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Image Perception in the Realm of Media Manipulation The Misleading Use of Newspaper Images
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Alina Petra Marinescu University of Bucharest, "Danubius" University of Galați
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Hyperion University, The Faculty of Arts, Bucharest
Cinematographic Art & Documentation (CA&D)
Journal of cinematographic studies, Nr. 9, New series. 2014
biannual publication
Tracus Arte Publishing House Bucharest, 2014 ISSN:1844-2803
Hyperion University, Bucharest Cinematographic Art & Documentation Journal of cinematographic studies, nr. 9, New Series, 2014 ISSN: 1844-2803
Editorial Board
Editor in Chief
Professor DOINA RUŞTI Hyperion University, Bucharest
Associate Editors
Professor NICOLETTA ISAR Institute of Art History, Department of Arts & Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen Denmark
Professor EFSTRATIA OKTAPODA Sorbonne, Paris IV
Professor ILEANA ORLICH Arizona State University
LINDA MARIA BAROS, Ph.D. Sorbonne, Paris IV
Redactors Lecturer IOAN CRISTESCU, Ph.D, Hyperion University, Bucharest Lecturer COSMIN PERŢA , Ph.D, Hyperion University, Bucharest Alina Petra MARINESCU-NENCIU, Ph. D.c, Bucharest University Professor RAMONA MIHĂILĂ, Ph.D. Dimitrie Cantemir University, Bucharest Associate Professor LIANA IONESCU, Ph.D., Hyperion University, Bucharest Associate Professor ELENA SAULEA, National University of Drama and Film, Bucharest, "I.L. Caragiale", Bucharest
Managing Editor IOAN CRISTESCU
Editorial Secretary MIHAELA CAZAN
Advisory Editors
Professor EUSEBIU ŞTEFĂNESCU, Hyperion University, Bucharest Associate Professor Vlad Leu, Hyperion University, Bucharest Associate Professor IOAN CĂRMĂZAN, Ph.D., Hyperion University, Bucharest, Film Director, vice- president of Filmmakers Union (UARF) MAIA MORGENSTERN, Hyperion University, The National Theatre, Bucharest Professor ION SPÂNULESCU, Hyperion University, Bucharest
Cover: EMILIA PETRE Foto: GABI BOHOLT
DPT&Pre-Press EMILIA PETRE
SUMMARY I. Cinematographic Art Editorial Alexandru IORDACHESCU, M.A., Elefant Films, Geneva – Le cinéma est mort, vive le cinéma! Réalité, mort du cinéma d’auteur et transhumanisme / 5 Alina Petra MARINESCU-NENCIU, Ph. D. c, Bucharest University – Image Perception in the Realm of Media Manipulation. The Misleading Use of Newspaper Images / 8 Monica ILIE-PRICA, National School of Political Science and Public Administration – Film Noir and Femme Fatale. A Contemporary Perspective / 18 Beatrice MEDA, Ph.D c. National University of Theatre and Film "I.L.Caragiale", Bucharest – Exploring the Suspect Dimension of Realism in the Latest New Wave Romanian Cinema / 24 Daniela DIMA-RIAIN BA, International Make-Up Artist Trade Show, London – The Romanian New Wave / 34 Alexandru IORDACHESCU, M.A. Elefant Films, Geneva – Rêves éveillés, entropie et paradoxe de la reine rouge. Le pouvoir ambigu du cinéma. / 38
II. Cultural Studies: Inherited ideas Irina Airinei Vasile, Ph.D. National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, and Sorin BORDUŞANU,Vicepresident of the Assigning Names Committee of Bucharest – A cultural perspective: suggestion for a documentary film.The toponymic heritage of Bucharest -Streets bearing Jewish names / 43 Diana MEŢIU , Ph.D, Hyperion University, Bucharest – The Golden Ratio. From the oldest to the newest arts / 52 Florin TOADER – Postmodernism in the art of film (lecture notes) / 57
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Editorial
Le cinéma est mort, vive le cinéma! Réalité, mort du cinéma d’auteur et transhumanisme
Alexandru IORDACHESCU Elefant Films, Geneva
Abstract : Whether among filmmakers or sales agents, the sentence: "our movies do not sell anymore" is a leitmotif during the "Berlinale 2014". As this phenomenon has grown over the past ten years regarding Arthouse movies, it is necessary to outline some assumptions. The one we will explore here is the following: it’s not the intrinsic quality of the films which is declining, but the technological dimension associated with them.
Keywords: Berlinale, Arthouse movies, technology, transhumanism
«Avenir» et «cinéma d’auteur» sont des Or, si nous analysons – au long de termes qu’on a de la peine à associer lors de l’histoire du cinéma –, ce qui a fait son succès, y cette édition 2014 de la Berlinale. compris celui des films d’auteur, ce ne sont Pourtant ce n’est pas en raison du jamais uniquement ces aspects là, mais une manque de qualité ou de pertinence des films conjonction entre des valeurs et une technologie, d’auteur, mais en raison d’un malentendu. la coïncidence de deux en quelque sorte. Quel est ce malentendu? Encore Revenons au point de départ, à cette aujourd’hui, lorsqu’on parle de cinéma d’auteur, suite d’images que tout le monde connaît, qui les mots qui viennent l’esprit sont: vision marque le début de l’expérience singulière et personnelle, valeur ajoutée cinématographique: un train qui entre dans une culturelle et artistique, réflexion sur le monde et gare, celle de La Ciotat. Ce sont des images sur nous-mêmes, etc… saccadées, en noir et blanc et sans son.
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Pourtant les spectateurs du premier rang Lorsque les néoréalistes italiens ont fait – dit-on –, se sont enfuis à la vue de cette image des films qui étaient à la fois des succès projetée qui se ruait sur eux… Quelle décharge artistiques et commerciaux, c’est principalement d’adrénaline ça a dû être pour eux, quelle à cause du fait que le cinéma, à cette époque, expérience profondément physiologique. était encore une technologie de pointe et le Qui s’enfuirait encore aujourd’hui à la vecteur d’un espoir de transformation dans la vue de ces mêmes images? Qui aurait ne serais- société : une société qui pensait encore que le ce qu’une légère accélération du rythme progrès, la science et la technologie pouvaient la cardiaque? Personne. libérer et révolutionner le monde. Que s’est-il passé entre la première Que le geste «libérateur» des projection de ces images de train et maintenant? néoréalistes, qui consistait à prendre la caméra à D’une part, la technologie cinema- la main et à sortir des studios pour filmer dans la tographique, proprement révolutionnaire lors de rue soit contemporain aux mouvements de mai son apparition, a beaucoup évolué. Elle a même 68, à la libération sexuelle, à l’exploration été dépassée, du point de vue de l’immersion du d’états altérés de conscience ou à l’avènement de « spectateur», par d’autres formes la cybernétique, est tout sauf une coïncidence : la audiovisuelles, tels que les jeux vidéo. technologie pouvait nous libérer, nous en étions D’autre part, et corollairement au les maitres et l’avenir semblait radieux. Les premier constat, le cinéma a perdu de sa cinéastes étaient, dans ce sens, des héros «magie», au sens propre comme figuré. Tout le prométhéens, les vecteurs / narrateurs de ces monde sait que le cinéma est une convention, mutations profondes dans la société. que le sang est du ketchup et que les effets sont Or, aujourd’hui nous commençons à modélisés à l’aide de programmes 3D. bien le comprendre, la technologie ne libère pas. Et c’est là que nous constatons que Elle transforme sans doute nos vies, mais ne les McLuhan avait raison: ce n’est pas le contenu améliore pas nécessairement au vu des questions intrinsèque des films ou des formes narratives fondamentales que l’être humain est en droit de des jeux qui ont perdu ou gagné, mais la se poser (et ne manque pas de le faire). technologie qui les véhicule. Ce qui gagne C’est ainsi que le cinéma, en ignorant sa invariablement c’est la forme susceptible de dimension technologique, peut travailler contre générer le plus d’excitation neurologique, une partie de lui-même. Lorsque James Cameron quelque soit sa nature ou son niveau intellectuel. filme Avatar à l’aide de caméras 3D et que les Supposons maintenant que les mêmes studios décident de le projeter en salles images du train qui rentrent dans la gare soient uniquement dans un format numérique, l’histoire projetées directement dans le nerf optique, voir du film a beau à raconter la victoire de sortes encodées dans le lobe frontal, en y rajoutant «d’indiens» sur les colonisateurs, dans les salles l’excitation des autres sens, la réaction de cinéma c’est le contraire qui se produit : le physiologique serait très élevée, comparable à taux de salles qui changent leur système de une expérience réelle. projection et adoptent le format digital passe de Or c’est précisément ce que les 20 % à 80 % en Europe, marquant la fin du film spectateurs ayant vu pour la première fois ces 35mm et l’avènement d’une forme de images, il y a plus d’un siècle, on ressenti: distribution qui va définitivement mettre hors jeu l’impression qu’une véritable locomotive leur les films «d’auteur», des films d’indiens en fonçait dessus. Et c’est également ce que quelque sorte. cinéastes et spectateurs ont cherché à recréer par Mais, même si ce cas est emblématique, ce n’est la suite dans les salles de cinéma: une pas le film ou le réalisateur qui est en cause. Car convention de réalité, l’immersion dans une l’évolution de la technologie se fait en quelque réalité «autre», dont l’illusion technologique sorte «malgré nous», malgré James Cameron et était suffisamment développée pour berner les même malgré les studios. A chaque échelon du sens. système cette évolution est perçue comme C’est là où, à mon avis, le cinéma «inéluctable», semblable à la nécessité d’adapta- d’auteur a un «train» de retard : en axant tout tion pour la survie. son effort sur le langage cinématographique, en Car au fond, ce que nous voulons, sans misant intellectuellement sur la convention qui vraiment le savoir ou se l’avouer, ce sont des le lie à la réalité, il a ignoré sa dimension illusions de plus en plus perfectionnées ; des technologique. simulacres qui peuvent non seulement rivaliser
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 en intensité et perceptions avec la réalité, mais la du cinéma ; mais le cinéma peut par contre, en dépasser. reconnaissant et en assumant son «destin Dans cette perspective, la quête de technologique», suivre deux voies radicales: la l’homme contemporain est surréelle, le première est celle adoptée en ce moment par développement et l’usage que nous faisons de l'industrie, qui pousse l'illusion et la technologie nos technologies vont dans le sens d’une toujours plus loin. Le film „The Congress“ de transcendance de notre réalité et de nos capacités Ari Folman nous fournit une belle métaphore. cognitives. La seconde voie, théorique à ce jour, Mais, en même temps, cette quête consiste à „hacker“ la technologie pour en faire semble nous dépasser, tant les bases une expérience psychotrope visant à altérer la philosophiques et spirituelles nous font défaut conscience (à provoquer une prise de face à cette véritable boîte de Pandore que nous conscience). A défaut, il est toujours possible avons ouvert. Le salut ne viendra peut-être pas d'en faire un scénario de science-fiction.
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Image Perception in the Realm of Media Manipulation The Misleading Use of Newspaper Images
Alina Petra MARINESCU-NENCIU1 Ph. D.c, Bucharest University
Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to accomplish a study on the role of the written press in manipulating the readers’ perception by using specific means: press images. On the one hand, in order to support my hypothesis, I shall take into consideration different approaches regarding the role played by vision in constructing one’s perception. To construct the framework of my interpretation I shall look into the dynamic net of relationships unfolding among three concepts intensively debated within recent studies: public opinion, mass media and manipulation. The analysis will also make use of considerations regarding images in general and press-images as well as their impact on the reader’s perception in particular. On the other hand, I shall illustrate the aspects in the theoretical background by using research data making part of an analysis I assessed on the occasion of the media campaign on the opening of the Security files that took place between 2006 and 2007.
Keywords: manipulation, perception, image, media, opinion
Introduction According to the premises set by the Vision is said to have taken over the technological realm, it’s the printed press that traditional oral-aural society apparently due to the seems to have led the way towards the merely accelerated technological development that started visual society we are living in. This with the invention of the printing press in 1440 and controversial machine used to be the tool of the came to the point of taking the social evolution to royalty, of the church or of any other authority another level, seen by some as post-modern and by said, at a certain point, to contain power. As others like a second, high modernity. being able to popularize one’s opinion over a Whether or not the tendency of specific fact, being able to disseminate, on a prioritizing vision within the five-sense-sensorium large scale, the social representations you are (McLuhan, 1961) is responsible for the social interested in, makes you powerful and in control. changes and technical quantum leaps that have Around the year 1800, the theoretician been taking place during the last 100 years, or Edmund Burke looked towards the place vice-versa, is still to be discussed. What we know occupied by journalists in the House of for sure is that we would rather say I see than I Commons and said: “There sits the State's fourth understand or I shall see instead of I shall work power”. Burke knew that the media would this out somehow. Meaning – vision is gaining become one of the most influential containers more and more space in the sensorium, as it is and disseminators of social representations. 1 more and more exploited in all the realms of our At that time, the press had begun to daily existence. Exploited by us and used by show its influence over a public that the others to exploit ourselves. And this last part researchers called mass society, a homogeneous should not come as a surprise as St. Thomas himself is said to have alleged more than 2000 1 Alina Petra Marinescu-Nenciu is a Ph. D. candidate in years ago that “seeing is believing”. This would Sociology at the Bucharest University, Faculty of mean that your eyes can not lie to you. But what Sociology and Social Work. She received her master’s degree from the same institution after graduating “Research is to be done when what you see is a counterfeit, a in Sociology”. Alina is mainly interested in studying the fake or something that is aimed to nudge your dynamics of values in relation to the corporate opinion into a different direction up to the point of environment, the issue of meritocracy, discourse analysis changing your perception over what you see and and the process of narratively constructing various experiences in conversation. In 2007, she graduated what you believed about what you saw? And who Journalism with a thesis on informing and manipulating would be inclined to change your beliefs, why through the written press, a topic representing another and by what means? research focus of hers. E-mail: [email protected] 8
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 group not yet initiated in the processes of distinguish being from becoming, and hence to selecting and interpreting the media message entertain a concept of change” (pp.36-45 apud delivered with purposes of informing and Ingold, 2002, p.259). obeying different interests. Unfortunately, things From a certain point on, Jonas’s haven’t changed so much until now, even if the conclusion supports Ingold’s former opinion: 21-century media consumer is considered seeing is an easy way to get in contact with the selective and reflexive – as a consequence of the, surrounding reality/realities but, at the same so called, second modernity, far from being time, it’s contradictory, alleging that due to directly affected by the news as being stung with vision one can witness and be aware of the a hypodermic needle as believed in the 1920s. At first, the final and also of the intermediate present, the purpose of the ones who make the processes of transformation an image is existence of mass-media possible is not very submitted to. But what if the viewer is shown different from the purpose followed by the only the result of the process? How could he media at the beginnings. understand and objectively make up his mind Despite all the above, terms as regarding the signification of what he misinformation or manipulation have entered the perceives? Is vision a really fit channel to be common vocabulary quite recently but became a used for deceiving? At what extent is one able constant issue in formal or informal to control the ways and the thing he gets conversations about the media. The phenomenon exposed to by using his eyes? According to began taking proportions at the same pace with Merleau Ponty (1964), one barely could be the conversion of the written and audio-video selective in this respect as he considers that press into the most important message bearers, vision “is the means given me for being absent with a growing impact on the public. from myself“. So, in a certain way, our eyes would be working like two little windows, Vision and perception through which we gaze outside in a careless Taking into account the ups and downs manner and forget about our profound, of sight and hearing in order to find out which reflexive self. But what would happen with all sense is more powerful out of the five existent the information we would be taking inside? ones, Ingold (2000) reached to the conclusions How treacherously would it act? that “a radical contrast is established between Merleau-Ponty (1964) also answers hearing and vision (...) within the Western this question, when referring to a painting: tradition. Among the criteria of distinction are one doesn’t look at it, nor does one see it, as that sound penetrates whereas sight isolates (…) one would see any ordinary thing. It’s that, that the auditory world is dynamic and the visual you see according to it, or with it. And he world static, that to hear is to participate whereas explains: “is not a view from the outside, a to see is to observe from a distance, that hearing merely «physical-optical» relation with the is social whereas vision is asocial or individual, world’. It is rather a «continued birth», as that hearing is morally virtuous whereas vision is though at every moment the painter opened intrinsically untrustworthy, and finally that his eyes to the world, like a new-born infant, hearing is sympathetic whereas vision is for the first time (…) And so the painting to indifferent or even treacherous” (p.252). which it gives rise is an embodiment of this Put in comparison with hearing, vision creative movement: it does not represent seems to be that sense capable of identifying a things, or a world, but shows «how things certain thing out of the numerous palpable realms of become things, how the world becomes a one’s life but also that sense having a propensity to world»” (Ponty, 1964, pp.186-187, apud misleading the individual due to its Ingold, 2002, p.264). Ponty describes the decontextualizing capacity. Thus, vision is a author’s subjective stamp put on his creation powerful sense, able to construct perception, but one – it’s depicting the World through the eyes of should rather not trust his eyes “no matter what”. the creator, according to his feelings and Jonas (1966) underlines another impressions. I believe we could dare to call it important feature connected to the eye-bounded an unintended misleading process. Still, non- perception: “With vision you have only to open objective, but biased by the painter’s creative your eyes, and the world is there, already spread self. And the viewer would internalize the out as a ground for any further exploration of it. impression the final image makes on him and Only with vision, therefore, is it possible to get misled without intention.
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But what if the painter would want to Public opinion and the linkage change the viewer’s opinion about a certain fact function of the press or person by nudging him into perceiving things One of two people in the world is differently? exposed to all sorts of messages produced and Technological development has brought disseminated by different mass communication the things people just fantasized about in the media. The same newspaper is read, sometimes 1900s into real life. In his book called The even simultaneously, by an American and by an Problem of Form (1893), the sculptor Adolf Asian, international radio news channels are Hildebrand alleged that true vision must be listened to by people in different countries linked much imbued with tangibility and that creative, by the understanding of a language, the same TV aesthetic awareness was touching and making. show is watched, each evening, by hundreds of So the issue of interfering with the objective thousands of people in the same country, at the perspective of things was presented openly and same time. All these people are driven by the praised for. From that point on, until the same need of being informed or entertained and invention of Photoshop-like graphic programs get connected to the same few sources of mass was just a step. Technology and creativity have communication that deliver the same messages. done their job in creating the best prey for the Marshall McLuhan was talking, almost wide opened eyes to internalize. 50 years ago, in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy Still, another question stands in line: (1962), about a global village which would why would be one inclined to trust an image appear as a consequence of the masses being nowadays, in the image modeling age, without at informed through mass media, having the same least double-checking its trustfulness? informational background and that it would be In order to try to answer we have to give dominated by a sort of spontaneous and a look to Richard Lanham’s Economics of unconscious solidarity, which he called Attention (2007), more exactly to the concept of planetary tribalism (Coman, 1999). fluff that he brings about. Lanham alleges that Taken this into consideration, mass the material, palpable world we were used to media become public and social networks was transformed in an immaterial one made up creators. Consequently, more theoreticians drew of ideas and virtual realities. And this process the conclusion that one of the most important has been taking place for more than 20 years functions of the mass media is creating an now, enough time, one could say, for people to imaginary community. accept and learn how to deal with things that This linkage function of mass media aren’t things as they knew them before. Still, exercises itself, in the same manner, at the human beings have gotten used to stability and society level, where strangers get to interact concreteness since the dawns of times and habits having as a common discussion topic a show gained more than 2000 years before are quite they use to watch or a newspaper they read. difficult to change, practically, overnight. Sociologists have analyzed this and concluded Consequently, people need to stick to things that mass media manage to create a new form of allegedly objective and concrete, seeing as such solidarity, characteristic to mass society. objects and images, even if they are not so. More Another consequence of the linkage function is than that, due to the enormous quantity of fluff represented by the appearance of the public that surrounds and gets involved with them sphere, concept explored, among others, by everyday people lack time, interest or simply Jürgen Habermas (1962). According to the cease to double-check the things they see. And theoretician, the public sphere came to life by acting so, their perception gets manipulated. thanks to mass media and has been developing I believe that, nowadays, media is one of since the 18th century as an area of public debate the most powerful creator and disseminator of where problems of general interest can be fluff. By stating this, I also mean that media is discussed and opinions can crystallize. the greatest perception manipulators, be it by Barnays (2003) looks to public opinion being used as a propagandistic tool by different from a different angle underlining its versatility. persons, but also, more interestingly, by “It's the phrase that defines a diffuse and transmitting the journalists’ own perception as unstable group of people who share changing information. How can this be possible? individual opinions. The public opinion results from personal opinions – sometimes alike, other times different – are belonging to people who
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 make part of the society as a whole or to any Next to the influence theories mentioned social group. (...) The regular individual’s before, one must take into consideration that there thinking consists in a large number of opinions are different ways and stages of transmitting one’s on a wide range of topics that get in contact with opinion to the public, so the individual can be his physical and mental life” (p.23). Chelcea influenced, persuaded and, finally, manipulated by analyses the concept and dedicates a large part of the press. For an unprepared target, manipulation the study Opinia publică. Strategii de can't be felt or perceived while it takes place and persuasiune şi manipulare (2006) to the sometimes not even afterwards. It just changes the relationship between public opinion and mass individual’s state of mind on a specific issue media concluding that communication can without him even realizing that he's not the only activate latent attitudes and make active the ruler of his thoughts. So what kind of phenomenon emergence of personal opinions. is manipulation and how does the media put it to In his book, Public Opinion (1922), the first work? study entirely dedicated to public opinion, Walter Lippman alleges that the public perceives only what Manipulation: it is ready to perceive. The public meets the bunch concept vs. phenomenon of happenings and new situations with specific Popescu defines manipulation as “a knowledge, with a certain cultural and experience- manner of altered communication that uses in based background. This knowledge is often variable proportions dishonest argumentation, translated in intellectual stereotypes used as lenses lies, bits of information all being put to act in through which the public looks, trying to understand different trial methods. Rumor, diversion – real life. placed next to or even supporting propaganda Some of the researchers mentioned (meaning also next to or supporting persuading), before have concluded that the impact of mass taking forms of public relations – especially media on public opinion is decisive while the publicity – that is aimed to create wrong other ones showed that this influence is minimal. opinions at an individual, group or society level. All in all, the connection between the two Manipulation is a form of fraud” (2002, p.210). entities has been never denied. Chelcea (2006) also talks about the Another type of approach belongs to concept as having a dynamic shape and Stan (2004) who says about the “public opinion” underlines the purpose of exercising concept that it represents “the key element of manipulation: to create some kind of change in stability in a democratic system. The public perspectives as starting point in the whole snow- opinion keeps the balance straight in the ball effect of manipulation that ends up with a relationship between the Press and the Power. different behavior than previously stays the (...) it's the key to any manipulative act that can modeling of perception. He clearly differentiates be made through the media. The one thing that manipulation and the other forms of influence the ones initiating manipulative acts try to like persuading, propaganda and advertising and change is public opinion” (p.17). maintains the hypothesis belonging to Beauvois Indeed Stan’s conclusions bring forward and Joule (1997) who considered that in order to the idea mentioned before when talking about change attitudes is better to firstly obtain a the mass media status in the society: providing preparatory behavior. information and obeying specific interests. From Manipulation theoreticians have also this perspective, the media practically creates a illustrated the concept in connection with the public in order to expose it to all kinds of brain washing method used, for the first time, messages aimed to different purposes, most during the Korea War: the American soldiers important being the political and the marketing were submitted to an intensive brain ones. But how does the mass media message manipulation program in order to get to serve the affect the public? One answer would be: by Korean interests against The United States. setting up “interpretative schemes” through Empirically speaking, the brain washing “frame analysis” (Goffman, 1974). Such an method continues to exist in the contemporary “interpretative scheme” of an event is, in fact, a society being now connected with the influence media frame of that specific event. “Media uses that mass media can exercise over the people's such framing in order to depict the events so minds. This is how the words are now they could be perceived in a certain way” assimilated with manipulation. (Vlăsceanu, 2011, p.691).
