Film Semiotics

Poter accedere a qualsiasi immagine, in qualsiasi momento, in qualsiasi luogo. I nuovi media prospettano straordinarie vie di fruizione. Ma come orientarsi in questo scenario? La nostra cultura visuale è capace di tenere il passo della tecnologia? Questo libro racconta come il cinema, ben prima dell'avvento della tecnologia digitale, abbia saputo accogliere immagini provenienti da archivi pubblici e privati: dai rapporti con la pittura al foundfootage, dalla pratica del remake all'intermedialità. Molte volte assegnato al compito di produrre un calco del "reale", il film costituisce piuttosto uno spazio del pensiero nel quale si rielaborano le immagini del passato e si rigenerano i materiali "usurati" della cultura. Se i nuovi media invitano lo spettatore a manipolare le immagini e non semplicemente a osservarle, è dunque a partire dalle lezioni di montaggio offerte da maestri come Godard e Herzog, Sokurov e Van Sant, Pasolini e Moretti, che diventa possibile assumere un ruolo attivo e consapevole nell'orizzonte estetico e mediatico contemporaneo.

The semiotics of the face studies the meaning of the human face in contemporary visual cultures. There are two complementary research foci: widespread practices of face exhibition in social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tinder; and minority practices of occultation, including the mask in anti-establishment political activism (Anonymous) and the veil in religious dressing codes. The meaning of the human face is currently changing on a global scale: through the invention and diffusion of new visual technologies (digital photography, visual filters, as well as software for automatic face recognition); through the creation and establishment of novel genres of face representation (the selfie); and through new approaches to face perception, reading, and memorization (e.g., the ‘scrolling’ of faces on Tinder). Cognitions, emotions, and actions that people attach to the interaction with one’s and others’ faces are undergoing dramatic shifts. In the semiotics of the face, an interdisciplinary but focused approach combines visual history, semiotics, phenomenology, visual anthropology, but also face perception studies and collection and analysis of big data, so as to study the social and technological causes of these changes and their effects in terms of alterations in self-perception and communicative interaction. In the tension between, on the one hand, political and economic agencies pressing for increasing disclosure, detection, and marketing of the human face (for reasons of security and control, for commercial or bureaucratic purposes) and, on the other hand, the counter-trends of face occultation (parents ‘hiding’ their children from the Internet, political activists concealing their faces, religious or aesthetic veils, writers and artists like Bansky or Ferrante choosing not to reveal their identity), the visual syntax, the semantics, and the pragmatics of the human face are rapidly evolving. The semiotics of the face carries on a comprehensive survey of this socio-cultural phenomenon.

Combinando enfoques filosóficos, semióticos y hermenéuticos, en el presente libro se realiza un análisis de diversas producciones audiovisuales que tienen como temática central al narcotráfico. Se trata de un escrito colectivo donde las distintas voces y perspectivas se amalgaman en una sola preocupación: pensar el fenómeno narco. En la introducción se abordan diversos aspectos metodológicos, semióticos y ontológicos presupuestos en el análisis de los discursos audiovisuales, se realiza un breve repaso del contexto en el que tiene lugar el narcotráfico y del impacto en la cultura mexicana del narcorrido. En estas piezas musicales ya están presentes la mayoría de los elementos que conformaran los estereotipos de la narcocultura. En el primer capítulo se presenta una contraposición entre la manera de narrar la vida de Pablo Escobar en NARCOS y en PABLO ESCOBAR, EL PATRÓN DEL MAL, que invita a repensar los intereses de quienes crean y distribuyen estas producciones audiovisuales. En el segundo capítulo, a propósito de BREAKING BAD, se analizan los fundamentos de lo legal y su necesidad de encaminar a los hombres hacia la justicia y la libertad. En el tercer capítulo se aborda la frágil y volátil contención que aportan el dinero, el poder y los símbolos del narcotráfico en EL CARTEL DE LOS SAPOS y SICARIO. Finalmente, en el cuarto capítulo, el filme PAULETTE es ocasión para pensar tanto las adicciones en una sociedad de consumo exacerbado como las arbitrariedades e inconsistencias de las políticas sobre drogas y demás delitos asociados con el narcotráfico.

Der Begriff des Interface kategorisiert die Ausprägungsstufen einer kommunikationsstabilisierenden Schnittstelle als Interaktionsmechanismus, wobei die Interaktion von maschinellen Komponenten (Hardware, Software) sowie die vielfältigen Interaktionen zwischen UserIn und Maschine zur Geltung gebracht werden.

Völlig neue Bild- und Erfahrungswelten versprechen die jüngsten Produkte der Medienindustrie ihren Usern. Euphorisch investieren Google, Microsoft und Co. Unsummen in digitale Medientechnologien wie Virtual-Reality-Displays. Jeder Blockbuster muss in 3D gedreht werden. Entwicklungen wie diese verdeutlichen nicht nur den hohen Stellenwert, der sowohl der technologischen Seite als auch den ästhetischen Strategien visueller Medien zukommt. Sie werfen auch eine Reihe von Fragen auf: Wie adressieren multimodale Medienarrangements die Sinne der Rezipienten? Welche Rolle spielen Technologie und Wahrnehmung bei der Modellierung von Bildwirkungen? Um diese Fragen zu beantworten, legt der vorliegende Band den Fokus auf die Analyse medialer Interfaces. Konzentrierte sich die Bewegtbilder-Reihe bislang auf den Film, widmet sich Bild und Interface auch interaktiven Digital- und Computerspielbildern. Dadurch sollen weitere Bausteine einer kritischen Bewegtbildwissenschaft herausgearbeitet werden.

