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Caragiale's literary works various areas, but each shape stronger, more surprising portrait of the author. Be it short prose, short stories, drama or literature epistolary writings, Caragiale proves to be a lucid and sarcastic observer of people, sometimes more or less willingly, sensitive or prone to psyhologising.
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I. L. Caragiale was a fine observer of his time, taking his subjects from society, satirizing in a bitter but at the same time ”juicy” language. Eugène Ionesco has been influenced in his creation by many authors, the most noticeable relations being established with Caragiale’s work, by whoom he was fascinated. The bonds between the two are numerous and much of Ionescu’s work can be re-read from the perspective of an intertextual dialog with Caragiale’s work. Both dramatists have been concerned with the role of writing in the theatrical act, contributing to its the renewal. I. L. Caragiale has also turned out to be a theoretician, who recommended a well organised manner of theatrical conception. Caragiale’s characters, especially the ones passionate about politics, reflect an obvious ”psychical absenteeism” being bared of even of an authentic inner life, for example - Cațavencu. The demagogy and the absurd in the political speeches will be transcribed in time by Eugène Ionesco in the ”caragialisms” of Ma’am Pipe (Mère Pipe) from Hit Man, a mixture of ”caţavenci, ioneşti, popeşti or farfurizi”.
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The author deals with the messianic traits of a hero who is a protagonist of contemporary mainstream film. Basic assumption of this paper is observation that despite the so-called “end of grand narratives” proclaimed by postmodern philosophers at the end of the last century, there are phenonema in culture clearly contradicting former predictions: renaissance of a novel, rising popularity of historical and fantastic stories and new heroes with complex character and genuine humanistic qualities. According to the author this proves the fact that human need for transpersonal values, moral patterns and stories carrying the message of meaningfulness of human destiny, is historically stable. The paper examines various representations of film hero within the broader context of social meanings in cinema (social dimension of film). The author describes psychoanalytic and anthropological concepts of hero as well as Jesus Christ as an archetype of Savior. Some of his special traits serve as a model for conceptualization of messianic hero and his basic characteristics. The text provides numerous examples of strong and weak heroes who alternately resurfaced the mainstream film through the decades. The author believes that the former narcissistic action hero and insecure hero is being replaced with more authentic and vibrant hero: a character who is vulnerable and commited to sacrifice in favor of others at the same time.
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Based on the examples of contemporary Slovak documentary theatre, the author characterizes three main groups of this type of theatre. The firs group is characterized by creating a dramatic Picture using the most authentic material, that might overlap with non-fiction literature (e.g. Tiso, written and directed by Rastislav Ballek, Arena Theatre, Bratislava, 2005, M.H.L. by Sláva Daubnerová, 2010, Theatre P.A.T. Prievidza and Studio 12 Bratislava). The second group is characterized by creating a play/ drama with the text based on the collected materials of documentary and historical nature, such as newspaper articles and interviews with living witnesses that support the storyline. (e.g. Dr. Gustáv Husák by Viliam Klimáček, Arena Theatre). The third group consists of texts that through the prism of individual and collective memory recall the past, with the accent on one’s own view, or memories (e.g. The Velvet by Michal Ditte, Slovak Chamber Theatre, Martin, 2009). A special chapter is Russian documentary theatre. The most famous projects combine specific event captured through interviews and documentary materials (e.g. interactive production One Hour and Eighteen (Minutes) by Elena Gremina, Teatr.doc. Moscow). Another group consists of productions, that “revise” history through the prism of present-day reality, using documentary materials (contemporary film footage, speeches, songs) in confrontation with the present-day reality (e.g, Pavlik is my God by Nina Belenitskaya, Joseph Beuys Theatre and Dokumentalny Dom „The First Cinema“ Moscow on Pavlik Morozovov).
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Cikker´s opera works are distinctly close to European opera of the twentieth century. In his operas, Cikker combined the ideals of national music and national opera with the ideals of the 20th century new opera. The paper analyzes the Cikker’s development as an opera composer, from the folklore and national music, through the existential, social and ideological themes of his operas to the image of grotesque or quiet resignation. During the Iron Curtain period, Cikker´s opera works served as a cultural bridge between East and West but also as a humanizing factor, bringing the important artistic and ethical message.
