The article discusses a mandatory form of training a professional film scholar, namely the methods and techniques study of the frame-by-frame analysis of a movie or its fragment. The value of this approach is not always fully realized. Nevertheless the frame-by-frame analysis is of particular importance nowadays, when we are witnessing an active transformation of artistic reality as a whole and of cinematic reality in particular.
All these phenomena are associated with sometimes radical changes in the language system of artistic texts, the growing complexity of this language and the difficulty of perception, moreover quite often the over-complication of the perception of the text and at times the possibility of its “erroneous” interpretation are intentionally incorporated by the author into the structure of the text. Frame-by-frame analysis is designed to help in adapting to the peculiarities of the “new language”, to increase the range of sensory perception in studying the film text and the ability to penetrate into the semantic entirety of the text fragment, into the volatile flow of elusive meanings, into the "semantic magma" of the text.
Frame-by-frame analysis is suited for the group work of students with the participation of the professor who takes the responsibility of being an effective guide to the linguistic reality of the text, shaping and controlling the process of perception, thus ensuring the effective navigation through the analytical process. The article advocates the validity of the techniques and procedures of the frameby-frame analysis of a screen work, as well as of specific aspects of segmenting the visual image. Frame-by-frame analysis of a film can be turned into a lively active creative process if not into an exciting journey into the unfolding intra-textual reality.
This is an in-person process based on the cooperation of students and an expert professor who explains to them the existing methods of text dissection, the procedures of analysis and their sequence, the methods of recording the data obtained, and, finally, of processing the empirical material, which permits to put forward certain hypotheses about the author's language strategy and his goals therein. The consequences of the virtual absence of this type of analysis in the course of on-line education transpired immediately; with lack of practice skills usually disappear quickly. The empty space needs to be filled with both lost and newly acquired skills as soon as possible.

The research is devoted to the study of literary allusions in animated films, the determination of the specific aspects of their use and functions.
The allusions to literary texts used in animation can be implicit and explicit in nature and can vary in size. They are elements of intertextuality. Literary allusions structure the film both as a complex, multifaceted text, and as an ironic, parody game of the authors with the audience.
They not only form the subtext of the animated film, but also perform various functions, including plot-forming, evaluative-characterizing, comic. A screen product with literary allusions, being an example of diversified structure, cannot be attributed exclusively to an elite or mass type of art.
The use of literary allusions is not so common in modern animation compared to other types of allusions. This is due to the fact that deciphering a literary allusion requires a certain cultural background on the part of the viewer, in other words, he or she should be well-read.
Since the reading level of the modern viewer is declining, literary allusions used in films are becoming simpler. Structure-forming literary allusions are not so often used in animation, while fragmentary and deconstructed allusions, reduced to a recognizable or replicated literary phrase, become the most frequently used stylistic device.
The artistic practice of animation demonstrates that with the help of literary allusion and the techniques of postmodern poetics, it is possible, on the one hand, to create films that will be easily accessible to not only a person familiar with literature and art, but also to an average unsophisticated viewer, and on the other hand, to make a work of mass culture, which includes mainstream animation, interesting to a well-read viewer who is able to detect hidden meanings and an intertextual dialogue with texts of art and culture behind the exterior of the plot and action.
The incorporation of literary allusions into the structure of the film's artistic image contributes to the creation of a parody-game effect and opens up the possibility for a multiplicity of interpretations.