Looking at a TV-series' poster is something that sparked interest in many of my class-mates. This paper uses theory on semiotics to go beyond what a film producer creates, and show another universe through static images. This was applied to a TV-series centred on a marginalised community, that of the bikers, namely "Sons of Anarchy". The reason why I chose to combine these two topics is to show the impact of an image, to the viewer, when that image gains symbolic meaning.

En los primeros años del siglo XXI, el documental mexicano ha incrementado sus niveles de producción, distribución y exhibición, llamando la atención de nuevos espectadores pues ha diversificado notablemente sus temas y ha aprovechado los recursos narrativos del cine de ficción. En casi todos los festivales de cine en el país hay un espacio para el documental. De hecho, algunos de los más prestigiosos están dedicados íntegramente al cine documental, y en ellos se presenta lo más destacado de la producción mundial. Se vuelve necesario dialogar desde la academia, con una mirada plural e interdisciplinaria, sobre los temas, las narrativas, los discursos, de esos documentales que en variadas formas representan las identidades, los intereses, las preocupaciones, las formas de vida en México; lo que precisamente tiene el lector en sus manos.

Representation, Semiotics and Symbol in Cinema: The Example of The Movie "PK" Öz İnsanlar dünyaya geldiği andan itibaren kendilerini ve diğerlerini anlamlandırmaya çalışır ve bu düşünme temsil sistemlerini oluşturur. Dünyada politik ve sosyal gücün tanımlanmasında temsil, etkin bir rol oynamaktadır. Temsiller, ideolojik durumlara göre; çok kültürlülük, melezlik, ötekileştirme bağlamında çeşitlilik göstermektedir. Bu çalışmanın konusu; çok kültürlülüğün sinemada temsili ve göstergebilimin bu temsilin kurulmasındaki etkisidir. Sinemanın kültürler arasındaki farklılıkları belirginleştirme veya diyalogları artırmadaki gücünün temelinde, temsil yer almaktadır. Dolayısıyla sinema temsili, farklı ideoloji, inanç ve görüşleri anlamak için önemli bir işleve sahiptir. Sinema göstergebilimi, temsillerin kurulmasında yalnızca dilsel değil görsel olarak da etkilidir. Bu çalışmada sırasıyla; çok kültürlülük ve Hindistan, sinemada çok kültürlülüğün temsili ve Hint filmlerinde din ve temsil, sinema göstergebilimi ve sembol konusuna değinilmiştir. Çok kültürlülük ve temsil kavramı, kültürel çalışmalarda farklı biçimlerde kullanılmaktadır. Burada konu kapsamı gereği çok kültürlülük ve temsil, toplumsal çeşitlilik ve Saussure ve Peirce'le ilişkilendirilen anlamıyla kullanılmaktadır. Çalışmanın örneklemi olan Hint filmi Peekay (PK) (Peekay, Rajkumar Hirani, 2014) göstergebilim yöntemiyle, Saussure'ün gösterge-gösteren-gösterilen kavramları ile Peirce'ün simge kavramına göre çözümlenmeye çalışılmıştır. Sonuç olarak; dini temalı bir film olan PK'de, Hindistan'ın dinsel çeşitliliğine ilişkin göstergelerin sıklıkla kullanıldığı görülmüştür. PK filminde kullanılan soyut, sözel ve görsel semboller birbirleriyle anlamlı bir bütünlük içinde yer almaktadır. Böylelikle, film temsilinin farklı toplulukların kimliklerini anlama ve inşasında önemli bir etkisi olduğu düşünülürse, filmin bu açıdan göstergelerin gücünden etkin bir şekilde faydalandığı söylenebilir.

《電影符號學：從古典到數位時代（新版）》是電影理論工作者齊隆壬長期研究的成果，詳細耙梳並剖析符號學的發展源流與變革，以及著名學者的理論，如索緒爾、李維史陀、羅蘭巴特、皮爾斯等。接著帶出電影理論的關鍵人物──克利斯蒂安．梅茲，闡釋他如何把符號學，以及相關領域如語言學、結構主義、精神分析運用至電影分析，奠定電影符號學在電影理論界的重要地位。也因電影符號學涵蓋的範圍甚廣，而讓電影分析有了更多可能性。除了回顧西方符號學與電影符號學的理論與沿革，作者也把討論拉回台灣與中國大陸，介紹電影符號學在兩岸的發展脈絡與特點。