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Generally, manipulation cannot be At the same time, Stan (2004) alleges that considered as being exercised by a certain part of the three factors that intersect and create a refined the society or by a certain social class. Different manipulating system through mass media are the types of manipulation can be found in everyday Power’s tendency to control, the intention to life, in multiple situations. Relationships among apparently keep the freedom of the press intact people, the functional rules of every community, and the commercial system that influences any need of belonging to certain groups or even medium and its products. These three simple, apparently unimportant, gestures are characteristics give birth to the press reality which sometimes premises for manipulation. The most is often just one perspective over the truth. of them usually remain stuck at an unconscious Regarding reality and the relationship level, the individual not being able to perceive between reality and knowledge, sociologists them. In other cases he deals with them as being generated two opposite perspectives: little, otherwise important, compromise that he the realistic one alleging that needs to accept during his adaptation process to individuals have direct access to the different situations. information surrounding them, Given all the above, manipulation determining a direct connection between appears to be an omnipresent mind-connected reality and knowledge; process, exercised in contemporary societies, by the constructive one that all individuals, without the use of physical considers that reality is built more or less power. Manipulation is not palpable. People use consciously and that it offers the journalist it in order to obtain certain responses from other a privileged position – a gate-keeper in people – individuals, groups, masses of people. the process of selecting and transmitting The process can be exercised intentionally, with the information. more or less important purposes, or That means the journalist has the unintentionally. Manipulating the masses to freedom to choose what subject should make the obey one’s interest can be considered immoral or news and this choice can be biased both by his even illegal as it resembles to a type of fraud. personal opinions and representations on reality Group or societal manipulation is and by the interests he would obey – commonly associated with political or commercial, political etc. The journalist also commercial interests and in order for this kind of gets to pick the length and the placement of the influence to happen one needs a mean to article in the editorial section and page. communicate its manipulative message or idea. The type of the mass media product – As seen before, in the first part of the essay, quality, tabloid, leisure – also influences the mass media creates public, they are even said to choice from starters, dictating what subject transform the whole World into a global village would be of interest for the targeted public and by transmitting similar messages towards all how it should be depicted. communities around the Globe. As a Depending on the readers presumed consequence, mass media seem to be the best interest, an article can be followed by others on facilitators for manipulative messages given to the same topic, so the issue stays in the public their “linkage function”. But how does opinion's attention for longer and can enter the manipulation through mass media work? The public agenda, people talk about it and are made next chapter is aimed to briefly explain this to get the idea it could influence their everyday process. life even if it really wouldn't. Media holdings can easily place a topic on the public agenda as Manipulating the perception they have multiple media of transmitting, can through the written press use different approaches and can reach more According to Cazeneuve (1970) the people. This means that manipulation through tendentious information can create opinion media holdings is much easier to be exercised through the selection of a specific type of than through single mediums. information, cutting parts of the information, But not only journalists have a word to transforming the context, combing real and say in the process of delivering the news but also unreal data, underlining less important aspects the medium: written press, audio, audio-video, and not mentioning the essential, transmitting Internet. The written press is the oldest among false news. all and one that has been constantly changing during the decades, especially in terms of style
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 and content. News at the beginning depicted Apart the writing style, the type of the rather subjectively and the so-called newspapers journalistic article can be an important were fulfilled with personal opinions. manipulative factor – the same topic can be Nowadays, objectivity is usually thought as depicted in a report, an interview, a simple being the most important feature for a quality informative article and all of these can be written newspaper. But even this concept can be in hundreds of manners depending on the focus debated. of the journalistic approach. The writer can leave Jaques Legris, journalist working for Le his personage speak more or less, can underline Monde, made a difference between intentional some or other characteristics, can decide to keep and apparent objectivity. The first one is about only parts of what the personage said. those journalists who firstly decide to understand Regarding journalistic styles, the opinion the events, the people and the ideas they will articles are prone to be ones of the most write about afterwards, whilst the second one manipulative as they represent a subjective implies a pre-existing judgment. By using approach by definition. Everything that the apparent objectivity, the journalist can influence journalist writes can be considered “personal the selection made by the individual when opinion”. But this doesn’t mean that his getting in contact with mass media messages “personal opinion” will not influence the every day (apud V.Volkoff, p.166, 1999). This readers’ opinion which is caught off-guard. Even can be considered a genuine form of if the editorialist’s conclusions are fact-based, manipulation as the journalists depict the facts in the facts can be chosen arbitrarily. a certain manner so the individual will Page placement could also be a good concentrate on that emphasized section, detail, method of manipulating the reader whose title, word, paragraph or subject. attention focuses on the optical center placed in Regarding style, Legris (1999) says that an the upper left side of the page and not in the almost incidental dependent clause could be middle of the page, as one would think. In the enough to give the article the aimed effect as well same spirit, an article placed at the bottom of the as an ambiguous word, a word with multiple page will be automatically perceived as being of meanings. Indeed, even one comma can totally less interest than one placed in the upper side. A change the transmitted message by isolating an little note in a colored frame or a little cartoon idea, for example. The same happens with strategically placed next to an article can draw suspension points that keep the sense of ambiguity. away the readers’ attention or even change the Key-words or those words which, when put way the material is perceived. together, give the sense of the article are also to be Before talking about the way visual taken into consideration when one intends to representations, newspaper pictures, can be used manipulate his reader. The chosen vocabulary and with a manipulative purpose, let’s take a look at the sense of the words used compile the several considerations regarding images. journalistic speech that can be neutral, can accuse or can sustain an idea. Verbs, for example, can Image perception and manipulative easily transmit a certain point of view: “pretends” newspaper images instead of “declares” transforms the quoted What is, in fact, an image? Can one talk personage into a less credible one. about true images? According to Pierre Bourdieu The main message of a longer article is there aren’t such things as real images, but “just usually depicted in the abstract of the article, images” (1998). Taking into consideration the commonly called chapeau. This gets usually above conclusions regarding the subjectivity of written in italics and / or is bolded. Sometimes vision Bourdieu’s statement sounds as much journalists bold one or more words even within frightening as it is true. the article to point out a certain idea. The detail One of the most well-known image draws the reader attention without him even analysts, Enrico Fulchignoni (1969), made a noticing. clear distinction among two types of instances The titles are one of the best methods to staying under the same word: image. The author manipulate a reader as they tend to stick in one’s talks about objective images (that result from the memory long after the process of reading has sensorial data collected by vision during the finished. People usually consider that the title direct perception of the world) and subjective represents the main idea of the press material images (subjective representations resulted from and they can be easily taken in by an untrue one. a creative process that involves imagination).
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Visual representation is said to have as images that are placed within different article much impact as 1000 words have and this can be can be used whether just to distract one’s considered true, as the picture is directly attention by underlining a certain detail or even dedicated to vision – a sense that occupies a to contradict what the article alleges (...) privileged position in the five-sense-sensorium Choosing to publish such images where the as we showed in the first part of this paper. Let’s secondary details have no connection with the just remember about the way Merleau-Ponty article main idea, is a clear attempt of changing talked about a painting, as being imbued with the the reader’s perception by using subliminal author’s perspective over the world. The same messages” (Stan, 2004, p.53). idea is underlined by Burke (2001, p.21), when Another way of manipulation when writing about historical-images, known to have making use of media images could be done by the purpose to depict, as accurately as possible, the so-called “Chinese drop” method: during a the surrounding environment: “All the same, it media campaign that can count tens of articles would be unwise to attribute to the artist- on the same subject, journalists use photos reporters an <
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Misleading newspaper images Even so, the used photos were chosen in such Study case: “Media Informing and way as to transmit both an evident message and Manipulating on the Opening of the Security a subliminal one. Files (2006-2007). Research focus: Mona In Cotidianul newspaper another Muscă” approach could be discovered. Even if the images were not used excessively, the opinion I decided to study this topic as it entered articles (most important manipulative tools, as the public agenda and public debate after all the seen in the overall study) were always backend Romanian mass media showed great interest in by very suggestive cartoons. Sometimes, these presenting and discussing its multiple images were as big as half a page, being a clear perspectives. Regarding the character I chose, attention point for the reader. Mona Muscă was a well-known, quite Given the remarks above, I decided to uncontroversial politician, whose public image analyze a group of pictures from Gândul was perceived dramatically different after the newspaper (the 9th, 10th, 11th of August 2006) opening of her Security file and who finally and a symmetrical group of cartoons published retired from the political stage. in Cotidianul (the 14th and 16th of August, the As mass media were, for many people, 4th of September 2006). the only information channels used in this case I wanted to find out at what extent their approach Conclusions Regarding changed people's perception. Did they inform or the Assessed Research manipulate the public? The study stressed up the editorial policy As study material I chose two daily of the two newspapers given the types of quality newspapers: Cotidianul and Gândul that journalistic speech they choose. were targeted to a premium audience, the same On the one hand, Gândul newspaper audience as the one that Mona Muscă targeted in maintained its objective approach both at the text her public speech, her voters. Both newspapers and at the image levels. The delivered message covered the topic with priority. Moreover, within was information and event-based so were the the both editorial teams one could find pictures used. On the other hand, the titles of the influential opinion leaders at that time. articles depicted the journalists’ opinions The representative sample consisted of regarding the topic, being often sensational, 153 articles (80 from Cotidianul newspaper and lacking straight information. The opinion articles 73 from Gândul newspaper) published between placed in the optical center of the first page also the 9th of August 2006 and the 9th of May 2007. delivered a harsh, accusing and even defamatory The articles covered different types of attitude towards Mona Muscă. journalistic approach: from interviews to simple When talking about Cotidianul notes. The unit of work was considered to be the newspaper, the results of the research were more entire article. obvious. This could be a consequence of the The content analysis I conducted editorial policy of the newspaper that allows included several approaches like the analysis of more subjective approaches both for opinion and the frequency of different topics in the selected information articles. The public was articles (research also based on key-words), the permanently exposed to articles that accused and calculation of the attitude coefficient, the condemned the personage using a broad range of analysis of the selected journalistic genres in defaming words as “squeak” and mostly terms of type, section and page placement, the insinuating phrases instead of words with a clear analysis of the journalistic speech, titles and meaning. The images and especially the cartoons pictures used. used to illustrate opinion materials depicted the In order to assess the analysis of the politician in all kinds of contexts perceived as images used during the media campaign I mocking and / or embarrassing. These cartoons selected two groups of four images each, were introduced during the entire media belonging to the two daily newspapers. campaign, bearing changes depending on the The editorial policy of Gândul required way the events went. the use of black and white pictures depicting the All in all, the message delivered by the main character debated in the near-by article. two newspapers to the public was not an This newspaper did not prioritize images, but equitable and objective one but one that texts that occupied the most part of the page. contradicts journalistic deontology. The people's
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 perception was influenced by being conse- individuality. Still, the journalistic act itself is cutively exposed to defaming texts and pictures prone to subjectivity as it’s conducted by self- aimed to affect the personage’s public image. aware human beings, not mentioning other As a consequence of the media scandal interests that media has been serving since the that took place between the months of August invention of the printing press. 2006 and March 2007, the results of the opinion At the same time, “manipulation” is a polls showed that the people’s trust in the hardly perceived process that firstly affects the politician had decreased with 30 percent. person’s perception getting it modified. Taken this into consideration the manner Secondly, the molded perception over reality that the two newspapers decided to present this turns into opinions and finally into decisions and topic seems to have been more manipulative actions. It’s a hardly perceived phenomenon but than aimed to inform the public. yet very much present in our everyday lives, even if it’s conducted on intention or Discussion unintentionally, by the media or by a close The fact that we are living in an age of person, with an ultimate purpose of ruining performance and that this type of world is someone’s public image or with an innocent constructed in such a way as to be merely motivation as being more appreciated by a dear perceived as visual have become over-debated person by offering her a rose. issues. Moreover, rather recently, there could be What we know for sure is that, as the heard voices that pleaded for the return of the main message carriers in the contemporary former aural-oral society and of its intrinsic society, mass media are able to deliver both values. Though, the technological development information and specific ideas and opinions we have been facing has clearly prioritized belonging to a few people. And this happens vision even if, nowadays, its trajectory seems to when the press obeys interests different from the be towards synesthesia. All in all, people still public’s ones. And the result is that the audience believe in what they see and believe in it even is nudged into changing its perceptions and stronger when they receive the same information eventually into changing its behavior regarding a through other channels dedicated to other senses certain subject or person. as their hearing, for example. And who else, if Still, due to recent technological not the media, masters this synesthesia of discoveries, as interactive media, manipulation is information being able to select, elaborate and not as easily to be practiced as it was before. transmit widely the same messages!? People have now lots of ways to verify the More than two hundred years later after truthfulness of the information and they are Edmund Burke legitimated its actions by taken in more and more difficult. Moreover, the acknowledging publically the power of mass Internet offers a global debate area that becomes media we face a professional journalism that harder and harder to control every day. aims a resembling audience. The multiple means Nevertheless, as the analysis presented of mass communication target well determined within this paper has proved, perceptions can be niches of public, people who make up the still changed by the media and the written press society of the “high modernity” age and who are is still a powerful weapon when used for other characterized by much more reflexivity and purposes than for informing.
List of References 1. Barnays L., E. (2003). Cristalizarea opiniei publice, Bucureşti: comunicare.ro 2. Burke, P., 2001, Eyewitnessing. The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence, London: Reaktion Books Ltd 3. Cazeneuve, J. (1970). Les pouvoirs de la television, Paris: Gallimard 4. Chelcea, S. (2006). Opinia publică. Strategii de persuasiune şi manipulare, Cap. 4 Construirea opinie publice: rolul mass-media, Cap. 6 Manipularea: o perspectivă psihosociologică, Bucureşti: Editura Economică 5. Coman, M. (coord.) (1999). Introducere în sistemul mass-media, Bucureşti: Polirom 6. Dâncu, V. (1999). Comunicarea simbolică, Cluj-Napoca: Dacia 7. Dobrescu, P., Bârgăoanu, A. (2003). Mass Media şi societatea, Bucureşti: Comunicare.ro 8. Fulchignoni, E., 1969, La civilisation de l'image, Paris: Payot 9. Giddens, A. (2001). Sociologie – ediţia a 3a, Bucureşti: All 10. Ingold, T. (2002). The Perception of the Environment. Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, Chap. 14: Stop, look and listen! Vision, hearing and human movement, Taylor & Francis e-Library, pp. 243-287
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11. Joule, R.V., Beauvois, J.L. (1997). Tratat de manipulare, Bucureşti: Antet 12. Lanham, R. (2006). The Economics of Attention, Chap.I, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 13. Lucrare de diplomă: Informare şi manipulare în cazul deconspirării dosarelor Securităţii. Studiu de caz: Mona Muscă, absolvent: Alina Petra Marinescu, coordonator: Prof. univ. dr. Marcel Tolcea, 2007 14. McLuhan, M. (2005). Inside the Five Sense Sensorium, in Howes, D., Empire of the Senses: The Sensory Culture Reader, Oxford: Berg 15. Stan, S. C. (2004). Manipularea prin presă, Bucureşti: Humanitas 16. Vlăsceanu, L. (2011). Mass media, public şi societate în Vlăsceanu, L. (coord.), Sociologie, Bucureşti: Polirom, pp. 682-736 17. Volkoff, V. (1999). Tratat de dezinformare, Bucureşti: Antet
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Film Noir and Femme Fatale. A Contemporary Perspective
Monica ILIE-PRICA1 National School of Political Science and Public Administration
Abstract: The present article is a contemporary view on film noir and its iconic female character, the femme fatale. The significance of these two important concepts in cinema history is reflected here through some of the most relevant studies conducted in this field. It is also a synthetic presentation of the main characteristics that define the film genre mentioned above and its prominent heroine and, ultimately, it proposes a discussion on the impact that film noir has on the modern times, mainly on the contemporary public, taking into consideration several aspects related to the yesterday’s and today’s society.
Keywords: film noir, film neo-noir, gothic film, femme fatale, Expressionism
In the present article, I also try to Introduction emphasize the main physical and psychological Throughout the twentieth century, the traits of the femme fatale or the deadly woman, cinema, entitled “the seventh art”, has become a in accordance with the vision of film scholars means of entertainment and education for a and other specialists who made studies on the variety of audiences around the world, and it is femme fatale and film noir. acknowledged its major role in the birth of television. At the same time, it is an entire Film Noir as a subject for discussion industry that promotes legendary figures and The subject of film noir has been motion pictures through publicity campaigns. debated by many authors who represent all kinds In my opinion, the cinema is the most of fields, not just the cinema. Psychology, complex form of art, as it represents a philosophy, sociology, and history are other fascinating combination between high culture domains that films noirs seem to cover not just and popular culture. Over the time, it promoted because of their stories, but also because of their an impressive range of artistic movements (from impact on the general public. I might as well add German Expressionism and French Poetic here that film noir is still a popular topic, and as Realism, to Neo-Realism, and Post-Modernism) a cinematic product it is kept as fresh and and genres (drama, romance, comedy, musical, modern as always, especially once the neo-noir horror, thriller, western, adventure, epic, science genre (the modern phase of film noir) came2 to fiction etc.). surface in the late 1960s-1970s, and which still One of the most interesting creations of exists even nowadays (see The Dark Knight and the seventh art is, of course, the film noir. As I The Black Swan, among the most recent titles). will present in this article, film noir combines But what is this „film noir”, after all? characteristics from other film genres, such as This generic term was first introduced by the the Expressionist films, the gangster films, the French journalist Nino Frank, in 1946. Inspired gothic films, the horror films, and the melodramas. It might be as well seen as a 1 stylised thriller, which depicts fictional or real- Monica Ilie-Prica is currently attending the courses of the Master in Audio-Visual Communication at the National life stories (especially after the late 1950s, when School of Political Science and Public Administration, in it became a sort of semi-documentary), with Bucharest, and is about to earn a Master’s Degree in July powerful characters, like the outstanding femme 2014. Interested in television, film, public relations, fatale, who dominates not just the plot of the diplomacy, history. As a film collector, she coordinates several blogs (http://moniqueclassique.wordpress.com) and film or the hard-boiled hero, but also the websites dedicated to film actors (Conrad Veidt, Vivien audiences that seem spellbound once she appears Leigh, Lana Turner, John van Dreelen, Deborah Kerr and on the screen. Yul Brynner). E-mail: [email protected]
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 by the crime novels published in France under authors argue that “the moral ambivalence, the name of “série noire”, Frank observed the criminal violence, and contradictory complexity sombre and sinister atmosphere of the latest of the situations and motives all combine to give American thrillers (The Maltese Falcon, Double the public a shared feeling of anguish and Indemnity, Laura, and Murder, My Sweet) that insecurity, which is the identifying sign of film were shown in the cinemas after the end of noir at this time. All the works in this series WWII, and so he came up with the name of exhibit a consistency of an emotional sort; “film noir”. In fact, the films noirs are the screen namely, the state of tension created in the versions of several best-selling crime novels that spectators by the disappearance of their were published in the 1920s-1930s in Great psychological bearings. The vocation of film Britain and the United States. Some of the noir has been to create a specific sense of famous authors were Dashiell Hammett, with his malaise” [Ibidem, p.13]. novels The Glass Key and The Maltese Falcon, One of the main characteristics of film James M. Cain, with Double Indemnity and The noir is the ambiguity and the ambivalence in Postman Always Rings Twice, Raymond portraying the heroes. As Borde and Chaumeton Chandler, with Lady in the Lake and The Big noted, “usually, in film noir we see angelic Sleep, and Graham Greene, with This Gun for killers, neurotic gangsters, megalomaniac gang Hire and The Third Man. bosses, and disturbing or depraved stooges” It is considered that there are two stages [Ibidem, p. 8]. The protagonist is usually a hard- in the history of film noir. The first is the boiled policeman or an ordinary man who deals classical period, beginning with John Huston’s with psychological problems and social crises, The Maltese Falcon (1941) and ending with which reflect a seriously disturbed society, with Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958). Then dangers at every corner. Justice is never a key to followed the 1960s, a moment when film noir, as the solution, and the hero takes life in his hands a genre, became to decline, but it was and tries to clear the difficulties of his existence, revigorated in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, no matter if he commits a crime or becomes a also known as the postclassical period of film victim of his own fate. Sometimes he dies noir. From then on, renowned filmmakers, like because he is seduced by a femme fatale, the Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Paul Verhoeven, most important and prominent character in film and Quentin Tarantino directed retro-noirs, like noir. The deadly woman is a goddess who The Postman Always Rings Twice and possesses not only a perfect face and a perfect Chinatown, or neo-noirs, with such films like body, but also a strong personality. Her problem Blue Velvet, Basic Instinct, Fatal Atttraction, is that she never stops until she gets things in her Body Heat, and L.A. Confidential. own way – and owing to her struggles she, too, becomes a victim of her own faults. Both Film noir – definitions protagonists are punished for their attempt to and characteristics betray and break the rules, even if their reasons There have been many attempts to are very realistic and pragmatic. They behave define “film noir”, but nobody really found a this way because they need money, power, precise definition. Some people consider it a freedom, and equity. They fight for their goals genre, an aesthetic movement, or a constellation: and they have a passionate attitude towards life. “a loose group of motifs, stylistic devices and The hero and the heroine in film noir don’t care plot lines between which a critic can draw how much they live. They want it all and as soon endless imaginary lines connecting them with a as possible. They never surrender easily, unless shifting series of figures” [Tom Gunning apud they are seriously injured or killed, and they only A. Spicer & H. Hanson, 2013: pp.111-112]. live the present. They try to escape from their Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton were problems and to satisfy their most demanding the first authors who tried to define „film noir”. needs, but in their attempt to set themselves free They consider that “it’s the presence of crime from the uneven boundaries of the unfair that gives film noir its most distinctive stamp society, they become more disturbed and they (…). Film noir is a film of death in all the senses get into more troubles than in their initial state. of the word” [Borde & Chaumeton, 2002: p. 5]. The crisis of the individuals is always developed Owing to its violence, film noir has a certain in the city, which is the main background used in impact on the public’s perception towards the films noirs. Dark alleys, dump streets, rainy real life and the environment, in general. The nights, deserted places, funfairs, parks and
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 railway stations, bizarre nightclubs and cafés, called “Voice of God” was used instead of the usually used for the clandestine reunions of the emotional narration of the protagonist. This mob. There is a sense of fear and panic that one different technique of storytelling was inspired could get killed at any time… This is the general by the news bulletins and it reminds of a setting and mood in film noir. documentary. The city is illustrated as it is, In terms of cinematography, film noir is without exaggerations. Some of the stories were famous for several specific traits that one could the screen versions of real criminal cases solved easily identify while watching a motion picture by the police, and so we can say that “reel life” of this type. For instance, the chiaroscuro (life in the movies) identifies itself and even lighting, the fascinating combination between coincides with “real life”. What is important to lights and shadows is one of them. Andrew mention here is that film noir is not necessarily Spicer and Helen Hanson consider that Orson shot in black and white. There are films noirs Welles was the first filmmaker who introduced (both classical and modern) that were shot in film noir to the public, through his masterpiece colour. One of them is the acclaimed motion Citizen Kane (1941), which despite not being picture Leave Her to Heaven (1945), in which truly a film noir, it became a source of the storytelling, the characters (especially the inspiration for the real films noirs that were heroine, who ruins the life of the hero), the made after 1941. The authors point out several camera shots, the camera movements and angles aspects that define film noir, as follows: are typical to the noir style. But the most stylised “1. Depth staging film noir, which brings to attention the most 2. The sequence shot stylised femme fatale and, perhaps, the definitive 3. Subjective camera positions to suggest spider woman in history, is a black and white psychological states masterpiece, directed and produced by the 4. Anti-traditional mise-en-scène talented Billy Wilder. Of course, I refer to 5. Expressive montage instead of découpage Sunset Blvd. (1950), with the enigmatic and classique controversial silent film star Norma Desmond, a 6. A baroque visual style characterized by character portrayed by a real star of the silent mannered lighting and photography era, Gloria Swanson, a great personality, larger 7. Formative use of sound: for example, than life. What is even more interesting about overlapping dialogue, aural bridges, modulations this film is the presence of the illustrious giant of in the amplification of sound effects the European cinema, the equally enigmatic and 8. The displacement of “wall-to-wall” romantic formidable legend of the silver screen, the actor, scores with expressive and interpretative music director, screenwriter and producer Erich von 9. The use of documentary conventions within Stroheim. A film noir that has Stroheim and the structure of a narrative film Swanson in the cast, and Billy Wilder as a 10. A convoluted temporal structure involving director, is certainly a sample of pure artistic the use of first person voice-over narration values. This time, film noir is no longer an 11. Psychological of Freudian tones ordinary thriller, but art itself. It is a piece of 12. Use of an investigator who attempts to order artistry, an A-picture, winner of three Academy an inherently incoherent and ambiguous world Awards, for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay, 13. A morally ambiguous protagonist” [Spicer & Best Art Direction, and Best Music. Hanson, 2013: p.22]. In general, film noir has a major artistic One could obviously notice that film importance, because it encompasses the noir has some distinctive qualities, not just characteristics of other film movements and visually, but also when it comes to the genres. The most influential of them all is the storytelling. The narration is made in a German Expressionism. Several prominent subjective manner (at least in the initial films directors of films noirs in Hollywood were actually noirs), as the hero remembers, in a flashback Jewish emigrants from Germany, who escaped depiction of the events, how his life changed, from the Nazi regime to save their lives. Among especially after meeting a femme fatale (see them were Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Otto Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Preminger, Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak, and Twice, Detour, and Sunset Blvd.). In the later Joseph von Sternberg. It is only natural that they films noirs, from the 1950s, the narration was used the filming techniques and style of made in a different perspective, more objective, Expressionism in order to promote, in the United neutral, without the slightest emotion. The so- States, a very sophisticated and subtle form of