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Podnet vznikol oveľa skôr, než hotelový magnát a zberateľ umeleckých artefaktov Steve Wynn uviedol v jednom zo svojich prepychových lasvegaských zariadení paradivadelnú atrakciu, ktorú tam skromne nazývajú šou a ktorá vyrazila dych novostichtivým kritikom tak pre svoje bizarné inšpiračné pozadie, ako aj pre špičkovú, azda nikde inde neuvediteľnú vidoviskovú úroveň. Náš zosnulý priateľ divadla a kritik Miroslav Procházka by bol dnes vo vytržení, keby mohol o udalosti podobného druhu napísať reportáž, kde by vonkoncom nesmel chýbať aspoň krátky rozhovor so samým Wynnom a s jeho umelcami. A popísal by dojímavú príhodu o tom, ako sa vychutnávač umenia Wynn na začiatku nášho tisícročia zmocnil slávneho obrazu Pabla Picassa nazvaného Sen a ako sa mu neskôr pri prezentácii tohto diela svojím priateľom podarilo vystrojiť neuveriteľný a nechcený kúsok: predlaktím ľavej ruky urobil pri gestikulácii dieru do obrazu, na ktorom je namaľovaná jedna z Picassových osudových žien, milenka a modelka Marie-Thérèse Walterová.
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Rok 2010 zaokrúhlil výročie historicky prvého vystúpenia divadelných ochotníkov na číslovku 180. Prvé, pamätné vystúpenie divadelníkov v reči ľudu zrozumiteľnej, v moderných dejinách sa uskutočnilo 22. 8. 1830 v Liptovskom Mikuláši, kde zakladateľ a organizátor prvého slovenského divadelného súboru Gašpar Fejérpataky – Belopotocký uviedol hru Kocúrkovo od Jána Chalupku. Bol to vlastne začiatok novodobej slovenskej divadelnej kultúry. Tento významný počin mal odozvu aj v ďalších slovenských mestách a obciach, napr. Martin, Zvolen, Brezno, Banská Štiavnica, Myjava, Modra, Sobotište, Smolník, Nemecká Ľupča (dnes Partizánska Ľupča), Levoča. V štyridsiatych rokoch 19. storočia využívali divadelné aktivity aj predstavitelia štúrovskej generácie na národnobuditeľské prebúdzanie a ľudovýchovné ciele. Centrom kultúrneho diania sa stalo Sobotište, kde v roku 1841 založili divadelný spolok, Slovenské národné divadlo (nitrianske). Tu účinkovala Anička Jurkovičová (1824 – 1905), jedna z prvých slovenských herečiek, dcéra Samuela Jurkoviča, manželka Jozefa Miloslava Hurbana.
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The study deals with the relationship of contemporary Slovak film to place in terms of reduction of interest in ethnographic location. Employing the terminology of the anthropologist Marc Augé, it uses the example of his analysis of non-places as typical signs of supermodernity to examine changes in relation to location in Slovak cinematography after 2001. The analysis of the films Two Syllables Behind, Return of the Storks, It Will Stay Between Us and Other Worlds points to the relationship between the representation of supermodern relations (or even directly non-places) and the processes of European integration, accompanied by the crisis of national identity.
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The theme REFLEXION OF EVIL IN ART AND ITS ACCEPTANCE deals with contemporary marginal position of art which thematisizes evil and represents drasticness in its various forms realistically. It starts with exposition how the evil passed into art and after compendious historic digression shows that image of evil in art of western culture of 20th century is would be more real and more palpable. The whole following part is attended to interpretations of selected illustrious artistic works rendering evil, while their analysis is prior concentrated to the measure of reality of the rendered evil; the reactions of recipients depend on. There is also assessed the common denominator of those works – it is unanimous intention to eliminate cruelty all over the world. After interpretative part the author highlights on perception of those works. Building on Wolfgang Welsch’s essay – AESTHETICS AND ANAESTHETICS - he cautions on social insensibility for in reality constituted verity. Effective means for calling forth insensible senses of people is exactly art symbolising real brutality of evil. Following paradox also originates from that: on the one hand this art has ambition to cultivate the world; on the other hand this art is indigestible for recipient. However, reasons why this kind of art does not fulfil its mission more effectually should be searched not only in its shocking nature, but also in its minority position within the world of art. So it seams to be found itself in the vicious circle of incomprehension. In the conclusion of the theme author would like to present the problem of culmination of evil in the world from the psychologist Erich Fromm´s point of view. He upholds conviction that malignantly forms of aggression are not inborn for people and that they can be combated by conversion of contemporaneous social-economic conditions into such conditions which will reflect actual necessities and abilities of man. According to Wolfgang Welsch´s and Erich Fromm´s proposals author of this theme presents the hypothesis whether also the art performing realistic brutal evil – destruction should not go via a topic of evil by other way – in favour of its effectiveness for its influence on a society.