The article examines the reflection of cultural codes in a film’s visuals. This issue needs a closer look in view of the growing globalization process, and especially its current stage defined as glocalization. The author presumes that, semantically, a new language of the global community is being formed with the features of diverse cultures as its signs and “letters.” Therefore, it seems important to explore the ways these cultural codes are represented on the screen.
The article presents “Anna Karenina” (dir. C. Brown, 1935) as a case study. This adaptation was chosen for several reasons: firstly, it was made when cinema was not yet so heavily complicated by the auteur’s vision and fairly accurately reflected the emotional experience of the American nation; secondly, in Brown’s film Russian and American codes are interwoven, which provides an insight into the interaction of different cultural modes on the screen.
The analysis of several scenes of the aforementioned film shows that the visual aspect of the film is infused with meanings that were topical for the US people at the time of the film's production (the mid-1930s). For example, Anna’s position in relation to Vronsky in the frame depicts the problem of women’s status in American society during the Great Depression. Even the attempt to borrow Russian cultural codes (for example, the use of traditional clothes, folk songs and dances) ends up mirroring President Roosevelt’s New Deal. It was concluded that a careful study of the film’s mise-en-scene allows us to enter the cultural field of the producing country.
In order to discover the cause-and-effect relations and principles according to which the features of a particular culture are manifested on the screen, in other words, to partially solve the problem of decoding “letters-cultures” through the visual space of cinema, the author suggests using Yury M. Lotman’s method, which consists in combining local observations and perception of global knowledge, which organically comports with the phenomenon of glocalization.

The article focuses on the phenomenon of film reality and offers a review of its theoretical and experimental research. Proceeding from this concept, the authors analyze two trends that have been observed all throughout the history of the evolution of new media: the shrinking of the screen plane and the growing popularity of the first-person narration. The article examines the origins, as well as the driving factors of these processes, determines the role of digital media in the actualization of film reality.
The authors maintain that the two trends in the development of new media (gradual shrinking of the screen plane and the growing popularity of the firstperson narration) offer evidence of the viewer's desire to “possess” film reality, to intensify their presence within it.
This is manifested in the popularization of the VR format, which implies complete immersion in the artistic space of an audiovisual work, which in turn, in combination with the chronotope of the work itself, gives rise to the notion of film reality. Special attention is given to escapism associated with the immersion in film reality, as well as to conceptualizing the representation of these processes in foreign films. Some formal similarities of such films, resulting from the use of computer technologies, are highlighted.
An experiment for the practical study of the phenomenon of film reality is described. The article defines a sequence of relevant hands-on studies developed by the authors, making it possible to obtain fundamental information about the principles of the viewer’s perception and the construction of a cinematic image.

This article examines the expanding possibilities of film production and media industry via the integration of the latest digital technologies, such as neural networks, AI, etc. The introduction of innovative computer technologies is closely related to the correlation between the industrial and artistic spheres, exploiting these know-hows not as a goal in itself but as an elaborate component of audiovisual film and media imagery possessing fundamentally different potentialities. However, at the present stage of scientific and technological progress (in particular, of audiovisual arts), a number of artistic and aesthetic problems arise (when creating a CGI image). To begin with, these are emotions transmitted in a natural environment by human facial expressions. The more attempts are made to create a mimic analogue (digital double) the more issues are revealed, both technological and artistic, requiring a comprehensive (interdisciplinary) exploration.
Today, digital technologies offer quite a vast range of resources for creating an engineered image identical to the artistic one. But not every technological innovation can achieve the corresponding aesthetic quality. The research carried out in various areas using CGI has not yet developed an algorithm for the accurate identification of the digital double’s facial expressions. Yet, the opportunities provided by modern digital technologies (neural networks, artificial intelligence) allow us to enhance manifold the visualization effect from creating specific images that are in the context of a certain aesthetic paradigm. This adds further evidence that any technology is but a tool for creating a piece of art if, naturally, it strives at such high standards.

The article deals with laughter integral to the plot of a film. The role of the phenomenon of laughter in the plot, its motives and their eventual classification in the film dramaturgy are considered. The novelty of the research lies in treating laughter as a marker of the plot twist in the movie.
The motive of laughter in the construction of a film reflects the cultural or socio-psychological functions of this panhuman phenomenon. The author of this work intended to reveal the role of laughter and the laughing character in the formation of a plot twist; to establish if the motive of laughter can be a plotforming dramatic device; to determine the functions of a laughing character and to embark upon developing a typology of laughter in the film dramaturgy.
The study objects are the films in which laughter serves as a plot-forming and a sense-making element, with a focus on the plots which manifested the transgressive nature of laughter, its characteristics as being a marker of renewal and rebirth or of an evil inclination. Laughter of a hero, of his antagonist or a group of characters is considered in its various extents, from a smile to laughter, and in films of various genres, both domestic and foreign, modern and far-off ones.
To solve the problems posed in the work, a complex of scientific methods and approaches of the modern theory of screenwriting was used, as well as the works on laughter culture by such domestic researchers as V.Ya. Propp, M.M. Bakhtin, S.S. Averintsev, A.G. Kozintsev and others.
An insight into the motive of laughter reveals its dramaturgic potentialities and exposes its operating principles. The article provides data proving that laughter serves in the structure of a script as a marker of a plot twist. A plot twist accompanied by laughter denotes either a change in the state of a hero (in his behavior, his attitude to something), or some events involving him.