　　在理論層面之外，作者也引用許多影片分析的範例，清楚說明電影符號學是如何應用於電影研究之中。而近來電影科技日新月異，已進入數位電影時代，因此第九章即在討論電影由膠卷轉為數位影像的變革，除了提及古典電影如《波坦金戰艦》、《月球之旅》等必會出現的經典例子，更舉《阿凡達》、《全面啟動》、《雨果的冒險》為例，把電影符號學理論連結至最新的影片發展上。

　　電影符號學雖看似古典，在現今的數位環境中非但沒有過時，反而受到電影理論學者大量援用，依然能夠提供理論架構和基本論點。而本書由符號學的發展開始，一直到電影符號學與數位電影的連結，提供了全面且獨到深入的見解，堪稱是近期電影理論的重量級著作，研究電影者不可不看！

The primary hypothesis of this paper is that recent years have seen a shift from digital advertising to post-advertising: thanks to the growing role of machine learning algorithms in communicational processes, advertising has been losing the character of explicitly persuasive addresses to assume that of friendly and open proposals and advice, or even the simple facilitation of everyday purchasing practices. The paper seeks to understand if and under what conditions the socio-semiotic and semio-pragmatic approaches developed in relation to traditional advertising can still be applied to post-advertising phenomena. The paper is divided into three parts. In the first one, the advent of the post-advertising condition is considered. In the second one, Amazon's Alexa, an example of a post-advertising dispositive, is analyzed. In the third part, the question of the use of traditional semiotic concepts and methods for the analysis of post-advertising is examined. The final answer to this question is affirmative, but on the condition that some new conceptual and methodological tools be introduced.

An International, Interdisciplinary Conference Organized by


SILC, Semiotic Interdisciplinary Laboratory on Cultures, Shanghai University and University of Turin

Co-Sponsored by

The Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

CIRCE, the Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Communication, University of Turin, Italy

The European Research Council (This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 819649 – FACETS).

Las fronteras tienen caras. No se trata solamente de atributos metafóricos, en el sentido de partes del espacio que una comunidad organizada dirige y muestra hacia lo exterior, sino de caras físicas, humanas, que contribuyen al funcionamiento semiótico de las fronteras como dispositivos creadores de comunicación espacial, geográfica, y política. Por un lado, las fronteras están habitadas por las caras de los hombres y de las mujeres que protagonizan estos entornos espaciales, o sea porque los presidian, o sea porque quieren cruzarlos, o incluso desafiarlos y destruirlos. Por otro lado, las caras se vuelven de sujetos objetos, a la vez en la iconografía de las fronteras (pinturas, fotografías, videos, películas, imágenes digitales) y en el control más y más automático de sus entornos. ¿Qué hacen las máquinas con las caras en las fronteras? ¿Quién está detrás de estos dispositivos de control bio-político, y qué forma de poder expresa? ¿De qué manera la pandemia de COVID-19 ha cambiado la presencia de las caras en las fronteras y el control que las máquinas ejercen sobre ellas? ¿En qué medida se desarrolla el proyecto bio-político de un control de las emociones que las caras expresan en el espacio físico, geográfico, y político de la frontera? ¿Nos espera un futuro en el que los dispositivos de control de las fronteras leerán en nuestros rostros no solamente nuestras identidades civiles, sino también nuestras emociones?

Uvod Kad se javi neka nova teorijska struja, reakcije na nju pretežno su dvojake. Poneki u novoj teorijskoj struji razabiru nov kut gledanja i nove probleme, te im to otvara plodne teorijske perspektive. Ponuđena teorijska rješenja shvaćaju tek kao radna rješenja koja treba podvrći provjeri, dotjerivanju, mijenjanju i razradi. Količina neriješenih problema i njihova složenost ih ne straši već potiče na zdušniji teorijski rad. Drugi, međutim, pokušat će shvatiti novu teoriju na temelju njenih trenutačnih dostignuća i teorijskih rješenja. Ako su ta rješenja na razini dotadašnjeg razmišljanja i ako su ponegdje plodna, odat će priznanje novoj teoriji. Ali ako to ova nisu i ako su teorijski problemi uglavnom neriješeni i empirijski nepoduprti, bit će skloni odbaciti novu teorijsku struju kao nekorisnu. I jedan i drugi pristup je koristan po novu struju. Prvi, jer djelatno razvija njene teorijske mogućnosti, nastojeći je poboljšati. Drugi, jer svojom skepsom i odmakom britko upozorava na neriješene probleme nove struje i tako ne dozvoljava površnost i nesamokritičnost koja je ponekad pratilja početnog poleta u formiranju nove teorijske struje. Uvođenje semiotičke struje u razmišljanje o filmu aktiviralo je obje ove reakcije. Semiotika je doista postala zaraznom teorijskom strujom, u koju su se mnogi uključili, nadahnuti njenim perspektivama. Ali je izazvala i kritičke vanjske reakcije u onih koji u postojećim semiološkim radovima nisu uspijevali pronaći prihvatljiva i plodna rješenja, već samo komplikaciju i programatska preuveličavanja. Premda je diskusija između ova dva stava bila implicitna od njihova formiranja, postala je izričita a ponegdje i objedinjena tek od nedavno, i to posebno prodorom semiologije na anglosaksonsko područje. Danas, semiologija filma, premda još uvijek ne posve oformljena, nije više u zelenoj mladosti. Iza nje je već petnaestak i više godina praktičnog teoretiziranja, te ima dovoljno materijala da se na njemu pokušaju svesti računi, da se pokuša općenito raščistiti status semiologije u tradiciji teorije filma. To ću pokušat učiniti u ovom tekstu. Tipovi teoretiziranja o filmu Povratno promatrajući povijest teoretiziranja o filmu, može se razlučiti nekoliko tendencija. One nisu međusobno isključive nego, štoviše, dosta vezane, ali opet i dovoljno različite i razmjerno neovisne da bi se o njima moglo posebno govoriti. Korisno je, tako, razlikovati dva globalna trenda u razmišljanju o filmu: filozofiju filma i empirijsku teoriju filma ili filmologiju. 1
Tekst je izvorno objavljen 1981. (Zbornik trećeg programa Radio Zagreba, br. 6/1981, str. 137-145, Zagreb: Radio Zagreb), pretiskan je u knjizi Turković, Hrvoje. 1986. Strukturalizam, Semiotika, Metafilmologija-Metodloške rasprave; Zagreb: Filmoteka 16; te u mrežnom izdanju te knjige-kao e-knjiga: Turković, Hrvoje. 2012. Strukturalizam, Semiotika, Metafilmologija. Metodološke rasprave. Zagreb: Društvo za promicanje književnosti na novim medijima; https://elektronickeknjige.com/biblioteke/online/strukturalizam-semiotika-metafilmologija/

