The Screen Image in the Historical Time: Mechanisms of Meaning (Re)construction (Socio-Cultural Context)

Author

Cherkov Heorhii

a Ph.D. in Art Studies, a research fellow at the Screen, Stage Arts and Culturology Department of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, an associate professor at the Film Theory Department of I. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television (Kyiv, Ukraine).

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5057-1691

The Screen Image in the Historical Time: Mechanisms of Meaning (Re)construction (Socio-Cultural Context)

Abstract

The article focuses on a particular aspect of the perception of the screen image, namely, the range of interpretations that arise over the lifetime of a cinematic work. The emphasis is placed on the mechanisms of meaning construction and deconstruction of a cinematic work throughout history in a broad socio-cultural context.

As a form of aesthetic understanding of reality, an artistic work constructs meaning around the events or phenomena it represents and becomes a message for a wide audience. Even at this level, subjectivity and objectivity are embedded in the interplay between fact and fiction. The perception of a work also combines the categories of subjective and objective: the criteria of artistic value, unique features of different audiences, the factors that shape public opinion, the agendas or ideological perspectives of specific social or political groups, etc.

In the historical retrospective, a film becomes both an artefact, that is, a carrier of information about the past, and an object for new interpretations. For each era, a cinematic work stands in the light of new circumstances (social, economic, political, etc.). And each new era leaves a different interpretation trail when passing the work to the next generations. In this «dialogue» of epochs, the meaning of a work remains perpetually open to reinterpretation.

According to the author, cinema offers a special opportunity to observe the interpretation of film texts through the ages retrospectively and to study the mechanisms of their perception in the mass consciousness. In a sense, the history of cinema is a repository of evolving interpretations of cinematic works. A cinematic work is essentially an open system of meaning, characterised by the variability of the combination and juxtaposition of the elements chosen as dominant for the relevant meaning-making.

The article uses examples to show how a new whole is reconstructed from individual fragments of content, how the material of an art work is «fragmented», restructured, and shifted in emphasis.

«The life» of cinematic works in the collective consciousness can be understood as a set of ideas about these works – as ‘circulated representations’ that are capable of evolving over time. This gives us grounds to believe that the immanent property of screen art is its ability to create specific «shifting» semantics. This provides additional material for understanding the phenomenon of the screen image.

This is a complex set of issues relevant to contemporary art history and the study of artistic culture in general.

Keywords

cinematography, myth, screen image, interpretation, film history, mass consciousness.

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