Hyperion University, The Faculty of Arts,

Bucharest

Cinematographic Art & Documentation

(CA&D)

Journal of cinematographic studies, Nr. 9, New series. 2014

biannual publication

Tracus Arte Publishing House

Bucharest, 2014
ISSN:1844-2803
Hyperion University, Bucharest
Cinematographic Art & Documentation
Journal of cinematographic studies, nr. 9, New Series, 2014
ISSN: 1844-2803

Editorial Board

Editor in Chief

Professor DOINA RUTI

Hyperion University, Bucharest

Associate Editors

Professor NICOLETTA ISAR

Institute of Art History, Department of Arts & Cultural Studies,
University of Copenhagen
Denmark

Professor EFSTRATIA OKTAPODA

Sorbonne, Paris IV

Professor ILEANA ORLICH

Arizona State University

LINDA MARIA BAROS, Ph.D.

Sorbonne, Paris IV

Redactors
Lecturer IOAN CRISTESCU, Ph.D, Hyperion University, Bucharest
Lecturer COSMIN PERA , Ph.D, Hyperion University, Bucharest
Alina Petra MARINESCU-NENCIU, Ph. D.c, Bucharest University
Professor RAMONA MIHIL, Ph.D. Dimitrie Cantemir University, Bucharest
Associate Professor LIANA IONESCU, Ph.D., Hyperion University, Bucharest
Associate Professor ELENA SAULEA, National University of Drama and Film, Bucharest, "I.L.
Caragiale", Bucharest

Managing Editor
IOAN CRISTESCU

Editorial Secretary
MIHAELA CAZAN
 Advisory Editors

Professor EUSEBIU TEFNESCU, Hyperion University, Bucharest

Associate Professor Vlad Leu, Hyperion University, Bucharest
Associate Professor IOAN CRMZAN, Ph.D., Hyperion University, Bucharest, Film Director, vice-
president of Filmmakers Union (UARF)
MAIA MORGENSTERN, Hyperion University, The National Theatre, Bucharest
Professor ION SPNULESCU, Hyperion University, Bucharest

Cover: EMILIA PETRE

Foto: GABI BOHOLT

DPT&Pre-Press
EMILIA PETRE
SUMMARY
I. Cinematographic Art
Editorial
Alexandru IORDACHESCU, M.A., Elefant Films, Geneva Le cinma est mort, vive le cinma!
Ralit, mort du cinma dauteur et transhumanisme / 5
Alina Petra MARINESCU-NENCIU, Ph. D. c, Bucharest University Image Perception in the Realm of
Media Manipulation. The Misleading Use of Newspaper Images / 8
Monica ILIE-PRICA, National School of Political Science and Public Administration Film Noir and
Femme Fatale. A Contemporary Perspective / 18
Beatrice MEDA, Ph.D c. National University of Theatre and Film "I.L.Caragiale", Bucharest Exploring
the Suspect Dimension of Realism in the Latest New Wave Romanian Cinema / 24
Daniela DIMA-RIAIN BA, International Make-Up Artist Trade Show, London The Romanian
New Wave / 34
Alexandru IORDACHESCU, M.A. Elefant Films, Geneva Rves veills, entropie et paradoxe de la
reine rouge. Le pouvoir ambigu du cinma. / 38

II. Cultural Studies:

Inherited ideas
Irina Airinei Vasile, Ph.D. National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, and
Sorin BORDUANU,Vicepresident of the Assigning Names Committee of Bucharest A cultural
perspective: suggestion for a documentary film.The toponymic heritage of Bucharest -Streets bearing
Jewish names / 43
Diana MEIU , Ph.D, Hyperion University, Bucharest The Golden Ratio. From the oldest
to the newest arts / 52
Florin TOADER Postmodernism in the art of film (lecture notes) / 57
 Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

Editorial

Le cinma est mort, vive le cinma!

Ralit, mort du cinma dauteur et transhumanisme

Alexandru IORDACHESCU
Elefant Films, Geneva

Abstract : Whether among filmmakers or sales agents, the sentence: "our movies do not sell anymore" is a leitmotif
during the "Berlinale 2014". As this phenomenon has grown over the past ten years regarding Arthouse movies, it is
necessary to outline some assumptions. The one we will explore here is the following: its not the intrinsic quality of
the films which is declining, but the technological dimension associated with them.

Keywords: Berlinale, Arthouse movies, technology, transhumanism

Avenir et cinma dauteur sont des Or, si nous analysons au long de

termes quon a de la peine associer lors de
cette dition 2014 de la Berlinale.
Pourtant ce nest pas en raison du
manque de qualit ou de pertinence des films
dauteur, mais en raison dun malentendu.
Quel est ce malentendu? Encore
aujourdhui, lorsquon parle de cinma dauteur,
les mots qui viennent lesprit sont: vision
singulire et personnelle, valeur ajoute
culturelle et artistique, rflexion sur le monde et
sur nous-mmes, etc
lhistoire du cinma , ce qui a fait son succs, y
compris celui des films dauteur, ce ne sont
jamais uniquement ces aspects l, mais une
conjonction entre des valeurs et une technologie,
la concidence de deux en quelque sorte.
Revenons au point de dpart, cette
suite dimages que tout le monde connat, qui
marque le dbut de lexprience
cinmatographique: un train qui entre dans une
gare, celle de La Ciotat. Ce sont des images
saccades, en noir et blanc et sans son.