The article explores an array of philosophical connotations, metaphors and mythologems found in the promo content (trailers) of the Assassin’s Creed game franchise as a specific form of visualized text and a mode of narration realizing the concept of mythmaking in audio-visualized media space in the era of information revolution.
Turning the spotlight on defining the role of ad material, the author focuses on the fact that the game franchise’s trailer and teaser as a specific cinematic tool (as demonstrated in the article) have an extensive imagery bearing the “philosophy” of the project, which gives the game action meaning and point. While retaining its promotional function, a cinematic trailer is not only an independent production, but also a carrier of various and numerous archetypal constructions that form mass consciousness (which now, rejecting the classical rationalistic principles, once again tends towards mythmaking). This, in turn, gives rise to “the new mythology” actively drawing on “classical plots and imagery”, thus suggesting continuity in the spiritual evolution of human civilization.
Being a distillation of the basic features of a certain area of the mass culture information space, the trailer can be interpreted as a techno-artistic hybrid phenomenon, indicative of the transformation of media industry in terms of the historical discourse. Thus it proves the modification of a complex of stereotypical mental constructions of the social organization, which in the globalized world grows into an international category.
The author argues that this phenomenon manifests itself in a surge of mythmaking within the modern multicultural tradition, which in turn leads to the formation of a new cultural paradigm based on the concept of providentialism, which in its turn acts as a tool for analyzing the historical and cultural process, based on the instrumentalization of the previous experience, mutating in the global discourse

The article is devoted to the image of a vamp in Danish films, evolving by the 1920s into the image of a new woman, which later on gained major popularity in German and Soviet films.
Not so vast by modern standards, Danish cinema in the early 1910s had a marked impact on the development of imagery in the world film art. Without having the lead in amount of films brought to the European film market, it however succeeded in setting the style in the cup-and-saucer drama genre, starting the fashion for specifically Danish melodramas and film sensations, introducing the viewer to the “Danish kiss” and crafting the image of a “vamp”, which very soon evolved in the world cinema into that of a new woman, reflective of the most important changes in the socio-cultural and socio-political life. Thereafter all the finds of the Danish filmmakers would be picked up and developed by the German, Soviet and American cineastes.
Danish films preyed on the controversial and taboo ground of human vices, sexuality and gender relationships, commonly responding to urgent and sensational issues. What the Russian pre-revolutionary press called “glamorization of the 20th century shame” actually refers to what filmmakers did taking advantage of sensational facts for framing thrillers. So, for example the Danish cinema enters the international film market with the hotly debated back then topic of “white slavery”.
The paper analyzes the pictures introducing the image of a vamp (the cyclus of “white slaves”, “The Abyss”, “Dance of the Vampire”, “Witches” etc.) and makes a guess at how the acute social issue of sexual slavery under the influence of culture-historical circumstances had evolved in cinema into the ideological construct of “the new woman”.