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 propaganda, during and immediately after WWII. gangster film from the early 30s (we remember Expressionist films and films noirs have in easily the iconic Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, common the psychology of the characters, who are and James Cagney). We have many depictions of usually tormented people, the voice-over and the mob in film noir, and the “Scarface” type of flashback, as narrative methods, and the character is quite often seen especially in the chiaroscuro lighting. Film noir has also some productions from the mid-50s, such as The Big important aspects in common with the French Heat and The Big Combo. But in film noir, not Poetic Realism (promoted by Julien Duvivier, Jean only the leader of the mob is capable of conducting Renoir, and Marcel Carné) when it comes to criminal activities, but the ordinary citizen, too. pessimistic atmosphere, cruel reality and the tough Film noir conveys an important message here: that manner in which the characters and the stories are the society is profoundly corrupt, unfair, chaotic depicted. In fact, Expressionism, French Poetic and dangerous, even more because no one is really Realism and film noir have all in common the what he or she pretends to be. In other words, an social, economic and political crisis, because they angel could be a demon and vice versa. The appeared in periods of war or during serious continuous switch between the roles of the good conflicts, with disastrous consequences on the guy and the bad guy is typical to the film noir; but people and the society, in general. also the unpredictable situations, the twists and At the same time, film noir has a lot in turns of the plot might take by surprise and confuse common with the gothic film, too. They the audiences. So, watching a film noir is equally resemble when it comes to filming and narrative tiring and demanding, as it is a challenging and an techniques, direction, general atmosphere, that is interesting experience for the viewers. sinister and terrifying, but also when it comes to symbols like staircases, mirrors, and paintings. The femme fatale – the demon Some of the characters in both genres are with angelic face mentally disturbed people, who imagine or really One of the most discussed characters in are in great danger (see Gaslight, The Spiral cinema history is the femme fatale, the definitive Staircase, Secret Beyond the Door, and Alfred heroine in film noir. The dominant female image Hitchcock’s Rebecca, Suspicion, and Shadow of on the big screen exists for a long time. First it a Doubt, among others). Most of the times, the was inspired by the vamp ladies of the 1910s- wife suspects of the husband that he wants to kill 1920s, with such luminaries like Theda Bara, her, and the public comes to believe this, too, Alla Nazimova, Gloria Swanson, Louise Brooks, because the hero is ambiguous. But, whilst the Clara Bow, and afterwards, in the 1930s, by gothic film has a damsel in distress, a heroine legendary actresses like Greta Garbo, Marlene that might be in danger and who investigates a Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Mae possible crime and seeks for help, in film noir West... Thus, the transition from the vamp to the the heroine is, indeed, a dangerous woman, femme fatale was made quite easily, so that in capable of killing her husband (who is usually the 1940s appeared some iconic female much older than her) for money, for freedom performances in films noirs. I would mention (because she wants to take control of her own here Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, life, without ever depending of anybody else), Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings and for power. The deadly woman also Twice, Gene Tierney in Laura, Ava Gardner in condemns her lover to death, as she disposes of The Killers, Rita Hayworth in Gilda and in The him once he helped her in her malevolent Lady from Shanghai, Lauren Bacall in The Big scheme, which might be described as “the Sleep, Jane Greer in Out of the Past, Joan perfect crime”, or, in other words, a crime Bennett in The Woman in the Window and without trace. Scarlet Street, Veronica Lake in The Blue Film noir has something in common with Dahlia, Ella Raines in Phantom Lady, Gloria the horror films, as well, especially when we refer Grahame in The Big Heat, Gloria Swanson in to the suspenseful moments and the lugubrious Sunset Blvd. and, among the more recent ones, scenes which induce a state of fear, of panic, Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet, Sharon Stone maybe even of shock to the public. The difference in Basic Instinct, and Kim Basinger in L.A. is that the horror film is sustained by the Confidential. supernatural elements, such as phantoms and One of the essential traits of the femme monsters, while film noir is as realistic as possible. fatale is her beauty and her desire to control Film noir also has something in common with the men through her sensuality, sex appeal and
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 domineering attitude. She is self-confident, The controversial depiction of women in intelligent, ambitious, and very much aware of film noir was amply discussed by different her physical qualities, but despite her exquisite authors over the time. For instance, Helen looks, she is an evil woman, incapable of love. Hanson presents, in her interesting book Men are only an instrument for the fatale’s Hollywood Heroines. Women in Film Noir and schemes. She is willing to sacrifice everything the Female Gothic Film, the reason why such to get what she wants – money, power, domineering, ruthless and independent women freedom, total control over her destiny and over were promoted in the cinema. The fact is that those who surround her. The female character during WWII, the women were obliged to in film noir is much stronger than the male replace the men who were fighting on the front, character, but in spite of that, she loses every and so they sustained their families by time, as she is punished and sentenced to death themselves [Hanson, 2008: p.18]. Rosie the by destiny, so she becomes the victim of her Riveter, the iconic female worker in the USA, own fatality. Still, in film noir the femme fatale was no longer the acceptable image of the young is not the only female character that we notice. and modern ladies of the 1940s, and so this way For instance, we can encounter the appeared the beautiful and effective secretary, businesswoman (see Mildred Pierce), the loyal who earns a living and who manages to arrange secretary (see Phantom Lady), the mother and very well her daily life. There was also an wife devoted to her family (see The Big Heat) important political and social context in that and, probably, an alternative for the hero who is period, which had started even much earlier in forced to choose between her and the time, and that was the feminist movement; it antagonist, the deadly woman. promoted the liberty, integrity and the status of Another interesting aspect is the women in the society. Thus the women’s duplicity in the portrayal of women in film noir. identity became a topic that was widely This reminds me of The Dark Mirror (1946), discussed in the press, in literature, but also in with Olivia de Havilland in a dual role of the cinema. Helen Hanson shows the results of a twin sisters, who despite being physically Gallup poll from 1946, in which 54% of the identical, they differ radically when it comes to female respondents preferred romantic dramas, their personalities (one is good, the other one is while 29% preferred mystery films, types of evil). In addition to this, the double image of films that encompass both the noir crime thriller the heroine is created through symbols like and the female gothic film [Ibidem, p.8]. paintings, photographs, mirrors that are used Moreover, the public of the cinema in those for her own contemplation, because the femme years was mostly composed of women, and that fatale is not only histrionic, but also is how the film industry created the cult for the narcissistic. Furthermore, these symbols great female image, even more because in constitute her alter ego or doppelganger, as Hollywood there were women screenwriters and separate images of her own self. The femme directors, like Ida Lupino, a pioneer in this fatale is, in my opinion, both an angel and a domain. The stories of the heroines of the big demon (who is, after all, a fallen angel, too). screen had to resonate with the stories of the She is forced by circumstances to make a real-life women, and that is how this kind of drastic change in her life, to avoid the boring motion pictures, including the films noirs and routine of being married to an old man, who the female gothic films, appeared. might turn out to be also a cripple or, anyway, a In the 1940s, women were seeking for a totally unattractive, but wealthy man. The superior status, both economically and socially. beautiful young woman who plans to kill her An interesting study, written by Scott Snyder, husband with her lover and succeeds in doing it professor at the University of Georgia (USA), is portrayed in two very famous films noirs, illustrates how several social factors during and Double Indemnity and The Postman Always after WWII influenced the portrayal of women Rings Twice. Phyllis and, respectively, Cora mentally disordered and how this topic itself manage to dispose of the husband with the shaped the American culture in that period. The cooperation of the naïve and smitten lover, but author considers that the 1940s were the period their efforts seem to be futile, since both of of the “women’s pictures”, because the public them and their accomplices lose their lives consisted mainly of women, and the successful tragically. film stars at box office were also women [Snyder, 2001: p. 155]. That is why, Snyder
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 says, “it may be no accident that the are both a representation of some aspects of the overabundance of films exhibiting the femme larger American culture and a causative factor in fatale coincided with female acquisition of helping to create a certain style and personality economic and social clout in real life. In for this era. These cinema seductresses, with the fact, film noir movies may be a result of the potency and strength to annihilate men, may in alteration of forties American culture, some ways be viewed as overdrawn, cynical, symbolizing the female threat to the status quo. precursors of the liberated woman of the sixties” Hollywood simplistically depicted this shift in [Ibidem, pp.165-166]. terms of the film noir femme fatale – a composite As for today’s femme fatale, the focus is of power, lust, and greed. These motion pictures mostly on her sexuality, on her eroticism. The implicitly criticized women for considering heroines of the neo-noir postmodernist films are alternative roles” [Ibidem, pp.155-156]. represented by such personalities like Madonna But the femme fatale is a film character and Sharon Stone, who contribute to “the that continues to be popular even nowadays. She proliferation of sexual discourse which is seen as being antisocial, narcissistic, and dominates postmodern media, both in images of histrionic. Aesthetically, the femmes fatales look sexuality and debate about its import” [Stables in like goddesses. They have long hair (blonde or Kaplan, 2012: p. 167]. In my opinion, the brunette), long legs, prominent breasts, slender contemporary depiction of the femmes fatales is figure, they wear makeup and jewels, and quite different from the classical period, because usually wear clothes that emphasize their the actresses of the past possessed a sensual, physical qualities. mysterious, sophisticated, attractive air, and they Another major societal factor that could be sexy without being vulgar, as it influenced the production of the films noirs and happens with the modern heroines from the so- the creation of the femme fatale is criminology. called “erotic thrillers” like Fatal Attraction or As Snyder argues, “the viewing of film noir and Basic Instinct. its (...) disordered characters by the general public may be a reflection of, as well as a Conclusion contributing factor to, violent crime of the All in all, we might say that film noir is 1940s. Homicide rates usually increase after the genre that survived the best over the years, wars. The U.S. homicide rate jumped from without losing any of its qualities for which it is 1943-1950” [Ibidem, p. 163]. It might be said widely known. Film noir is a unique case in the also that the femme fatales tried to break the history of cinema, as it managed to capture the rules in a patriarchal structure, because men attention of the contemporary public and to became their victims. These femmes fatales are adapt itself to the modern times. And the femme the archetype of the seductive, aggressive and fatale, as an important component of film noir, malefic woman. As Snyder puts it, “the type of manages to keep her popularity and character pathology personified in the femme attractiveness to generations after generations, fatale may be viewed as representative of certain from the public of the 1940s to the contemporary misogynistic conceptualizations of the women of public. She is not just an iconic character of film the time. Concurrently, these screen women may noir, but she is also “a woman for all seasons”, have helped to create a certain cultural image for owing to her extraordinary capacity to reinvent some real-life women of the 1940s and 1950s as and to adapt herself to the changes that occur by reflected in the areas of fashion and style, the passing of time. personality, and social status. These fatal women
References BORDE, Raymond, CHAUMETON, Etienne (2002). A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953), San Francisco: City Lights Books. HANSON, Helen (2007). Hollywood Heroines. Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film, London: I. B. Tauris. SNYDER, Scott (2001). „Personality disorder and the film noir femme fatale” in Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, vol. 8, nr. 3, pp. 155-168, University of Georgia. SPICER, Andrew, HANSON, Helen (2013). A Companion to Film Noir, West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing. STABLES, Kate (2012). „The postmodern always rings twice: Constructing the femme fatale in 90s cinema” in E. Ann Kaplan (ed.), Women in Film Noir (the 7th edition) (pp. 164-182), London: British Film Institute, Palgrave MacMillan.
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Exploring the Suspect Dimension of Realism in the Latest New Wave Romanian Cinema
Beatrice MEDA1, Ph.D c. National University of Theatre and Film "I.L.Caragiale", Bucharest,
Abstract. Romanian new wave cinema is mainly seen as a homogenous realist direction. Starting from such unifying elements, this article analyzes the becoming of the genre towards new dimensions found in latest films: Aurora and Police, Adjective. These works point towards a slightly different approach, a step beyond commonly known realism. Exploring the limits, film directors rediscover the power of time in cinema. This new coordinate of the medium, points to a special realism that researches the concept of durée – time seen as an element of telling the story beyond words or even space.
Key words: realism, time, new wave cinema, communism, imagination
Rediscovering neorealism and Hence the answer to the question why exporting masterpieces. exactly did this happen in film: perhaps because Highlights and context the new era demanded a new artistic medium as such or perhaps because this instrument was the only one that could get the most accurate This pessimistic cinema that you reflection of times, delivering 24 instances of wanted to suppress or at least to perfect reality per second. Art was indeed reclaim lit a torch in the dark forest craving for that precious lode of truthfulness that of our age. communist utopia kidnapped. Romanian cinema Cesare Zavattini emerged with a new generation, and the new generation needed life and truth along with their Transition periods always give rise to closest to real experience. In these unexpected territories, whether they are at the circumstances, young filmmakers returned to the boundary of political, social or artistic eras. The first truth of film, which latest formulas have border line of 10 years from the communist forgotten, sometimes slightly and imperceptibly: period in Romania (since Stuff and Dough „everything that happens on the screen bears a appears in 2001), raised a cultural wave that realism factor that not any other figurative very few imagined coming and maybe fewer technique can claim. Film is always woven from from the field of cinema. The socio-political representation and language, but its first and freedom gained in those recent years, demanded universal understanding is the representation.” the same movement in arts. Along with external (Bazin 1968: p. 218) The seventh art inevitable reality the inner one also changes and with that means reality in the purest possible form; also changes art. The becoming of times would untainted life captures beyond any convention, inevitably bring in Romanian film that specific abstraction or metaphor. 3Even passed through generation that not only needed visual delight, while the mind was anesthetized, but also a 1 „revolution against that lie that had been silently Beatrice Meda studied Acting at The National University of Theatre and Film "I.L.Caragiale", Bucharest, and also indulged by previous generations, that lie that has a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and PR from was conjugated in all existing modes, reaching The National School of Political and Administrative deeply into the social fabric – and, by extension, Studies. She graduated two masters – one was an into the arts” (Șerban 2009: p. 59). Democracy interdisciplinary programme in theatre and film at The Centre of Excellence in the Study of Image (University of awakened a kind of social conscience that Bucharest) and the other in Diplomacy and foreign policy needed truth and life in the most transparent way in international relations at Lucian Blaga University. She is possible. A direction cinema could perfectly now a PhD student in Theatre (Aesthetics, theory and lead. pedagogy) at UNATC I.L.Caragiale, while she also works at the Research Department there. 24
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 technical instrumentation, the cinematic product awards, the past 10 years representing film as permanently bears captive in it some concrete the most important Romanian cultural card. form of reality stamped on the film roll. Light Although conceptual and artistic lines of reflected from objects and actors forever the new wave cinema are easily captured under engraves its mark on the film surface. The the realist theory, latest films imperceptibly primary function of cinema is revealed since the develop a new dimension. Forced to extremes early religious origins of statuary art, as being realism transforms into magical realism. Not the salvation of man by his appearance: because of the fantasy in space that it brings but „artificially fixing the human carnal form because of time becoming a symbol. Ellipses ultimately means to save it from the course of and editing can function as extraordinary time: to anchor it in life” (Bazin 1968: p. 9), and metaphors as well as they can become masks beyond fine art’s realism cinema is nothing less that hide. Set free beyond representing a tool, than the most evolved aspect of artistic truth. time becomes in cinema the new main story. Its strength that must be released comes Marshall McLuhan (1992: p.129) from this significant added dimension. That assessed, in one of his lesser known works, that strange embalming that Bazin wrote about there are four lines of analysis to be applied to brings to the fore a magical factor that most arts any media. The last refers to what would happen escape – time – which through cinema becomes with a medium when pushed beyond its known enslaved and trained by directors, like a wild limits. What does realism turn into under such animal held captive for the insectary. The way in circumstances? Watching carefully some of the which the spell of duration is presented and last films trademarks of the Romanian new wave manipulated, splits common realism in two cinema, for example Aurora and Police, distinct areas outlined on one hand by film as Adjective, we observe a certain obvious medium and on the other by film as conceptual turn that reminds us of McLuhan's metamedium. The first category uses time as a idea. So the real question: beyond its borders, in tool of fixation for realism with the purpose of a what can the Romanian new wave cinema closer to life image. However, as we get closer transform into? becomes impossible to avoid. to a one on one temporal relation with life and It is said that a prophet is not the one even beyond, the time factor becomes not only a who has a vision sensing the future, but he who tool, but a particular kind of analysis and self- perfectly reads the signs of times. If so, then reflection coordinate that turns over on its these two films have that more value, since they environment. contain signs for the films to come and a From the certainties of this first belief forecasting of the following artistic directions. had risen in the recent history of Romanian cinema the movement started by film directors Man. Waiting. Life. Consciousness – like Lucian Pintilie, Liviu Ciulei, Andrei Blaier instruments for the birth or Victor Iliu, researching that wonder act born of new wave cinema. when the camera bows to the truth with genuine movements and authenticity. Bringing elements of real life in counterpoint to imagination, the We answer to everyone who asks new wave first developed daring contact where life is, go to the poets and surfaces to life: documentary style, authentic artists! If they are true artists, they filming locations preferred to those made in the will speak to you about life, about studio, socially defined context, faded the essence of life, about its boundaries, means that reach for authenticity – importance; for they have the sincerity and interest for an image without any ability to see, to feel and embody makeup done, in exchange for the sense of what is essential. (Vogleman 1991: reality. p. 28) Seeking new aesthetic strategies for the representation of external images to match the The slowest and hardest, although the new found freedom, Romanian cinema becomes most important, of changes taking place in an exigency for revalorization, understanding contemporary world is certainly found in the way and approach to contemporary life. A journey people think. The new realism begins as a basis worthy of the most important international for the new movement. It is a concept arising from this new way of looking at the world,
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 proclaiming freedom from dogmas and said „the main feature of neorealism is really the ideologies. Its primary value is life, and man waiting, a heavy and unfulfilled expectation” becomes the most important link to it. It thus (Martin: 1981, p.194), solved maybe only gives up the ”sacrificing of human issues and through hope. That waiting which Aurora and concepts in favor of grotesque and fantastic Police, Adjective so profoundly portrait by both elements; gives up the historical staging and leading characters: Viorel and Cristi. adaptations and the rhetoric that claims that we Times encouraged a truthful cinema, a are all moved by the same noble feelings” cinema with realistic expression based on the (Lawson 1968: p. 193) – all outdated patterns values of life. They discovered that „the creative from the past. act is always an overwhelming release through a Armed with precise recording living force. Fear, pain, weakness must all be instruments, matching bits of feelings and conquered by creation” (Berdiaev: 1992, p. 30), memories, using documents, testimonies and by assuming life in ever more vivid and sincere stories (for example, Cristi Puiu in the making of quantities, „not by what is added, but by what it Aurora recounts a long time watching programs reveals” (Bazin: 1992, p. 33). This is precisely about criminals and many other materials or what the end of Police, Adjective recalls – interviews and attending crime scenes), „the consciousness and awareness – human granting most furious neorealists of the moment – Puiu, to itself and to the world, by reflecting upon Porumboiu and Mungiu” (Șerban: 2009, p. 111), reality in its applied research: „I repeated the carefully and lucidly dissect life to re-establish researchers approach in The Death of Mr. the real image of life, instead of the built one Lăzărescu” 24 or „I saw a show on a local and the living man instead of the dead one who television station in Vaslui that followed for does not know how to revolt anymore in search years. I really looked for that show, and the first for himself. They do this in the process of phone in the movie is real. It was research and awakening a new sense in film, society and man. documentation for what I wanted to do”3. 5 On Romanian land, this movement has That's the real artist awakened built incredible reference works, multi-winning consciousness to contemporary man, and „the films guaranteeing cinema’s ability to become most important quality of realism is trying to an important international ambassador for the establish the link between the personal life of the national. In full modern age, moving towards individual and the social relations system” American hegemony, cinema managed to join (Lawson: 1968, p. 201): the friendship kind of this together under a European dome that held communication – Otilia and Găbiţă in 4 Months, through the most important jury verdicts. In the 3 Weeks and 2 Days or the helpful kind of "centre of a modern culture now in full process communication – Lăzărescu and Mioara in The of globalization” (Tomlinson: 2002, p. 5), Death of Mr. Lăzărescu, but also instances of Romania manages to value the national the impossibility of communication on multiple existence trough cinema. A centre in which the levels in Aurora. particle man reality finds the position that The consciousness that Police, Adjective humanism praised. And this is not due to is so concerned with also regards Bazin’s belief exposure to exotic items – revolution, anguished of reflecting reality as highest cinematic abortions in hotel rooms or poor hospitals – but formula. The French critic even referred to the by valuing an individual point of view which phrase „consciousness of reality” (Bazin: 1968, can also reach millions of cultural and human p. 155). This fully awakened state of man and art perspectives. in relation to the immediate universe again „Buried among legends, reality reminds their role as social tool but not only. gradually flourishes” (Zavattini: 1968, p. 194) to Following this, after 1989, film began to research man in the basis of psychological work towards its own means by self-reflection. investigations. Thereby we see images emerge It seeks freely in lesser known areas of language with nothing below or above life, slices of truth and visual thinking. The inner world and reality and magical observation: an old man, a raped a girl and another who laughs, a provincial television set, one family dinner, a dictionary, a 2 Interview with Cristi Puiu: http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri- criminal – all immersed in dilated frames with film-15870320-video-interviu-regizorul-cristi-puiu-adica- an organic care for being, all gathered in chiar-nu-vezi-pai-vezi-esti-tara-adibas-dar-vrei-fii-tara- adibas.htm excitement of what and how will it be. As Fellini 3 Interview with Corneliu Porumboiu – TVR Cultural, 2010 26
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 all around, both become the foundation for the window to life but its translation beyond what new universe of cinema. we think we see. Bergson explains: when we look at the outside world, our perception seems Raising the wave and preparing to be doubled – internal and external; as a its transition towards time. subjective state of consciousness and as an external image of reality (Bergson: 1889). Thus the sublime transparency that What The truth is that I never saw it is cinema? was speaking of appears clearly. It coming, this so-called new wave... I cannot interpose any editing lie, no cognitive don’t call it so, but neorealism, but theory, no common pattern or fantastic element. these are theorist stuff. (Șerban: Between the spirit of the viewer and the story in 2009, p. 55) moving images develops a perpetual flow unhindered by any illusion or by any word. Theorists truly write about the new wave We see this performed on many as a uniform current. As a whole, it is indeed a directions: continuous movement but contains however two - portrayal of man at the beginning of perspectives: the first started with social, some great crisis: physical decay towards dying political and artistic inner needs, building a new in The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu or advanced aesthetic, but the second was born gradually by pregnancy that cannot wait in 4 Months, 3 Weeks pushing the boundaries of those aesthetics, and 2 Days, revealing the inside and thus researching another - cameras constantly chasing the dimension. character (most often hand filmed), We may follow Bazin and say that - proliferation of mysteries – in most indeed „there is no single realism, but only films for the first 20 minutes we still know realisms” (Bazin: 1986, p. 51). Not only that almost nothing about the characters or about the every age has got its own, with different story: in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 33 techniques and aesthetics, but each ones divides minutes pass by until we hear the line How many it in layers and depths. In a perpetual antagonism months pregnant are you?; The Death of Mr. but also in balance, Méliès vision, traveling to Lăzărescu even though it is seen as a film about the moon by imaginary and fantastic realms, and an old man who dies in the hospital, we spend the realistic Lumière trend are both on screen the first hour of the film just in his house. And since the beginning in various instances: from Aurora even though it speaks about a criminal, revealing social concerns, to understanding the lets us see the crime after 70 minutes of film. complex and irresistible force called time – for The new Romanian cinema plays which man finally has a control instrument: hermeneutics in the layering of meanings, strong cinema. sensory feelings (weaving prolonged moments of In this second phase, we don’t just have silence to those of unexpected excitement or for realistic edited frames, but life raised to power, example in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days we the power of time-image as opposed to get all sorts of amplified noises that surprise the movement-image (Deleuze: 1989). There is thus viewer – ball hitting Mr. Bebe’s car and scaring a real time – the first stage of realism and a lived Otilia, the noise that bothers Găbiţă on the time on which Gilles Deleuze grounded in film hallway when she lives Otilia alone with Mr. the time-image and the crystal type of space. Bebe, the fetal body falling in the garbage and so This lived time is equivalent to the experimented on). time, passed through the senses, a feeling based Just as Torben Grodal (2009: p. 251) on the theory of active perception, not on simple writes again, years after Bazin and strictly from observation. the camera’s point of view, we are dealing with This comes in the Romanian new wave two types of cinematic realism: that which is cinema with the feeling of waiting. Those long based on the idea of screen as window and inactive minutes in which the characters along another one that introduces a type of camera with the camera apparently do nothing. with human features merged inside the movie Nevertheless this is not the usual nothingness, scene. In The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu (the but the most powerful one which sets free the camera shakes – especially in the first sequence) soul of images. Here we get to a point where all or in 12:08 East of Bucharest (camera the instruments of film become not only a movements during the TV show) we clearly see
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 the second technique used. But in 4 Months, 3 dimension of realism. Something new is taking Weeks and 2 Days, the lenses of Oleg Mutu shape around the waiting that the new directors don’t freely search everything, resting in long are portraying in these two films. Something observation angles. new that has little to do with the realism we Easily with the "revealing of tempo, know, but maybe with a different kind that is those specific rhythms which particularizes”, we paradoxically a transition to imagination. A see a transition towards time (Lazăr: p. 159). realism dedicated par excellence to time not to Hence, in Cristian Mungiu’s film already, the space and even not to the story but to that camera reaches powerful framing statements. In transparence in instruments that makes the film the hotel room from 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 almost disappear. We only remain with the Days, when Găbiță stands up to give the money characters and with the beautiful appearance of to Mr. Bebe, the framing catches them in profile, images cast like a spell in awe. We are dealing one on the right and one on the left, separated by with a different type of cinema communication a door in the background. While we only see the process. The one that reaches for the invisible girl from the neck down to the knees, we see Mr. beyond images. Bebe’s face is in front of her abdomen – we The new filming rhythm in Aurora and have the face of a man and a female body that Police, Adjective brings as to an active seems offered to him. The fact that this frame is contemplation by an engaged inner world. not just passing by, but stays with us for the Feelings move from screen to the audience mind whole conversation, proves that time mastered to slowly and with ease because in the apparent its higher power can penetrate the being to its lack of action we have more time to feel. Only aching core. Left with the image like an opened completely engaged in the outside space and book for our eyes to read, we better understand time we can fall inside ourselves. Time is a call the relation between the characters. Our mind for the senses and his presence ultimately means has time to penetrate deeper meanings. an intimate bound with what we see and Other strength points in the characters ultimately with our being. To get out of time, to are defined by very close to natural states, conquer it, would be the equivalent on an exit uncorrected by fast editing. They seem to be from the cosmic order, which is impossible for given all the time in the world: they sigh, they man (as Husserl and Heidegger pointed), but we have fix eyes and points of view, verbal tics, know that at least for a few hours, art has the worries, credible gestures and strong feelings; all ability to suspend the real temporality by some framed in authentic frames, used as magnificent illusion of its constructed worlds. Time thus tools. Details of all kinds are used by directors to becomes the anima of being (Hagen: 2008), its support the construct of reality on screen, but concrete manifested essence. Researching this also to emerge empathy for the audience. Like realm, „cinema represents objectivity in time” Alice down the rabbit hole, we fall through this (Bazin: 1986, p. 15) and much more. By its time factor and enter the process of emotions. power of controlling the temporal flow it raises We remember, and memory ultimately means above all other arts. The reason for this is „the relation, connection and the human sharing of fact that time belongs to all its elements like an feelings – perhaps the most valuable but organic component” (Balasy: 2010, p. 121). unintentional product of communism. By means of cinematic slow time, we connect to a special Communication – subject and means kindness for the human being – that special of the story something close to hope and wonder. That already classic movement of The communion of such kind of cinema, cutting space-time in precise frames that the to simple communication (be it aesthetically camera processes remains somehow behind. exquisite) of the usual realist cinema, involves a Driven towards borders in Aurora and Police, merging of the visible and the invisible, a Adjective, it brings glimpses of a new state that different time involvement as means of the not only shows life as it is, but reveals its magic story. The first plays within its mirror function, core, analyzing it. A camera that captures in a where image reflects life. We have a whole short frame a man reading a letter is the realism series of films which already fulfilled this that we were used to. A camera that shows in instrument, most of them. But the second real time the reading of a letter (Police, direction has the function of a magnifying mirror Adjective) is already in a kind of suspect by which it penetrates the depths of the soul (in