5
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Pourtant les spectateurs du premier rang
dit-on , se sont enfuis la vue de cette image
projete qui se ruait sur eux Quelle dcharge
dadrnaline a a d tre pour eux, quelle
exprience profondment physiologique.
Qui senfuirait encore aujourdhui la
vue de ces mmes images? Qui aurait ne serais-
ce quune lgre acclration du rythme
cardiaque? Personne.
Que sest-il pass entre la premire
projection de ces images de train et maintenant?
Dune part, la technologie cinema-
tographique, proprement rvolutionnaire lors de
son apparition, a beaucoup volu. Elle a mme
t dpasse, du point de vue de limmersion du
spectateur, par dautres formes
audiovisuelles, tels que les jeux vido.
Dautre part, et corollairement au
premier constat, le cinma a perdu de sa
magie, au sens propre comme figur. Tout le
monde sait que le cinma est une convention,
que le sang est du ketchup et que les effets sont
modliss laide de programmes 3D.
Et cest l que nous constatons que
McLuhan avait raison: ce nest pas le contenu
intrinsque des films ou des formes narratives
des jeux qui ont perdu ou gagn, mais la
technologie qui les vhicule. Ce qui gagne
invariablement cest la forme susceptible de
gnrer le plus dexcitation neurologique,
quelque soit sa nature ou son niveau intellectuel.
Supposons maintenant que les mmes
images du train qui rentrent dans la gare soient
projetes directement dans le nerf optique, voir
encodes dans le lobe frontal, en y rajoutant
lexcitation des autres sens, la raction
physiologique serait trs leve, comparable
une exprience relle.
Or cest prcisment ce que les
spectateurs ayant vu pour la premire fois ces
images, il y a plus dun sicle, on ressenti:
limpression quune vritable locomotive leur
fonait dessus. Et cest galement ce que
cinastes et spectateurs ont cherch recrer par
la suite dans les salles de cinma: une
convention de ralit, limmersion dans une
ralit autre, dont lillusion technologique
tait suffisamment dveloppe pour berner les
sens.
Cest l o, mon avis, le cinma
dauteur a un train de retard : en axant tout
son effort sur le langage cinmatographique, en
misant intellectuellement sur la convention qui
le lie la ralit, il a ignor sa dimension
technologique.
Lorsque les noralistes italiens ont fait
des films qui taient la fois des succs
artistiques et commerciaux, cest principalement
cause du fait que le cinma, cette poque,
tait encore une technologie de pointe et le
vecteur dun espoir de transformation dans la
socit : une socit qui pensait encore que le
progrs, la science et la technologie pouvaient la
librer et rvolutionner le monde.
Que le geste librateur des
noralistes, qui consistait prendre la camra
la main et sortir des studios pour filmer dans la
rue soit contemporain aux mouvements de mai
68, la libration sexuelle, lexploration
dtats altrs de conscience ou lavnement de
la cyberntique, est tout sauf une concidence : la
technologie pouvait nous librer, nous en tions
les maitres et lavenir semblait radieux. Les
cinastes taient, dans ce sens, des hros
promthens, les vecteurs / narrateurs de ces
mutations profondes dans la socit.
Or, aujourdhui nous commenons
bien le comprendre, la technologie ne libre pas.
Elle transforme sans doute nos vies, mais ne les
amliore pas ncessairement au vu des questions
fondamentales que ltre humain est en droit de
se poser (et ne manque pas de le faire).
Cest ainsi que le cinma, en ignorant sa
dimension technologique, peut travailler contre
une partie de lui-mme. Lorsque James Cameron
filme Avatar laide de camras 3D et que les
studios dcident de le projeter en salles
uniquement dans un format numrique, lhistoire
du film a beau raconter la victoire de sortes
dindiens sur les colonisateurs, dans les salles
de cinma cest le contraire qui se produit : le
taux de salles qui changent leur systme de
projection et adoptent le format digital passe de
20 % 80 % en Europe, marquant la fin du film
35mm et lavnement dune forme de
distribution qui va dfinitivement mettre hors jeu
les films dauteur, des films dindiens en
quelque sorte.
Mais, mme si ce cas est emblmatique, ce nest
pas le film ou le ralisateur qui est en cause. Car
lvolution de la technologie se fait en quelque
sorte malgr nous, malgr James Cameron et
mme malgr les studios. A chaque chelon du
systme cette volution est perue comme
inluctable, semblable la ncessit dadapta-
tion pour la survie.
Car au fond, ce que nous voulons, sans
vraiment le savoir ou se lavouer, ce sont des
illusions de plus en plus perfectionnes ; des
simulacres qui peuvent non seulement rivaliser
6

en intensit et perceptions avec la ralit, mais la
dpasser.
Dans cette perspective, la qute de
lhomme contemporain est surrelle, le
dveloppement et lusage que nous faisons de
nos technologies vont dans le sens dune
transcendance de notre ralit et de nos capacits
cognitives.
Mais, en mme temps, cette qute
semble nous dpasser, tant les bases
philosophiques et spirituelles nous font dfaut
face cette vritable bote de Pandore que nous
avons ouvert. Le salut ne viendra peut-tre pas
7
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
du cinma ; mais le cinma peut par contre, en
reconnaissant et en assumant son destin
technologique, suivre deux voies radicales: la
premire est celle adopte en ce moment par
l'industrie, qui pousse l'illusion et la technologie
toujours plus loin. Le film The Congress de
Ari Folman nous fournit une belle mtaphore.
La seconde voie, thorique ce jour,
consiste hacker la technologie pour en faire
une exprience psychotrope visant altrer la
conscience ( provoquer une prise de
conscience). A dfaut, il est toujours possible
d'en faire un scnario de science-fiction.
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

