the case of the standing actor, the lower frame passes through the waist. There is space for hand gestures to be seen. Medium Close Shot (MCS): The setting can still be seen. The lower frame line passes through the chest of the actor. Medium shots are frequently used for the tight presentation of two actors (the two shot), or with dexterity three (the three shot).

Close-up (CU). A picture which shows a fairly small part of the scene, such as a character's face, in great detail so that it fills the screen. It abstracts the subject from a context. MCU (Medium Close-Up): head and shoulders. BCU (Big Close-Up): forehead to chin. Close-ups focus attention on a person's feelings or reactions, and are sometimes used in interviews to show people in a state of emotional excitement, grief or joy. In interviews, the use of BCUs may emphasise the interviewee's tension and suggest lying or guilt. BCUs are rarely used for important public figures; MCUs are preferred, the camera providing a sense of distance. Note that in western cultures the space within about 24 inches (60 cm) is generally felt to be private space, and BCUs may be invasive.


Images and text (c) 2001 Daniel Chandler - no unauthorized use - this image is watermarked

Angle of shot. The direction and height from which the camera takes the scene. The convention is that in 'factual' programmes subjects should be shot from eye-level only. In a high angle the camera looks down at a character, making the viewer feel more powerful than him or her, or suggesting an air of detachment. A low angle shot places camera below the character, exaggerating his or her importance. An overhead shot is one made from a position directly above the action.

Viewpoint. The apparent distance and angle from which the camera views and records the subject. Not to be confused with point-of-view shots or subjective camera shots.

Point-of-view shot (POV). A shot made from a camera position close to the line of sight of a performer who is to be watching the action shown in the point-of-view shot.

Two-shot. A shot of two people together.

Selective focus. Rendering only part of the action field in sharp focus through the use of a shallow depth of field. A shift of focus from foreground to background or vice versa is called rack focus.

Soft focus. An effect in which the sharpness of an image, or part of it, is reduced by the use of an optical device.

Wide-angle shot. A shot of a broad field of action taken with a wide-angle lens.

Tilted shot. When the camera is tilted on its axis so that normally vertical lines appear slanted to the left or right, ordinary expectations are frustrated. Such shots are often used in mystery and suspense films to create a sense of unease in the viewer.


Camera Techniques: Movement

Images and text (c) 2001 Daniel Chandler - no unauthorized use - this image is watermarked
Zoom. In zooming in the camera does not move; the lens is focussed down from a long-shot to a close-up whilst the picture is still being shown. The subject is magnified, and attention is concentrated on details previously invisible as the shot tightens (contrast tracking). It may be used to surprise the viewer. Zooming out reveals more of the scene (perhaps where a character is, or to whom he or she is speaking) as the shot widens. Zooming in rapidly brings not only the subject but also the background hurtling towards the viewer, which can be disconcerting. Zooming in and then out creates an ugly 'yo-yo' effect.

Following pan. The camera swivels (in the same base position) to follow a moving subject. A space is left in front of the subject: the pan 'leads' rather than 'trails'. A pan usually begins and ends with a few seconds of still picture to give greater impact. The speed of a pan across a subject creates a particular mood as well as establishing the viewer's relationship with the subject. 'Hosepiping' is continually panning across from one person to another; it looks clumsy.

Surveying pan. The camera slowly searches the scene: may build to a climax or anticlimax.

Tilt. A vertical movement of the camera - up or down- while the camera mounting stays fixed.

Crab. The camera moves (crabs) right or left.

Tracking (dollying). Tracking involves the camera itself being moved smoothly towards or away from the subject (contrast with zooming). Tracking in (like zooming) draws the viewer into a closer, more intense relationship with the subject; moving away tends to create emotional distance. Tracking back tends to divert attention to the edges of the screen. The speed of tracking may affect the viewer's mood. Rapid tracking (especially tracking in) is exciting; tracking back relaxes interest. In a dramatic narrative we may sometimes be drawn forward towards a subject against our will. Camera movement parallel to a moving subject permits speed without drawing attention to the camera itself.

Hand-held camera. A hand-held camera can produce a jerky, bouncy, unsteady image which may create a sense of immediacy or chaos. Its use is a form of subjective treatment.

Process shot. A shot made of action in front of a rear projection screen having on it still or moving images as a background.


