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Культурология и искусствоведение
that it is when a person turns from a passive contemplator into an active participant in this dialogue of cultures that the process of their self-determination accelerates enabling them to embrace their cultural identity, improve their self-esteem and become more successful in the future [1].
To sum it up, it seems to me that the preservation of cultural heritage may be considered as a «wedge stone» of our society since the stability and further development of the latter are largely determined by our attitude towards
our history, our past. The variety of the approaches to achieve that goal corresponds to the complexity of the tasks set before us, as confirmed be the examples mentioned above. And I do hope that the next time you walk along the cobbled streets of the old towns, you will pause a little bit and ask yourself the same question as I did at the beginning of this paper, namely: «How exciting would it be to listen to the stories of those stones, would it not?»
Литература
1. Bakhtin M. The Aesthetics of Word Creativity. Available at: http://teatr-lib.ru/Library/Bahtin/esthetic/#_ Toc225599048 (Accessed July 31, 2021).
2. Broughton S. Stephan Micus. Available at: https://www.songlines.co.uk/features/a-beginner-s-guide/stephan-micus-a-beginner-s-guide (Accessed July 31, 2021).
3. Masliakova A. The History of Philosophical Ideas and Their Expression in Art. - St. Petersburg, Asterion, 2020. - 150 p.
УДК l
DOI 10.21661/r-55l466
Маслякова А.И.
Эстетика кино в контексте слияния различных областей искусства
Аннотация
Статья посвящена комплексному исследованию киноискусства и его эстетическим особенностям. Автор подробно изучает вопрос эстетики кино, анализируя конкретные примеры.
I Ключевые слова: литература, искусство, музыка, эстетика, скульптура, архитектура, живопись, кино.
Masliakova A.I.
Cinema Aesthetics in the Context of the Synthesis
of Different Branches of Art
Abstract
The article is devoted to complex research of cinematography and its aesthetic peculiarities. The author draws our attention to cinematic art analyses concrete examples.
I Keywords: literature, painting, sculpture, art, music, architecture, cinema, aesthetics.
I would like to thank Robert Garcia who inspired me to write this article.
As we all know, film comprises different branches of Art - music, architecture, sculpture, literature, painting, etc. Sometimes Ait is just a «scenery» against which the action unfolds - let us mention in this regard the famous scene from Federico Fellini's «Dolce Vita» featuring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain in Rome. However, more often than not,
works of Art may become the main characters around which the whole plot revolves, just like in William Wyler's film «How to Steal a Million» whose storyline is based on the theft of Cellini's «Venus» which, in fact, never existed. And the same is true about Chuck Connelly's «Bridge to Nowhere», the monumental canvas that a fictional artists Lionel Dobie struggles to finish to the accompaniment of Giacomo Puccini's
Культурология и искусствоведение
opera «Turandot» throughout the course of the «Life Lessons» directed by Martin Scorsese.
Actually, the importance of music in the cinema aesthetics in difficult to underestimate for even the so-called silent movies were almost always accompanied by a piano, let alone the fact that it was music that created the necessary atmosphere of mystery, danger, and suspense in Alfred Hitchcock's films (such as «Psycho», «Vertigo», etc.). And it was also instrumental in «The Exterminating Angel» directed by Louis Bunuel, that is to say, in the end of the film Blanca (Patricia de Morelos) plays the ending of Paradisi's piano sonata for the second time, once again the guests congratulate her on her performance and ... the whole party walks out of the room.
On the one hand, many directors include paintings by prominent artists in their films. For example, in François Ozon's movie «Frantz» one can see «La Suicide» by Édouard Manet located at the Louvre Museum in Paris - the painting that the late Franz loved according to his «friend» Ardian who actually turns out to be Franz's murderer [1]. Whereas in Eldar Ryazanov's «Grandads-Robbers» the protagonist is trying to steal Rembrandt's «Portrait of a Young Man with a Lace Collar» from the Pushkin Museum in Moscow (although in reality that painting is exhibited at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg) so as to prove that it is too early for him to retire [2]. Moreover, in Andrew Piddington's «The Double Clue», based on Agatha Christie's detective story with the same title, Hercule Poirot and Countess Vera Rossakoff, discussing the sad and lonely aspects of foreign exile, come across Marc Chagall's painting «Feathers in the Bloom».