David Lynch’s “Lost Highway” and “Mulholland Drive”, the classic products of postmodern culture, carry multiple interpretations and senses within their plots. Unlike other works, these two films exploit absurd, one of the most prominent instruments of modernity, adjusting it to current realities by disguising it as complex but logical narrative. On the one hand, researchers of absurd note its current decline due to abolition of binary oppositions, which has made the concept of common sense and, thus, possibility of opposing anything to it, ungrounded. On the other – while analyzing the works of modernist writers in his “Logic of sense”, Deleuze comes to the conclusion that absurd in this sense plays a rather different role than in so-called philosophy of absurd: if for Camus absurd is attributed to lack of sense, for an absurdist like Lewis Carroll it, on the contrary, signifies surplus of multiple senses. Thus, the abovementioned films represent a bundle of multiple readings, often conflicting, but never falling apart into incoherent stories. The concept of Umberto Eco’s “opera aperta” acquires different geometry here – multiple senses do not lie parallel to each other, from depthless to deeper readings, but constantly intersect, deflect and change directions. Lynch intentionally puts contradictions into each interpretation to let the viewer to assemble multiple senses as a puzzle over and over, configuring unique interpretations each time. The plot structure is conceived in such a way that each of the interpretations would be insufficient and tangled with others.

This paper analyzes the so-called "augmented reality filters" (ARF), a technology that makes it possible to produce and spread widely on social media a particular type of video selfies that are manipulated live while filming-for example, by modifying the somatic characters of the producer's face. The first part of the paper analyzes ARFs in the light of a socio-semiotics of dispositives. This approach makes it possible to identify three interconnected aspects of ARFs: their technological consistency, which is closer to mixed reality than to augmented reality; their socio-psychological uses, and in particular personal identity construction through body image manipulation; and finally, their economic-political implications, linked to face recognition and social surveillance. The second part of the paper focuses on the marketing uses of ARFs and, in particular, on branded ARFs transforming users' faces. In these cases, the radical involvement of brands in defining the identity of users requires a profound rethinking of the mechanisms of trust that bind them to consumers.

Repetition is a staple of cinematic practice. From the Russian Montage School to the French New Wave, repetition has been used for a variety of reasons, from adding a poetic touch to a scene, to highlighting certain aspects pertaining to its content. This paper will focus on the device of cinematic repetition, more specifically, on single-shot repetition within the same sequence, in an attempt to ascertain its metareferential potential. The inquiry will be both semiotic and narratological in nature, but with an added focus on notions derived from film theory. It will employ Werner Wolf's theoretical model of metareferentiality, understood (1) as a particular type of self-reference (the opposite of all instances of heteroreference-i.e. all manner of references to the 'reality' outside of the representation), and (2) as an umbrella-term for all manner of instances that, in one way or another, produce a higher-level discursive statement on the work that contains them (or, indeed, on the entire medium). The prime aim of this paper will be to demonstrate the relevance of such a technique in the context of metareferential cinema. Thus, I shall take into account various examples of such instances of multiple repetitions of cinematic shots. My prime interest will be one of the most notorious metafilmic parodies of all time: Spaceballs (1987), directed by Mel Brooks-a spoof of the sci-fi blockbuster, Star Wars (1977).

