* 2007-2009
2008 film600 -- ?
Total Directing
Total Acting
What if, indeed, aesthetics serves actual experincing of film?

... filmplus.org/kino [ru] cine anthropology : new russian cinema

From SEMIOTICS
And semio americana?

"Cultural wars" semiotics & "political signs"

TV semiotics

Web semio -- web.vtheatre.net [ new page? ]

fiilmplus.org/politics

Ideology

wiki/Schizoanalysis & postmodernism [ pomo pages ]

Kristeva argues that anthropology and psychology, or the connection between the social and the subject, do not represent each other, but rather follow the same logic: the survival of the group and the subject.

New Visual Universe

...


Film-North * 2009 : cine101 * 2008 * kickapps.com/film-north
'Semiotics can best be defined as a science dedicated to the study of the production of meaning in society' (Elam:1984:1).

Film600
Film600: Wrong Subjects + Bad Theories

... Semiotics (study of signs) is only one of several methods we use in film classes. In Film & Drama the METHODOLOGY is introduced. The intensive use is required in Visions of the Northern Mind.

Most useful is structuralism, closely related to semiosis. Segmentation is a part of the process "taking cinema texts apart" -- next the analysis of the parts. Structural element are usually stripped of the social and cultural connotations. See it as a "data" -- a primitive example: count the number of closeups of protagonist and antagonist, count the zooms andwhere are they used, count of jumpcuts, cuts from CU to LS... Now the what numbers tell you.

Next -- look at the combinations of shots, or measure the duration. Without much thinking you could see that each film and filmmaker has its own preferences, which we usually describe as "style." You can examine the color, the repetitions and so on. Check when the cutaway shots are used -- and you are close to the question -- why?


Another popular method is psycho-analysis; most of you are familiar with the basic Freudian terminology. Useful for genre of drama. Widly used for Fellini's 8 1/2.

Woman as mother, sister, daughter, whore, madonna and all possible combinations. One-sex-world: Guido and women. Men are flat and functional, non-dramatic. He doesn't have relations with father, doesn't know him, can't selecvt the actor to play his father -- could be any old man.

Next -- ego, superego, libido. Relations with oneself. Auto-erotics. How does the flesh presented? Images, symbols, numerous bath scenes (inlcuding naked archibishop).

Dreams and supression. Death and death-wish.



I do use Bakhtin's Dialogism, it proved to be very productive in frilm analysis.

Linked to the polyphonic principle: multi-vocal is easy translated into many themes (do you see th bar "topics"? the pages are not developed yet).

Dialogue within the text, between texts, with the reader/viewer and so on.

The power of this method is its implies Dialectics (and differs), therefore the Marxist Aesthetics could be introduced as well. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Spiral development (Eisenstein and montage).

If you do have time -- Foucault and Disciplines.

Cultural Studies ask for more detailed analysis than traditional "historical" or "social" approaches. According to Foucault, the apparatus of control is a build-in mechanism in the state of "democracy" -- the power structure doesn't disappear, on the contrary, it's getting stronger.

How does it work inside? Film is the X-rays of filmmakers -- do you see the message? That is what we struggle the most in our film classes -- the ideas, the meaning. That's we strudy the "form"!


I do ask for indentification of the method you use and following the rules of it. If you want "A" -- do the basic research on terminology.

My rational is simple -- they will ask you do it in any decent graduate school, get ready. Second, it will help you to clear up your thought process. I believe in limitations...

Film Theory class (link)

Film Theory Links
Wide Angle: A Film Quarterly of Theory, Criticism, and Practice from USC.

Transparency: Mass Media, Visul Culture and Ideology.

LisztSelect: Film Theory Lists: Groups, Discussions.

Auther Theory: selling select books.

Cine-Tracks: Canadian Film Theory Journal.

Dramatica Theory of Story: for writers.

Open Directory Project:Movies: Theory & Criticism (needs an editor).

Film-Theory contact Page: subscribe!

Iconology & Movies: from Yale Press.

SOFIA links: from UK.

CinemaSpace: from Berkeley.


Voice of the Shuttle: Theory: including literature, the best!

English Server: one the best sources on the Internet, if not the best!


F-Theory: good personal page on movies and film.

100 Best in film history of the century * new'07 semio pages :

... [ menu ] and NOTES!

Summary

Links from Semio Online ****

Questions

goto : tarkovsky.wetpaint.com wiki
...


* 2005 updates => Film & Movies Class. Part III. Theory *

Questia: The Cognitive Semiotics of Film
WARREN BUCKLAND Liverpool John Moores University * Cambridge University Press, 2000

The Subject of Semiotics Book by Kaja Silverman; Oxford University Press, 1984


index * METHOD acting for directors * 200X Aesthetics * Film Dir * Theatre Books * Film Books * Theatre w/Anatoly * SHOWs * Script Analysis * Acting * Directing * Russian-American Theatre (RAT) * Film Links * Film Analysis * Biomechanics * Classes * VIRTUAL THEATRE * Mining Film: books & links * Book of Spectator * My Nonfiction (webtexts): Theology of Technology * POV * PostAmeriKa * Father-Russia * Bookmark vTheatre! Amazon * Mailing List & News -- subscribe yourself theorytheatre theory and Anatoly Blogs - Newsblog: anatoly-film

SEMIOTICS 101, part II

Bakhtin -- Script Analysis ... semi-semiotics w/anatoly

NEW'07:

** film.vtheatre.net/semio + film.vtheatre.net/doc/semio.ru

... the rest of semio-files will be @ filmplus.org/600, working on "bad theories and wrong subjects"...