On the other hand, it is not unusual for the directors to feature in their movies «masterpieces» that are merely a figment of their imagination, such as «Boy with an Apple» attributed to the fictional Johannes Van Hoytl the Younger, which was used as a prop in Wes Anderson's film «The Grand Budapest Hotel», «The Portrait of Carlotta», allegedly exhibited at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, haunting Alfred Hitchcock's film «Vertigo», or the heartbreaking scene from Federico Fellini's «Rome» depicting ancient catacombs with «priceless frescoes» that were supposedly destroyed by fresh air as soon as the excavators «discovered» them. And if in the examples mentioned above the Artworks are presented as «originals», in some cases the attitude towards the objects of Art may be quite the opposite. For instance, we know from the very beginning that Cellini's sculpture of Venus presented at the Kléber-Lafayette Museum, as well as Van Gogh's painting which appears repeatedly in the film, was created by none other than the father of the main heroine Nicole Bonnet (Audrey Hepburn), namely, by Charles Bonnet performed by
Hugh Griffith. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the fact that we are dealing not with the original, but with a fake, not only does not prevent us from enjoying those movies, but even enhances their impact on the audience.
At the same time, there is another approach allowing the directors to incorporate works by other artists in their moving pictures. It concerns the so-called reconstruction of an Art object by the means of video camera - the method that was successfully used by Andrei Tarkovsky in the last scene of his film «Solaris» resembling Rembrandt's painting «Return of the Prodigal Son», as well as by Hal Ashby for the finale of his movie «Being There», narrating about a half-witted man who, by a lucky coincidence, makes acquaintance with the president of the United States (just like Forrest Gump in the eponymous movie by Robert Zemeckis) and is even regarded as his successor, calls to mind René Magritte's «Golconda» (or «Falling Men»). And, from my own perspective, digital visualization of Van Gogh's painting technique shown in «Loving Vincent», written and directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, is truly remarkable.
As for Woody Allen, he goes even further in that direction for in «Rifkin's Festival», telling a story of Mort Rifkin (Wallace Shawn) - an elderly film critic, constantly rewriting and tearing up his novel, who suffers from nightmares presented in the form of black and white film classics, like «Citizen Kane» by Orson Welles, «Breathless» by Jean-Luc Godard, «Jules and Jim» by François Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman's «Persona», «Wild Strawberries» and «The Seventh Seal», Louis Bunuel's «The Exterminated Angel», and Federico Fellini's «8^» [3]. In other words, the director re-shot the scenes from the movies mentioned above in such a way that Mort Rifkin stars not only in this new film, but also in the films of the «old masters» as if travelling to the past and returning back to the future again.
Needless to say, that it might not always be easy to appreciate the beauty of this or that particular film. Interestingly enough, at the end of the film Mort Rifkin says to his psychoanalyst that perhaps he is not a «book writer», but a «book reader»; and that triggers a crucial issue since the work of the first is conditioned by the availability of the latter. Some Artworks immediately attract our attention, whereas it may take a while to appreciate others. Yet it seems to me that one should not be discouraged if one cannot grasp the aesthetic concept of any given film in just a few minutes, for the task of a director is not to provide the audience with ready-made answers, but to ask important questions the answers to which everyone should find on their own [4]. Without any doubt, there are questions that are destined to remain unanswered, nevertheless, in some cases the very fact of searching for answers is more important than finding them.
Литература
1. Smith N.M. Frantz review: François Ozon surprises again with sumptuous period war drama. Available at: https://www. theguardian.com/film/2016/sep/10/frantz-review-francois-ozon-toronto-film-festival-tiff (Accessed 29.08.2022).
2. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn Portrait of a Young Man with a Lace Collar. Available at: https://www. hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.%20paintings/43345?lng=en (Accessed 29.08.2022).
3. Kenny G. Rifkin's Festival. Available at: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/rifkins-festival-movie-review-2022 (Accessed 29.08.2022).
4. Masliakova A. The Memory of the Ruins in Cultural Experience. Available at: https://zenodo.org/record/6684043#. YwyhYHZBxPZ (Accessed 29.08.2022).