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Shakespearův Hamlet, tato „hra her“, je obrazem člověka balancujícího na lámajících se krách času. Student university ve Witenberku, skutečně už renesanční vzdělanec, je okolnostmi donucen zabývat se otázkami kým byl, co vykonal a jak zemřel jeho otec. Starý krvavý středověký král Hamlet sice straší ve hře už jen jako duch, domáhá se však neodbytně, aby syn převzal jeho dědictví – a to se vším všudy. Vzdělaný Hamlet – se spolužákem Horatiem určitě znají zpaměti celé pasáže v latině a starořečtině – chápe, že součástí tohoto odkazu je Orestovská povinnost potrestat matku, kterou duch otce obvinil, že se podílela na jeho zabití. Aby pomstil královraždu, má Hamlet začít svou královskou kariéru brutální matkovraždou. Orestes bral Apollónův pokyn k odvetě vážně, intelektuál Hamlet však nejasné poselství drmolené duchem před kohoutím zakokrháním zpochybňuje. Temné dědictví středověku, který nechce přestat a dožaduje se dalších krutostí, i když už myšlenkově skončil, je pro Hamleta výzvou, čím nechtěnější, tím osudovější. Před Hamletem – a před divákem – tak vystává základní otázka: „Kdo jsem já? Kdo jsou mí rodiče? Kdo jsou mí blízcí? Kdo je člověk?“
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Acting is torn between musical and dramatic understanding of theater, between the mannerism of realistic school and searching beyond the clouds of “philosophical” directors, between a closed theater and free space of performance and between lecturing of „deep interested ideas“ of deeply thinking authors and demanding, or sometimes even quite cheap and little intelligent body speech in an alternative theater or in the theater in general, which is different than the accustomed one. In the reality, the author of a study wants to point out a series of artificial barriers to freely interpret Stanislavski or Cechov and let’s say Grotowski or Scherhaufer. The most important information is that Stanislavski was not only the subject of the study of education of actor for acting for nearly a century, but he was also an obligatory model for all theaters in socialistic countries, making his real message quite warped. It was also useless to fight against it, because experience has shown that Stanislavski’s learning about finding the truth in the stage picture directly in the actor‘s soul is pretty much mandatory for both the „traditionalists“ as well as for representatives of the “an sich” theatre, a theater as an art itself and not only a theater as a derivative of dramatic literature.
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Ak sa v otázke povahy média inšpirujeme Pavlom Florenským a rozšírime jeho úvahy na tému ikony, olejomaľby a rytiny o vitráž, zistíme, že aktualizačné prirovnanie vitráže k plagátu preceňuje parameter plošnosti a má len veľmi malú výpovednú hodnotu. Úlohou plagátu je informovať a agitovať – plagát sa zameriava na tých, čo sú vo vzťahu k udalosti vonku. V štruktúre katedrály túto funkciu neplní vitráž, ale vonkajšia kamenosochárska výzdoba.
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In Todd Haynes’ films corporeality of the characters takes center-stage. The body is an area on which one’s identity is built, and is the carrier of that identity. However Haynes does not present the body as a sign of psychological depth of the character; it also does not have a pre-discursive character, it is never natural and self-determining. Just like identity, the body is only a construct shaped by the pressure of a given social and cultural order. The author, with the help of the analysis of two of Haynes’ films – "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story" (1988) and "I’m Not There" (2007), tries to describe the director’s artistic strategy. In Superstar, a film telling the story of Karen Carpenter, the pop star who died in 1983 as a result of anorexia, all of the roles were given to Barbie dolls. In I’m Not There, an experimental biography of Bob Dylan, the main role was written for six actors, including a woman and a black teenage boy. The body fulfils in these films a function of a sign, it distances the viewer, it makes him interpret rather than identify with the characters. The “body” of the movie also plays here a considerable role: Haynes juggles the conventions and film schemas, refers to film genres, uses clichés and borrowings. Bodies treated in this manner show a remarkable interpretative potential of the films of the American director.