Image Perception in the Realm of Media Manipulation

The Misleading Use of Newspaper Images

Alina Petra MARINESCU-NENCIU1

Ph. D.c, Bucharest University

Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to accomplish a study on the role of the written press in manipulating
the readers perception by using specific means: press images. On the one hand, in order to support my hypothesis, I
shall take into consideration different approaches regarding the role played by vision in constructing ones
perception. To construct the framework of my interpretation I shall look into the dynamic net of relationships
unfolding among three concepts intensively debated within recent studies: public opinion, mass media and
manipulation. The analysis will also make use of considerations regarding images in general and press-images as
well as their impact on the readers perception in particular. On the other hand, I shall illustrate the aspects in the
theoretical background by using research data making part of an analysis I assessed on the occasion of the media
campaign on the opening of the Security files that took place between 2006 and 2007.

Keywords: manipulation, perception, image, media, opinion

Introduction According to the premises set by the

Vision is said to have taken over the
traditional oral-aural society apparently due to the
accelerated technological development that started
with the invention of the printing press in 1440 and
came to the point of taking the social evolution to
another level, seen by some as post-modern and by
others like a second, high modernity.
Whether or not the tendency of
prioritizing vision within the five-sense-sensorium
(McLuhan, 1961) is responsible for the social
changes and technical quantum leaps that have
been taking place during the last 100 years, or
vice-versa, is still to be discussed. What we know
for sure is that we would rather say I see than I
understand or I shall see instead of I shall work
this out somehow. Meaning vision is gaining
more and more space in the sensorium, as it is
more and more exploited in all the realms of our
daily existence. Exploited by us and used by
others to exploit ourselves. And this last part
should not come as a surprise as St. Thomas
himself is said to have alleged more than 2000
years ago that seeing is believing. This would
mean that your eyes can not lie to you. But what
is to be done when what you see is a counterfeit, a
fake or something that is aimed to nudge your
opinion into a different direction up to the point of
changing your perception over what you see and
what you believed about what you saw? And who
would be inclined to change your beliefs, why
and by what means?
technological realm, its the printed press that
seems to have led the way towards the merely
visual society we are living in. This
controversial machine used to be the tool of the
royalty, of the church or of any other authority
said, at a certain point, to contain power. As
being able to popularize ones opinion over a
specific fact, being able to disseminate, on a
large scale, the social representations you are
interested in, makes you powerful and in control.
Around the year 1800, the theoretician
Edmund Burke looked towards the place
occupied by journalists in the House of
Commons and said: There sits the State's fourth
power. Burke knew that the media would
become one of the most influential containers
and disseminators of social representations. 1
At that time, the press had begun to
show its influence over a public that the
researchers called mass society, a homogeneous
1 Alina Petra Marinescu-Nenciu is a Ph. D. candidate in
Sociology at the Bucharest University, Faculty of
Sociology and Social Work. She received her masters
degree from the same institution after graduating Research
in Sociology. Alina is mainly interested in studying the
dynamics of values in relation to the corporate
environment, the issue of meritocracy, discourse analysis
and the process of narratively constructing various
experiences in conversation. In 2007, she graduated
Journalism with a thesis on informing and manipulating
through the written press, a topic representing another
research focus of hers.
E-mail: alina.marinescu@sas.unibuc.ro