Editing Techniques
Cut. Sudden change of shot from one viewpoint or location to another. On television cuts occur on average about every 7 or 8 seconds. Cutting may:

change the scene;
compress time;
vary the point of view; or
build up an image or idea.
There is always a reason for a cut, and you should ask yourself what the reason is. Less abrupt transitions are achieved with the fade, dissolve, and wipe

Matched cut. In a 'matched cut' a familiar relationship between the shots may make the change seem smooth:


continuity of direction;
completed action;*
a similar centre of attention in the frame;
a one-step change of shot size (e.g. long to medium);
a change of angle (conventionally at least 30 degrees).
*The cut is usually made on an action (for example, a person begins to turn towards a door in one shot; the next shot, taken from the doorway, catches him completing the turn). Because the viewer's eye is absorbed by the action he is unlikely to notice the movement of the cut itself.

Jump cut. Abrupt switch from one scene to another which may be used deliberately to make a dramatic point. Sometimes boldly used to begin or end action. Alternatively, it may be result of poor pictorial continuity, perhaps from deleting a section.

Motivated cut. Cut made just at the point where what has occurred makes the viewer immediately want to see something which is not currently visible (causing us, for instance, to accept compression of time). A typical feature is the shot/reverse shot technique (cuts coinciding with changes of speaker). Editing and camera work appear to be determined by the action. It is intimately associated with the 'privileged point of view' (see narrative style: objectivity).

Cutting rate. Frequent cuts may be used as deliberate interruptions to shock, surprise or emphasize.

Cutting rhythm. A cutting rhythm may be progressively shortened to increase tension. Cutting rhythm may create an exciting, lyrical or staccato effect in the viewer.

Cross-cut. A cut from one line of action to another. Also applied as an adjectuve to sequences which use such cuts.

Cutaway/cutaway shot (CA). A bridging, intercut shot between two shots of the same subject. It represents a secondary activity occurring at the same time as the main action. It may be preceded by a definite look or glance out of frame by a participant, or it may show something of which those in the preceding shot are unaware. (See narrative style: parallel development) It may be used to avoid the technical ugliness of a 'jump cut' where there would be uncomfortable jumps in time, place or viewpoint. It is often used to shortcut the passing of time.

Reaction shot. Any shot, usually a cutaway, in which a participant reacts to action which has just occurred.

Insert/insert shot. A bridging close-up shot inserted into the larger context, offering an essential detail of the scene (or a reshooting of the action with a different shot size or angle.)

Buffer shot (neutral shot). A bridging shot (normally taken with a separate camera) to separate two shots which would have reversed the continuity of direction.

Fade, dissolve (mix). Both fades and dissolves are gradual transitions between shots. In a fade the picture gradually appears from (fades in) or disappears to (fades out) a blank screen. A slow fade-in is a quiet introduction to a scene; a slow fade-out is a peaceful ending. Time lapses are often suggested by a slow fade-out and fade-in. A dissolve (or mix) involves fading out one picture while fading up another on top of it. The impression is of an image merging into and then becoming another. A slow mix usually suggests differences in time and place. Defocus or ripple dissolves are sometimes used to indicate flashbacks in time.

Superimpositions. Two of more images placed directly over each other (e.g. and eye and a camera lens to create a visual metaphor).

Wipe. An optical effect marking a transition between two shots. It appears to supplant an image by wiping it off the screen (as a line or in some complex pattern, such as by appearing to turn a page). The wipe is a technique which draws attention to itself and acts as a clear marker of change.

Inset. An inset is a special visual effect whereby a reduced shot is superimposed on the main shot. Often used to reveal a close-up detail of the main shot.

Split screen. The division of the screen into parts which can show the viewer several images at the same time (sometimes the same action from slightly different perspectives, sometimes similar actions at different times). This can convey the excitement and frenzy of certain activities, but it can also overload the viewer.

Stock shot. Footage already available and used for another purpose than the one for which it was originally filmed.

Invisible editing: See narrative style: continuity editing.


Manipulating Time
Screen time: a period of time represented by events within a film (e.g. a day, a week).
Subjective time. The time experienced or felt by a character in a film, as revealed through camera movement and editing (e.g. when a frightened person's flight from danger is prolonged).

