Search

The subject of this study is the influence of the traditions of German expressionism on modern cinema, primarily the horror genre. The relevance of this work is due to the need to study the genesis of modern trends in one of the most popular types of art and its popular genres in the context of cultural history in terms of allusions and reminiscences, traditions and innovation. In order to prove that the traditions of expressionism are clearly traced to this day and promise to be quite productive in the long run, as well as to trace the nature of their presence in the history of the film industry, in line with the culturological approach, the method of comparative historical and historical situational analysis, as well as content analysis was mainly used regarding cinematography of the period under consideration. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the very prism of the study and its object — the films of 2021–2022 were considered in terms of traditions of expressionist aesthetics; in addition, the article presents a slightly different view on the masterpieces that have become classics of the cinema of the 20th century. As a result, it was revealed that the expressionist concept of man and the world is strong in the artistic world of cinema art of this period. The methods of German filmmakers of the beginning of the previous century were continued in a somewhat modified form at the level of the play of light and shadow, framing, the figurative system itself (vampires, homunculi, ghosts), mechanistic acting, sinister paraphernalia, and deceitful details. The common denominator of foreign and domestic films of all the genres and subgenres considered in the article was the use of a special musical setting — music that originates from the new Viennese school (in other words, musical expressionism), which also confirms the theory put forward.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt esordisce come romanziere negli anni Cinquanta con due opere poliziesche, in cui la struttura del giallo tradizionale viene sottilmente modificata da incisi, divagazioni e sviamenti che infrangono la logica del genere e ci proiettano in un mondo meno solido e meno indagabile di quello del classico romanzo a enigma. È con il romanzo successivo, tuttavia, Das Versprechen (1958), che le convenzioni vengono completamente ribaltate e la razionalità dell’investigatore non guida più a una soluzione necessaria, ma precipita nel vuoto della follia e della mancanza di senso. Ancor di più, il Requiem per un romanzo giallo (sottotitolo di Das Versprechen) trova forma nel racconto Das Sterben der Pythia (1976), in cui Dürrenmatt rielabora il mito di Edipo e ne fa l’epitome per ogni (im)possibile indagine tesa a ricostruire una (la) verità in un mondo fuor di sesto.

The paper analyzes the novel of C. Miéville “The City & the City” (2009), which synthesizes elements of various genres: noir-novel, dystopia, mystery, social novel, etc. The relevance of the study is associated with issues raised in the novel: inter-ethnic communication, political and social identification, and construction of a multicultural society. The purpose of the study is to analyze the time-space organization of urban space in the novel to identify not only the principles of the design of novel space, but also to show how they relate to social and political issues of the novel. In order to fulfill this purpose, the analysis involves the work by Michel Foucault and his followers associated with the development of the concept of heterotopia. The paper provides several examples showing that splitting a single physical space into two mental cities (Besźel and Ul Qoma) described in the novel is ontological, existential. The identity of the characters is manifested not in the places that are associated with a clear understanding of what city they belong to, but in where there is uncertainty – common and intermediate (interstitial) spaces. These common spaces are a kind of heterotopia exposed the serving of the most fundamental things in the world. Important in this regard is the concept of crosshatching, which determines the mental identity of space. C. Miéville shows conventional, cultural status not only of the phenomenon of the border, but of any social or national identity. One of the most important results of the study is that non-traditional literary analysis tools have been used to investigate the literary text specificity. The obtained results can be used not only by academic scholars in the analysis of spatial-temporal organization of a literary text, but also by representatives of other disciplines (particularly, sociology and anthropology) as an example of the analysis of a specific social model (in this sense, the text of the novel can be considered as a mental social or anthropological experiment).