8

group not yet initiated in the processes of
selecting and interpreting the media message
delivered with purposes of informing and
obeying different interests. Unfortunately, things
havent changed so much until now, even if the
21-century media consumer is considered
selective and reflexive as a consequence of the,
so called, second modernity, far from being
directly affected by the news as being stung with
a hypodermic needle as believed in the 1920s. At
present, the purpose of the ones who make the
existence of mass-media possible is not very
different from the purpose followed by the
media at the beginnings.
Despite all the above, terms as
misinformation or manipulation have entered the
common vocabulary quite recently but became a
constant issue in formal or informal
conversations about the media. The phenomenon
began taking proportions at the same pace with
the conversion of the written and audio-video
press into the most important message bearers,
with a growing impact on the public.
Vision and perception
Taking into account the ups and downs
of sight and hearing in order to find out which
sense is more powerful out of the five existent
ones, Ingold (2000) reached to the conclusions
that a radical contrast is established between
hearing and vision (...) within the Western
tradition. Among the criteria of distinction are
that sound penetrates whereas sight isolates ()
that the auditory world is dynamic and the visual
world static, that to hear is to participate whereas
to see is to observe from a distance, that hearing
is social whereas vision is asocial or individual,
that hearing is morally virtuous whereas vision is
intrinsically untrustworthy, and finally that
hearing is sympathetic whereas vision is
indifferent or even treacherous (p.252).
Put in comparison with hearing, vision
seems to be that sense capable of identifying a
certain thing out of the numerous palpable realms of
ones life but also that sense having a propensity to
misleading the individual due to its
decontextualizing capacity. Thus, vision is a
powerful sense, able to construct perception, but one
should rather not trust his eyes no matter what.
Jonas (1966) underlines another
important feature connected to the eye-bounded
perception: With vision you have only to open
your eyes, and the world is there, already spread
out as a ground for any further exploration of it.
Only with vision, therefore, is it possible to
9
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
distinguish being from becoming, and hence to
entertain a concept of change (pp.36-45 apud
Ingold, 2002, p.259).
From a certain point on, Jonass
conclusion supports Ingolds former opinion:
seeing is an easy way to get in contact with the
surrounding reality/realities but, at the same
time, its contradictory, alleging that due to
vision one can witness and be aware of the
first, the final and also of the intermediate
processes of transformation an image is
submitted to. But what if the viewer is shown
only the result of the process? How could he
understand and objectively make up his mind
regarding the signification of what he
perceives? Is vision a really fit channel to be
used for deceiving? At what extent is one able
to control the ways and the thing he gets
exposed to by using his eyes? According to
Merleau Ponty (1964), one barely could be
selective in this respect as he considers that
vision is the means given me for being absent
from myself. So, in a certain way, our eyes
would be working like two little windows,
through which we gaze outside in a careless
manner and forget about our profound,
reflexive self. But what would happen with all
the information we would be taking inside?
How treacherously would it act?
Merleau-Ponty (1964) also answers
this question, when referring to a painting:
one doesnt look at it, nor does one see it, as
one would see any ordinary thing. Its that,
you see according to it, or with it. And he
explains: is not a view from the outside, a
merely physical-optical relation with the
world. It is rather a continued birth, as
though at every moment the painter opened
his eyes to the world, like a new-born infant,
for the first time () And so the painting to
which it gives rise is an embodiment of this
creative movement: it does not represent
things, or a world, but shows how things
become things, how the world becomes a
world (Ponty, 1964, pp.186-187, apud
Ingold, 2002, p.264). Ponty describes the
authors subjective stamp put on his creation
its depicting the World through the eyes of
the creator, according to his feelings and
impressions. I believe we could dare to call it
an unintended misleading process. Still, non-
objective, but biased by the painters creative
self. And the viewer would internalize the
impression the final image makes on him and
get misled without intention.
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
But what if the painter would want to
change the viewers opinion about a certain fact
or person by nudging him into perceiving things
differently?
Technological development has brought
the things people just fantasized about in the
1900s into real life. In his book called The
Problem of Form (1893), the sculptor Adolf
Hildebrand alleged that true vision must be
much imbued with tangibility and that creative,
aesthetic awareness was touching and making.
So the issue of interfering with the objective
perspective of things was presented openly and
praised for. From that point on, until the
invention of Photoshop-like graphic programs
was just a step. Technology and creativity have
done their job in creating the best prey for the
wide opened eyes to internalize.
Still, another question stands in line:
why would be one inclined to trust an image
nowadays, in the image modeling age, without at
least double-checking its trustfulness?
In order to try to answer we have to give
a look to Richard Lanhams Economics of
Attention (2007), more exactly to the concept of
fluff that he brings about. Lanham alleges that
the material, palpable world we were used to
was transformed in an immaterial one made up
of ideas and virtual realities. And this process
has been taking place for more than 20 years
now, enough time, one could say, for people to
accept and learn how to deal with things that
arent things as they knew them before. Still,
human beings have gotten used to stability and
concreteness since the dawns of times and habits
gained more than 2000 years before are quite
difficult to change, practically, overnight.
Consequently, people need to stick to things
allegedly objective and concrete, seeing as such
objects and images, even if they are not so. More
than that, due to the enormous quantity of fluff
that surrounds and gets involved with them
everyday people lack time, interest or simply
cease to double-check the things they see. And
by acting so, their perception gets manipulated.
I believe that, nowadays, media is one of
the most powerful creator and disseminator of
fluff. By stating this, I also mean that media is
the greatest perception manipulators, be it by
being used as a propagandistic tool by different
persons, but also, more interestingly, by
transmitting the journalists own perception as
information. How can this be possible?
10
Public opinion and the linkage
function of the press
One of two people in the world is
exposed to all sorts of messages produced and
disseminated by different mass communication
media. The same newspaper is read, sometimes
even simultaneously, by an American and by an
Asian, international radio news channels are
listened to by people in different countries linked
by the understanding of a language, the same TV
show is watched, each evening, by hundreds of
thousands of people in the same country, at the
same time. All these people are driven by the
same need of being informed or entertained and
get connected to the same few sources of mass
communication that deliver the same messages.
Marshall McLuhan was talking, almost
50 years ago, in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy
(1962), about a global village which would
appear as a consequence of the masses being
informed through mass media, having the same
informational background and that it would be
dominated by a sort of spontaneous and
unconscious solidarity, which he called
planetary tribalism (Coman, 1999).
Taken this into consideration, mass
media become public and social networks
creators. Consequently, more theoreticians drew
the conclusion that one of the most important
functions of the mass media is creating an
imaginary community.
This linkage function of mass media
exercises itself, in the same manner, at the
society level, where strangers get to interact
having as a common discussion topic a show
they use to watch or a newspaper they read.
Sociologists have analyzed this and concluded
that mass media manage to create a new form of
solidarity, characteristic to mass society.
Another consequence of the linkage function is
represented by the appearance of the public
sphere, concept explored, among others, by
Jrgen Habermas (1962). According to the
theoretician, the public sphere came to life
thanks to mass media and has been developing
since the 18th century as an area of public debate
where problems of general interest can be
discussed and opinions can crystallize.
Barnays (2003) looks to public opinion
from a different angle underlining its versatility.
It's the phrase that defines a diffuse and
unstable group of people who share changing
individual opinions. The public opinion results
from personal opinions sometimes alike, other
times different are belonging to people who