... extention of my nonfiction projects POV and Theology of Technology

...

...

Bakhtin never wrote anything on film. NTL, many of his ideas are applicable to film theory. "Poetics of Dostoevsky" reads as if returns to literature after studying film -- dialogic and poliphonic princples, used by cinima as its mehtod and nature. Well, I have the same thoughts thinking about Bakhtin's philosophy and theatre...
Theory? It all depends what you mean by that! Most of my interests are in postmodern (New French) theories. But the birth of this personal interest to EVERYTHING theoretical began in school (my first degree in physics). Later it were Russian formalists and constructivists, and Lotman. Or it Bakhtin first? And so on... [ it will be in this new directory Film600: Bad Theories + Wrong Subjects = see this new flash banner! ]
что жизнь == синоним
небытия и нарушенья правил.
Brodsky ("Строфы", XVI, [1978])
Part I. Intro to Basics (go there and come back)
Lotman : film.vtheatre.net/doc/semio.ru (ru)

Intertextuality

[ must read Bakhtin ]
The semiotic notion of intertextuality is associated primarily with poststructuralist theorists. Each media text exists in relation to others. In fact, texts owe more to other texts than to their own makers. Texts are framed by others in many ways. Most obvious are formal frames: a television programme, for instance, may be part of a series and part of a genre (soap or sitcom). Our understanding of any individual text relates to such framings.

Genre theory: Within semiotics genres can be seen as sign systems or codes - conventionalized but dynamic structures. Each example of a genre utilises conventions which link it to other members of that genre.

Links also cross the boundaries of formal frames, for instance, in sharing topics with treatments within other genres (the theme of war is found in a range of genres such action-adventure film, documentary, news, current affairs). Some genres are shared by several media: the genres of soap, game show and phone-in are found on both television and radio; the genre of the news report is found on TV, radio and in newspapers; the advertisement appears in all mass media forms. Texts sometimes allude directly to each other as in 'remakes' of films, and in many amusing contemporary TV ads. Texts in the genre of the trailer are directly tied to specific texts within or outside the same medium. The genre of the programme listing exists within the medium of print (listings magazines, newspapers) to support the media of TV, radio and film. TV soaps generate substantial coverage in popular newspapers, magazines and books; the 'magazine' format was adopted by TV, radio and now by Web.

Each text exists within a vast "society of texts" in various genres and media: no text is an island entire of itself. A useful semiotic technique is comparison and contrast between differing treatments of similar themes (or similar treatments of different themes), within or between different genres or media....

We need genre study for the First Part. The Movies: what constitutes "action" movies, what is "drama" (call Aristotle for help: Structure Principles -- Plot, Character, Idea). Utopia and Distopia for Sci-Fi (traditions). FairyTales, mythology, types and architypes. Image, symbol and metaphore. Plot v. Story; where the genre comes into play? The dialects of relations between Plot + Character + Message. See script.vtheatre.net pages for the basics of the dramatic language. How does dramatic language express itself within filmic language? Color symbolism. (Select your favorite movie for analysis in class. Coloristic treatment in "God-Father" and "Terminator II" -- what's the difference? Yes, yes, this is semiotic too! Do the same with sound, rhythm and so on). The Main Genres, according to Aristotle (tragedy and comedy); can we follow the evolution and the birth of other genres?

[ Folks, I better use the Film600 and film.vtheatre.net pages in order not to overload this introductory page! ]

Questions for You and Me

Just a few...

Intertextuality

Does it allude to other genres? Does it allude to or compare with other texts within the genre? How does it compare with treatments of similar themes within other genres?
Very good book on genres by Michail Bakhtin, although he is not pure simiotician (see Bakhtin Page).

Foucault and Deleuze developed further this Bakhtin's thought that "meaning" is born only as intercourse between text and you, my dear reader. In film this is more true than ever, because spectator is the meaning machine, where the cinematic sentences are put together (montage and Kuleshov Effect). Also, should read on Dialogism (The Dialogic Imagination, U. of Texas ISBN 029271534X).

The problem. In order for us to cross the border into postmodern thinking we have to rethink our traditional understanding time and space. Bakhtin introduced the idea of Chronotope, where time can't be separated from space (Einstein 1905); even more -- space should be percieved within time nature (Deleuze, Cinema I & II). Why is this conceptual transition is important for understand film medium? Well, film doesn't really exists in space. (We have already a new more extereme phenomena -- "cyberspace"!) Space is refencial, camera and I share the same frame of references (experience of space, memories of spape -- and mortal life).

Anatoly, what are you talking about? The signs, aren't they in space?

Let me continue my drive-through-theory classes. Driving from Denver to Fort Collins (Xmas 2002); the intertextuality. Does the sign "exit -- Harmony Road" really exists? Not according to our dog in the back seat. Not, if you can't read English. In film I can understand only things I can put together (very much like in every other linguistic forms). That's why you textbook (Monaco) has a title "How to READ a Film"! "Harmony Road"? Oh, we still need words! We are not ready yet for angelic visions. We must watch more movies!

The point is that meaning can't exist without context, without interactions of many texts.

I hope that you understand now that Anatoly and the dog are two different texts.

...Unfortunatelly, I have no time to write about dog's film theory and his analysis on the way from Denver to Fort Collins.