Christian allusions hold a valuable place in the work of Danish director Lars von Trier, occuring in one way or another in most of his films. It may seem that Dogville (2003) also follows Christian traditions, and its ethics directly relates to the Christian morality. Still, an in-depth analysis makes clear that Christian allusions in this picture do not necessarily imply the code of Christian morality behind.
Christian morality is based on the belief in the Triune God, Creator of the universe. Its key concepts are sin as breaking of God's commandments and conversion as a Christian’s path of life. It is important that, in terms of Christian ethics, salvation may come only through repentance, which, in its turn, means faith in God.
Therefore it is obviously inappropriate to suggest Christian ethics in the space of Dogville, since faith is not at issue in this film.
Grace's father, who insists that one should be punished for his/her sins in order to be able to repent, would seem related to God the Father, while Grace, with her profession of forgiveness, to Jesus. An in-depth analysis makes obvious that the dispute between these two characters is not religious but ideological. None of them is driven by philanthropy, but solely by the desire to carry his/her point. Moreover, Grace's sacrifice is not in fact the fulfillment of her father's will but a rebellion against it.
The study shows that Lars von Trier, who draws on biblical images and patterns and imbues his film with Christian allusions, still remains beyond religious ethics and Christian morality, so the conflict in Dogville is ideological and not a religious one.

The film “Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom” is a complex and complicated work in which Pier Paolo Pasolini explores the phenomenon of power as an integral part of human nature. Interpreting the work of Donatien Alphonse François de Sade “The 120 days of Sodom, or the School of debauchery”, the director attacks the concepts of blessing and goodness and shows how hypocritical can human nature be, how much one tends to delude himself in wishful thinking.
In this paper, “Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom” is considered as an author's statement on the postmodern image of power. At the intersection of the psychoanalytic and the post-structuralist discourses, power is shown as a focus of psychopathological formations in human civilization and culture. The law becomes a kind of vehicle of perverse tendencies in modern society, which is the inversion of the norm. Pasolini explicates the mechanisms of power, subordination and repression underlying interpersonal relations. The law does not prevent the power from arbitrary rule, as far as the power itself makes laws in order to subject the limits to the process of transgression. The phenomenon of the postmodern image of power lies in the fact that a person, under the guise of individual freedom, unconsciously submits to the sadistic machinery of the law.
Human body is the main object of power. Enslaving sexuality, seeking to depersonalize and suppress any bodily dynamics, the power structures pursue the homogenization of the society under the sign of legal grounds. The article focuses on the fact that perversion in Pasolini's interpretation is not a departure from the norm, but, in a way, its basis. Perversion is constitutive for the concept of norm.
As a result of the study, it was concluded that power is the depersonalizing, anonymous potential of the law, while the law itself is a product of sadistic psychopathology. The evil that lies at the root of power is that sacred foreboding which is at the heart of human identity.

The article considers two examples of deconstructing the image of a crime boss. It explores the narrative structure and underlying archetypal patterns of two cult Russian TV series «Brigade» and «PE Teacher». In «Brigade» the characters are presented in a way that effectively rules out any possibility of their critical perception. The protagonist is shown as a mythological figure entirely deprived of free will.
On his way to the eventual disaster he navigates through various plot twists in the traditions of the “ill fate” concept leaving the viewer no chance to doubt the moral aspects of the narrative. It leads to the undesirable celebration of the image of a crime boss and an outburst of criminal activity in society.
In «P E Teacher» the plot lines following those of “Brigade” undergo a therapeutic reconsideration. Social and economic changes permitted the authors to use the growing well-being of the population with didactic goals. The audience no longer saw gangsterism as the only way of social advancement, the traumatic experience of the recent past called for reevaluation. In the narrative which transforms the protagonist the work of two archetypal patterns is observed.
The first one is the protagonist’s interaction with three main female characters, personifying three female types — those of the Daughter, the Wife and the Mother. The second archetypal pattern is the protagonist’s own consistent conduct, which can be described as anti-behavior — to use a term related to an ancient Russian polysemantic phenomenon. A happy combination of comedic and archaic elements in the dramatic structure of the show lets the audience experience a catharsis. Acknowledging the notorious drawbacks of the Soviet system one is forced to admit its function as an integrated social matrix. All its constituent parts like technology, economics, history, censorship and self-censorship were welladjusted and coordinated.
At present we face the process of reverting to national identity and of understanding our national unity. Film production and film analytics have a prominent role in the process opening up the opportunities to reevaluate blank pages in the recent and distant history and to integrate them into national consciousness.