make part of the society as a whole or to any
social group. (...) The regular individuals
thinking consists in a large number of opinions
on a wide range of topics that get in contact with
his physical and mental life (p.23). Chelcea
analyses the concept and dedicates a large part of
the study Opinia public. Strategii de
persuasiune i manipulare (2006) to the
relationship between public opinion and mass
media concluding that communication can
activate latent attitudes and make active the
emergence of personal opinions.
In his book, Public Opinion (1922), the first
study entirely dedicated to public opinion, Walter
Lippman alleges that the public perceives only what
it is ready to perceive. The public meets the bunch
of happenings and new situations with specific
knowledge, with a certain cultural and experience-
based background. This knowledge is often
translated in intellectual stereotypes used as lenses
through which the public looks, trying to understand
real life.
Some of the researchers mentioned
before have concluded that the impact of mass
media on public opinion is decisive while the
other ones showed that this influence is minimal.
All in all, the connection between the two
entities has been never denied.
Another type of approach belongs to
Stan (2004) who says about the public opinion
concept that it represents the key element of
stability in a democratic system. The public
opinion keeps the balance straight in the
relationship between the Press and the Power.
(...) it's the key to any manipulative act that can
be made through the media. The one thing that
the ones initiating manipulative acts try to
change is public opinion (p.17).
Indeed Stans conclusions bring forward
the idea mentioned before when talking about
the mass media status in the society: providing
information and obeying specific interests. From
this perspective, the media practically creates a
public in order to expose it to all kinds of
messages aimed to different purposes, most
important being the political and the marketing
ones. But how does the mass media message
affect the public? One answer would be: by
setting up interpretative schemes through
frame analysis (Goffman, 1974). Such an
interpretative scheme of an event is, in fact, a
media frame of that specific event. Media uses
such framing in order to depict the events so
they could be perceived in a certain way
(Vlsceanu, 2011, p.691).
11
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Next to the influence theories mentioned
before, one must take into consideration that there
are different ways and stages of transmitting ones
opinion to the public, so the individual can be
influenced, persuaded and, finally, manipulated by
the press. For an unprepared target, manipulation
can't be felt or perceived while it takes place and
sometimes not even afterwards. It just changes the
individuals state of mind on a specific issue
without him even realizing that he's not the only
ruler of his thoughts. So what kind of phenomenon
is manipulation and how does the media put it to
work?
Manipulation:
concept vs. phenomenon
Popescu defines manipulation as a
manner of altered communication that uses in
variable proportions dishonest argumentation,
lies, bits of information all being put to act in
different trial methods. Rumor, diversion
placed next to or even supporting propaganda
(meaning also next to or supporting persuading),
taking forms of public relations especially
publicity that is aimed to create wrong
opinions at an individual, group or society level.
Manipulation is a form of fraud (2002, p.210).
Chelcea (2006) also talks about the
concept as having a dynamic shape and
underlines the purpose of exercising
manipulation: to create some kind of change in
perspectives as starting point in the whole snow-
ball effect of manipulation that ends up with a
different behavior than previously stays the
modeling of perception. He clearly differentiates
manipulation and the other forms of influence
like persuading, propaganda and advertising and
maintains the hypothesis belonging to Beauvois
and Joule (1997) who considered that in order to
change attitudes is better to firstly obtain a
preparatory behavior.
Manipulation theoreticians have also
illustrated the concept in connection with the
brain washing method used, for the first time,
during the Korea War: the American soldiers
were submitted to an intensive brain
manipulation program in order to get to serve the
Korean interests against The United States.
Empirically speaking, the brain washing
method continues to exist in the contemporary
society being now connected with the influence
that mass media can exercise over the people's
minds. This is how the words are now
assimilated with manipulation.
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Generally, manipulation cannot be
considered as being exercised by a certain part of
the society or by a certain social class. Different
types of manipulation can be found in everyday
life, in multiple situations. Relationships among
people, the functional rules of every community,
need of belonging to certain groups or even
simple, apparently unimportant, gestures are
sometimes premises for manipulation. The most
of them usually remain stuck at an unconscious
level, the individual not being able to perceive
them. In other cases he deals with them as being
little, otherwise important, compromise that he
needs to accept during his adaptation process to
different situations.
Given all the above, manipulation
appears to be an omnipresent mind-connected
process, exercised in contemporary societies, by
all individuals, without the use of physical
power. Manipulation is not palpable. People use
it in order to obtain certain responses from other
people individuals, groups, masses of people.
The process can be exercised intentionally, with
more or less important purposes, or
unintentionally. Manipulating the masses to
obey ones interest can be considered immoral or
even illegal as it resembles to a type of fraud.
Group or societal manipulation is
commonly associated with political or
commercial interests and in order for this kind of
influence to happen one needs a mean to
communicate its manipulative message or idea.
As seen before, in the first part of the essay,
mass media creates public, they are even said to
transform the whole World into a global village
by transmitting similar messages towards all
communities around the Globe. As a
consequence, mass media seem to be the best
facilitators for manipulative messages given to
their linkage function. But how does
manipulation through mass media work? The
next chapter is aimed to briefly explain this
process.
Manipulating the perception
through the written press
According to Cazeneuve (1970) the
tendentious information can create opinion
through the selection of a specific type of
information, cutting parts of the information,
transforming the context, combing real and
unreal data, underlining less important aspects
and not mentioning the essential, transmitting
false news.
12
At the same time, Stan (2004) alleges that
the three factors that intersect and create a refined
manipulating system through mass media are the
Powers tendency to control, the intention to
apparently keep the freedom of the press intact
and the commercial system that influences any
medium and its products. These three
characteristics give birth to the press reality which
is often just one perspective over the truth.
Regarding reality and the relationship
between reality and knowledge, sociologists
generated two opposite perspectives:
the realistic one alleging that
individuals have direct access to the
information surrounding them,
determining a direct connection between
reality and knowledge;
the constructive one that
considers that reality is built more or less
consciously and that it offers the journalist
a privileged position a gate-keeper in
the process of selecting and transmitting
the information.
That means the journalist has the
freedom to choose what subject should make the
news and this choice can be biased both by his
personal opinions and representations on reality
and by the interests he would obey
commercial, political etc. The journalist also
gets to pick the length and the placement of the
article in the editorial section and page.
The type of the mass media product
quality, tabloid, leisure also influences the
choice from starters, dictating what subject
would be of interest for the targeted public and
how it should be depicted.
Depending on the readers presumed
interest, an article can be followed by others on
the same topic, so the issue stays in the public
opinion's attention for longer and can enter the
public agenda, people talk about it and are made
to get the idea it could influence their everyday
life even if it really wouldn't. Media holdings
can easily place a topic on the public agenda as
they have multiple media of transmitting, can
use different approaches and can reach more
people. This means that manipulation through
media holdings is much easier to be exercised
than through single mediums.
But not only journalists have a word to
say in the process of delivering the news but also
the medium: written press, audio, audio-video,
Internet. The written press is the oldest among
all and one that has been constantly changing
during the decades, especially in terms of style