Il cinema, la televisione e gli altri media audiovisivi costituiscono uno dei grandi serbatoi di storie della nostra contemporaneità. Ma come fanno un film, una fiction, o anche uno spot pubblicitario a raccontarci le loro storie? In che modo essi ci avvincono, ci emozionano, ci trasmettono valori e visioni del mondo? E, più in generale, quali sono i meccanismi narrativi e le caratteristiche specifiche del racconto audiovisivo? Attraverso una rilettura chiara, ma insieme problematizzante, delle teorie semiotiche e degli apporti metodologici che ci vengono dalla narratologia e dalla semiotica del testo il presente volume tenta di individuare una serie di strumenti utili a comprendere ed indagare il meccanismi di senso delle immagini in movimento. E insieme vuole ribadire la necessità di riprendere e approfondire una serie di questioni teoriche forse troppo superficialmente lasciate in disparte, in un momento in cui gli sviluppi nel sistema dei media e le recenti forme di narrazione e di fruizione inter e transmediale esigono di ridiscutere categorie acquisite e impongono nuove riflessioni.

En correspondencia con la reflexión metadiscursiva del discurso cinematográfico, uno de los planteamientos creativos más recurrentes en los años de transición entre los siglos XX y XXI, la película Shrek recupera, para invertirlos, ciertos motivos arquetípicos que han definido tanto la tradición del cuento popular como sus más conocidas manifestaciones fílmicas. Ello genera, a nivel de historia y de discurso, una profunda reflexión en torno a los parámetros creativos que, en última instancia, pone de manifiesto las estrechas relacionas transtextuales, en el macrotexto cultural, que imbrican la herencia mítica y la tradición literaria con el discurso de las industrias culturales de la sociedad postmoderna.

ABSTRACT In relation with the metadiscursive reflection of the cinema discourse, one of the most recurrent creative approaches during the transitional years between the 20 th and 21 st centuries is recovered by the film Shrek to reverse certain archetypical motifs that define both the tradition of the popular short story and their most famous filmic expressions. Conceming the story and the discourse, a deep reflection around its creative parameters is generated. It, ultimately, shows how the cióse transtextual relations, in the cultural macrotext, make the mythical heritage and the literary tradition overlap with the discourse of the postmodern cultural industries.

Negli ultimi due decenni gli spettatori di serie televisive si sono abituati alla presenza di un nuovo genere di protagonista, certamente non tradizionale. Si tratta di personaggi spesso asociali, antipatici, cattivi e moralmente discutibili che vengono definiti genericamente antieroi. Ma perché ci appassioniamo alle vicende di Tony Soprano, di Dexter Morgan, di Walter White o di Ciro Di Marzio? Attraverso quali meccanismi gli sceneggiatori ci portano ad accettare e spesso a giustificare le loro azioni criminali o comunque eticamente scorrette? Una questione la cui risposta coinvolge le relazioni tra etica ed estetica, tra narratologia e semiotica, tra Cognitive Media Theory e Television Studies. Il volume definisce in primo luogo le peculiarità delle diverse tipologie di protagonista antieroico, delle sue diverse sfumature e caratterizzazioni, per poi esplorare il panorama degli studi dedicati all’argomento dei rough heroes, di quegli eroi che sono dei “duri”, degli “amabili cattivi”. Le teorie illustrate sono inoltre messe alla prova applicandole ad alcune produzioni della recente serialità televisiva italiana, come L’ispettore Coliandro, Romanzo criminale. La serie e il discusso Gomorra. La serie.

Análisis textual del universo Tim Burton. Escenas Fantasmáticas.

Análisis de varias escenas de la filmografía de Tim Burton acompañadas de
datos clave sobre el autor y sus influencias para el análisis de éstas.

Trabajo de Finde Grado para la consecución del Grado en Comunicación Audiovisual calificado con Matrícula de Honor.

Broullón-Lozano, Manuel A. “La Caza (Thomas Vinterberg, 2011). Una lectura desde la semiótica de la sospecha”. En Mancinas-Chávez, Rosalba y Nogales Bocio, Antonia Isabel (coords.) 2014. Actas del I Congreso Internacional Infoxicación: mercado de la información y psique. Sevilla: Ladecom, pp. 979-998.

Resumen: actualmente conviene hacer una distinción radical entre la sospecha
entendida como estado de alarma general ante los más leves indicios de manifestación
de un fenómeno y la sospecha como actitud metatextual. Esta última acepción relanza
a la semiótica (en el marco de la ciencia transmoderna) como la metodología crítica más
adecuada para elucidar conflictos entre realidades virtuales edificadas sobre pactos
comunicativos. Esta es la problemática que nos presenta La caza (Vinterberg, 2011) en
donde se nos invita a sospechar de la sospecha, a desconfiar del estado de alarma
social generado por una saturación informativa que no sería sino una mentira, “parecepero-
no-es”, construcción simbólica sobre una ausencia total de referencia.

Abstract: let us make a radical distinction between “to suspect” as a social alarm in front
of a phenomena’s index; and “to suspect” as a metatextual attitude which reloads
semiotics as the proper critic method for solving conflicts between virtual realities. Let us
point that this realities are based on the social agreements of communication. This is the
fact that we find on Thomas Vinterberg’s movie The Hunt (2011) where we are invited to
suspect around the suspicions, to mistrust on the stament of social alarm where we find
an infomational overload. On semiotics we may name this phenomena as a lie, “itseems-
but-it-is-not”, which is built on a general absence of reference.