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 its surface image, it reflects the inside like objectivity. For the first time the image of things Aurora). Here, the story is not made out by the is also the image of their duration.” (Bazin: text or by the characters, but by the cinematic 1986, p. 14) In the last new wave films that the instruments that work upon them, like framing, exterior appearance begins to be equal with the editing, sound, image and mostly time – rhythm. interior realm, reveling it in cinematic form. „Time is a dimension aligned with the With a subject that can be told in just focus on contemplation in aesthetic theory and one sentence, Porumboiu's film is translucent existential phenomenology.” (Wahlberg: 2008, and sharp both for cinematic language and for its p. 79) Overcoming the old moving-image, the story questioning. Following 12:08 East of time – image is created in a different way. Its Bucharest in which the television show started viewer finds himself immersed in perception, by with „you may be wondering why we still make „experiences and optic situations that are purely today broadcasts about revolution” which visual” (Deleuze: 1989, p. 47). We have so few translates easily into „you may wonder why we words in Aurora that even the colors of the sky still make today films about revolution”; Police, seem a better candidate for the leading. Most of Adjective goes a step forward and says directly, the sentences we imagine. We imagine them through Cristi's wife: ”I don’t think they’re running through Viorel’s mind while he images, they’re symbols. In fact, these are endlessly waits/prepares. The absence of action related. Images that become symbols”. Images is not an empty space though, but a full of by through time become symbols. This is the potential one. It is precisely the void not the new dimension of realism. fullness which becomes a vessel for everything. As with Aurora, meaning is layered in In Police, Adjective, Cristi is also complex structures, from self-reflexivity of walking on the edge of time, in his stakeouts, cinema, to representing the invisible through like the world wouldn’t exist for him. The visible – the interior of mind through the camera silently follows. And it’s not only the exterior of image. waiting, but the fact that nothing seems to be We have two movies about solitude, happening. Are we in a point of a strange lack of communication and the impossibility of communication without communication? Yes, leaving the labyrinth of one’s own thoughts and because again this nothingness it the only way of open towards another human being. These works really communicating everything, from the understand Bazin’s realism in its double inside out and backwards. perspective: as essence for cinema – its ontology In interviews for their latest works, – but also as rhetoric in simplicity, purity and Cristi Puiu and Corneliu Porumboiu, talk about time. two directions that reveal the act of From this we also have two perspectives communication: primarily seen as a process of communication in cinema. The first is called happening between characters and the outside contemplation, an intellectual and spiritual world or between characters and their selves exercise meant to restore our relationship with (especially for Viorel in Aurora) and second in the outside world. It belongs to the artistic relation to the cinema language, bringing the realism, like the philosopher Stanley Cavell film in the middle between transmitter and wrote (Cavell: 1979). The second is imagination receiver, as means. In this special turn towards a – faculty of mind exercised mostly through language – cinema „the filmmaker can bring out fantasy and illusion, which projects us away a precise meaning which at first sight is only from reality and life. The filmmakers in the new representation” (Martin: 1981, p. 32). The Romanian cinema, are moving towards the images are not those who make the film – said exploration of language by a critique of illusion, Abel Gance – but their soul; more precisely because here „the camera, the way in which the communicating their soul. film is shot” – i.e. his grammar – „tells you, To address this, film begins to research audience, how to watch the film, because here itself right from within. Police, Adjective is we talk about cinema and not about an investigating along with words its own language, illustrated story”4. 6 while Aurora becomes an enormous experience centered on senses beyond the limits of words. The direction in these two last films, comes up from the vast raw elements of realism and raises 4 Interview with Cristi Puiu – http://renne.ro/cultura/aurora- impresioneaza-la-cannes-%E2%80%93-interviu-cu-cristi- towards the „completion in time of photographic puiu/234 29
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Of all communication processes, new we have the same formula but on a brief moment Romanian cinema focuses on human value and of action and then a long moment of silence in action. Not fast rhythm like action as Hollywood which the realist story can become absolutely understands it but as subjective fact. Like Puiu magical or abstract, a magic of concreteness that said about Aurora, action fades away to make overwhelms perception. Before this formula, room for the how, instead of the what. This is information regarded only the story. For the new about emotions coming prior to composing direction followed by Puiu and Porumboiu, it objective elements, and verb coming prior to already regards many other things and much of subject. As a matter of fact, it’s neither about the that information is expressed in the area of verb nor about the subject. It’s about the space-time. Yes, we also have space here, but adjective. Like in Porumboiu's film which urges why isn’t it an equally important element in this us to put an adjective next the subject, the new theory? Because „despite the realistic cinema places feelings right next to images, appearances of the image, when we connect with because „it claiming the filmic processes itself” a film, it is not space that speaks most powerful, (Martin: 1981, p. 256) along with that irresistible but time” (Khatchadourian: 1986, pp. 169-177). and irreversible force called time. Temporality is Here we get to the point of transition from not just the subject anymore, but the powerful chronotop (Bakhtin) to the concept of durée adjective which determines and names the new (Bergson). Assuming the version in which time attributes for cinema. „Our consciousness is would be related to space, Bergson clearly permanently and almost exclusively under the answers: „Can time be adequately represented control of the time factor, for it is the essential by space? Yes, if we refer to elapsed time. No, if condition of the human being.” (Lawson: 1986, we refer to elapsing time. All problems within p. 185) this vision, start with the desire to see this durée as being expensed, by expressing the idea of Time, Adjective freedom in a language which is obviously impossible to translate” (Bergson: 2010, p. 221). Therefore we have a time from the Time is a state: the flame in which space-time construct (in chronotop) and another the salamander of human soul lives. time which is strangely unrelated to space – Andrei Tarkovsky durée. „The pure durée is that state which the successions of our consciousness when our There is nothing more superna- selves allow themselves to live, when we abstain tural than reality itself. from going on separating thing from their past Salvator Dali states […] as it happens when we recall the notes of a song that melt let’s say one into each „A truly realistic cinema is a cinema of other.” (Bergson: 2010, p. 100) duration” (Bazin: 1986, p. 185) and besides the In Police, Adjective and Aurora, masters of words we need, for the same kind of transition is made towards „the most active level purpose, the language creators for image, of film – the selection of time and its investment movement and sound; because indeed words with meaning” (Lazăr: 1986, p. 159). The cannot express all, as the director of Aurora narrative usually takes place in present tense. recalled. Life is the highest known value but Now it goes not just towards the real time but before everything, we must experience it, with beyond. For example, after each stakeout, our eyes opened, in its closest possible form. policeman Cristi prepares his report which the This is reachable in film because precisely this camera is filming slowly, in real time, while he medium represents „a rebellion against the old reads it. Reality is cleared of any musical or methods of literature and a plus over fine arts. plastic intervention and just remains in front of An assault... The film reveals movement, and us floating slowly in a sea of time – patient and this is a big thing” (Tolstoi apud Barna: 1963). profound, until it reveals all insights. From an Romanian realism reaches artistic form of apparently dole action, like eating or smoking a moving in time by manipulating its matrix cigar in the street, we feel unrevealing the beyond the using of words. thoughts that torment Cristi’s mind and Commonly, films are laid on an editing conscious. structure where we have information – cut – Police, Adjective is a film about signs, information – cut and so on. However in Aurora but does not stop in just using them. In a sign
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 meaning could have been induced by two or necessarily new but certainly unprecedented at three simple frames, maybe an ellipse, but for such magnitude in the national landscape. A Porumboiu a sign is not enough, nor a symbol. work in which restlessness transmits its palpable Facts need its mark present in real form and time strangeness and heaviness. to signify in a sensitive way. „For time to stop The only obvious designed cut in we must get rid of the consciousness of its flow, Porumboiu film is that of the opening of some but if it is materialized by a slow motion in doors passing from one space in a completely image, it imposes even more awareness” other. The first time that Cristi goes to Alex’s (Martin: 1981, p. 256). That's what all those long girlfriend home, after heading down the stairs, empty actions are all about: waiting outside the he disappears around a corner – cut – and we see house of the offender, chases, eating dinner, another door that opens into from foreground waiting outside the chief’s office and so on. We exactly into Cristi's office. Or, When Alex's dad have an almost undivided and untouched time, comes home, gate closes – cut – and again the not as a series of events but as durée, awarding door to the police office opens. So thus arises a the film with a special capacity, for this is what middle world of infinite possibilities and contemplation means: „unmediated perception, cinematic language research, in which realism that occurs in the process of interaction becomes, as Alex Leo Serban mentioned, a (communication) between man and the necessary instrument for abstraction. Porumboiu surrounding world (or the film world), which and Puiu have the credit of announcing a new gives people (audiences) a fair reflection for the way of exploratory research beyond the so well properties of objects, vivid intuition” (DEX: knew neorealism of the new wave. Police, 1998). Adjective together with Aurora are not just a Capturing on film the actual duration of great exhibit of realism but a marvelous step events, especially in relation to a being that only outside it and forward on. lives a long waiting is without a doubt really rare It is true that space and time are – we have the example of Jeanne Dielman, 23 organizing principles in any art, as well as they Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles – director provide the basic structure of the (Kant); but the Chantal Akerman or Gerry – director Gus Van power of time mainly belongs to film, and Cristi Sant. There's something strangely suspicious Puiu along with Corneliu Porumboiu managed happening with reality along this emptiness. It’s to reach this power different than others, much as if time could increase or completely fall apart, more profound and sensitive. This kind of step by step, through its ruptures reveal the cinema calls you barely whispered and ever- realms of a new universe. The image of an patient. It does not roughly assault you whit its object or of a simple and day to day action, dynamic visual universe. This is not about a filmed for 10-15 seconds is more that tolerable controlled audience conquer, but about a delicate and passes by as pure reality, emptied of call. Being so subtle and unusual that’s why it meaning in itself. Maintaining the same frame hasn’t got very large audiences. Awards though for 2-3 up to 10 minutes, unfolds reality with an show its worth, because the real value is the increasing tension. This brings power of actual experience, and „space and time are the attention, image settlement in the mind and two only categories that life is built on so on spatial-temporal suspense. The film seems them we must also raise our art.” (Boldea: 2002, flooded with a strange possible meaning in every p. 353) framed corner. When images give it freedom in „Always young, unable to age or die, it time, the human mind that is not programmed to goes pursuing its destiny and sees succeeding easily stop, continues on, restless looking for generations. It is present in every morning as a meaning. That’s why one of the ladies who symbol of all possibilities, as a sign of interviewed Cristi Puiu after Aurora said: „I feel awakening the rediscovered world.” (Chevalier like my mind is exhausted, I’ve been doing & Alain: 1993, pp. 158-159) Aurora – in Cristi gymnastics with it”. Puiu's universe – becomes a state that marks a Police, Adjective is a film about signs in spiritual tension (that in which the primary event the sense that it tested their limits within its own takes place). We have a boundary place in the system. Along Puiu's film aiming toward a slow silenced twilight of nature still deciding whether frame fresco, having more alert and sharp cuts to continue night or go towards day. At such Porumboiu sets off far beyond the perimeter of times there’s no speaking, no leaving the self the usual cinema. He discovers something not and no explanation, beyond the puzzling words
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 of Viorel: „Amalia is a child... she doesn’t... I do objects or people around us. The second we do not think that justice has access to understand reality begins unfolding in front of us and starts the nature of the relationship I had with my whispering all sorts of possible meanings. It wife” or „I've listened and I saw how you think unravels the story not in the sense that it actually you know and have understanding of what I say speaks some kind of silenced language, but in and... I became frightened”. Because the very the sense that it actually lets out mind do the thought that anyone could understand what is on talking, imagining. And sometime, in front of your mind is awfully surreal, close to breath taking images and curious human impossible. But really incredible and almost emotions, it has some very interesting things to magical, is only the fact that Puiu succeeds in say. The three hours of the silenced Aurora not using words, but still moves those instances clicks something inside us that is worthy of of mind and feelings through film. being cinema’s precious research material. By a mysterious process of the image Following the direction presented by developed in space and time, in the light’s Christian Metz in The Imaginary Signifier, we rhythm and ritual, something new gets perceived could say that this new direction in cinema – a reality that seems to exceed its coordinates. develops somewhere in the space between It's not just social, nor just ontological; it’s dream and conscious fantasy: in reverie – neither cosmic, because Aurora has also a delicate care in pure realism that we are used with, nor in the for the colors and faces of time in nature. The fantastic imagery. „Dreaming has in itself the frames voluptuous run directly to the senses. childhood and also the night. Film is about With smooth attention to light, the moving reverie. Like an adult who belongs to day but images capture the inner turmoil of human not in its fullest light, but rather in a kind of wanderings. And they do this with the same dusk” (Metz: 1977, p. 168) or in aurora – some sensitivity that captures translucent light beams diffused and reddish light that, for a few in almost surreal frames. The visuals in Aurora moments, becomes perceptible somewhere speak in time’s and space’s language about the between realism and imagination. Just as it ending of being and also about the ending of happened when the moon and the sun intertwine days. This interior-exterior established – giving birth to that strange light on Viorel’s relationship – in the thoughts of the character face in the moments of his final confession. and in the essence of nature – releases in Tarkovsky was right; the film is not audience a certain atmosphere that kneels any defined by real time, but by the possibility of possible spoken words. We are dealing with sculpting this time thus creating a new shape – a films that tell their story by the language of different universe. „Time printed in its factual image and far less in the language of words. manifestations and forms: this is the supreme Cinema makes another big step outside literature idea of cinema as art. […] What is the essence of and into perception, affirming its visual and the director's work? We could define it as a imaginative nature. sculpture in time.” (Tarkovsky: 1989, p. 63) Just Hence the eerie dimension of realism. as the work of Garrett Stewart Framed Time. Working with time and space can just become a Toward a Postfilmic Cinema analyzes it, „the mirror for life or its true visual symbol. In editing, by this means, doesn’t record time, but Aurora and Police, Adjective this is not even makes it” (Stewart: 2007, p. 114). What kinds of happening as it usually would within the time- time can cinema fabric? – remains a question image concept of Deleuze. We don’t have a that can continuously define and redefine the maze of overlapping temporal lines or a garden genres. Still, it appears that the highest name for of forking paths as Borges would see it. It is just time in cinema is not just real time but durée – time working in its slowest way and so as being liberated of space and reality as we becoming a magnifier. Even in life we rarely common perceive it – the time of imagination stop and contemplate the surroundings be they and contemplation.
References A şaptea artă, îngrijită de Ervin Voiculescu (1966): vol. 1, Bucureşti: Meridiane. Aitken, Ian (2001): European Film Theory and Cinema, Edinburg: University Press. Balasy, Bela (2010): Theory of the Film. Nabu Press. Bazin, Andre (1968): Ce este cinematograful?, Bucureşti: Meridiane.
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Berdiaev, Nikolai (1992): Sensul creaţie, București:Humanitas. Bergson, Henry (2010): Time and Free Will, Nabu Press. Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin (2008): Film as Art, New York: McGraw-Hill. Chevalier, Jean şi Gheerbrant, Alain (1993): Dicţionar de simboluri, vol. 2, București: Editura Artemis. Deleuze, Gilles (1989): Cinema 2. The Time-Image, Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press. Gorzo Andrei (2012): Lucruri care nu pot fi spuse altfel. Un mod de a gândi cinematograful, de la Andre Bazin la Cristi Puiu, București: Humanitas. Grodal, Torben (2009): Embodied Visions, New York: Oxford University Press. Hagen, William (2008): Time: the Anima of Being, http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest- files/Hagen_ANIMA01.pdf?phpMyAdmin=0c371ccdae9b5ff3071bae814fb4f9e9 Khatchadourian, Haig (1986): Space and Time in Film, The British Journal of Aesthetics, no. 27 Lawson, H. John (1968): Film şi creaţie, București: Meridiane. Lazăr, Ion (1986): Cum se face un film, București: Cartea Românească. Martin, Marcel (1981): Limbajul cinematografic, București: Meridiane McLuhan Marshall and Eric (1992): Laws of Media: The New Science, University of Toronto Press. Metz, Christian (1977): Le signifiant imaginaire. Psychanalyse et cinema, Paris: Union General d Editions. Miller, Toby and Stam, Robert (2004): A Companion to Film Theory, Blackwell Publishing. Rosellini, Roberto (1995): Aspectul microscopic al cinematografului în Cahiers du Cinema, September-November. Stewart, Garrett (2007): Framed Time. Toward a Postfilmic Cinema, London: University of Chicago Press. Şerban, Alex. Leo (2009): 4 decenii, 3 ani şi 2 luni cu filmul românesc, Iași: Polirom. Tarkovsky, Andrey (1989): Sculpting in Time, University of Texas Press. Tomlinson, John (2002): Globalizare şi cultutră, Timișoara: Amarcord. Vogleman, Bruno (1991): Noul realism, Timișoara: Centro de Esperanta. Wahlberg, Malin (2008) – Documentary Time. Film and Phenomenology, London: University of Minesotta Press.
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The Romanian New Wave
Daniela DIMA-RIAIN1 BA, International Make-Up Artist Trade Show, London
Abstract. This article explores the disconnect between the Romanian audience and the films that are part of the phenomenon recognised as the Romanian New Wave, a cinematographic movement awarded many prestigious prizes at top international festivals, yet which has had little box office success in its country of origin.
Keywords: realism, black humour, detail, voyeurism, trapped
Introduction. Out of the twelve movies mentioned The starting point for the movement is above, seven of them have been Oscar considered to be Cristi Puiu’s The Death Of Mr. submissions for Best Foreign Language Film. Lazarescu, which won the Un Certain As we can see, these new wave Romanian films Regard award at Cannes in 2005. The movies have been met with critical acclaim by foreign that followed in 2006, Catalin Mitulescu’s The critics, however despite their success abroad Way I Spent The End Of The World (Un Certain they have found no favour with the Romanian Regard for Best Actress award at Cannes) and audience, with the exceptions of The Death Of Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest Mr Lazarescu, which was considered the most (Camera D’Or at Cannes), ensured that Puiu’s successful Romanian film of 2005 by number movie was not just an isolated incident, and that of spectators, and Childs’s Pose, which took the the new wave continued gathering international top spot in 2013, having sold 117,809 tickets. critical acclaim. A new style of cinema was born This made Child’s Pose not only the most and Romania was viewed as a strong contender successful film of the Romanian New Wave, but on the international movie scene. also the best received movie of the decade by the In 2007 Romanian cinema had another Romanian audience. strong showing at the Cannes festival with The rest of the New Romanian Wave Cristian Mungiu’s masterpiece, 4 Months, 3 movies fared quite badly; Even Mungiu’s 4 Weeks and 2 Days, winning the the Palme D’or Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days managed only and Cristian Nemescu’s California Dreamin’ 7th place in 2007’s most successful movies list taking the Un Certain Regard award. with 70,953 tickets sold, while the other films More films followed in the same genre barely registered at the Romanian box from Cornel Porumboiu (Police, Adjective office. There are a variety of reasons for the low 2009), a collective effort from directors Cristian takings of these movies, including a poor Mungiu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru and distribution network due to the lack of cinemas Razvan Marculescu (Tales From The Golden and the lack of financial support and promotion Age – 2009), Radu Muntean (Tuesday, After from the CNC (National Council of Christmas – 2010) and Florin Serban (If I Want Cinematography), but what will be addressed in To Whistle I Whistle – 2010). this article will be how the themes chosen by the 2012 was also a good year for Romanian directors and the artistic style used to deliver the cinema abroad, with Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond movies to the audience affected their popularity The Hills taking the Best Screenplay and Best in Romania. Actress at Cannes, and then in 2013 Calin Peter Netzer’s drama Child’s Pose taking the top Themes. award the Golden Bear at Berlin International The main theme linking the movies is that Film Festival.7 of the individual trapped in a set of circumstances
1 Diploma in Spanish, Instituto Cervantes, Dublin, Ireland Show) London. With an interest in cross-media, and Translator for Make-Up Artist Magazine, Vancouver, WA, holding a BA in Economics from the Academy of USA and IMATS (International Make-Up Artist Trade Economic Studies, Bucharest. 34
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 that offer no chance of escape. It does not matter if Months, 3 weeks and 2 days the events unravel in a the movies are set at the end of the Ceausescu single wintry afternoon and evening of 1987. In regime (The Way I Spent The End Of The World, 4 the others, we follow the main character or Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Tales From The characters over the course of a few days or weeks Golden Age), or in its aftermath, as society both of their lives. pre and post revolution society is bleak, beset by The characters are powerless against what the same problems – lack of empathy, corruption, fate awaits them – the breakdown of a marriage oppression of the poorest, inability to help the ones in Tuesday, After Christmas, the oppression of in need; in the end there is little hope for those humanity in Police, Adjective, death in both The caught in the web of a dysfunctional society. Death Of Mr Lazarescu and Beyond The Hills, These films are characterized by a stark, degradation of human beings in 4 Months, 3 Weeks gritty realism that makes viewers recoil when and 2 Days, loss of a mother’s love in If I Want To watching them. They offer an almost voyeuristic Whistle, I Whistle, Tales From The Golden Age, experience, by the way in which the audience has loss of a child in Child’s Pose. The only way to access to the private lives of the characters. The mitigate the grim circumstances is through black stories open a window into what amounts to real humour, such as in The Death Of Mr life for a majority of Romanians, portraying the Lazarescu (situations that become hilarious due to familiar, demeaning, depressing, hopeless their sheer absurdity), The Way I Spent The End Of situations the average person has to endure – the The World (three children taking on the communist neglect of an ailing senior citizen and the utter lack regime, hatching a plan to assassinate of empathy by the health care system (The Death Ceausescu) and Tales From The Golden Age (the Of Mr Lazarescu), the absurdity of the Romanian pig killed by gas which explodes when the owner revolution (12:08 East Of Bucharest), an decides to singe its hair in his kitchen by extramarital affair that destroys a marriage blowtorch, the to-and-fro caused by a possible visit (Tuesday, After Christmas), the plight of the by Ceausescu to a middle-of-nowhere village – children left behind by those who went abroad to ending up with everyone ordered to get on a fair earn money to provide for them after the fall of ride, including the one person responsible for communism (If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle), the stopping the ride, resulting in the entire inspection ordeal of illegal abortion under the communist party trapped overnight on a whirling fairground regime (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), the entire swing). system failing the poorest and most vulnerable in These stories are woven into the fabric society (Beyond The Hills), a policeman's struggle of the average Romanian’s life – they are not between his duty to follow outdated unusual, unique situations meant to shock or laws mindlessly and his conscience (Police, delight the audience, rather they are a reminder Adjective), a dysfunctional mother/son relationship of the facts of life in a broken society, of events (Child’s Pose), and post-revolution hopes ending that happened to the viewer or to someone they in disappointment (California Dreamin’). know. For the Romanian audience, viewing As the director follows the main characters these films imparts a sudden sinking feeling in through their story, there is a complete lack of the pit of the stomach, a loss of heart when these artificiality, enhanced visually by the use of long familiar scenarios resurface in the their memory takes, natural light and a sparing use of soundtrack. during the movie. It is as if something The general pace of the movies is slow, but with unpleasant was dredged up from the past that great attention to detail. The communist era is had been consigned to oblivion, brought back to recreated in minute detail, down to the period- stare the viewer in their face from the silver correct milk bottles in The Way I Spent The End Of screen. The World or the ever-pervasive colour grey in 4 Some of the movies are inspired by real Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. This is real-time events, such as the actual case in 1997 of a 52- cinema as the audience follows the characters over year old man that was turned away from several a set period of time, so an intense voyeuristic hospitals and then left in the street by the feeling is derived, as viewers get to see up close the paramedics to die (The Death Of Mr Lazarescu), daily life of the characters, including their most the death of a young woman in 2005 at a intimate and embarrassing moments. monastery following an exorcism ritual (Beyond In the The Death Of Mr Lazarescu, we The Hills) and even the car accident resulting in follow Mr Lazarescu from mid-evening to dawn, the death of a child, with the wealthy parents of in his journey through hospitals, while in 4 the driver resorting to all possible methods to
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 exonerate their son's guilt, exposing the certain moments, such as the wife’s reaction to corruption permeating every aspect of life in the husband’s confession in Tuesday, After Romania (Child’s Pose). Christmas or the belated attempt by Voichita to But then there are the other stories which set Alina free in Beyond The Hills, the kiss are easily recognized by any Romanian as part between the young offender and his kidnapping of their cultural heritage – the endless wait for victim in If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle and the the arrival of the Americans at the end of the mother’s attempt to connect to her son’s WW2 in the hope they would bring prosperity girlfriend in the hope of regaining his love in and freedom – when this eventually does happen Child’s Pose. after the Revolution its meaning is completely reversed, as the Americans come bearing arms Conclusion. and not flowers (California Dreamin’), the The Romanian New Wave films are reference to the end of the Ceausescu regime as characterized by such blunt realism that they ‘the end of the world’, which was indeed the come as a shock to anyone watching them who case for many of the people who lived most of actually lives in the society portrayed. The their lives under the communism and were negative reaction of the general moviegoing completely unprepared for the lack of Romanian public is understandable, as the compassion on the part of the majority of the subjects presented are too close to home and population, which is a characterisation of touch a nerve. These are people that still carry capitalism, which has as its goal the raw wounds from their own private 'movies' and concentration of the most wealth in the hands of viewing them again, this time on the big screen, a capable few (The Way I Spent The End Of The provokes a visceral reaction of rejection of these World), the children never to be saved, forever films. affected by the neglect of the parents who went The movies themselves are cinematic abroad to work and never came back to offer treasures, raw and unsettling, filmed in them the love and care they needed much more painstaking detail and feature world-class than any money or material possessions (If I performances by the actors, some of which were Want To Whistle, I Whistle), the failure of all inexperienced and made their acting debut in levels of society, including the Church, to care these productions. for the most vulnerable – specifically Unfortunately, it is clearly impossible orphans having literally nowhere to go when for these movies to enjoy box office success in reaching the age of release from the orphanage, their own country similar to that of the and even those still in the orphanage being Hollywood movies, which offer exactly the vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse (Beyond opposite experience to the audience – an escape The Hills), the decision to be made between from the grim daily reality using special effects, obeying the rules and obeying one's conscience explosions and emphatic music or easy laughter (Police, Adjective), the truth behind the with no sting in the heart. Revolution (12:08 East of Bucharest). The Romanian New Wave stories, with These stories are not easy to watch, due their slow pace but captivating simplicity, grip to the subjects presented, but they have been you by the heart and throat and throw you in a made into amazing, realist movies, filmed in an thriller's atmosphere, where the end can be almost documentary style. There is no foreseen but not stopped. No lessons have been embellishment and nothing to ease the learnt or unlearnt, at the end of each film there is shock, save for the black humour present in no sense of accomplishment, no possibility of some of them. No judgment is passed on what placing the blame in order to get closure. An happens on screen, the audience is simply uncomfortable, unsettled feeling stays with the observing the fly blindly following its path, to viewer, resurfacing whenever thinking back to eventually become trapped in the spider's web. the story – which can explain these movies have There are no guilty parties. This is the only life been quite unpopular with the average Romanian that can be known. moviegoer. There is empathy for the suffering of the characters, and their humanity shines through at
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References http://www.cinemagia.ro/stiri/filmul-romanesc-in-cadere-libera-24877/ http://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/jan/11/worldcinema.drama http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2008/mar/25/canromaniasnewwavesustain http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/tuesday-after-christmas/5038 http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/mar/12/romanian-new-wave-after-hollywood http://iknowwhereimgoing.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/nowhere-to-turn-beyond-the-hills-2012/ http://www.filmcomment.com/article/cristian-mungiu-interview-beyond-the-hills http://www.leftfieldcinema.com/analysis-the-romanian-new-wave
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Rêves éveillés, entropie et paradoxe de la reine rouge Le pouvoir ambigu du cinéma
Alexandru IORDACHESCU,1 M.A. Elefant Films, Geneva
Abstract: The cinema, as a media, includes a technology platform in constant evolution. The question is what is the driving force of this trend and if there is any direction. A theory of thermodynamics physics gives us a new angle on this question: extrapolating it to the cinema, we can forward the hypothesis that it is not the quality (variable cultural criterion) that determines the evolution of cinema, but its ability to reduce the entropy of its environment.