Compressed time. The compression of time between sequences or scenes, and within scenes. This is the most frequent manipulation of time in films: it is achieved with cuts or dissolves. In a dramatic narative, if climbing a staircase is not a significant part of the plot, a shot of a character starting up the stairs may then cut to him entering a room. The logic of the situation and our past experience of medium tells us that the room is somewhere at the top of the stairs. Long journeys can be compressed into seconds. Time may also be compressed between cutaways in parallel editing. More subtle compression can occur after reaction shots or close-ups have intervened. The use of dissolves was once a cue for the passage of a relatively long period of time.

Long take. A single shot (or take, or run of the camera) which lasts for a relatively lengthy period of time. The long take has an 'authentic' feel since it is not inherently dramatic.

Simultaneous time. Events in different places can be presented as occurring at the same moment, by parallel editing or cross-cutting, by multiple images or split-screen. The conventional clue to indicate that events or shots are taking place at the same time is that there is no progression of shots: shots are either inserted into the main action or alternated with each other until the strands are somehow united.

Slow motion. Action which takes place on the screen at a slower rate than the rate at which the action took place before the camera. This is used: a) to make a fast action visible; b) to make a familiar action strange; c) to emphasise a dramatic moment. It can have a lyric and romantic quality or it can amplify violence.

Accelerated motion (undercranking) . This is used: a) to make a slow action visible; b) to make a familiar action funny; c) to increase the thrill of speed.

Reverse motion. Reproducing action backwards, for comic, magical or explanatory effect.

Replay. An action sequence repeated, often in slow motion, commonly featured in the filming of sport to review a significant event.

Freeze-frame. This gives the image the appearance of a still photograph. Clearly not a naturalistic device.

Flashback. A break in the chronology of a narrative in which events from the past are disclosed to the viewer. Formerly indicated conventionally with defocus or ripple dissolves.

Flashforward. Much less common than the flashback. Not normally associated with a particular character. Associated with objective treatments.

Extended or expanded time/overlapping action. The expansion of time can be accomplished by intercutting a series of shots, or by filming the action from different angles and editing them together. Part of an action may be repeated from another viewpoint, e.g. a character is shown from the inside of a building opening a door and the next shot, from the outside, shows him opening it again. Used nakedly this device disrupts the audience's sense of real time. The technique may be used unobtrusively to stretch time, perhaps to exaggerate, for dramatic effect, the time taken to walk down a corridor. Sometimes combined with slow motion.

Ambiguous time. Within the context of a well-defined time-scheme sequences may occur which are ambiguous in time. This is most frequently comunicated through dissolves and superimpositions.

Universal time. This is deliberately created to suggest universal relevance. Ideas rather than examples are emphasised. Context may be disrupted by frequent cuts and by the extensive use of close-ups and other shots which do not reveal a specific background.


Use of Sound
Direct sound. Live sound. This may have a sense of freshness, spontaneity and 'authentic' atmosphere, but it may not be acoustically ideal.
Studio sound. Sound recorded in the studio to improve the sound quality, eliminating unwanted background noise ('ambient sound'), e.g. dubbed dialogue. This may be then mixed with live environmental sound.

Selective sound. The removal of some sounds and the retention of others to make significant sounds more recognizable, or for dramatic effect - to create atmosphere, meaning and emotional nuance. Selective sound (and amplification) may make us aware of a watch or a bomb ticking. This can sometimes be a subjective device, leading us to identify with a character: to hear what he or she hears. Sound may be so selective that the lack of ambient sound can make it seem artificial or expressionistic.

Sound perspective/aural perspective. The impression of distance in sound, usually created through the use of selective sound. Note that even in live television a microphone is deliberately positioned, just as the camera is, and therefore may privilege certain participants.

Sound bridge. Adding to continuity through sound, by running sound (narration, dialogue or music) from one shot across a cut to another shot to make the action seem uninterrupted.

Dubbed dialogue. Post-recording the voice-track in the studio, the actors matching their words to the on-screen lip movements. Not confined to foreign-language dubbing.

Wildtrack (asynchronous sound). Sound which was self-evidently recorded separately from the visuals with which it is shown. For example, a studio voice-over added to a visual sequence later.

Parallel (synchronous) sound. Sound 'caused' by some event on screen, and which matches the action.

Commentary/voice-over narration. Commentary spoken off-screen over the shots shown. The voice-over can be used to:


introduce particular parts of a programme;
to add extra information not evident from the picture;
to interpret the images for the audience from a particular point of view;
to link parts of a sequence or programme together.
The commentary confers authority on a particular interpretation, particularly if the tone is moderate, assured and reasoned. In dramatic films, it may be the voice of one of the characters, unheard by the others.