and content. News at the beginning depicted
rather subjectively and the so-called newspapers
were fulfilled with personal opinions.
Nowadays, objectivity is usually thought as
being the most important feature for a quality
newspaper. But even this concept can be
debated.
Jaques Legris, journalist working for Le
Monde, made a difference between intentional
and apparent objectivity. The first one is about
those journalists who firstly decide to understand
the events, the people and the ideas they will
write about afterwards, whilst the second one
implies a pre-existing judgment. By using
apparent objectivity, the journalist can influence
the selection made by the individual when
getting in contact with mass media messages
every day (apud V.Volkoff, p.166, 1999). This
can be considered a genuine form of
manipulation as the journalists depict the facts in
a certain manner so the individual will
concentrate on that emphasized section, detail,
title, word, paragraph or subject.
Regarding style, Legris (1999) says that an
almost incidental dependent clause could be
enough to give the article the aimed effect as well
as an ambiguous word, a word with multiple
meanings. Indeed, even one comma can totally
change the transmitted message by isolating an
idea, for example. The same happens with
suspension points that keep the sense of ambiguity.
Key-words or those words which, when put
together, give the sense of the article are also to be
taken into consideration when one intends to
manipulate his reader. The chosen vocabulary and
the sense of the words used compile the
journalistic speech that can be neutral, can accuse
or can sustain an idea. Verbs, for example, can
easily transmit a certain point of view: pretends
instead of declares transforms the quoted
personage into a less credible one.
The main message of a longer article is
usually depicted in the abstract of the article,
commonly called chapeau. This gets usually
written in italics and / or is bolded. Sometimes
journalists bold one or more words even within
the article to point out a certain idea. The detail
draws the reader attention without him even
noticing.
The titles are one of the best methods to
manipulate a reader as they tend to stick in ones
memory long after the process of reading has
finished. People usually consider that the title
represents the main idea of the press material
and they can be easily taken in by an untrue one.
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Apart the writing style, the type of the
journalistic article can be an important
manipulative factor the same topic can be
depicted in a report, an interview, a simple
informative article and all of these can be written
in hundreds of manners depending on the focus
of the journalistic approach. The writer can leave
his personage speak more or less, can underline
some or other characteristics, can decide to keep
only parts of what the personage said.
Regarding journalistic styles, the opinion
articles are prone to be ones of the most
manipulative as they represent a subjective
approach by definition. Everything that the
journalist writes can be considered personal
opinion. But this doesnt mean that his
personal opinion will not influence the
readers opinion which is caught off-guard. Even
if the editorialists conclusions are fact-based,
the facts can be chosen arbitrarily.
Page placement could also be a good
method of manipulating the reader whose
attention focuses on the optical center placed in
the upper left side of the page and not in the
middle of the page, as one would think. In the
same spirit, an article placed at the bottom of the
page will be automatically perceived as being of
less interest than one placed in the upper side. A
little note in a colored frame or a little cartoon
strategically placed next to an article can draw
away the readers attention or even change the
way the material is perceived.
Before talking about the way visual
representations, newspaper pictures, can be used
with a manipulative purpose, lets take a look at
several considerations regarding images.
Image perception and manipulative
newspaper images
What is, in fact, an image? Can one talk
about true images? According to Pierre Bourdieu
there arent such things as real images, but just
images (1998). Taking into consideration the
above conclusions regarding the subjectivity of
vision Bourdieus statement sounds as much
frightening as it is true.
One of the most well-known image
analysts, Enrico Fulchignoni (1969), made a
clear distinction among two types of instances
staying under the same word: image. The author
talks about objective images (that result from the
sensorial data collected by vision during the
direct perception of the world) and subjective
images (subjective representations resulted from
a creative process that involves imagination).
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Visual representation is said to have as
much impact as 1000 words have and this can be
considered true, as the picture is directly
dedicated to vision a sense that occupies a
privileged position in the five-sense-sensorium
as we showed in the first part of this paper. Lets
just remember about the way Merleau-Ponty
talked about a painting, as being imbued with the
authors perspective over the world. The same
idea is underlined by Burke (2001, p.21), when
writing about historical-images, known to have
the purpose to depict, as accurately as possible,
the surrounding environment: All the same, it
would be unwise to attribute to the artist-
reporters an <<innocent eye>> in the sense of a
gaze which is totally objective, free from
expectations or prejudices of any kind. Seen
literally and metaphorically, sketches and
paintings record a <<point of view>>.
Living in the age of graphic distortion
and of technological development, even the
minute perception of the cameras eye cannot be
trusted anymore to deliver an accurate result, but
merely illustrating the authors perception.
Taken into consideration our former
considerations regarding the manipulative effect
of the media on the public opinions perception,
but also Lewis Hines statement: While
photographs may not lie, liars may photograph
the process by which newspaper images nudge
the readers into changing their perception on a
certain event or person comes almost as natural.
Usually, images used to illustrate a
certain article have got the role of checking-up
visually the information in the text and of
making it credible by showing it as realistically
as possible. This category doesnt include the
large narrative photos that tell stories by
themselves and are not placed within a large
block of journalistic text. They talk by
themselves and their purpose is to do so. Thus,
sometimes illustrative images become narrative
ones, offering the reader a secondary key of
interpretation, sometimes different of the
articles frame of interpretation, aimed to change
the readers perception smoothly, without
making use of words and risking clear
manipulation purposes. In conclusion, lots of
images deliver hidden messages that influence
the consumers interpretation of the specific
article they are part of.
Among all types of newspaper images
stand the cartoon-like ones. By hiding behind the
pamphlet type of press, journalists freely accuse
and mock different characters. Newspaper
14
images that are placed within different article
can be used whether just to distract ones
attention by underlining a certain detail or even
to contradict what the article alleges (...)
Choosing to publish such images where the
secondary details have no connection with the
article main idea, is a clear attempt of changing
the readers perception by using subliminal
messages (Stan, 2004, p.53).
Another way of manipulation when
making use of media images could be done by
the so-called Chinese drop method: during a
media campaign that can count tens of articles
on the same subject, journalists use photos
apparently different, but still imbued with the
same message. After being systematically
exposed to a certain idea, even the selective
media consumer tends to ask himself questions
about the things he thought he knew for sure and
finally he gets clearly manipulated.
The images depicting a certain character
are ones of the most prone to subjectivity as any
gesture or even any look the personages takes
can be misleading and misunderstood when
taken out of the context. The clothes one wears
or the frozen frame of the personages body-
language are very good predictors for changing a
readers perception regarding a person in relation
to a certain topic. As we saw before, text and
image work together in order to transmit the
desired message sometimes deliberately
contradictory in order to puzzle the consumer.
Page placement of the picture, the colors
used, or the picture description is among the
tools a journalist can make use of when setting a
frame of interpretation.
All of the above got very well illustrated
during the media campaign occasioned by the
opening of the Security files (2006-2007). One
of the characters whose credibility was put into
debate then was Mona Musc and the pictures
used supported the considerations made
regarding the role of the media in changing the
readers perception on a certain topic. When the
press campaign ended the polls showed that
peoples trust in Mona Musc had decreased
significantly and that peoples opinion regarding
the politicians public image got also severely
affected. As a consequence of the media
campaign the politician stepped down from the
political stage.