Keywords: Film, entropy, thermodynamics, lucid dreams, meaning and information
Résumé: Le cinéma, en tant que média, comprend une forme technologique en constante évolution. La question est de savoir quel est le moteur de cette évolution et, implicitement, s’il y a une direction. Une théorie issue de la physique thermodynamique nous donne un angle inédit sur cette question : en l’extrapolant au cinéma, nous pouvons émettre l’hypothèse que ce n’est pas la qualité (critère culturel variable) qui détermine l’évolution du cinéma, mais sa capacité à réduire l’entropie de son contexte.
Mots-clé: Film, entropie, thermodynamique, rêves lucides, sens et information
Introduction se vivre en temps réel du point de vue de chaque personnage, d’en changer à sa guise et d’en « Le cinéma a le pouvoir de vous ressentir les émotions, est-ce que le cinéma, tel endormir, de vous mettre dans un état que nous le connaissons, aura encore une raison d’hypnose : un blanc se rêve noir, un noir blanc, d’exister ? un homme se rêve femme et une femme Autrement dit, est-ce que le cinéma homme », nous dit Luc Dardenne. survivra à des formes technologiques de réalité Sans doute, le cinéma à ce pouvoir, mais immersives, tout comme le livre a survécu à il n’en a pas le monopole. De tout temps, les l’apparition du cinéma ? êtres humains ont tenté d’altérer leur état de Pour répondre à ces questions, nous conscience, de l’élargir, de le modifier et de le devons identifier d’abord les paramètres qui « hacker » l’aide de pratiques, substances ou permettent au cinéma d’exister aujourd’hui, du technologies. moins en tant qu’industrie. Or, quelque soit Le cinéma est la rencontre entre l’art l’angle selon lequel ces paramètres sont abordés, (dramaturgique, pictural, musical), et la le dénominateur commun est le même : il s’agit science (optique, chimie, électromagnétisme). du public.8 Aujourd’hui la technologie numérique et C’est le public – quel qu’il soit – qui l’électronique ont remplacé le support décide à posteriori de l’existence des différentes chimique : alors qu’en 2007, 80 % des projections en salles de cinéma se faisaient encore sur le support argentique, en 2014, l’argentique ne représente plus que 1 %. 1 Alex Iordachescu is a producer and director film, known for Copilaria lui Icar (2009), Le tramway d'Andréa (2005) Ainsi, la question qui nous posons dans and Le jardin des autres roses (2000). He is also the cet article est de savoir si le cinéma est une director of Elefant Film production studio (Geneva). forme narrative unique, caractérisée par sa Productions: Le Mur et l’Eau, de Alice Fargier, 2014. capacité à produire du sens ou si ses Production Elefant Films caractéristiques sont principalement déterminées Gravity, de Alfonso Cuarón, 2013. Production Warner Bros. par la technologie et vont évoluer avec celle-ci. 2001: A Space Odyssey, de Stanley Kubrick, 1968. Le jour où la technologie permettra une Production Metro-Goldwin-Mayer. immersion multi sensorielle, avec la capacité de
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 formes de cinéma, de leur budgets et de leur l’argentique survienne si brusquement. Le évolution. processus peut être expliqué et modélisé de Car, une œuvre sans public – aussi façon mathématique, mais cela n’enlève rien à géniale soit-elle –, n’a aucune chance de se l’aspect contre-intuitif que nous pouvons répliquer, de voir ses idées reprises et intégrées ressentir parfois face à l’évolution, qui est tout dans la culture. Tout comme une espèce qui n’a sauf linéaire. pas de descendance est condamnée à disparaître, Revenons sur le terme introduit dans le une œuvre sans public subira le même sort. paragraphe précédent, celui de « sélection Répondre de la sorte, toutefois, culturelle » : est-ce que nous pouvons appliquer ressemble à une mise en abîme. Car nous au domaine culturel les règles formulées par la pouvons nous engluer dans une régression théorie de la sélection dite « naturelle » ? infinie sur les paramètres qui conduisent le Selon des chercheurs tels que Dawkins, public à apprécier telle ou telle œuvre : culturels, Serres ou Dennett, la réponse est affirmative. sociaux, politiques, psychologiques, Certains vont même plus loin et supposent que émotionnels, etc. l’évolution culturelle de l’homme a remplacé Il y a toutefois une autre approche, qui son évolution biologique. ressemble à une « voie diagonale» de par sa Ainsi, le pendant culturel au code particularité à traverser plusieurs disciplines, génétique serait le « code mémétique », dont mais qui peut nous conduire à envisager la l’ADN serait notre langage et les question d’une façon inédite. « unités conceptuelles » qui le constituent. Ce L’approche est peut-être téméraire, qui se construit à travers eux, c’est notre culture. considérant le fait que nous allons faire d’abord Et de la même manière dont des gènes un détour parmi des théories récentes qui sont en permanente compétition dans la nature, mélangent évolution, astrophysique et les idées que nous exprimons sont en thermodynamique, tout en tentant de les compétition culturelle : la culture dominante est extrapoler au cinéma dans la conclusion de cet celle qui pourra se reproduire et subsister dans le article. temps.
Evolution : du génétique « Donnez à un homme un poisson et au mémétique, la puissance vous allez le nourrir pour la journée ; apprenez- exponentielle de la culture lui à pêcher et vous allez le nourrir pour le vie », A la question initiale, qui consiste à se nous dit un proverbe chinois. demander si le cinéma sera relégué au sort des dinosaures par les nouvelles formes Selon cette théorie, la raison pour technologiques de type « ARG », interfaces laquelle notre évolution passe d'une sélection directes cerveau / contenu ou génétique à une sélection culturelle serait liée au nanotechnologiques, il se peut que la réponse fait que les changements induits par les idées – nous soit fournie par la théorie de l’évolution, à qui peuvent se répliquer et transmettre beaucoup savoir que, durant des périodes de transition, plus vite et à moindre énergie que des gènes – certaines espèces coexistent pendant un temps sont beaucoup plus efficaces pour créer et plus ou moins long avec celles qui les mémoriser de l’information. remplacent. Autrement dit, le corpus culturel nous permet de nous adapter plus vite et à moindre Tout comme la sélection des espèces énergie à notre environnement que ne le feraient opérée par la nature se fait d’abord de façon les gênes, qui seraient autrement obligées de progressive et prudente, il semblerait que la « dépenser » des nombreuses générations sélection culturelle suive un processus similaire. d’individus pour arriver par sélection génétique Mais, une fois certains seuils atteints, le aux mêmes résultats. processus s’accélère de façon exponentielle et La clé de ce processus, qu’il soit telle espèce disparaît brutalement, alors qu’une génétique ou culturel, est la transmission et la autre voit son développement s’amplifier. Cela a création d’informations pertinentes par rapport à été le cas du rapport entre la projection sur notre environnement, nous permettant de mieux support argentique et sur support numérique, nous adapter, et l’évolution semble privilégier décrit dans l’introduction de cet article, où les formes qui en sont les plus efficaces. personne ne s’attendait que l’effondrement de
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Mais quelle serait cette supposée plus vite nous devons nous adapter. Un cercle efficacité « informationnelle » recherchée par la vicieux. nature ? Y aurait-il un sens caché à notre Nos ressources énergétiques s’épuisent, existence, une « direction » quelconque dans nous avons modifié notre environnement au l’évolution autre que celle dictée par le pur point d’approcher des seuils d’irréversibilité et hasard ? nous sommes « condamnés » à trouver des solutions – technologiques, culturelles, sociales, Entropie : une dramaturgie politiques – de plus en plus innovantes pour «épique» au sein de l’Univers survivre.
La théorie très audacieuse proposée par Le cinéma : François Roddier, astrophysicien, mérite d’être un système de représentation mentionnée ici : alliant idées et émotions Roddier suppose que l’invariant physique depuis le Big Bang jusqu’à nous est Quel lien avec le cinéma ? l’énergie, comprise dans ses transformations. Ce détour nous permet de comprendre Celles-ci sont modélisées par les principes que la place du cinéma, en tant qu’activité thermodynamiques et par le principe de créative et culturelle humaine, a des l’entropie. ramifications et implications importantes. L’observation de l’Univers nous apprend Si nous revenons aux conclusions que l’entropie (la tendance vers le « chaos », auxquelles nous avons abouti au chapitre sur le l’état d’homogénéité absolu dans lequel il n’y a glissement génétique / mémétique, à savoir que plus aucun échange possible) se trouve dans un l’évolution de notre civilisation est aujourd’hui rapport dynamique avec la néguentropie (le essentiellement de nature culturelle, nous processus inverse à l’entropie), manifestée dans comprenons que le cinéma a une place et un rôle les structures qui organisent la matière et créent particulier à jouer. de « l’information ». Car, en plus de véhiculer des Notre soleil est l’une de ces formes. La informations, le cinéma à la capacité de leur vie en est une autre. Ce sont des formes « auto associer des émotions, ou, plutôt, nous devrions organisées » qui permettent de maximiser la renverser les termes et affirmer : l’émotion est la dissipation du flux d’énergie qui les traverse et, forme la plus intuitive qui nous soit donnée et de façon corollaire, de créer des structures et de permet d’ancrer durablement une information l’information. chez le sujet qui la perçoit. Ainsi, la seule observation nous montre Or pour reprendre la citation qui ouvre que l’univers est dans une « lutte » permanente cet article, le cinéma a également la capacité de entre ces deux principes : l’un structurant et plonger le spectateur dans un état hypnotique. l’autre déstructurant. Quels avantages pouvons-nous en tirer ? Notre univers se dilate et se refroidit, Le cinéma n’est pas seulement une tend vers cet état de « mort thermodynamique ». « machine à rêver », une forme d’hypnose D’autre part, des formes évoluées très collective. En permettant d’explorer nos complexes, tels que « la vie intelligente », représentations possibles de la réalité et de nous- émergent localement et s’opposent à l’entropie, mêmes, le cinéma en devient le support de cette mort thermodynamique. projection, où prennent formes nos désirs, Le paradoxe de la reine rouge, imaginé fantasmes et peurs, conscients et inconscients. par Leigh van Allen à partir de l’histoire de Il est l’antichambre du réel, un espace où Lewis Carroll, est le constat que « pour rester sur nous pouvons projeter des formes inédites, les place nous devons courir de plus en plus vite ». évaluer comme dans une simulation, avant de les Nos sociétés semblent condamnées à la accueillir dans la réalité ou, au contraire, les croissance pour survivre, à être de plus en plus renvoyer dans l’océan de potentiels infinis. dépensières en énergie et à créer de Luc Dardenne nous rappelle également l’information de façon exponentielle. Car que « Le cinéma peut soigner des grandes « production de l’information » et « création blessures ». Si cette qualité est probablement d’entropie » vont de pair : plus nous nous l’une des plus belles, elle n’est pas la seule. Le adaptons à notre environnement, plus nous cinéma permet également, à travers des « rêves modifions ce dernier. Et plus nous le modifions, éveillées », de nous donner confiance dans notre
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 nature profonde, nous aider à reconnaître et à informationnelle est favorisée, une forme que nous rapprocher de celle-ci. nous pourrions appeler « hyper Dans le cadre de cet article, la qualité impressionnisme », en référence à la première qui nous intéresse le plus est celle que j’évoquais avant-garde de cinéma impressionniste des plus haut : en jouant le rôle d’interface entre le années 1920, qui s’est soldée par le constat que réel et l’imaginaire, le cinéma est une sorte « la principale tâche du réalisateur consiste à d’Anti-Charon qui fait entrer les formes introduire, par une sorte de ruse, le plus grand préexistantes dans la réalité ; en agissant sur la nombre de thèmes purement visuels dans un représentation que nous avons de nous-mêmes, il scénario fait pour contenter tout le monde ». a le pouvoir de transgresser les processus La ruse a bien fonctionné pendant près évolutifs, en les accélérant ou en les modifiant, de 100 ans. L’industrie du cinéma a su faire en faisant émerger des nouvelles formes du preuve d’inventivité, mais elle s’est fait malgré néant. tout rattraper par la technologie, qui évolue plus vite sur d’autres supports, comme le jeu vidéo. Conclusion Dès lors, elle semble condamnée à la surenchère : pour provoquer la décharge Si nous devons considérer la théorie de d’adrénaline ou de sérotonine, il lui faut toujours Roddier, qui suppose que la production plus d’excitation visuelle, d’action, d’effets, d’information s’accélère au même rythme que d’émotion, de spectacle. l’entropie, la dernière étant un résidu inévitable Dans ce sens, pour répondre à la de la première, le processus ne peut que question posée au début de cet article, le cinéma, s’emballer et notre évolution est condamnée au en tant que langage et recherche, ne disparaîtra paradoxe de la Reine Rouge. pas tant qu’il conservera ses qualités et fonctions Dans ce cas, nous sommes confrontés à essentielles, dont nous avons encore besoin, quel un piège : la production d’information devient que soit la forme par lesquelles elles une nécessité quantitative et non pas qualitative. s’expriment. Et suivant cette observation, de la même manière Mais si le cinéma se laisse piéger par le qu’une personne dépendante d’une substance paradoxe de la reine rouge, alors son langage va doit augmenter constamment ses doses pour s’effriter et le sens sera perdu au profit de la retrouver l’effet souhaité, ce qui s’imposera densité informationnelle. culturellement dans le cas du cinéma, c’est la Ce que le cinéma, en tant que forme de forme susceptible de générer le plus d’excitation recherche, peut encore nous amener, c’est la neurologique, quel que soit sa nature ou son capacité de nous rêver autrement, d’envisager la niveau intellectuel. vie différemment et donner ainsi de l’espoir. Si l’hypothèse est juste et nous tombons L’espoir qui peut naître d’un nouveau dans ce piège, alors le cinéma disparaîtra, sous point de vue, viendrait à point nommé. Car notre sa forme actuelle, très prochainement. Des société contemporaine, en tant qu’entité, est technologies ARG, immersives et multi doublement traumatisée à travers ses deux pertes sensorielles vont conduire à l’apparition de à la fois symboliques et structurelles. nouvelles formes narratives et émotionnelles. La première est née avec l’avènement de Est-ce que le succès récent aux Oscars la science : c’est la mort de Dieu et la mort de Gravity, qui fait passer 2001, l’Odyssée de symbolique de l’Art Classique, remplacés par la l’espace pour une production appartenant à un vision positiviste et la technologie; la seconde espèce très différente de celle contemporaine, perte ressemble à un retour ironique des choses, marque ce glissement ? c’est la perte de confiance dans la science, Car si le premier exemple est inaugurée par les explosions de Hiroshima et de indéniablement une prouesse technologique Nagasaki et confirmée par la difficulté de extraordinaire, le second arrive à y adjoindre une construire un monde juste et équitable. dimension réflexive, métaphysique et spirituelle. Nous voici doublements orphelins en Fait intéressant, le réalisateur de Gravity quelque sorte, privés à la fois des figures n’est pas étranger à (au moins l’une de) ces tutélaires de Dieu et de la Science. dimensions, mais il fait un film qui va avec son temps. Le cinéma est le fruit du mariage entre Car au vu de l’accélération à laquelle l’art et la science. En toute logique, il ne peut nous sommes confrontés, seule l’efficacité
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 s’abstraire à la « chute » de l’Art et de la leur fonction a été accomplie et qu’elles doivent Science. être remplacées par d’autres, mieux adaptées à Mais il peut en rendre compte et plutôt notre société moderne et à ses défis. Roddier que narrer leur « chute », considérer leur suppose par exemple l’apparition d’une forme de transformation. Corollairement, il peut esquisser « cerveau global », à travers lequel l’humanité des nouvelles pistes, témoigner des démarches transcendera les conflits individuels et la peur de qui émergent ici et là, voire les accompagner ou l’autre. les encourager. Et ce faisant, il donne à nouveau Qu’il y ait cerveau global ou pas, ce qui du sens au monde qui nous entoure, tout en est certain c’est que nous aurons toujours besoin réinventant sa propre raison d’exister. d’histoires à nous raconter. Et pour cela, le cinéma, tel que je le Car, selon Roddier, si les « anciennes » rêve, demeure un outil formidable. valeurs viennent à « chuter », c’est parce que
Références
Livres : CARROLL Lewis (1871). Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There DAWKINS Richard (1989). Le gène égoïste, éditions Odile Jacob DENNETT Daniel (1995). Darwins dangerous idea. NY, Simon & Schuster RODDIER François (2012). Thermodynamique de l'évolution: Un essai de thermo-bio-sociologie, Parole éditions SERRES Michel (2006). Récits d'humanisme, Le Pommier
Articles : VAN VALEN Leigh (1973). A new evolutionary law, Evolutionary Theory, Vol. 1, pp. 1-30
Conférences : http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzweil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us
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II. Cultural Studies: Inherited ideas
A Cultural Perspective: Suggestion for a Documentary Film. The toponymic heritage of Bucharest – Streets bearing Jewish names
Irina AIRINEI VASILE, Ph.D., National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest. Sorin BORDUŞANU, Vicepresident of the Assigning Names Committee of Bucharest
Abstract. Regarding the protection of cultural heritage and its integration into greater projects of durable development, Romania has yet to implement efficient, consequent measures according to international conventions and public interest represented by cultural and natural heritage. Toponymic heritage is part of cultural heritage; however it has not been the object of systematic, synchronic and diachronic study. As can be observed, the consequence is a rapidly progressing loss of heritage. What Romania has lacked after 1989 was a coherent approach by the responsible authorities, which would have required judiciary acknowledgement of the fact that cultural and natural heritage is a national priority, as well as the necessary financial support and consideration. Architectural and toponymic heritage must become part of the curriculum of all higher schools of public administration, so that they can be known, preserved and protected by future civil servants. This would help configure a local spiritual identity and preserve the particularities of the respective areas. The present paper, regarding Bucharest streets named after people of Jewish origin, past and present, is a component of the interdisciplinary, comparative study of the toponymy of Bucharest streets. These streets, having survived the destructive fury of the Ceausescu era, situated in old quarters of the city, with historic houses and gardens, bear the names of notable figures in the local Jewish community. They are a definitory component of European identity, which must be known to the public in order to increase the respective areas’ appeal and promote durable development and social cohesion. The toponymic heritage in Bucharest is proof of a natural cohabitation of Romanian and Jewish populations, thankfully without having been separated by the walls of a ghetto.
Key words: Jewish, streets, toponymic heritage, Bucharest
Throughout the territory between the migrating people in Europe, which however is Danube and Tisza, from the Dnestr to the Criş not correct in strict terms of historiography. rivers, the lands once inhabited by the Dacians, Beyond controversy and speculation, it the northern branch of the Thracians, were is certain that, in the 14th century, the Romanian crossed throughout the last two millennia by principalities were settled by Jews coming from numerous populations stemming from the East Central Europe, the so-called Ashkenazi Jews or West. All those who passed through these speaking Yiddish, an idiom based on a German lands, be they warring migrators or peaceful dialect, while during Ottoman domination these settlers, left their marks on the conscience of the lands were settled by Sephardi Jews, originating Romanian people, whose ethnogenesis took from Western Europe and bringing to the place in this area. Reminding us every day of Balkans their Spanish-born dialect called these peoples are toponyms assigned to regions, Ladino. rivers, roads and settlements, with their The presence of Jews in Romania respective quarters and streets. became numerically, economically and One of the peoples who passed or settled culturally significant beginning with the first the current territory of Romania were the Jews. half of the 19th Century, after large numbers of Certain historians who have studied ancient Galician Jews were forced westward by anti- epigraphs consider that the Jewish people began Semitic measures undertaken by the Russian to arrive in these lands since the first millennium Tsarist regime. Their integration into social and of our era. According to some analysts of the cultural life took place together with the migration phenomenon, the Jews were the last
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 emancipation of the population settled in Current street names reflecting Jewish Moldavia and Wallachia. figures: Members of the Jewish community actively supported the 1848 Revolution, with YEAR OF ATTRIBUTION NAME names such as Barbu Iscovescu, Constantin 1911 Dr. Iacob Felix (1832-1905) Daniel Rosenthal, Solomon Halfon, Davicion 1930 Mămulari Bally, Hillel Manoaha. The painter Constantin 1947 Iuliu Barasch (1815-1863) Daniel Rosenthal gave his life for the 1948 Barbu Iscovescu (1816-1854) Revolution, after Austro-Hungarian authorities 1948 Constantin Daniel Rosenthal captured him, took him to Budapest and tortured (1820-1851) him to death. The Islaz Proclamation demanded, 1948 Barbu Lazareanu (1881-1957) among others, „the emancipation of Israelites 1948 Constantin Dobrogeanu Gherea and political rights for fellow countrymen of a (1855-1920) different faith”. After the two Romanian 1948 Jacques M. Elias (1844-1923) principalities were united under Alexandru Ioan 1961 Maximilian Popper Cuza, important steps were taken towards 1993 Marcel Iancu (1895-1984) integration, with many Jews being appointed to 1994 Victor Brauner (1903-1966) public office and receiving the right to 1995 Margareta Sterian (1897-1992) participate in municipal elections. In solidarity 1995 Mihail Sebastian (1907-1945) with the rest of the inhabitants of the Kingdom 1996 Wilhelm Filderman (1882-1963) of Romania, many Jews took part in the First 2003 Iosif Sava (1933-1998) World War, with some reaching the rank of Traian Popovici (1892-1946) colonel or being decorated for their heroism. The presence of Jewish people In the immediate vicinity of Filantropia throughout the ages, from the conquest of Dacia hospital, starting 1911 we find the name „Dr. by Trajan to the modern-day Romanian state, Iacob Felix” attributed to the street going from convinced the great historian Nicolae Iorga to Buzeşti to Filantropia (now Ion Mihalache) consecrate one of his works to this subject. boulevards. The history of Bucharest also brings out Born January 6th 1832 in Horschitz the spirit of cohabitation of different ethnic (Bohemia, Austrian Empire, now Czech backgrounds, with the city’s administration Republic) in a family of Austrian Jews, Iacob taking care to keep or attribute street names Dimitrie Felix studies in Gitschin and Prague. reminding of great Jewish figures who, through Later on, he studies Medicine in Prague and their activity, brought a contribution to the Vienna. On the 22nd of January 1858 he obtains evolution of Romanian society. his medical degree, on the 15th of April of the No matter the historical period, the same year the title of master of obstetrics and on Romanian people has always recognized the the 20th of April he receives his surgeon’s worthiness of important persons, adding their license. He then moves to Bucharest where, as names to the index of street names. People of chief doctor of the city, he makes great advances Jewish origin are continuously present in the life in the field of hygiene. He leads the Turnu of the city, despite the hardships of the last Măgurele military hospitals during the century and a half of modern history. Independence War. Due to his great merits, he is The present study contains a appointed to the Romanian Academy as a titular systematization, an analysis and a generalization member in June 1879, where he serves as Vice- of streets bearing names of Romanian figures of President between 1885 and 1886. He dies in Jewish heritage, throughout three chapters: Bucharest on the 19th of January 1905. Current names of streets After 1945, following a great increase in Past names of streets, presently bearing the territory of Bucharest through incorporation different names of suburban settlements, more names of Jewish Streets which no longer exist origin are assigned to streets as the index of street names had to be updated and reviewed.