Gataka predstavlja umetnički prikaz distopijske vizije budućnosti u kojoj je genetski inženjering ljudi postao deo svakodnevice. Kroz analizu načina na koji su u ovom filmu upotrebljeni motivi diskriminacije i invalidnosti, razmatraju se šire društvene implikacije razvoja nauke na shvatanje ljudskosti u zapadnoj kulturi. U radu se raspravlja o argumentaciji ideje da modifikacija gena znači prisvajanje uloge Tvorca i traže se odgovori na pitanje šta znači biti čovek u genetski determinisanom svetu. Osvetljava se problem novih vidova diskriminacije u potencijalnom post-rasnom društvu i ispituje mogućnost dostizanja autentičnosti i slobode stvaranja sopstvenog identiteta u društvu u kome su dizajnirani ljudi norma. Konačno, predstavljene su ideje i zaključci brojnih autora koji su se bavili svetom Gatake i ponuđen je novi ugao posmatranja koji stavlja akcenat na religijsku simboliku u filmu, iznenađujuće zanemareni motiv u dosadašnjim analizama.
Ključne reči: antropologija filma; genetski inženjering; diskriminacija; invalidnost; autentičnost; hrišćanska simbolika

Le sujet de ce travail est le rôle du son dans le cinéma d’animation, à  partir du concept d’audio-vision. Ce concept, provenant du théoricien Michel Chion, exprime une activité ou une modalité de la perception qui s’active –est qui est la face subjective– des produits audiovisuels qui dans le cas de l’animation donnent lieu à des expériences singulières. Le lieu de rencontre entre ces instances est la scène sémiotique d’une expérience de sens où une forme de textualité (résultat d’une écriture sonore et visuelle) inscrite dans un support matériel s’active et rencontre un corps vivant, qui la transforme en un récit audiovisuel, ou bien aussi en une pure expérience corporelle, rythmique ou vibratoire, qui est aussi une forme de sens. Cette scène pratique est comprise d’après le concept de dispositif, provenant de la théorie filmique, mais ici liée à la théorie de l’énonciation. Pour aborder cette scène si complexe, j’ai choisi de mettre l’accent sur un aspect particulier : le son, l’écoute, et les approches sémiotiques que se sont occupées de cette dimension de l’expérience perceptive, notamment la sémiotique du son.

Pour tester cette approche, dans cette thèse on fait des analyses pratiques d’un type de productions animées que, selon le critère, on peut appeler « indépendantes », « expérimentales », ou même « abstraites » : les courts métrages animés de Norman McLaren et de Mirai Mizue. Néanmoins, pour éloignées que semblent ces productions de l’animation traditionnelle on va proposer qu’à la base de toutes ces productions il y a un même dispositif et un même type de pratique (dans le sens  sémiotique du terme), un « faire technique » sur lequel on projettera des contenus divers (narratifs, dynamiques, musicaux, énergétiques).

The subject of this work is the role of sound in animation, from the concept of audio-vision. This concept, from theorist Michel Chion, expresses an activity or mode of perception that is activated –and that is is the subjective side- of audiovisual productions. In the case of animation this activity gives rise to unique experiences. The meeting point between these aspects is the semiotic scene of a meaningful experience, where a form of textuality (the result of an aural and a visual writing) registered in a physical medium, is activated by a living body. This experience is interpreted as an audio-visual narrative, or as a pure physical experience of rhythm and vibration, which is also a form of sense. This practical scene is understood from the concept of ‘apparatus’, coined in the field of the film theory, but connected here with enunciation theory. To address this complex scene, I chose to focus on a particular aspect: sound and listening, from a semiotic perspective. To  test this approach, in this work I propose practical analysis of a type of animated productions that according to the criteria, can be called "independent", "experimental", or even "abstract": the animated films by Norman McLaren and Mirai Mizue. However, even if these productions seem very distant from traditional animated cinemaI propose that there is a unique type of apparatus for all animated productions, and the same type of practice (in the semiotic sense), a “technical doing” on which we project different kinds of content (narrative, dynamic, musical, energetics).

Declaring in an academic environment that one deals with semiotics of cinema, or with semiotics and cinema, is always a risk, often met with sceptical grimaces. The term “semiotics of cinema” evokes an era which is perceived as being antiquated, crystallized on the names of Eco
and Metz and on a structuralism which many, perhaps justly, consider outdated. The problem is not to be underestimated: if semiotics does not possess the tools with which to approach the cinema fully in its epistemic horizon, then it has failed from the start, since much of the sense we experience daily has a filmic basis. Asserting the death of semiotics of cinema thus amounts to endorsing the death of semiotics itself. It seems suicidal for a discipline to exclude itself from
one of the domains which it should regard as fundamentally preeminent. In order to overcome this impasse, therefore, it could be worth starting a programmed dialogue between the semiological apparatus and the instruments of film studies and aesthetics, abandoning a hegemonic
propensity which is anachronistic in this era of crisis of the human sciences. The purpose of my contribution is to propose some theoretical bridges that demonstrate how this debate would be fruitful in order to attest how semiotics has never been more alive.