Sound effects (SFX). Any sound from any source other than synchronised dialogue, narration or music. Dubbed-in sound effects can add to the illusion of reality: a stage- set door may gain from the addition of the sound of a heavy door slamming or creaking.

Music. Music helps to establish a sense of the pace of the accompanying scene. The rhythm of music usually dictates the rhythm of the cuts. The emotional colouring of the music also reinforces the mood of the scene. Background music is asynchronous music which accompanies a film. It is not normally intended to be noticeable. Conventionally, background music accelerates for a chase sequence, becomes louder to underscore a dramatically important action. Through repetition it can also link shots, scenes and sequences. Foreground music is often synchronous music which finds its source within the screen events (e.g. from a radio, TV, stereo or musicians in the scene). It may be a more credible and dramatically plausible way of bringing music into a programme than background music (a string orchestra sometimes seems bizarre in a Western).

Silence. The juxtaposition of an image and silence can frustrate expectations, provoke odd, self-conscious responses, intensify our attention, make us apprehensive, or make us feel dissociated from reality.


Lighting
Soft and harsh lighting. Soft and harsh lighting can manipulate a viewer's attitude towards a setting or a character. The way light is used can make objects, people and environments look beautiful or ugly, soft or harsh, artificial or real. Light may be used expressively or realitically.
Backlighting. A romantic heroine is often backlit to create a halo effect on her hair.


Graphics
Text. Titles appear at or near the start of the programme. Their style - typeface, size, colour, background and pace - (together with music) can establish expectations about the atmosphere and style of the programme. Credits listing the main actors, the director, and so on, are normally shown at or near the beginning, whilst those listing the rest of the actors and programme makers are normally shown at the end. Some American narrative series begin with a lengthy pre-credit sequence. Credits are frequently superimposed on action or stills, and may be shown as a sequence of frames or scrolled up the screen. Captions are commonly used in news and documentaries to identify speakers, in documentaries, documentary dramas and dramatic naratives to indicate dates or locations. Subtitles at the bottom of the screen are usually used for translation or for the benefit of the hearing-impaired.
Graphics. Maps, graphs and diagrams are associated primarily with news, documentary and educational programmes.

Animation. Creating an illusion of movement, by inter-cutting stills, using graphics with movable sections, using step-by-step changes, or control wire activation.


Narrative style
Subjective treatment. The camera treatment is called 'subjective' when the viewer is treated as a participant (e.g. when the camera is addressed directly or when it imitates the viewpoint or movement of a character). We may be shown not only what a character sees, but how he or she sees it. A temporary 'first-person' use of camera as the character can be effective in conveying unusual states of mind or powerful experiences, such as dreaming, remembering, or moving very fast. If overused, it can draw too much attention to the camera. Moving the camera (or zooming) is a subjective camera effect, especially if the movement is not gradual or smooth.
Objective treatment. The 'objective point of view' involves treating the viewer as an observer. A major example is the 'privileged point of view' which involves watching from omniscient vantage points. Keeping the camera still whilst the subject moves towards or away from it is an objective camera effect.

Parallel development/parallel editing/cross-cutting. An intercut sequence of shots in which the camera shifts back and forth between one scene and another. Two distinct but related events seem to be happening at approximately the same time. A chase is a good example. Each scene serves as a cutaway for the other. Adds tension and excitement to dramatic action.

'Invisible editing'. This is the omniscient style of the realist feature films developed in Hollywood. The vast majority of narrative films are now edited in this way. The cuts are intended to be unobtrusive except for special dramatic shots. It supports rather than dominates the narrative: the story and the behaviour of its characters are the centre of attention. The technique gives the impression that the edits are always required are motivated by the events in the 'reality' that the camera is recording rather than the result of a desire to tell a story in a particular way. The 'seamlessness' convinces us of its 'realism', but its devices include:


the use of matched cuts (rather than jump cuts);
motivated cuts;
changes of shot through camera movement;
long takes;
the use of the sound bridge;
parallel development.
The editing isn't really 'invisible', but the conventions have become so familiar to visual literates that they no longer consciously notice them.