Thus, in the Bucharest Jewish quarter, the name of Iuliu Barasch is granted 1947 to the street formerly known as Biserica Udricani,
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 stretching between Matei Basarab and Olteni 1842 he settles in Bucharest as an emissary of streets. the Freemasonry, thanks to painter Ioan D. Iuliu Barasch was born July 17th 1815 Negulici, in order to support the movement of in Brody, Galicia, then in the Austrian Empire. national awakening which generated the 1848 He studies Medicine in Berlin and Leipzig and Revolution. He was a member of C. A. Rosetti’s then settles in Romania, becoming a doctor in secret movement (the Brotherhood) and joined Bucharest and teaching natural history in St. him in exile after the Revolution was defeated, Sava College, the School of Agriculture and the settling in Pest. Rosenthal studies and paints in Bucharest Military School, later becoming a London and Paris between 1845 and 1848, professor in the National School of Medicine where he becomes a member of the Society of and Pharmacy. Starting 1858, he lays the Romanian Students in Paris. He converts to outlines of Romanian pediatric care, organizing Christianity in 1847 assuming the first name a pediatric dispensary and the first Bucharest Constantin. children’s hospital. 1856, he founds the journal Rosenthal is arrested in Budapest while “Isis” (“Natura” since 1862), printed in Iosif carrying revolutionary literature and dies on the Romanov’s National Press. Iuliu Barasch was an night between the 22nd and 23rd of April 1851, outstanding medic, philosopher, paedagogist and having been tortured in prison, without ever had an important role in modernizing Jewish betraying his fellows. community life in Bucharest. In the same year (1948), in the central In 1948, a year which marked a wider area neighboring Lipscani street, the street name operation of renaming streets in Bucharest and „Frânge Fier” is replaced with the name of one the surrounding communes and urban of the greatest Romanian figures in economic settlements, more roads are dedicated to Jewish and social life, Jacques Menachem Elias, born people who contributed to the country’s political 1844 in a family of Sephardi Jews. He was an and cultural life. important businessman (owner of sugar In the Marmorosh Blank parcel area, factories), banker (president and shareholder of known today as Primăverii neighborhood, the the Romanian General Bank) and industrialist. names of two important painters from the time He sponsored the reconstruction of the of the 1848 Revolution are attributed to Sephardic Jewish Temple in Bucharest, which neighboring streets spanning between Teheran was however devastated and set on fire by the street and Primăverii boulevard: Barbu Legionnaires on January 21st, 1941. Through his Iscovescu and Constantin Daniel Rosenthal. will, drafted December 1914, he left his mobile A Romanian painter and revolutionary and immobile wealth at home and abroad of Jewish descent, Barbu (Baruh, Iehuda) (estimated at 1 billion lei at the time) to the Iscovescu, born November 24th in Bucharest, Romanian Academy. According to his wish, the studied in Vienna and Paris, participating Academy founded a cultural and philantropic actively in the preparation and development of foundation, the „Foundation of the Menachem the 1848 Revolution in Wallachia. Exiled in H. Elias Family”, his wealth being used for Zemun, next to Belgrade, Iscovescu met several “promoting Romanian culture, curing the Serbian revolutionaries and portrayed them, as illnesses of our poor, encouraging virtue and well as Dimitrie Bolintineanu, who was also in upholding noble causes”, without discrimination. exile. In 1849, he moved to Paris, where he The foundation was named after his father. executed copies of famous paintings and, at His gesture of great philantropy was Nicolae Bălcescu’s advice, copies of portraits of praised by his contemporaries, with Nicolae Romanian voivodes inspired from old Iorga naming it a “powerful example of human engravings. He died 1854 in Constantinople, generosity”. Grigore Antipa, vicepresident of the being laid to rest in the Greek Orthodox Romanian Academy, in his speech at the cemetery together with his fellow revolutionaries Sephardic Temple shortly after the death of Ion Negulici and priest Atanasie Luzin. Elias, would honor the philantropist “who Constantin Daniel Rosenthal, another dedicated all fruits of his labor toward fulfilling famous painter and revolutionary of Jewish a grand ideal, that of raising the fatherland descent, born 1820 in Budapest in a family of through culture”. 1993, Elias was posthumously merchants, graduated from the Academy of Arts elected an honorary member of the Romanian in Vienna. He befriends Ion Negulici, Constantin Academy. A. Rosetti and other young revolutionaries. In
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On the grounds of the former Dudeşti- quarter, a neighborhood inhabited by numerous Cioplea commune, currently the third sector of Jews. Bucharest, the name Barbu Lăzăreanu is granted After 1989, a number of Bucharest to a street neighboring Lt. Pascu Nicolae and roads are granted names of cultural figures of Danubiu streets. Jewish origin. Barbu Lăzăreanu, born October 5th 1881 One of these is situated between Moşilor in Botoşani, was a Jewish-Romanian literary road and Episcop Radu street. Formerly known historian and publicist, a titular member of the as Argeş street, it bears since 1993 the name of Romanian Academy (1948) who was also a Marcel Iancu. Marcel Iancu, a painter, architect Communist militant. During the deportation of and essayist born 1895 in Bucharest and later the Jews, he was saved by Queen Mother Helen settled in Israel, studied the fine arts with Iosif of Romania. Barbu Lăzăreanu died January 19th Iser and graduates 1917 from the Zürich 1957 in Bucharest. Academy of Architecture. Together with Tristan Within the former commune of Băneasa, Tzara and Ion Vinea he publishes the journal currently in the 1st sector, the Communist “Simbol”. In Zürich, he frequents the art regime replaced the name of “King Ferdinand I” reunions at the Cabaret Voltaire, where he meets street, between Bucharest-Ploieşti highway and Hans Arp and, together with Tzara, participates Ion Ionescu de la Brad boulevard, with the name in the initiation of the Dada movement. After a of Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea. short stay in Paris (1921), he parts from Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, a Surrealism and Dada. Returning to Romania in Romanian writer and socialist activist of Jewish 1922, he becomes one of the promoters of avant- descent, was born May 21st 1855 in the village garde art. Together with Ion Vinea, he joins the of Slavianka, Ekaterinoslav, in the Russian collective around „Contimporanul” journal Empire (currently in Ukraine). His real name (1924-1936) and takes part in art exhibitions was Solomon Katz, while his Ukrainian name together with sculptor Miliţa Petraşcu and was Mikhail Nikitich Kass. He was an important painter Margareta Sterian. In the effervescent member of the Romanian Social Democratic spirit of the time, he joins avant-garde groups Party and a prodigious literary critic, known for such as „Arta nouă” (1929-1932) or „Criterion” his debates with Titu Maiorescu. (1933-1937), where we also find M.H. Maxy, Leon Trotski portrays Gherea as follows: Victor Brauner, Mattias Teusch, Corneliu „Among the ministers, diplomats and prefects in Michăilescu. Together with Horia Creangă and Romania, more than a few have learned their Octav Doicescu, he publishes the manifest political ABC from Gherea. Luckily, they are „Towards an architecture of Bucharest”, a true not alone. Starting 1890, Gherea has led the first manifest for a modern capital city. In Romania generation of Romanian Socialist workers and later in Ein Hod, Israel, he paints countless toward the teachings of Marxism. Gherea and works of art, as well as authoring works of Rakovsky were the first who oriented their architecture in both countries. He dies in Israel socialist parties toward the Russian Revolution, on the 21st of April 1984. initiating a new kind of socialist party.” Through In the year 1994, a street cornering his 1910 volume, „Neoiobăgia (Studiu Camil Ressu boulevard is dedicated to Victor economico-sociologic al problemei noastre Brauner, a Surrealist painter and poet of Jewish agrare)” – "Neo-Serfdom (A Social and descent, born in Romania. Born June 15th 1903 Economical Study of Our Land Issue)" – Gherea in Bucharest, Victor Brauner was the brother of becomes one of the fathers of Romanian folklorist Harry Brauner and brother-in-law of sociology. He tries to establish possible social artist Lena Constante. causes for Mihai Eminescu’s pessimism, his He attends the National School of Fine being one of the first studies on the reception of Arts in Bucharest and Horia Igiroşanu's private the great poet’s writings. His fundamental work, school of painting. He visits Fălticeni and a true ars poetica of literary critique, remains Balcic, and starts painting landscapes in the „Asupra Criticii” („On Critique”). Gherea dies manner of Paul Cézanne. Then, as he testifies May 7th 1920 in Bucharest. himself, he goes through all the stages: "Dadaist, In the year 1961, the name of the famous Abstractionist, Expressionist". doctor Maximilian Popper (1948-1951) is In 1930, he settles in Paris, where he attributed to Trinităţii street, situated in Dudeşti meets Constantin Brâncuși, who instructs him in methods of art photography. In that same period
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 he becomes a friend of the Romanian poet Barbu fără nume”, “Ultima oră”, “Jocul de-a vacanţa”. Fundoianu and meets Yves Tanguy, who would The latter was adapted into a successful later introduce him to the circle of the Romanian-French film (Mona, l'étoile sans nom Surrealists. He lives on Moulin Vert Street, in – 1967) in which the leading role was played by the same building as Alberto Giacometti and Marina Vlady. Tanguy. There, he paints "Self-portrait with Mihail Sebastian dies in a road accident enucleated eye", a premonitory theme.â in 1945, only a short time after fascism had been In 1933, André Breton opens Brauner's driven out of Romania. first personal exhibition in Paris, at the Pierre In the year 1996, at the proposal of the Gallery. The theme of the eye was omnipresent Jewish Federation, the name of Wilhelm in Brauner’s paintings: Mr. K's power of Filderman is granted to former Agrişelor alley. concentration and The strange case of Mr. K are Wilhelm Filderman (November 14th paintings that Breton compared with Alfred 1882, Bucharest – 1963, Paris) was a Romanian Jarry’s play Ubu Roi, "a huge, caricature-like politician and lawyer of Jewish descent who led satire of the bourgeoisie". Afterwards, Brauner the Jewish secular community between the end takes part in numerous other Surrealist of the 1st World War and the end of the 2nd exhibitions. World War. Filderman was president of the After the Second World War, Brauner Federation of the Union of Jewish Communities travels to Italy. In 1965, he creates an ensemble in Romania (FUCE) and representative of the of object-paintings full of inventiveness, known Jews in the Romanian Parliament. During high as "Mythologie" and "Fêtes des mythes". The school, he befriended Ion Antonescu. mythology of the modern world, where man is Filderman graduated from law school portrayed with humor, tenderness as well as and received his doctoral degree in 1910 at the pessimism, is clearly visible in his paintings of University of Paris – Sorbonne. During the First the time, including those painted in Varangéville World War he fought as an officer in the and Athanor, where Brauner spends his late Romanian army. He was a delegate in the Paris years. Peace Conference of 1918 and a deputy in the In the year 1995, streets are dedicated Romanian parliament. He was temporarily both to Margareta Sterian and Mihail deported to Transnistria by the Antonescu Sebastian. regime and fled to Western Europe in 1948, The name Margareta Sterian is granted when Romania was under the Communists. He to a street stretching between Dacia boulevard died 1963 in Paris. and Alecu Russo street, formerly a part of In the year 2003, the name Iosif Sava is Dimitrie Orbescu street. granted to a square situated between Brezoianu, Margareta Sterian, born March 16th Şipotul Fântânilor, Poiana Narciselor and Vasile 1897 in Buzău as Margareta Weinberg, was a Sion street, neighboring the Bucharest painter, writer and translator of Jewish origin. University of Music. A bust of Iosif Sava is also She was married to a Piteşti banker, and then unveiled there. later to poet Paul Sterian. She dies September Iosif Sava (Iosif Segal), b. February 9th 1992, and since 1993 a foundation bearing 15th 1933, Iaşi – d. August 18th, 1998, her name promotes and rewards museographical Bucharest – was a renowned Romanian and artistic creation. musicologist, radio and TV host born to a Jewish Mihail Sebastian street is situated family with a three century-long musical between Rahovei and Sării roads. Born October tradition. He studied at the Iaşi Conservatory 18th 1907 in Brăila as Iosif Hechter, Mihail (1944-1945), the George Enescu Academy of Sebastian was a novelist and playwright who Music (1945-1947), the Arts Institute (1947- studied Law and Philosophy in Bucharest and 1949) and the Art High School (1949-1951), worked as a pleading attorney. Invited by Nae then at the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory in Ionescu, chairman of his Baccalaureate Bucharest (1962-1966). He also took courses at comission, to contribute to “Cuvântul” journal, the Faculty of Philosophy between 1951 and he befriends Mircea Eliade. Antisemitic laws of 1955. 1940 forbid him to work as a lawyer and ban his Between 1974 and 1984, Sava played plays. Amongst his better-known novels are the piano and harpsichord in a number of “Oraşul cu salcâmi” and “Accidentul”. chamber music groups, earning numerous prizes Successful plays by Sebastian include “Steaua including the Prize of the Romanian Academy.
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In 1972 he was received into the Union of Ministry of Culture. The volume had a foreword Composers and Musicologists of Romania written by acad. Prof. dr. Răzvan Theodorescu, (UCMR). As a music critic and TV host, he the Romanian cultural minister. produced the weekly show “TV Music Evening” On the 21st of April 2009, at the initiative (Serata muzicală TV), between 1980 and 1985, of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, and also as well as after 1990. The show was a forum of with the help of local authorities in Cernăuți, a discussion with important figures, orbiting black marble memorial plaque was placed on the around music, but including cultural policy and former house of Traian Popovici other contemporary issues. Over 40 books (6th Zankovetka Street). In this event, Volodimir dedicated to the world’s musicians bear Iosif Kuliș (governor of Cernăuți district) and Dorin Sava’s signature, among which several, edited Popescu (diplomatic counsellor, interim consul by Hasefer publishing house – „The harpists of of Romania in Cernăuți) also took part among King David”, „Musicians on the roof” and other participants. Written in three languages, „Variations on a theme by Chagall” are Romanian, Ukrainian and English, the memorial encyclopedias of renowned Jewish musicians. plaque pays homage to the personality of mayor In the toponymy of Bucharest street Traian Popovici (d. 4th of June, 1946, Colacu names, we also find names reminding of the village, Fundu Moldovei, Suceava district). main occupation of ethnic Jews in Romania: commerce. One such street is Mămulari street Previous names of traffic arteries which (the archaic term „mămular” means a small are now renamed trader). We also find names of famous people who supported the community in its most PERIOD NAME RENAMED AS difficult periods, including the Second World 1889 – 1940 Dr. Beck/ Vasile Adamachi Radu Bek, dr.rabin War. One of these is Traian Popovici. 1948 – 1990 Olga Bancic Alexandru Philippide Through Decision no. 52 of March the 1948 – 1993 Max Wexler Sică Alexandrescu 6th 2003, by demand of the Ministry of Culture, 1948 – 1990 Lazar Grumberg Alecu Mateevici the General Council of the Municipality of 1948 – 1964 Baruch Berea strada Călinului (merchant) Bucharest changed the name of Unităţii street to 1948 – 1964 Andrei Berneth Remetea Dr. Traian Popovici, honoring the mayor of 1949 – 1965 Haia Lifschitz Washington Cernăuţi who saved nearly 20,000 Jews from 1975 – 1990 Miron Sibiu deportation. Constantinescu Traian Popovici, born on the 17th of October, 1892 in Rușii Mănăstioarei village, Between 1889 and 1940, a street in belonging to the Duchy of Bukovine, Austria- Unirii neighbourhood, located near dr. Iuliu Hungary – was a Romanian lawyer and mayor of Barasch Street and Sfânta Vineri Street, bore the the city of Cernăuți during the Second World name of Dr. Beck/Radu Bek, dr. Rabin, and is War, known for saving Bukovine jews from at present called Vasile Adamachi. This is where being deported. the Great Synagogue lies. In 1989, Israel awarded lawyer dr. Olga Bancic street, a traffic artery Traian Popovici the title, medal and certificate of located between Aurel Vlaicu Street and Polonă Law between peoples, a distinction given to non- Street, kept its name between 1948 and 1990, Jewish persons that carried out heroic acts, with but was eventually renamed Alexandru the risk of losing their own lives, families and Philippide. belongings, with the purpose of saving Jews Olga Bancic (Golda) (b. 10th of May from the Holocaust genocide. As a recognition 1912, in Chișinău, Gubernia Basarabia, within to his brave attitude and his efforts to protect the the Russian Empire, d. 10th of May 1944, Jews in Bukovine, in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv Stuttgart, the Third Reich) was a Romanian and a monument was built in the memory of dr. French communist activist, anti fascist fighter, a Traian Popovici. heroine of the French Resistance during the Nazi The same year, the memoirs of Traian Germany occupation of France. In 1940, France Popovici were published in a book called was occupied by the German army. A member “Spovedanii” (bilingual Romanian and English of the French Communist Party, she left her edition) at the initiative of dr. Wilhelm daughter Dolores in the care of a French family Filderman and with funds provided by the in order to protect her while she would be
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 joining the resistance group Francs-tireurs et met painters Sabin Popp and Lucian Grigorescu. partisans – Main-d'œuvre immigrée (FTP/MOI), Later he went on a new trip to Palestine, Egypt located near Paris and led by Missak and Syria, exhibiting at Hasefer Gallery the Manouchian, with the purpose to fight the works he made during his trips during the winter Germans. Olga Bancic adopted the surname of 1927-1928. In 1928, he leaves for Paris, and “Pirrette”. She assembled bombs and transported then for Spain. In France, he was very prolific on explosives used to sabotage German trains that the Breton coast, at Concarneau and carried troops and food. On November the 6th, Douarnenez, where he created artistic 1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo. Although compositions of static nature with sea fruits, she had been tortured, she never revealed her prawns and lobsters. New exhibitions will be accomplices. On the 21st of February, 1944 she held in Paris in 1933 and in Bucharest, in 1934. was sentenced to death, along with another 22 of He became renowned as a watercolor and oil her comrades from the famous group “Affiche painter after his visits to Balchik, and then to the Rouge” (The Red Posters). The 22 comrades French Bretagne, Belgium, Greece, England. were in fact all men and were shot the same day. Although Max Arnold admired him, Paul Because the laws of France prohibited the Cézanne had little influence on his works, as shooting of women, Olga was transferred by the opposed to the greater influence of Henri Germans to a prison in Stuttgart, where she Matisse, Raoul Dufy and Albert Marquet. His would stand trial again only to be sentenced to paintings approach a large variety of subjects, death for the second time. The interrogatories such as oriental landscapes, the scenery of and the tortures continued even after her Dobrogea (Romania), the Seine river, Hyde conviction. She was beheaded on her birthday, Park, Florence, nudes, portraits, static nature, the 10th of May 1944, when she was only 32 interiors, streets etc. He dies on the 29th of July years old. 1946 in Bucharest. In 1959, Romanian painter Alexandru During 1948-1990, a street located Ciucurencu presented the work called “Olga between the streets Călin Ottoi and Sică Bancic on a Scaffold”. In France, on the wall of Alexandrescu in the second district was called the building located at 19, rue au Maire, 3ème, Lazar Grumberg – as of 1990 it was renamed Paris (75003), Ile-de-France a memorial plaque Alecu Mateevici. in the memory of the resistance group Francs- Lazăr Grünberg (1911-1944) was an Tireurs et Partisans (FTP/MOI) that also depicts activist for the Romanian youth and an anti the name of the heroine Olga Bancic. fascist. Grünberg joined the Communist Youth In Bucharest, in 1995, after renaming League (CYL), in 1927. In 1935 he was arrested Olga Bancic Street as Alexandru Philippide and received a sentence of nine years and ten Street, the memorial plaque was removed from months in jail. During the Second World War he its original place.The commemorative was imprisoned in the Vapniarka camp (1942) (memorial) stones in Paris 3e, 19 rue au Maire and then in Râbnița jail in the Soviet-occupied and Valence built for the members of the Ukraine. He was killed by the Gestapo while Manouchian Group and Rue du Groupe- imprisoned. Manouchian, Paris 20e, still exist today. Between 1948 and 1964, the name of a Between 1948 and 1993 a street located traffic artery was Baruch Berea (glory to in the second district, between Dumitru Berea/Merchant Berea). Now, its name is Marinescu and Rușchița Street, bore the name of Călinului Street. Max Wexler and is now called Sică Andrei Bernath Street, which had this Alexandrescu Street. The Romanian postmodern name during 1948 and 1964 was later renamed painter of Jewish descent, Max W. Arnold, born as Remetea Street. in the 25th of March 1897 in Iași, was a student Andrei Bernath (1908-1944) became in of the Belle-Arte School in Iași during 1913- 1927 a member of Communist Youth League, 1919, where Gheorghe Popovici and Octav and later became the secretary of the Central Bancilă had been two of his teachers. He Committee of CYL. Since 1935 he was traveled to Germany between 1923-1924, to incarcerated in various prisons until his death, in München and Dresda, because he wanted to 1944. study the German expressionists. During 1925- Between 1949 and 1965, the street that 1927 he left for Italy. In Rome, he continued his neighbors the building of the Romanian studies at the Superior Institute of Arts where he
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Government, known today as Washington Street, The Mosaic Foundation (Fundaţia was called Haia Lifschitz. Mozaică) was a street that existed between 1880 Haia Lifșiț or Lifschitz (1903 –1929) and 1948 and later became Pitagora Entrance was born in Chișinău, Basarabia, in a family of (Intrarea Pitagora). Col. Orero, a street found ordinary clerks that were of Jewish descent. between 1911 and 1948 was subsequently called During high-school she joined the local Abraham Golfaden. communist organization. Later, Haia worked as Abraham Goldfaden (b. 1840, a teacher, but nevertheless she was immediately Starokostiantîniv – d. 1908, New York) was a arrested for her political options by the poet, dramatist, director and Jewish actor of Romanian authorities when Basarabia became Yiddish and Hebrew language, native of part of the Greater Romania in 1918. She Ukraine, author of 40 theatre plays. He is emigrated to Belgium and then to Germany, but considered to be the father of the modern Jewish finally settled in Vienna, Austria. During the theatre. In 1876 he founded in the city of Iași the spring of 1926 she came back to Romania, but first professional Yiddish language theatre in the was rapidly caught and released due to lack of world. Moreover, he is the author of the first evidence. Her political activities eventually led Hebrew language play ever performed in the her to several arrests in June 1929. In prison, she United States. The Avram Goldfaden Festival in initiated a hunger strike along with other Iași is held in his honour. collaborators convicted in the same trial, Between 1940 and 1964, there was a requesting to be released according to a recently street that bore the name of dr. Schachman and announced amnesty decree. The next 43 days was later renamed as Colnicul Mic. The street she only accepted to drink water, at the same named S. I. Halfon during 1948-1964 was time rejecting any other type of food. This led to renamed Măcin. Both streets no longer exist a deterioration of her health which resulted in today. her death on the 17th of August, 1929, only a few Solomon Halfon (b. 1790 – d. 1862) days before the amnesty decree would have was a Romanian Jewish banker of Spanish rite, entered into force. founder of Halfon Bank, friend of Hillel Between 1975 and 1990, a street in the Manoah, one of the 1848 wallachian 6th district of Bucharest had been called Miron revolutionaries, who also had a position in the Constantinescu, but was later renamed as Sibiu City Council of the capital city. Solomon Street. Halfon, along with Barbu Iscovescu, Davicion Miron Constantinescu (Meir Kohn) Bally and many other jews took part in the 1848 (1917–1974), distinguished Romanian Revolution in Wallachia. intellectual, was a member of the Romanian Communist Party since its early beginnings. He Up to 1930, in the vicinity of Kiseleff was the editor-in-chief of Scânteia, the main Road there was an acces alley that led to a group newspaper during the communist regime, and of mansions that was called Halfon Alley, but held important leadership positions. He tried to this name was eventually removed from overthrow communist leader Gheorghe Bucharest’s street list. Gheorghiu-Dej but did not succeed. He is rehabilitated by Nicolae Ceauşescu, who offers Regarding the protection of cultural him the position of Education Minister, president heritage and its integration into greater projects of the Great National Assembly and rector of of durable development, Romania has yet to Political Academy “Ştefan Gheorghiu”. implement efficient, consequent measures according to international conventions and Streets that no longer exist public interest represented by cultural and natural heritage. Toponymic heritage is part of PERIOD NAME RENAMED/ cultural heritage, however it has not been the DISCARDED object of systematic, synchronic and diachronic 1880 – 1948 Fundaţia Intrarea Pitagora study. As can be observed, the consequence is a Mozaică rapidly progressing loss of heritage. What 1911 – 1948 Col. Orero Abraham Romania has lacked after 1989 was a coherent Golfaden 1940 – 1964 Dr. Schachman Colnicul Mic approach by the responsible authorities, which 1948 – 1964 S. I. Halfon Măcin would have required judiciary acknowledgement 1911 – 1930 Aleea Halfon of the fact that cultural and natural heritage is a 50
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 national priority, as well as the necessary appeal and promote durable development and financial support and consideration. social cohesion. Architectural and toponymic heritage must The toponymic heritage in Bucharest is become part of the curriculum of all higher proof of a natural cohabitation of Romanian and schools of public administration, so that they can Jewish populations, thankfully without having be known, preserved and protected by future been separated by the walls of a ghetto. civil servants. This would help configure a local spiritual identity and preserve the particularities The Jewish toponymic heritage found in of the respective areas. the capital city of Romania reveals a page of The present paper, regarding Bucharest harmonious history shared by different ethnic streets named after people of Jewish origin, past groups, especially because during the past and present, is a component of the century the Holocaust affected mainly the interdisciplinary, comparative study of the northern region of Transylvania that was toponymy of Bucharest streets. These streets, occupied by the horthyst Hungary and caused having survived the destructive fury of the the death of over 150.000 innocent jews. The Ceausescu era, situated in old quarters of the Jewish toponymic heritage encompasses city, with historic houses and gardens, bear the knowledge, respect and the preservation of real names of notable figures in the local Jewish History as a memento that a metapolitical community. They are a definitory component of phenomenon like fascism should never be given European identity, which must be known to the the opportunity to repeat itself. public in order to increase the respective areas’
References: ***Dicționar Enciclopedic Român, Editura Politică, București, 1962-1964 Alexandru Ofrim (2007): Străzi vechi din Bucureşti, Bucharest: Humanitas. Constantin C. Giurescu (2008): Istoria Bucurestilor, Bucureşti: Editura Vremea. Gheorghe Crutzescu (1987): Podul Mogoşoaiei , Bucureşti:Ed. Meridiane. Ioniță, Elisabeta (1969). "Haia Lifșiț" în Anale de istorie, Vol.. XV, Nr. 5. Institutul de Studii Istorice si Social- Politice de pe linga CC al PCR, București. pp. 178-180. Dimitrie Papazoglu (2005): Istoria Fondărei Oraşului Bucureşti, Capitala Regatului Român, Bucureşti, Bucureşti: Paideia. Michel Allenou, Magéditions. Rieux-Volvestre (1998): Guide des professions artistiques Michel Magnien, Delmas. Paris, 1995, L'entreprise de spectacles et les contrats du spectacle Presidential Commission for Architecture Report/2009: "Romania's natural and built heritage in danger" Raymond Citterio (1993): Action culturelle et pratiques artistiques, Paris: Hachette. Spectacles. Réglementation – protection sociale, fiscalité, Imprimerie des journaux officiels, 1995 UNESCO – SECTOR FOR CULTURE – http://www.unesco.org/culture UNESCO – www.unesco.org Vade Mecum pour un projet culturel de territoire, ADCEI, 2006
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The Golden Ratio – From the oldest to the newest arts
Diana MEŢIU1, Ph.D, Hyperion University, Bucharest
Abstract “Golden proportion – from the oldest to the newest arts“ shows portions of the road of the golden number, from nature, human, fine arts, to cinema. The idea of artistic perfection realized by the golden proportion of Leonardo da Vinci, borne in ancient times, was taken in Fine Arts until today. But, the photography and movies was simplified this idea to “rule of thirds”. Moreover, they allowed to take out of context and analyze inside portions of the frame. Here the analysis of this golden ratio in several of the last movies admired by the public and professionals.