Misleading newspaper images
Study case: Media Informing and
Manipulating on the Opening of the Security
Files (2006-2007). Research focus: Mona
Musc
I decided to study this topic as it entered
the public agenda and public debate after all the
Romanian mass media showed great interest in
presenting and discussing its multiple
perspectives. Regarding the character I chose,
Mona Musc was a well-known, quite
uncontroversial politician, whose public image
was perceived dramatically different after the
opening of her Security file and who finally
retired from the political stage.
As mass media were, for many people,
the only information channels used in this case I
wanted to find out at what extent their approach
changed people's perception. Did they inform or
manipulate the public?
As study material I chose two daily
quality newspapers: Cotidianul and Gndul that
were targeted to a premium audience, the same
audience as the one that Mona Musc targeted in
her public speech, her voters. Both newspapers
covered the topic with priority. Moreover, within
the both editorial teams one could find
influential opinion leaders at that time.
The representative sample consisted of
153 articles (80 from Cotidianul newspaper and
73 from Gndul newspaper) published between
the 9th of August 2006 and the 9th of May 2007.
The articles covered different types of
journalistic approach: from interviews to simple
notes. The unit of work was considered to be the
entire article.
The content analysis I conducted
included several approaches like the analysis of
the frequency of different topics in the selected
articles (research also based on key-words), the
calculation of the attitude coefficient, the
analysis of the selected journalistic genres in
terms of type, section and page placement, the
analysis of the journalistic speech, titles and
pictures used.
In order to assess the analysis of the
images used during the media campaign I
selected two groups of four images each,
belonging to the two daily newspapers.
The editorial policy of Gndul required
the use of black and white pictures depicting the
main character debated in the near-by article.
This newspaper did not prioritize images, but
texts that occupied the most part of the page.
15
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Even so, the used photos were chosen in such
way as to transmit both an evident message and
a subliminal one.
In Cotidianul newspaper another
approach could be discovered. Even if the
images were not used excessively, the opinion
articles (most important manipulative tools, as
seen in the overall study) were always backend
by very suggestive cartoons. Sometimes, these
images were as big as half a page, being a clear
attention point for the reader.
Given the remarks above, I decided to
analyze a group of pictures from Gndul
newspaper (the 9th, 10th, 11th of August 2006)
and a symmetrical group of cartoons published
in Cotidianul (the 14th and 16th of August, the
4th of September 2006).
Conclusions Regarding
the Assessed Research
The study stressed up the editorial policy
of the two newspapers given the types of
journalistic speech they choose.
On the one hand, Gndul newspaper
maintained its objective approach both at the text
and at the image levels. The delivered message
was information and event-based so were the
pictures used. On the other hand, the titles of the
articles depicted the journalists opinions
regarding the topic, being often sensational,
lacking straight information. The opinion articles
placed in the optical center of the first page also
delivered a harsh, accusing and even defamatory
attitude towards Mona Musc.
When talking about Cotidianul
newspaper, the results of the research were more
obvious. This could be a consequence of the
editorial policy of the newspaper that allows
more subjective approaches both for opinion and
information articles. The public was
permanently exposed to articles that accused and
condemned the personage using a broad range of
defaming words as squeak and mostly
insinuating phrases instead of words with a clear
meaning. The images and especially the cartoons
used to illustrate opinion materials depicted the
politician in all kinds of contexts perceived as
mocking and / or embarrassing. These cartoons
were introduced during the entire media
campaign, bearing changes depending on the
way the events went.
All in all, the message delivered by the
two newspapers to the public was not an
equitable and objective one but one that
contradicts journalistic deontology. The people's
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

