60x90/16, paperback, ill., 384 pp., 2007
ISBN 5-86793-539-6

In his new book, the Russian scholar Oleg Aronson investigates the role of film as a technology which has altered the character of man’s perception as well as his thinking. Film exposes us to high-speed, constantly vanishing images, which have nonetheless become standard for our contemporary world. The author emphasizes the communicative nature of the image, while for him communication itself is not to be interpreted in a social, linguistic or informational key. It is the space of communication, where another, de-individualized perceptive subject is created, and where a different system of values is formed. Aronson also focuses his attention on the pervasive influence of film on contemporary literature and philosophy, and on the resulting changes in methods of expression and scientific analysis in the humanities caused by this interaction.

Gesture is not only a movement that expresses a feeling or a rhetorical device but a sign that helps to distinguish oneself from others by denoting different social backgrounds or ideological properties (nobility vs. peasantry, Bolsheviks vs. anarchists, proletariat vs. capitalists, Soviet people vs. Western bourgeoisie etc.). Gestures permit everyone to confirm his or her belonging to one particular group and to indicate and maintain the hierarchy among the groups. At the beginning of the century cinema classified the cultural and social differences within a society that underwent a major social and cultural shift after the Communist revolution of 1917. Soviet film in the 1920s had to define a new set of distinctions for the citizens of the new society. Art and social institutions proposed different, sometimes contradictory models of the new body language (in the utopian concepts of behavioural institutes like ZIT or on the screen) that should be imitated in reality.
The book addresses the metamorphoses of body language in Russian and Soviet society through the 20th century as evidenced by documentary and fiction films, private and professional photography, visual arts, literature (fiction, advice literature, educational publications, memoirs, diaries, reportages) and theatre. The purpose of this research is not the investigation of the different ways of behaviour or methods of acting but rather the study of a program to elaborate new anthropological types – the man of the modernity and homo soveticus.

In November 2003, the film critic Anton Dolin visited the acclaimed Dutch director Lars von Trier and presented him with the Russian Golden Aries (Zolotoi Oven) award for best foreign film to rent on video for his latest picture Dogville. Known for his rare and reluctant interviews, von Trier nevertheless received Dolin in his office near Copenhagen and became involved in a number of in-depth discussions with his visitor. Despite von Trier’s reputation as a recluse, these were marked by a truly unprecedented openness. The reader can find these unique exchanges in this, the first Russian study of the most influential figure in turn-of-the-century European cinema.
What role has von Trier carved out for himself over the last twenty years? How is his work perceived by the contemporary film-lover? These are the questions Dolin is attempting to answer in his book. How did the director appear to those with whom he was involved professionally? The book contains the impressions of many actors and directors who worked with von Trier, from his Dogme 95 partners to Catherine Deneuve. The reader will also find the first Russian translation of the author’s original script for Dogville.

He calls himself ‘a tumor on the body of Japanese culture’. If this is the case, then this tumor is inoperable: not only Japanese, but also world cinema, is unimaginable without Takeshi Kitano. In Russia, Kitano has become the most famous Japanese film director after his idol Akira Kurosawa. This book by film critic Anton Dolin tells us how Kitano has managed to make and act in a dozen films, become a writer and artist, while still remaining a child at heart.

A proud Finn with a Slavic soul. Northern lights viewed from close-up. A post-modern Bergman. A minimalist, who has achieved the purity and innocence of great silent cinema in present-day film. Thus, Andrei Plakhov and Elena Plakhova view the personality and work of the famous Finnish director. Based on the authors’ meetings with Kaurismaki, and their analysis of his films, this book is the story of the last Romantic in European cinema – a poet of the Northern reaches, who was close to Russia in soul, as well as history. Besides the screenplays for I Hired a Contract Killer and The Man Without a Past, the book also includes a short story by Kaurismaki.

The appearance of Science Fiction is quite fantastic in itself, this collection being not only the first academic Russian-language publication on science fiction movies, but also the first attempt to bring together English and Russian writing showing the enormous diversity of approaches in this genre. The differences and similarities between films and books, and between science fiction and horror; utopian ideology; the portrayal of urban spaces; the development of special effects and digital cinema and the evolution of viewers’ attitudes are but some of the topics covered in this truly fantastic book.

The well-known scholar Mikhail Yampolsky’s new book is a collection of articles on cinema. Written between 1982 and 2002, these include both old works drawn from out-of-print editions and recent writings. The detailed notes provided by the author for each article highlight the curious intellectual phenomenon reflected in the book: a transition from semiotics to phenomenology in the study of cinematic substance and form. Language is dedicated to Alexander Sokurov, whose views on cinema, the author feels, developed along a similar path to his own. Yampolsky finds further food for thought and philosophical analysis in the work of Starevich, Kuleshov, Peleshyan, German, Muratova and other directors, as well as various cinema experts.