Keywords: film, frames, golden section, golden number, golden proportion.
What do the Milky Way, the sunflowers, it is called irrational by mathematicians'', said the rose petals, the pine cones or the mollusc Luca Pacioli in 14962. 10 shells have in common with bee reproduction, with the Egyptian pyramids, with Salvador Dali's The History of the Golden Ratio amazing paintings, with the harmonious Although this proportion has been known sculptures of Phidias or with famous images ever since the dawn of the first human from movies like Anna Karenina or The civilizations, it was only late in 1835 that it has Grandmaster? What is the common element that become known in history by the name of „divine unites science, art, nature and divinity? It's the proportion”, used by the mathematician Martin golden number or, more concisely, The Golden Ohm (1792 – 1872). Until then, Leonardo da Ratio. It is present in all of human's great Vinci called it „sectio aurea” and had found out artworks, but also in all of God's creations, about it from the handbook of roman architect including the most majestic one, MAN. 9Beauty, Marcus Pollio Vitruvius. But the first text in harmony and balance are called, mathematically, which the golden number is defined is Euclid's 1,618033988... And, as with mathematics, this ''Elements” (300 BC). Afterwards, the Italian irrational and immeasurable number is as mathematician Luca Pacioli, in his book called irrational and immeasurable as beauty itself and „The Golden Ratio”, illustrated by Leonardo da seems to be part of the basic structure of the Vinci (see photo De Divina Proportione – Luca Universe. ''God's existence cannot be proved Pacioli illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci), that with the help of words. Likewise, this ratio also included The Vitruvian Man (the ideal cannot be defined through a rational number, but proportions of the human body), considered the it always stays hidden and secret, and that is why golden ratio to be the formula of perfect beauty and said that „there is no art without mathematics”. Here, Luca Pacioli presents thirteen effects of the divine proportion (the essential, the singular, the ineffable, the 1. Diana Meţiu is Ph.D in Visual Arts and admirable, the inexpressible, the inestimable, the Communication&PR expert, coach and personal excessive, the supreme, the excellent, the development trainer. In addition to the counselling of unknowable and the dignisim), throughout which various companies and private individuals in optimal transmission of messages, she is teaching at the Faculty of you can create a large variety of simple Arts of the University "Hyperion". She obtained her Ph.D at geometrical figures, from which the regular the “National University of Arts”, with the thesis "Trash Art pentagon is obtained. (see photo De Divina – aspects of using waste in the Visual Arts." She is Proportione – Luca Pacioli 2 and De Divina passionate about the relationship between the visual arts and communication and how they influence decisions at conscious and subconscious level. Her profile at: 2. De Divina Proportione by Luca Pacioli (1446/7, Borgo ro.linkedin.com/in/dianametiu/. Her email address: Sansepolcro, Toscana, June 19th 1517, Roma), [email protected] mathematician and Francincan monk and Da Vinci discipol. 52
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Proportione – Luca Pacioli attributed to Jacopo Rules of Composition Based de' Barbari, 1495). All these effects have an on The Golden Ratio – also called enormous impact on the sensations we have when The Divine Proportion: The Golden we meet beauty in nature or in works of art. Spiral, The Concordant Spiral, In 1202, the work „The Book of Spira Mirabilis Calculation” comes out in Italy; written by This spiral, built after the Fibonacci rule, Leonardo Pisano (alias Fibonacci), the book is found everywhere in nature and from there it contains a sequence of numbers that appear as a has been copied by the human genius and used solution to a practical problem related to the in art, for the human mind finds it much easier to reproduction of rabbits: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, accept and understand things that we recognize 34, 55, 89. The Fibonacci's series is a sequence in nature. According to this rule, for a whole of numbers where each subsequent number is the divided into unequal parts to look nice, we must sum of the previous two. Dividing each number have the same ratio between the smallest and the by its predecessor, you get approximately the largest part, as well as between the big part and golden number (see photo şirul-lui-fibonacci). the whole". (see Vermeer, Golden Spiral3) 11 The value keeps approaching phi as you go further in the sequence, but it never reaches its The Rule of Thirds exact value. It refers to the fact that the important Leonardo da Vinci was the one who elements of the plastic composition should be frequently used the concept of golden section in placed along imaginary lines that divide the his work; starting with the Vitruvian Man, image into thirds, horizontally and vertically, following with the controversial „The Last thereby obtaining nine equal parts. Items of Supper”, the series of Madonnas and finishing interest can be placed right at the intersection of with Gioconda, the world's most famous painting these lines, for a more expressive and pleasing – at which da Vinci worked for four years – you composition. By following this rule, we get can clearly see the painter's conception that the aesthetic asymmetry, enhancing the drama and divine proportion for a face is the proportion dynamism, drawing the eye and the attention between the height and the length of a face. from the centre to one of the areas of intersection At the beginning of the twentieth of the imaginary lines that divide the image into century, the American mathematician Mark Barr three equal parts. In addition, we can also gave the report the name Φ (phi), as a tribute to mention dynamic equilibrium, which is obtained the great Greek sculptor Phidias, a master of by placing objects of interest (eyes or other harmony in portraying the beauty of the human anatomical parts that are representative for the body, the author of one of the seven wonders of idea of the image, the place where the light the ancient world, Zeus of Olympia. In ancient flows, certain objects that we want to emphasize, Greek culture, the golden number was the etc.), as opposed to the negative space or the symbol of Pythagoreans, who believed that empty space of the image. 1.618033988 is the expression of life, love and beauty. The Golden Rectangle Modern man has created various The special property of the golden programs due to mimic nature. One such rectangle is that the ratio between the length and program is the Golden Section Photoshop plugin the width is equal to about 1,618. The head of that transforms you into a talented photographer Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa fits perfectly in with a highly developed sense of proportion, this report. (see photo Mona Lisa, golden obtaining for you the divine proportion, the rectangle4)12Another famous painting depicting golden spiral, the golden triangle or the the subject more clearly, although belonging to harmonic triangles of any image. abstract art is Piet Mondrian's "Composition in Such programs are used in the design Red, Blue and Yellow" a modern Dutch artist process of various objects, from cars to porcelain who lived between 1872 and 1944. The cups, correcting the shape, size and proportions universality of this theme is emphasized by the of each object that does not comply with the fact that it was repeated in the aesthetics of the golden ratio. most different objects (see photo Piet Mondrian Many companies such as Pepsi, Apple and Toyota have used the golden ratio to create 3. http://powerretouche.com/Divine_proportion_tutorial.htm their logos or products. 4. http://schoolcommunicationarts.com/14212-2/ 53
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 reinterpretat). Drawing more golden rectangles movies of the recent years, movies that have creates a spiral of gold that continues been nominated or have won an Oscar for best indefinitely. picture. 2012 Academy Awards Movies was awarded to Claudio Miranda for his stunning and We start from the segment AB = 1, we controversial Life of Pi (Viaţa lui Pi), and the raise on A a perpendicular on which we take AC nominees were: Anna Karenina (Seamus = AB = 1 and build the arc with centre in D McGarvey), Django Unchained (Django (middle of the segment AB) and radius DC. We dezlănţuit) (Robert Richardson), Lincoln (Janusz find point E and then the relationship between Kamiński) and Skyfall (Coordonata Skyfall) AB and EB represents the golden number (by (Roger Deakins). In 2014, the award for best applying the Pythagorean Theorem). We repeat picture was won by Gravity with the signature of this reasoning to each vertex of the triangle, in Emmanuel Lubezki, in competition with The the same order, and we get the following Grandmaster (Philippe Le Sourd), Inside Llewyn diagram. Between the sides of the rectangle we Davis (Bruno Delbonnel), Nebraska (Phedon use a ratio very close to the golden number, Papamichael) and Prisoners (Roger Deakins). having as sizes two consecutive numbers of Fibonacci's sequence or their multiples Life of Pi The film recounts the life of an The Golden Ratio in Cinemas exceptional character that bears a great name, Pi, In photography and film, the golden tied somewhat to phi. Pi, as phi, is an irrational ratio has been restrained to the rule of thirds, in number, as the character himself says in the film the detriment of the golden section used in ("my irrational nickname") and represents the painting, sculpture and architecture. If the ratio of the circumference of any circle and its painter prepared by himself the size of his diameter in Euclidean space, or the ratio of the canvas, photographers or cameramen’s have to area of a circle and the square of its radius. settle for predetermined dimensions. The 135 In the three selected frames of the film, standard that used 35 mm perforated cassettes besides the exceptional light that emphasizes the for fixed cameras had a frame size of 24 x 36 sky's colour, the sea and the skin of the mm, twice than that of a teaching film and character, we can admire the perfect plastic became by far the most used video until the composition. invention of the camera. So this 1.5 framework In the first frame, the two elements that ratio is pretty far from 1.618033988... The size compose it – the boat that dominates the left and of a film frame varies greatly (the lowest: 8 mm Pi, the main character that just stands to the right amateur format, which is only 4.8 x 3.5 mm, of the image – are filmed from above in a while an IMAX frame is 69.6 x 48.5 mm), and spectacular perspective. The interesting and very little are close to the golden ratio. Today, all unconventional form of the boat on which he cameras and video cameras have the option to stands fall within the golden spiral, segments display the image of thirds over the grid, in order three, four, five, eight and nine being highlighted to ease the frame. by the boat. In the eighth segment we have the In cinema, the Golden Ratio is explained character and three of the boat's elements in images rather than words by Ali Shirazi, a surrounding him like a fan. (see frame 57:30) young director and screenwriter, in "Golden If we apply the same trinity grid on the Ratio on Film: The math in There Will Be frame, we see that the boat occupies the top right Blood's cinematography”. The film was corner composed of three rectangles in the top nominated eight times and received an Oscar for right, and the character is placed in the bottom Image (cinematography) in 2008. Shirazi left corner, right on the first section, forming a examines in only 6 minutes and 15 seconds the diagonal line easily stressed by the white and most iconic scenes of the film and applies across thin rope that binds them. (see frame 57:30) the running images various grids of the golden The second frame changes the proportion, highlighting the talent of Robert perspective, light, for it is another time of day, Elswit. (see all the photos from the series Paul and brings a new character, the tiger. The man, Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood) floating on the raft, is in the foreground and the To see how the rules are applied to the animal floating in the boat, in the far, builds a golden proportion in the cinema, we propose a small upward bias. The boy and the end of the similar analysis of three of the most popular boat are on sections. The eyes of the two
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 characters meet right in the centre of the image / The next frame presents Anna Karenina composition. (see frame 57:06) The same frame at the station, in the train, during her first respects the compositional rules of the golden meeting with Count Vronsky. The woman is spiral. (see frame 57:06) placed back in the foreground, blurred, and the The third frame is emblematic for the man is placed on the golden section, so this film, as it is used for both the movie poster and character is emphasized with light and clarity. the trailer (see 1:51). It is composed of three The point of intersection of the sections on the parts: two characters, the boat upright and left side of the frame is near the left eye of the horizontal, all designed on blue water and sky as count, because the whole scene takes place under background. Applying grid of thirds, we find the the sign of the intense gaze that will mark their horizon placed right on the centre of the image, life afterwards. That fatal coup de foudre is most of the animal's image being projected on outlined by the intersection of the golden the boat / water and most of the man's image on sections. (see frame 17:25) the sky. The tiger is located right on the left The third frame, another close-up of golden section and the man is placed in the count Vrosky, is made by placing the character in centre. (see frame 74:37) the centre and occupying all the space between The same framework composed with the two vertical sections of the trinity. (see the Spira Mirabilis has the tiger positioned in all 18:27) The scene takes place in the same train nine segments, and the ninth is occupied by the where the two are introduced to each other human character and by a great part of the boat. although they had seen each other with other Thus, this area focuses the entire dynamic of the occasions. The count ceremoniously bows and image. (see frame 74:37) kisses the hand of Anna, keeping his eyes raised towards hers. Very close to the golden section Anna Karenina are the open eyes of the count, enchanted by Even if you haven’t read the book or Anna's gaze. have not seen any of the screenings, you only need to watch a few frames of composition from The Grandmaster. one of the most significant recent films inspired Although it didn't get the Oscar, this film by this story to understand who the character about Kung Fu is astounding in terms of around which everything revolves is and which composition. Apart from a few hypnotic and are the important emotions. The first frame perfect thick-ups which, paradoxically, increase contains two characters: Anna Karenina, in the dynamics, many of the film's images seem black, and Count Alexei Vronsky Kirilov, her detached from the walls of Baroque art lover, in a white suit, dancing in the ballroom. museums. Even if the subject is physical combat, Placing Anna in the centre of the image makes it Kung Fu, most of the characters are fighting clear that she is the main character and the while they are very well dressed, in elegant count's hand in the golden section, touching the sceneries. With regard to the fluidity of woman's hand, indicates the relationship movement, most of the scenes take place in the between them. (see frame 29:37) The same idea fluid element of nature – water. Thus we cast emerges if we apply the golden spiral grid scenes in rain, snow, steam. By contrast, we see framework that has the man's fascinated gaze in more stop-frames, as sepia group photos. During the centre. (see frame 29:37) the fight scenes, we have characters who use The passion between the two characters their hands in order to build frames for their own is seen not only from the woman's clenching faces, as a frame within another frame, as if fists or from her aglow look, but also from the highlighting through graphics or imaging Yip composition. Their faces are grouped in the Man's theory about this martial art: "Kung Fu, centre of the image, between the two vertical two words: one horizontal, the other vertical." sections and the fingertip he touches her face (frames 25:17 , the 25:26 , the 25:40 , 28:34 , with is at the point of intersection between the 28:49 , 29:00 , 29:12 , 29:33 , 41:05 etc.). horizontal and vertical sections. (see the 107:37) The first frame is one of the most Applying the golden spiral grid over the elegant in the film, both by the perfect position romantic setting, we note the placement of the of each character and by the very well balanced faces of the two characters in the latest and framing. The action takes place in a brothel, widest segment of the coil. (see frame 107:37) where the daughter of a Kung Fu grandmaster waits for Ip Man in order to face him. Dividing
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 the image using the third rule, we get three in this film, being turned towards the edge of the perfectly aligned planes: the foreground of the image. From the point of view of the third rule, two symmetrical women who seem to fit the the composition is classic, because it sets on the image by bending their body, the background – nose, eyes on both sides of the section and the the women at the table, surrounded mouth on the intersection point. If we apply the symmetrically by the two blue lamps and the sharing of the framework based on the golden third plane, composed of characters who stand in section, we find that the positioning of the eyes the background, framed symmetrically by two and mouth is made close to the horizontal golden men in white. The first horizontal section is sections, and the nose near the vertical ones. (see made at the table, from the woman's flexed arm frame 69:07) of the woman in green to the chest of the woman In cinematography, the frame with green beads, and the final sections follows construction is done as it is done in painting, the nose lines of the first and last man. The main respecting the same rules of composition. And character is centrally located and respects the the olden proportion, in all its forms, appears in position of all the women surrounding him. (see the works of all talented artists in this area. For frame 39:12) talent, like every man's natural quality, makes In a film about fighting, the core of you see the beauty and the balance in nature and many of the frames is the hand, the hand that is determines you to replicate it in everything you about to strike, hits, or rests after an impact. This do. framework can be an eulogy brought to the The famous number was not only loved hands of a fighter, because of the composition. by artists and scientists, but also mystics like Ip Man's arm is positioned in the centre of the Jakob Lorber: „And the Earth took love, which image, with palm elegantly twisted right at the was like the seed over the creamy milk and, with intersection of the golden sections. On the the mysterious Power of its hands, he battered it vertical sections we have the man's body and one well and made out of it the first human, in of the pillars of the richly decorated room. If we accordance to the Golden Number of his order, apply the gold spiral grid over this framework, and then he gave him the Spirit of Life. And Her we emphasize the weight and elegance of the Spirit became soul inside the man and it quickly composition. The spiral seems to be coiled spread into his entire body, sealing for ever his around the fingers, the arm, on the forearm, in bond with the Golden Number of Order. But order to open widely to everything including the know that not only man was created after the torso and the character's head. (see frame 27:28) number, but all the spirits and all the worlds that The next frame is a close-up of the exist in infinite space, in which we also include female character. The composition is Earth with all that is on it, the Moon and the unorthodox, in the way that the character looks sun.” far beyond the frame, as most of the characters
Refrences: Mario Livio (2005): Golden Section The story of Phi, the most astonishing number, Bucharest: Humanitas Publishing. Mario Livio (2011): It is God a Mathematician? Bucharest: Humanitas Publishing
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Postmodernism in the art of film - lecture notes-
Florin Toader1 Ph. D, Hyperion University, Bucharest
Artists of all times have searched for the The urge to relax – that has always been, state of excellence. This has always been the but now it seems stronger than ever – identified underlying reality of practicing the art, but the postmodern "business", promoting less modernism proved to be the one that brought it intellectually demanding art. Aching for the fully to light. Modernism was singled out by its relaxation has come to be expressed aloud in answer to a heightened sense of threat to the avant-garde circles with the "challenges" of aesthetic value, threats coming from the social ready-made sites "brand" Marcel Duchamp and and material environment, from the spirit of the the Dadaists, and then in some manifestations of time. In fact, modernism is the ongoing effort to surrealism. But the most coherent expression of stem the decline of aesthetic standards that relaxation was the pop art, whose influence threatened by the relative democratization of has been perpetuated in all different subsequent culture in the era of industrialization. The fashions and trends of artistic fields. The notion romantic crisis to be overcome was – it seems – of postmodernism arose and spread in the same an expression of the so-called democratization, relaxed atmosphere of taste and opinion where as Romanticism contributed to a confusion of the pop art and its successors flourished. criteria and quality levels. Before these threats Where modernists hoped to highlight the coming mostly from the appreciation level universality or the fundamentals of art as a form promoted by the new middle class public, of creation, postmodernism seeks to discrown, to modernism was a possible replica. Innovation embrace diversity and contradiction. When the has come to be taken as the hallmark of highest quality requirements are not upheld – modernism, novelty is desired and sought by all creation, taste or appreciation – new artistic means. However, all the great modernist artists approach rejects the distinction between who have stood the test of time were actually "inferior" or "superior" art, rejecting also rigid reluctant innovators, innovating just because boundaries, favoring eclecticism, mixing ideas they had no other choice, for the sake of quality and forms. Partly due to this rejection, and self-expression. postmodernism promotes parody and irony, as At some point, however, it was the serious tone that accompanied the act of considered that modernism is not advanced searching for truth will be replaced by the idea enough; it will remain behind times if it of "play".13 continues to be concerned with things such as In the context of postmodernism, "play" standards and quality. For though to make high means changing the level of connection of the art is usually part of a difficult process, during terms of the discussion, thus allowing for the modernism, satisfaction and exhilaration figurative meanings or the passage of a metaphor required when assessing artistic products were from one context to another, from one reference toilsomely acquired. Over the last century, the framework to another. As inside postmodernist best new painting and sculpture or new poetry thinking, the text is composed of a number of proved, in their time, to be a challenge and a test "marks" whose meaning is assigned to the for art lover. And so postmodernism came – a reader, not the author, this play is based on the form of artistic expression that is no longer "obliged" to be critical in relation to itself, discrowning modernism in terms of stylistic 1. Florin Toader is an associate professor at the Faculty of development which is rather connected to the Arts of the University Hypeion, specializing in photography. He wrote the essay "Oglinda – element cyclical evaluation criteria of the public. fundamental la graniţa dintre teatru şi film", Europolis, 2010
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 means by which the reader constructs or subject that was the achievement of modern interprets the text, and by means of which the individuals, of a culture of individualism, is author becomes a presence in the reader’s mind. fragmenting and disappearing, due to social The play involves also works written in the same processes which produce the leveling of style in order to weaken the authority, either by individuality in a rationalized, bureaucratized parodying their meanings or style, or by and consumerized mass society, and media successive layers of false indications regarding culture." (Douglas Kellner, Cultura media) the author's intention. Posmodernism, attacking Modernism Zelig (1983) elites sought a strong connection with a wider "Ten years of a 'human chameleon' public, and so-called availability has become a (1920-1930) life. To such an extent a conformist focus of dispute in favor of postmodern art. The that, to be approved, he is able to acquire the mixture of artistic languages, the quotation or traits of anyone who sits around, either black or the collage were attempts to multiply and Asian, Pope or Hitler. [...] Very original diversify media and messages, many elements narrative technique, collage-film more focusing on a change when choosing the themes, chameleonic than Zelig himself, a masterpiece of closer to the average taste of the viewer. In this inventiveness and humor, simulating context, postmodern artists see media as one of cinematographic journalism rhetoric, combining the fundamental sources of inspiration. Andy frames of the news of the '20s with simulations Warhol is an early example of post-modern of interviews and footages from the set." (Tudor artistic trends by how he assumes common Caranfil – Dicţionar universal de filme, 2002) popular symbols and ready-made cultural “Zelig (directed by Woody Allen) is artifacts, making what was once considered, ‘about’ the formation of subjectivity, both the "worldly" or trivial on the field of high art. subjectivity of the spectator, and that created by Postmodern cinema is distinguished, in the spectator – the Star.” (Linda Hutcheon, The the opinion of many commentators, through Politics of Postmodernism) various forms of pastiche or stylistic multiplicity. Sometimes it is an intrinsic element Marlene (1984) of the film, as in Kiss of the Spider Woman, “But a film like Maximilian Schell’s where the parody of Hollywood romance and Marlene can also parody the documentary genre melodrama is inserted into the story of the in a postmodern cinematic way. It opens asking relationship blossoming between two political ‘Who is Dietrich?’, and the question is revealed prisoners. (...) Another interesting frequently as unanswerable. The postmodernist commented manifestation of postmodernism in investigation of the formation of postmodern the film is the deletion of previously existing subject is combined here with one of the forms borders between elevated culture and mass the challenge of postmodern historical culture, postmodern films can evoke complex knowledge has taken: one that operates in the problems of an elevated theory, but this is at private history that is the biography. Novels such odds with its apparent accessibility and the box as Banville's Kepler or Wiebe’s The Temptations office of so flawless postmodern films like Blade of Big Bear or Kennedy’s Legs aim to portray an Runner, True Stories, Diva and the individual and at the same time, to undermine Draughtman's Contract. (Steven Connor – any stability or certainty in knowing – or Cultura postmodernă) representing – that subject. This is what Marlene is about. Dietrich is offstage, never represented Revisiting the subject visually. She is merely a plaintive voice, a feisty "From the postmodern perspective, as presence of absence. Schell reverses this the extension and complexity of modern situation to postmodernism advantage: his film societies accelerate, identity becomes more and talks about trying to make a documentary about more unstable, more and more fragile. Within a subject that is intentionally absent, a topic that this situation, the discourses of postmodernity refuses to be subject to discourses and problematize the very notion of identity, representations of the others. (...) Marlene is the claiming that it is a myth and an illusion. One kind of movie I would label as postmodern: a reads both in modern theorists like the Frankfurt parody, metacinematic, challenging. Its double School, and in Baudrillard and other postmodern speech, constantly contradictory brings to our theorists, that the autonomous, self-constituting attention the question of ideological construction