Quello del disaster movie è un genere cinematografico oramai canonizzato, e in quanto tale soggetto a parodie, che si possono intendere come forme di spirito critico nei confronti di questa o quell’ideologia. La catastrofe come canone è in effetti il terreno di coltura perfetto per ideologemi, termine – oggi in disuso – che deriva dai formalisti russi (in primis Michail Bachtin) e che viene poi sviluppato lungamente da Julia Kristeva. Gli ideologemi si potrebbero pensare come delle tracce di ideologia nella grana del testo in quanto dispositivo intrinsecamente intertestuale, e per di più connesso a un determinato contesto socio-storico. Il compito di parodia, burla, satira, farsa, scimmiottatura, e così via, è proprio quello di disinnescare l’ideologema, paradossalmente massimizzandone la presenza fino alla sua degenerazione (una sorta di sistematica reductio ad absurdum). Tali esercizi pertanto si configurano come pratiche metatestuali, che individuano le zone che del testo sanciscono il genere per enfatizzarne il più possibile i meccanismi, allo scopo di renderli visibili. Si tratta, nella fattispecie, di individuare quella “tensione del desiderio” che per Žižek è il motivo ricorrente del piacere tratto dall’ideologia. Nell’era dunque della consacrazione della catastrofe come euristica imputata all’interpretazione di molti fatti del mondo, spesso in misura aberrante (si pensi ai cospirazionismi programmatici del web), è quanto mai utile indagare le forme della sua desacralizzazione. Ciò verrà fatto a partire dall’analisi di una serie di parodie della catastrofe cinematografica, con l’obiettivo di individuare nel tragicomico catastrofico, e nelle risate che ne derivano, la presa di coscienza del tessuto ideologico che soggiace al canone.

"L' Epoca Lucas" è l' epoca che ha contraddistinto la genesi e lo sviluppo della saga Star Wars prima dell' era Disney, e nel contempo è anche l' epoca che porta, proprio grazie a Lucas, la rivoluzione digitale nel mondo del cinema. Il saggio utilizza il cinema d'animazione quale inedita chiave di lettura della saga e della figura del suo autore, e offre una analisi inedita e approfondita degli aspetti sociologici, estetici e simbolici di un  fenomeno culturale globale che può essere considerato il primo esempio di storytelling  transmediale e di cinema postmoderno.  Testo corredato di note, cronologia comparata e glossario cinematografico.

'Eraserhead' (1977), directed by David Lynch, has intrigued and interested film critics for decades. A cinematic puzzle, David Lynch successfully creates a surreal and dystopian world through Eraserhead. With its twisted plotline and ambiguous subject matter, very few cinema enthusiasts have successfully maneuvered through the movie's diegesis. Lynch, who is largely considered the best postmodern filmmaker of all time, manages to create a reel enigma through 'Eraserhead'. This paper makes a dedicated attempt at deconstructing the movie using the auteur and psychoanalytical film theories. It also finds out the ingrained themes used by Lynch in designing the nightmarish and hallucinatory world of 'Eraserhead'. In doing so, the paper critically dissects all the cinematic elements used by the auteur. There is also an ingrained objective to highlight the psyche of the director in making this cinematic quagmire.

Film Worlds unpacks the significance of the “worlds” that narrative films create, offering an innovative perspective on cinema as art. Drawing on aesthetics and the philosophy of art in both the continental and analytic traditions, as well as modern and contemporary film theory, it weaves together multiple strands of thought and analysis to provide new understandings of filmic representation, fictionality, expression, self-reflexivity, style, and the full range of cinema’s affective and symbolic dimensions.

Always more than “fictional worlds” and “storyworlds” on account of cinema’s full perceptual, cognitive, and affective nature, film worlds are theorized as immersive and transformative artistic realities. As such, they are capable of fostering novel ways of seeing, feeling, and understanding experience. Engaging with the writings of Jean Mitry, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Christian Metz, David Bordwell, Gilles Deleuze, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, among other thinkers, Film Worlds extends Nelson Goodman’s analytic account of symbolic and artistic “worldmaking” to cinema, expands on French philosopher Mikel Dufrenne’s phenomenology of aesthetic experience in relation to films and their worlds, and addresses the hermeneutic dimensions of cinematic art. It emphasizes what both celluloid and digital filmmaking and viewing share with the creation and experience of all art, while at the same time recognizing what is unique to the moving image in aesthetic terms. The resulting framework reconciles central aspects of realist and formalist/neo-formalist positions in film theory while also moving beyond them and seeks to open new avenues of exploration in film studies and the philosophy of film.