Mise-en-scene. (Contrast montage). 'Realistic' technique whereby meaning is conveyed through the relationship of things visible within a single shot (rather than, as with montage, the relationship between shots). An attempt is preserve space and time as much as possible; editing or fragmenting of scenes is minimised. Composition is therefore extremely important. The way people stand and move in relation to each other is important. Long shots and long takes are characteristic.

Montage/montage editing. In its broadest meaning, the process of cutting up film and editing it into the screened sequence. However, it may also be used to mean intellectual montage - the justaposition of short shots to represent action or ideas - or (especially in Hollywood), simply cutting between shots to condense a series of events. Intellectual montage is used to consciously convey subjective messages through the juxtaposition of shots which are related in composition or movement, through repetition of images, through cutting rhythm, detail or metaphor. Montage editing, unlike invisible editing, uses conspicuous techniques which may include: use of close- ups, relatively frequent cuts, dissolves, superimposition, fades and jump cuts. Such editing should suggest a particular meaning.

Talk to camera. The sight of a person looking ('full face') and talking directly at the camera establishes their authority or 'expert' status with the audience. Only certain people are normally allowed to do this, such as announcers, presenters, newsreaders, weather forecasters, interviewers, anchor-persons, and, on special occasions (e.g. ministerial broadcasts), key public figures. The words of 'ordinary' people are normally mediated by an interviewer. In a play or film talking to camera clearly breaks out of naturalistic conventions (the speaker may seem like an obtrusive narrator). A short sequence of this kind in a 'factual' programme is called a 'piece to camera'.

Tone. The mood or atmosphere of a programme (e.g. ironic, comic, nostalgic, romantic).


Formats and other features
Shot. A single run of the camera or the piece of film resulting from such a run.
Scene. A dramatic unit composed of a single or several shots. A scene usually takes place in a continuous time period, in the same setting, and involves the same characters.

Sequence. A dramatic unit composed of several scenes, all linked together by their emotional and narrative momentum.

Genre. Broad category of television or film programme. Genres include: soap operas, documentaries, game shows, 'cop shows' (police dramas), news programmes, 'chat' shows, phone-ins and sitcoms (situation comedies).

Series. A succession of programmes with a standard format.

Serial. An ongoing story in which each episode takes up where the last one left off. Soap operas are serials.

Talking heads. In some science programmes extensive use is made of interviews with a succession of specialists/ experts (the interviewer's questions having been edited out). This derogatively referred to as 'talking heads'. Speakers are sometimes allowed to talk to camera. The various interviews are sometimes cut together as if it were a debate, although the speakers are rarely in direct conversation.

Vox pop. Short for 'vox populi', Latin for 'voice of the people'. The same question is put to a range of people to give a flavour of 'what ordinary people think' about some issue. Answers are selected and edited together to achieve a rapid-fire stream of opinions.

Intertextuality. Intertextuality refers to relationships between different elements of a medium (e.g. formats and participants), and links with other media. One aspect of intertextuality is that programme participants who are known to the audience from other programmes bring with them images established in other contexts which effect the audience's perception of their current role. Another concerns issues arising from sandwiching advertisements between programmes on commercial television (young children, in particular, may make no clear distinction between them).


Further Reading
Arijon, Daniel (1976): Grammar of the Film Language. London: Focal Press
Bordwell, David & Kristin Thompson (1993): Film Art: An Introduction. New York: McGraw Hill
Izod, John (1984): Reading the Screen (York Handbooks). Harlow: Longman
Millerson, Gerald (1985): The Technique of Television Production. London: Focal Press
Monaco, James (1981): How to Read a Film. New York: Oxford University Press
Sobchack, Thomas and Vivian C Sobchack (1980): An Introduction to Film. Boston: Little, Brown and Company
Watts, Harris (1984): On Camera. London: BBC
Daniel Chandler
UWA 1994



This page has been accessed times since 18th September 1995.





Director Abbas Kiarostami appearing as himself in the last scene of Taste of Cherry (Ta'm e Guilass, Iran, 1997)






Part 1: Basic Terms
AUTEUR

French for "author". Used by critics writing for Cahiers du cinema and other journals to indicate the figure, usually the director, who stamped a film with his/her own "personality". Opposed to "metteurs en scene" who merely transcribed a work achieved in another medium into film. The concept allowed critics to evaluate highly works of American genre cinema that were otherwise dismissed in favor of the developing European art cinema.