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– of subjectivity and how we know history, both automation with an archaic design and a lack of the personal history and the public history." safety, suggesting that they also belong to the (Linda Hutcheon, Politica postmodernismului) '30s. Perhaps Brazil is another example of the 'retro' style because what it is evoked here is not A Zed and Two Noughts (1985) a real machine phase, but rather, an imaginary In this film by Peter Greenaway technology of that mid-century science fiction. everything is duplicated, from characters to These forms of temporal discontinuity parodies. The main intertext is the realistic correspond to the generic heterogeneity of the ('photographic') representation of Vermeer’s film with his erratic swings between comedy and paintings. But even this explicit intertext tragedy, utopia and dystopia, tales of adventure becomes problematic. In the narrative of the film and satire. (Steven Connor, Cultura there is a surgeon named Van Meergeren. This is postmodernă) the name of the most famous of Vermeer’s "Brazil belongs, out of grounds and even works counterfeiters, the man who persuaded recipe to A Clockwork Orange, '1984 ', Goebbels (and the entire world) that there were Fahrenheit and other political-fiction film. The more works than the twenty-six paintings film, equivocal alloy of black comedy, burlesque authenticated. (...) A Zed and Two Noughts and dramatic baroque is cerebral even into its seems to me to be a border case of postmodern lyrical parts and the abundance of final twists is film. [...] Although its contradictions are not more tiresome than surprised. To be noted the really solved, they are highly stylized. The delusional scenography, characteristic to postmodern film, as I see it, should be more Gilliam." (Tudor Caranfil – Universal Dictionary compromised than that. Its tensions should be of movies, 2002) even more deliberately left unresolved, the Terry Gilliam is "the author of a new contradictions – even more deliberately baroque theater built on postmodern elements: manifest." (Linda Hutcheon, Politica spacing, demystifying, eclectism, pastiche cult, postmodernismului) imitation, parody, and metafiction. The result of this option is a flamboyant opera, full of fantasy Revisiting the past and a remarkable plasticity, which puts forward Zelig, Carmen, The French Lieutenant's the dehumanization of society." (Dictionary of Woman, and other postmodern films really Cinema, 1997) dealing with history, ironically, but not on entirely frivolous. (...) On the contrary, these Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (1991) films suggest that there is a past 'real' directly The movie Robin Hood, Prince of and naturally accessible to us today: we can not Thieves introduces the medieval outlaw who know – and build – the past but by his tracks, by suffers from PTSD after the Crusades. its representations. (...) Whether they are Accompanied by a cheerful band of documents, eyewitness accounts, long-/short- multicultural homeless victims, he and the films, documentaries or other works of art, they feminist Marian fight against the multinational remain, however, representations and they are corporation of the sheriff of Nottingham and our only means of access to the past. (...) The save the Sherwood Forest area. Therefore film and postmodern fiction are primarily postmodernism has history, but not a 'sense of obsessed with history and how we can know the history', since all historical moments are past today.(Linda Hutcheon, Politica minimized, swallowed by present and context." postmodernismului) (Gene Edward Veith, Guide to Contemporary Culture) Brazil (1985) A strange film by Terry Gilliam that Intertextuality Linda Hutcheon considers postmodern because Last Tango in Paris (1972) "it ironically rethinks history ' by a parody of The Last Tango in Paris, Bertolucci other movies like Star Wars and Battleship creates an intertextual love story based both on Potemkin, with the reevaluation of different the history of the cinema after 1950 and fiction. periods of the past that can not be identified It uses Marlon Brando remarkably, in the main precisely, futuristic decors mixed with role, mixing elements from his real life, his monotonous costumes in the '30s and presenting career and the life character in order to create a a world dominated by computers and advanced fourth person who rises above the three. For
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 example, the description of the history of the arrival of the XXIth century." (Tudor Brando's character career as "a boxer, a singer Caranfil – Dicţionar universal de filme, 2002) from bongos, a revolutionary' are references to Memento (2000) the characters' businesses, interpreted by Brando ‘Memento is a new challenge, this time in films such as On the Waterfront and Viva of the narrative concepts – not so much because Zapata!" it starts with the end (Citizen Kane, made in (http://lifegoesoff.blogspot.com/2005/05 1941, also started with the end), but because we /essay-title-re-postmodernism-in-film.html) witness a reverse, unnatural chronology, where every scene is paradoxically the continuation of Carmen (1983) the next scene! Perhaps the film noir has never The complex transcoding from Carlos been so labyrinthine – it is a puzzle where each Saura’s film Carmen, of the high French art 'answer' raises a new question, where the (opera by Bizet and the literary text of actions, the images, the stereotypes are repeated Mérrimée) under the conventions of the Spanish endlessly, resulting in a feeling of stagnation of flamenco provide a good illustration of the type the investigation and the film itself.’ (Corina of political critics the parodic representation is Marculescu, Observator Cultural, no. 192, indeed capable. (...) Saura's film concerns the 28.10-03.11.2003) relationship of the present to the traditions of the past, of the Spanish popular, and the culture of Collage/Polistilism the high European art (with its fascination for Pierrot le fou (1965) the exotic stereotype). [...] The somewhat ‘Everything is backwards. (...) Pierrot ... reminiscent of Fellini's The Orchestra Rehersal, is undoubtedly an antifilm, and this status can be this "show" is also both a documentary about a detected at all levels. (...) The film with particular form of music, and the repetition of a gangsters, the touristic film, the romance movie, fiction. Add to this the reflectivity of the plot the parody, the mime, the exotic film, the art structure, manifested in that the dancers begin to film, the television reportage, the filmed theater, play – in their private life – the jealousy and the compilation carried out at dialogue level, as passion of fiction. The fact that often, as well as by imagistic, painting quoting, are the spectators, we can not say if we have to face life disparate elements falling within this general fiction or dancers in the ‘real’ life action, hotchpotch named Pierrot the fool.’ (John Lazar, highlights the play of dual boundaries in the Teme şi stiluri cinematografice) film. (Linda Hutcheon, Politica postmodernismului) Blue Velvet (1986) "The film parodies 1940s American Pulp Fiction (1994) films – ‘small town’ films, film noir and films of "Like ‘Citizen Kane’,’Pulp Fiction’ is other genres. A mixture of different genres and constructed in such a nonlinear way that you different times are seen in this film which is an could see it a dozen times and not be able to example of pastiche." remember what comes next. It doubles back on (Asim Ratan Ghosh, itself, telling several interlocking stories about www.geocities.com-postmodernismandcinema/ characters who inhabit a world of crime and pmincin.html) intrigue, triple-crosses, a world where there are no normal people and no ordinary days." (Roger Norman Denzin sees Blue Velvet as a Ebert, Cinema… un secol şi ceva, 2002). postmodern film out of a number of reasons. First, the film offers an unlikely and disturbing Fight Club (1999) juxtaposition of different genres and related "In the complex postmodern expectations. [...] Denzin argues that Blue construction, clip-like, of the filmmaker one can Velvet combines in a postmodern manner the identify multiple narrative techniques: from tradition of the small town (illustrated by Frank flashback to anticipations of the action, open Capra's works in the '40s) with cult pornographic stage confessions, oneiric delirium, episodes films. Also postmodern, in Denzin's opinion, is resumed from another angle, even subliminal the way the film combines the "non-presentable' images. The challenging masterpiece 'pop' is part (rotting ears, sexual excesses, brutality, of the joint anarchic current of films that mark dementia) with cliché existence, thereby challenging the boundaries that separate them.
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(...) If Blue Velvet seeks new ways 'to present the or unhistorical, but do not draw out the art of the non- presentable in order to destroy the barriers past in its historical original context to that hinder the mixture of profane in everyday reassemble it in a presentation show. (...) life', in equal measure, especially when Parody, of course, is omnipresent in the presenting male and female sexuality, he contemporary film, although its method is not reproduces without mercy and apparently always challenging. (...) Paradoxically the without irony the narrowest cultural stereotypes. postmodern film wants to challenge the external (...) Denzin concludes that 'postmodern boundaries of cinema and wants to question individuals want movies like their violence and (though rarely provides responses) on the role politics, all at the same time. (Steven Connor, played by ideology in shaping the subject and Postmodernist Culture) historical knowledge. Perhaps parody is a particularly appropriate representational strategy Ghost Dog (2000) of postmodernism, a strategy once described as "Far from being the most elaborate film the use of a parallel scenario rather than an by Jim Jarmusch, Ghost Dog is probably one of original writing." (Linda Hutcheon, Politica the major cinematic creations of 'post- postmodernismului) postmodern' cinema, integrating into its narrative thread senile gangsters, cartoons, code of Take the money and run (1969) conduct Hagakure of the samurai, messenger- Along with Pierrot the fool, Take the pigeons, overcoming barriers of language and money and run is part of the category of avant-la- race, the ghost of a dog, a man who builds a boat lettre postmodernist films, the writer and director on the roof and, of course, rap. But the Woody Allen parodies here the film noir as well as importance of the film does not come from the the conventionalism in treating documentaries abundance of narrative elements, but from the Discovery Channel type. Take the money and author's attitude towards them. Jarmusch breaks run fits perfectly the typology of mockumentary, down New York reality which in itself is a where the protagonist is analyzed impersonally by hodge-podge (the boat on the roof an the the documentary, the comic feature arises, gangsters who love rap are inspired by reality) apparently involuntarily, from the absurd situations and recomposes it as a modern fairy tale (...) in that, the whole seemingly trivial scheme of order to be able to penetrate its meaning, the characters is bound to enter at some point. story must be read carefully, each element is a symbol awaiting to be interpreted." (Carina Bananas (1971) Tăutu) The film directed by Woody Allen is a carefully constructed parody of political films Parody and also war films that are based on romance. On the whole, the parody is Satire and absurd humor, specific to Allen, characteristic of a multilayered society, enjoying imbue the development of apparently dramatic a cultural tradition that can make significant action, with a subtle but irresistible comic. references, universally recognizable. The parody delivered simultaneously to Everything You Always Wanted and beyond the cinematic textuality, ideological to Know About Sex * But Were formation of the subject by our various cultural Afraid to Ask (1972) representations. (...) Parody – often called ironic Based on excerpts of the book by David quotation, pastiche, closeness intertextuality – is Reuben that interrelate, the screenplay of the usually considered central to postmodernism, film by the same Woody Allen parodies here the both by detractors and its defenders. For the idea of counseling, highlighting the absurdity of artists, the postmodern seems to imply the solutions pushed to potential limitations. ransacking the image reserves of the past in order to reveal the history of representations on Phantom of the Paradise (1974) which their parody draws our attention. In terms Postmodern parody evokes what of happily chosen by Abigail Solomon-Gode promoters of the reception theory call (1984), the modernist 'ready mades' of Duchamp expectation horizon of the spectator consisting became 'already mades' in postmodernism. But of recognizable conventions of genre, style or this parodic replay of the past of the art is not form of representation. This horizon of nostalgic, but always critical, it is not ahistorical expectation is then destabilized and dismantled
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 step by step. It is no accident, of course, that Simulacrum irony was often rhetorical vehicle of satire. Even In an article entitled 'The precession of a parody relatively ' light' such as Brian De simulacra', Baudrillard argued that reality had Palma's film Phantom of the Paradise, gives a been subsequently neutralized by the media who version of irony working with satire and first reflected it, then masked and distorted it, selecting anything as target from sexism of Hugh and then it had to hide its absence, and finally Hefner harems type (Swan's – ironic echoes produced instead the simulacrum of reality, perhaps of Du côté chez Swann) to the destroying meaning and any relationship with interpellation movie star by the public and his reality. (Linda Hutcheon, Politica taste for the extremes. This vehicle of this satire postmodernismului) is the multiple parody: from The Bird Man of "The fact that the simulacrum became Alcatraz – is transported to Sing Sing , to Psycho the emblematic figure of postmodern culture is – the knife is replaced by a waterpipe plunger largely a consequence of the increasing and the female victim by a male, to The Portrait instability of fronteers between formerly distinct Dorian Gray – the portrait is upgraded as video areas. The simulacrum is significant for the tape. Despite the obvious entertainment, we are postmodern culture also because ambiguities and dealing with a film (...) about the representation issues associated with it have become relevant in of the original subject and originary as artist, the contemporary cultural situation. The about the dangers, the victims, the consequences. Fundamental questions to which the narrative Its major intertexts are Faust and the previous and visual art in contemporary culture of the film, The Phantom of the Opera, here transcoded simulacrum must answer no longer deal with the in terms of rock music. This latter parodied text old metaphysical problems related to the origin, can explain the details, otherwise unmotivated the legitimacy and the identity. Once with the like organ notes of the piano interpretation of the advent of the show society, the focus moves to protagonist from the beginning of the film. Faust the pragmatical or 'existential' questions aiming parody is as declared, because the ghost writes the relationship of the images with the rock inspired by the subject of the dramatic audience." (...) "The media is now a vital poem. And, of course, the pact with the demonic element of our ability to interpret and reinvent Swann is signed in blood. (Linda Hutcheon, our world. In Whillock's opinion, the film (along Politica postmodernismului) with the TV set and the computer) amended the contemporary discourse, changing completely Spaceballs (1987) the concept of reality. The same position is "A new prank by which Brooks (in the reinforced also by postmodernists constantly double role as king and wizard) strokes against stating that we live in a world where images the hair, this time, the habits of interplanetary SF proliferate independently of the existence of aiming openly in the Space Wars and George references to the "real" world. One of the Lucas routine. The stereotypes of the fairytale primary effects of the fact that the film for children are added to the modern insinuates easily in the minds of viewers is its technological jargon and...the SF masterpiece is ability to convince them of the 'reality' of the ready! In addition, the garlands of allusions for images produced artificially. The illusory quality moviegoers’use from Snow White, where hooded of the film facilitates the identification of the dwarves sing in the choir of the Bridge on the viewer with the images on the screen: in these River Kwai, spectres from the Planet of the images, the viewers perceive alternative Apes, references to Lawrence of Arabia in the 'realities', including identities that can be desert planet. "(Tudor Caranfil – Dicţionar adopted temporarily or possibilities to project universal de filme, 2002) desires." (Mihaela Constantinescu Post/postmodernismul: Cultura The Big Lebowski (1997) divertismentului) "The Coen Brothers invent extravagant situations, distort waggishly any situation no Sex, lies and videotape (1989) matter how dramatic, coating everything with "A remarkable picture of mores political allusions and references to depicting an obsessed world, invaded by lies, cinematographic myths cinema." (Tudor Caranfil which contemplates itself on the video. The – Dicţionar universal de filme, 2002) video man is not a mere maniac of voyeurism, but a therapist, a psychoanalyst who frees
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014 women from their sexual anxieties." (Tudor thousands of cameras hidden everywhere. Life is Caranfil – Dicţionar universal de filme, 2002) a television series broadcast live – a series that, as the producer says, 'gives hope and joy and "All characters of the film are inspiration to millions of viewers.' This is postmodern simulacra. They have become because the audience got bored watching actors sexual objects and images." (Asim Ratan Ghosh, interpreting false emotions. The simulacrum of a www.geocities.com-postmodernism- cruel reality, not staged, is a much more andcinema/pmincin.html) interesting entertainment. The symbolic order is already established: the reality is a construction, Wag the Dog (1997) and Truman, at first innocent, suddenly becomes "Wag the Dog confirms that we live in aware that he is the subject of a conspiracy an age where the simulacrum undermined which is recorded and consumes life live. permanently the reality. The character played by Afterwards, inflamed with paranoia and having Robert De Niro has to make a story to divert confirmation of the storyline that determines his media attention from the sex scandal involving existence, Truman escapes from the symbolic the U.S. President. He decides to ooze out order of the film, in the 'more real' reality information that denies the existence of serious beyond the movie set, of the imaginary and real problems in Albania (a country chosen public of the film 'The Truman Show' – a virtual arbitrarily, relying on the total lack of construction as the one he left. [...]" (Mihaela knowledge of the American public about the Constantinescu Post/postmodernismul: Cultura Balkans) and the possibility that U.S. troops be divertismentului) sent there.[...] He has to hire a successful producer from Hollywood to stage the war: he Metacinema knows what it is catchy and what it is not, who It brings out not only the formation can write the script the best, direct pictures, process of subjectivity, but also of the narration compose the distribution, when and what kind of and the visual representation became the raw hero is needed to win the hearts of the public. matter of metacinema today. The postmodernist [...] The film provides an interesting contact version of this kind of self-reflexivity draws point between the 'realm of television' and the attention to the very act of production and postmodern theory on television textuality; it is reception of the film. (Linda Hutcheon, Politica about a 'fictional' artefact commenting a postmodernismului) phenomenon of the 'real' world which in its turn was literally dramatized in the end on the Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1984) American political scene. And the fact that in The fate of the characters of this film Albania there was no war but the one produced cross sensibly with the whole development of in Hollywood proves to match our universal cinema, on which the film opens new post/postmodern suspicions: there is nothing perspectives for interpretation. outside the house we live, the office building The nostalgic painting of splendor and where we work, the street that leads to the decay of the cinema show. A youth film, of a station subway or the car we drive each day, young man who shows he knew how to look at there is nothing beyond the orbit of our own Fellini and Monicelli. From traditional Italian planet or our own reality." (Mihaela melodrama and comedy he extracts a live film, Constantinescu Post / postmodernismul: Cultura full of ideas and excitement." (Tudor Caranfil – divertismentului) Dicţionar universal de filme, 2002)
The Truman Show (1998) The Purple Rose from Cairo (1985) "The film – a parable of the power of "Who has not dreamed that the television to counterfeit the real world – shows characters of a movie come down the screen and that 'live' entertainment can successfully replace join him alive? Woody Allen develops here this reality, and the boundary between the two is not wonderful idea with a funny, human, poetic even necessary. The main character of the film, result, with a moving Mia Farrow. The Truman Burbank, is adopted at birth by a media denouement, the double detente, allows the conglomerate that employs two actors to be his author to save both lucidity and taste for parents. Thus Truman lives his whole life dreaming." (Bernard Rapp, Dictionnaire du without knowing, watched day and night by Cinema – Larousse)
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
The Player (1992) scene that sets up the protagonist, Neo, we "A captivating exercise of lucidity on discover he hid the haking programme in a copy contemporary Hollywood theme. The false of Jean Baudrillard’s book Simulacra and dilemma 'entertainment or trade' is solved by Simulation, a work which, despite its difficulties Altman in the natural context of trade. (...) The (both in terms of linguistics and rationale) had a director creates at the same time, suspense and major impact on the understanding of the era we comedy, (...) parable and political film, tragedy live in, an age that – for better or worse – has and happy end, playing the industry at its own been baptized 'postmodernism'." (...) What the game." (Tudor Caranfil – Dicţionar universal de Wachowski brothers undoubtedly manage to do filme, 2002) is to urge the public to think, which is quite unusual for a typical Hollywood product. They Deconstructing Harry (1997) allow the public to engage in a dialogue with Introducing deconstructivist work tools some of our era elite theorists of our in the postmodern equation (such as postmodernist era, and it resists the desire to unpredictability and "controlled" chaos), on the investigate through the film a mimetic and easy border with the fantastic, Woody Allen brings to 'reality' (as Cypher is able to see not codes, but ' the forefront of this film, against a creative jam blonde, brunettes and redheads'). The of the character-writer Harry Block, the mixture Wachowski brothers oblige us to identify of fiction and reality. Waiting for his writings to matrices that structure, manipulate and they be rewarded, Harry remembers events from his reproduce this reality, feeding our fantasies. past but also from his best-sellers, coming to be They always remind us of their always censoring invaded by the characters created joining the presence and the ability of the technology to ones in his past. The film speculates this very create new perceptions of reality (the innovative moment of breaking the boundary between footage when he avoids the bullets). They insist reality and illusion, a meta-vision of the creative on the cinematographic art and highlight the process itself. manipulative technology – we are addicted to – which show their vision: not only the role of Techno-culture/Cyborg reality, but also the reel becomes tangible. (Dino postmodernism Felluga, Matrix: Ştiinţă, filozofie şi religie) Blade Runner (1982) As a conclusion, can we imagine how Blade Runner is a utopia that combines postmodernism could end? And what it would futurism and decay, computer technology and become? It does not even have a well defined fetishism, urbanism and retro-styling, Los beginning, always "entangled" in modernism, as Angeles and Tokyo. Its 'tech-noir' quality was some features seem new but in reality they are repeated in countless novels, films, computer just taking over the advanced ideas of earlier games and other cultural objects, but none able styles, with changed meanings. Although the to match the impact of 'Blade Runner' in absence of a consensus on the general conceptualizing the future. (Mihaela characteristics of postmodernism is easy to note, Constantinescu Post/postmodernismul: Cultura we are dealing with a stable paradoxical element divertismentului) in its structure: the dissemination of speech in an amount of fragments that fight against coherent Matrix (1999) meanings! Furthermore postmodernism accepts "A combination, almost surreal, of unconditionally the transience, the discontinuity western, comic book, Kafka, Mortal Kombat, and the chaos; these are the signs of an ongoing ‘Sleeping Beauty’, John Woo, manga cartoons metamorphosis of the epoch it successfully and, why not, 'Alice in Wonderland'." (Michael represents. Currently, the researcher has no other Chirilov Cinema… un secol şi ceva, 2002) choice but to adopt himself the same Very few films that respect the postmodernist attitude, of acceptance... Hollywood canons make direct references to postmodernist theory such as Matrix. In the first Trans. Zenovia Popa
References Steven Connor (1999): Cultura postmodernă. O introducere în cultura contemporană, București: Ed. Meridiane Linda Hutcheon (1997): Politica postmodernismului, București: Ed. Univers.
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Jeffrey C. Alexander, Steven Seidman (coord.), 2001: Cultură şi societate. Dezbateri contemporane, Iaşi: Institutul European. Douglas Kellner (2001): Cultura media, Iaşi: Institutul European. Glenn Yeffeth (ed.2003): Matrix: Ştiinţă, filozofie şi religie, București: Ed. Amaltea. Gene Edward Veith (1996): Guide to Contemporary Culture, Crossway Books, Leicester. Mihaela Constantinescu (1999): Forme în mişcare: Postmodernismul, București: Ed. Univers Enciclopedic. Ion Manolescu (2003): Videologia. O teorie tehno-culturală a imaginii globale, Iaşi: Ed. Polirom Tudor Caranfil (2002): Dicţionar universal de filme, București/Chişinău: Ed. Litera Internaţional Cristina Corciovescu, Bujor T. Rîpeanu (2002): Cinema…un secol şi ceva, București: Ed. Curtea Veche. Ştefan Oprea, Anca-Maria Rusu (2002): Stelele Oscarului, vol. II, Iaşi: Ed. Junimea. Ioan Lazăr (1987): Teme şi stiluri cinematografice, București: Ed. Meridiane.
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