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Human body is an important element of symbolic culture. Its age, appearance, expression combined with the clothes worn, movement, gestures and facial expressions can be a source of aesthetic experience and an effective way of nonverbal communication. youth – age, beauty – ugliness, sexiness – asexuality, elegance – negligence, etc. characterise people in their life, and define them socially and in terms of social class. Internal interactions of a person, his intentions, thoughts and emotions are manifested through the body. It applies in a special way to actors appearing on the stage of a theatre or on the cinema screen. The object of description of Stachówna’s essay are the bodies of actors – “variables”, transforming themselves, means of artistic expression, coming to be a part of the creative effort. In the subchapter Lipstick, wigs and corsets the author writes about the art of characterisation that facilitates a spectacular change of corporeality; the part Wrinkles, scalpel and collagen deals with the bold use of appearance aged by time, and the struggle against advancing biological changes, while the subchapter Benedict Cumberbatch – the Proteus of Acting describes the amazing changes in the image of this English actor in film.
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The article gives an account of the First Congress of Film and Media Scholars that was held in Kamień Śląski in the beginning of June 2013. The congress was organised by the department of Film and Media Studies, of the Institute of Culture and Interdisciplinary Studies, of the University of Silesia, in cooperation with the National Centre for Culture, The “Initiative” Association (Stowarzyszenie Inicjatywa), and the film institution “Silesia Film” from Katowice. It was the first such event in Poland that allowed for an in-depth discussion about the state of film and media studies today. The variety of presentations within six panel sessions (History of film and cinema, Methodologies and theories of audiovisual media today, Moving pictures in anthropological perspective, New media – new research challenges, and varia) confirms the width of issues with which contemporary film and media studies scholars must deal with.
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A book review of Michał Legan’s "Balthasar/Tarkowski. Teodramat w filmie" ["Balthasar/Tarkowski. A Theodrama in Film"] (2012). Legan explores the theological possibilities of film, and tries to find out whether the specific language characteristic for the cinema can carry the formulae of a theological treatise. Legan’s starting point is the assumption that the idea of theodrama, described in great theological detail by a Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, is also present in the films of the Russian director and script writer Andrei Tarkovsky. The reviewer discusses the trigeminal layout of the book, which consists of the first chapter devoted to biographies and works of Balthasar and Tarkovsky, the second chapter which presents collected analysis of Tarkovsky’s films, made through the prism of the ideas of Balthasar’s theodrama, and the third chapter devoted to parallel interpretation of great Christian theological themes present in Tarkovsky’s films. Nadgrodkiewicz thinks highly of Legan’s book and considers it an excellent example of work on theology of the cinema.
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The subject of the article are the changes in the complex relationship between body and identity in the work of David Cronenberg over the last 25 years that passed since he entered mainstream cinema. Using the example of "Scanners", the first film that put the question of identity center-stage, bodily basis of identity typical for the early work of the director is described, as well as the consequences of the blurring of bodily boundaries for the way protagonists perceive their own “I”. "The Dead Zone" and the "Spider" show a gradual shift in the director’s interest, from issues related to the spacial boundaries of the body to the question about the continuity of identity in time and the problem of the body as a carrier of information. These problems are further explored in the two later films of the director: "A History of violence" and "Eastern Promises", which testify to the director’s changing perspective on the question of the body and identity; it is at the same time a change of perspective from an individual to sociopolitical one.
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It is not the first time that Michael Haneke challenges his audience. How are we to understand what the film shows and reveals? What is the meaning of the film’s story? The author of the article tries to pin point the performative nature of the film and the importance of corporeality in the presentation and telling of this story. He claims that the action (performance) is more important than words in the film, which is why this film can have a very strong impact on the viewer. The “performativity” of the film forces onto the viewer a different kind of reflection, one far exceeding easy expressed meaning. The director puts forward very strongly the issue of self determination, the possibility of deciding one’s own fate, even when it is no longer an easy matter to take that fate into one’s own hands. He presents a situation, a “place” where the individual loses out to the organised raison of “society”, which supports “life”. The article also raises the question of the adequacy of the film title. The author comes to the conclusion that Gabriel Marcel’s opinion that to love means to tell the other person: “you are never going to die”, paradoxically, is highly adequate in relation to this film.
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In modern humanities understanding of the body as a substance or being gradually gives way to interest in processes, sensations and affects that pass through and between bodies. The emphasis on intangible and unconscious flows poses a particular kind of challenge to a film analyst, as these are the dimensions of human experience that to a large extent are not subject to verbalisation or visualisation. Szarecki proposes to consider body as a medium between the representation and the materiality of the image, taking into the account both politics of meanings focusing on the representations of the body in film, and the politics of experience associated with the creation of affective relationships. The author demonstrates this approach using the example of the Japanese film "Happy flight" by Shinobu Yaguchi, arguing that although the body images presented in the film bypass the dynamics and movement of affective flows, these might manifest themselves in sensory responses to the developing action and the accompanying changes in sounds and images.
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