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DIEGESIS
The diegesis includes objects, events, spaces and the characters that inhabit them, including things, actions, and attitudes not explicitly presented in the film but inferred by the audience. That audience constructs a diegetic world from the material presented in a narrative film. Some films make it impossible to construct a coherent diegetic world, for example Last Year at Marienbad (L'année dernière à Marienbad, Alan Resnais, 1961) or even contain no diegesis at all but deal only with the formal properties of film, for instance Mothlight (Stan Brakhage, 1963). The "diegetic world" of the documentary is usually taken to be simply the world, but some drama documentaries test that assumption such as Land Without Bread (Las Hurdes, Luis Buñuel, 1932).

Different media have different forms of diegesis. Henry V (Lawrence Olivier, England, 1944) starts with a long crane shot across a detailed model landscape of 16th century London. Over the course of its narrative, the film shifts its diegetic register from the presentational form of the Elizabethan theater to the representational form of mainstream narrative cinema.



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EDITING
The joining together of clips of film into a single filmstrip. The cut is a simple edit but there are many other possible ways to transition from one shot to another. See the section on editing.

Picture: Yelizaveta Svilova at the editing table of Man with the Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom, Dziga Vertov USSR, 1929) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FLASHBACK FLASHFORWARD
A jump backwards or forwards in diegetic time. With the use of flashback / flashforward the order of events in the plot no longer matches the order of events in the story. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) is a famous film composed almost entirely of flashbacks and flashforwards. The film timeline spans over 60 years, as it traces the life of Charles Foster Kane from his childhood to his deathbed -- and on into the repercussions of his actions on the people around him. Some characters appear at several time periods in the film, usually being interviewed in the present and appearing in the past as they tell the reporter of their memories of Kane. Joseph Cotten, who plays Kane's best friend, is shown here as an old man in a rest home (with the help of some heavy make-up) and as a young man working with Kane in his newspaper.

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FOCUS
Focus refers to the degree to which light rays coming from any particular part of an object pass through the lens and reconverge at the same point on a frame of the film negative, creating sharp outlines and distinct textures that match the original object. This optical property of the cinema creates variations in depth of field -- through shallow focus, deep focus, and techniques such as racking focus. Dziga Vertov's films celebrated the power of cinema to create a "communist decoding of reality", most overtly in Man with the Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom, USSR, 1929).

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GENRES
Types of film recognized by audiences and/or producers, sometimes retrospectively. These types are distinguished by narrative or stylistic conventions, or merely by their discursive organization in influential criticism. Genres are made necessary by high volume industrial production, for example in the mainstream cinema of the U.S.A and Japan.

Thriller/Detective film: The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)

Horror film: Bride of Frankestein (John Whale, 1935)

Western: The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)

Musical: Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, 1952)
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MISE-EN-SCENE
All the things that are "put in the scene": the setting, the decor, the lighting, the costumes, the performance etc. Narrative films often manipulate the elements of mise-en-scene, such as decor, costume, and acting to intensify or undermine the ostensible significance of a particular scene.



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STORY / PLOT
Perhaps more correctly labelled fabula and syuzhet, story refers to all the audience infers about the events that occur in the diegesis on the basis of what they are shown by the plot -- the events that are directly presented in the film. The order, duration, and setting of those events, as well as the relation between them, all constitute elements of the plot. Story is always more extensive than plot even in the most straightforward drama but certain genres, such as the film noir and the thriller, manipulate the relationship of story and plot for dramatic purposes. A film such as Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000) forces its audience to continually reconstruct the story told in a temporally convoluted plot.



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SCENE / SEQUENCE
A scene is a segment of a narrative film that usually takes place in a single time and place, often with the same characters. Sometimes a single scene may contain two lines of action, occurring in different spaces or even different times, that are related by means of crosscutting. Scene and sequence can usually be used interchangeably, though the latter term can also refer to a longer segment of film that does not obey the spatial and temporal unities of a single scene. For example, a montage sequence that shows in a few shots a process that occurs over a period of time.



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SHOT
A single stream of images, uninterrupted by editing. The shot can use a static or a mobile framing, a standard or a non-standard frame rate, but it must be continuous. The shot is one of the basic units of cinema yet has always been subject to manipulation, for example stop-motion cinematography or superimposition. In contemporary cinema, with the use of computer graphics and sequences built-up from a series of still frames (eg. The Matrix), the boundaries of the shot are increasingly being challenged.



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