ENDORSEMENTS

"A half-century after Jean Mitry's magisterial integration of classical film theory, Daniel Yacavone has done the same for its modern counterpart, managing not just to reconcile, but to recruit the extremes of cognitivism and of phenomenology for his prodigious satellite mapping of the terrae incognitae he rightly calls "Film Worlds." Without hyperbole or histrionics, Yacavone delivers a stable and progressive suite of concepts that address films as texts and as embodied affect, he has culled these from a balanced review of an impressive roster of film theorists as well as of the 20th century thinkers many of them have drawn on, some of whom, notably Nelson Goodman and Ernst Cassirer, have been waiting in the wing to contribute to a compelling vision like Yacavone's. That vision not only illuminates how films work but how they work on us, and even work for us."
-Dudley Andrew, Professor of Film and Comparative Literature, Yale University

"Yacavone's Film Worlds is a major reconsideration of the nature of aesthetic experience through the medium of cinema. Film Worlds offers new insights into the hermeneutical and phenomenological perspectives of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Mikel Dufrenne, as well as Nelson Goodman's concept of world-making. The book also presents a significant revision of our understanding of modern and contemporary film theory from Mitry and Metz to Bordwell and Deleuze. This brilliant and original work will be of interest to philosophers and film scholars alike."
-D. N. Rodowick, Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in the Division of the Humanities at the University of Chicago

"Yacavone articulates an approach to cinema that incorporates elements of various tendencies in current film theory -- including, chiefly, those of a broadly sociocultural bent, those focused on empirical studies and cognitive science, and those stressing the phenomenological dimension of spectatorship -- and to unite them via the concept of cinematic "worlds." His command of the theoretical literature is impressive, and his references to analytic and continental philosophy and film theory are wide-ranging and inclusive of most of the approaches adopted over the last century."
-Ronald Bogue, Distinguished Research Professor, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Georgia

Interview: http://www.cupblog.org/?p=15620#more-15620

Ari Folman’ ın yapımcı-yönetmen-yazar ve oyuncusu olduğu Waltz With Bashir (2008) filmi, ana karakter Folman’ ın Lübnan İç Savaşı’nda (1982) yaşadıklarını hatırlama çabasını konu etmektedir. Film, Folman’ ın ve arkadaşlarının yaşadığı psikolojik bunalımlara odaklanmaktadır. Film, sözlü tarih, canlandırma/drama ve belgesel sinemayı animasyon olarak sunmaktadır. Filmde, bireysel hafızanın yeniden inşası, kolektif bir çaba sonucunda gerçekleştirilmektedir. Rüyalar, itiraflar, anlatılamayanlar hafızanın yaşananlara karşı direnişini göstermektedir.
Filmin anlatısında bireysel travmalara odaklanıldığından çalışma, savaşa ilişkin yer verilmeyen ya da doğrudan anlatılmayan yönleri ortaya çıkarmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu amaçla, savaşın yıkımı ve yaşanılan toplumsal buhrana ne derecede yer verildiği değerlendirilecektir. Böylelikle çalışma, filmde Lübnan İç Savaşı’nın gizlenmiş, yok sayılmış ve ön plana çıkarılmış yanlarına dikkat çekecektir. Aynı zamanda filmde gerçeğin yeniden inşasına hangi yönde şekil verildiği tartışılacaktır.
Çalışmada farklı eleştirel yaklaşımlarla filmin içeriği okunmaya çalışılmıştır. Filme ait kültürel kimliği yansıtmada sosyolojik eleştiri yaklaşımı tercih edilmiştir. Gizlenmiş olan düşünceyi açığa çıkarmada ideolojik eleştiri ve geçmişi yeniden şekillendirme çabasını ortaya koymada tarihsel eleştiri yaklaşımı kullanılmıştır. Gizlenen anlatımların elemanlarını saptamada ise göstergebilimsel eleştiri yaklaşımlarından faydalanılmıştır.

"“You’ll never get away from me. Wherever you look, you’ll find one of my ads centre stage. I forbid you to be bored. I stop you thinking. The terrorist cult of the new helps me to sell empty space” (Beigbeder, 2002). Chillingly cynical as they are, these words spoken by Octave Parango, alter ego of the notoriously polemical French author and literary critic Frédéric Beigbeder before he was fired from Young & Rubicam following the publication of 99 Francs, at once capture the tone of the book from which they spring, but also tap into a rather more complex cultural discourse.

Indeed, inserting itself in a lineage deriving from Marsha Kinder’s pioneering study on transmedia stortytelling Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Video Games: From Muppet Barbies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1991) and comprising Bolter and Grusin’s ‘double logic of remediation’ (1999) as well as Henry Jenkins’ seminal work on Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006), 99 Francs (2000) bridges media, genres, and creative processes in theme, but recently also by means of its underlying commercial scheme.

After all, as the best-selling contemporary French novel in France and abroad, translated in 21 languages but equally adapted to film (2007, dir. Jan Kounen) and soon available as Virtual Reality-environment on CD-ROM, Beigbeder’s book adroitly mixes fact, fiction, and even fan-culture to catch its countless critics in their own bad faith by simultaneously rejecting and embracing the hyperconsumerist culture advocated by Octave’s world of advertising agencies which it so (self-) evidently satirises. Or, as he himself put it, “I’m three trends ahead, and I make sure you’re always frustrated” (Beigbeder, 2002).


WORKS CITED:

Beigbeder, Frédéric. £9.99. Trans. Adriana Hunter. Basingstoke: Picador, 2002.

Bolter, Jay David with Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999.

Kinder, Marsha. Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Video Games: From Muppet Barbies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: NYU Press, 2006.
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