perception was influenced by being conse-
cutively exposed to defaming texts and pictures
aimed to affect the personages public image.
As a consequence of the media scandal
that took place between the months of August
2006 and March 2007, the results of the opinion
polls showed that the peoples trust in the
politician had decreased with 30 percent.
Taken this into consideration the manner
that the two newspapers decided to present this
topic seems to have been more manipulative
than aimed to inform the public.
Discussion
The fact that we are living in an age of
performance and that this type of world is
constructed in such a way as to be merely
perceived as visual have become over-debated
issues. Moreover, rather recently, there could be
heard voices that pleaded for the return of the
former aural-oral society and of its intrinsic
values. Though, the technological development
we have been facing has clearly prioritized
vision even if, nowadays, its trajectory seems to
be towards synesthesia. All in all, people still
believe in what they see and believe in it even
stronger when they receive the same information
through other channels dedicated to other senses
as their hearing, for example. And who else, if
not the media, masters this synesthesia of
information being able to select, elaborate and
transmit widely the same messages!?
More than two hundred years later after
Edmund Burke legitimated its actions by
acknowledging publically the power of mass
media we face a professional journalism that
aims a resembling audience. The multiple means
of mass communication target well determined
niches of public, people who make up the
society of the high modernity age and who are
characterized by much more reflexivity and
individuality. Still, the journalistic act itself is
prone to subjectivity as its conducted by self-
aware human beings, not mentioning other
interests that media has been serving since the
invention of the printing press.
At the same time, manipulation is a
hardly perceived process that firstly affects the
persons perception getting it modified.
Secondly, the molded perception over reality
turns into opinions and finally into decisions and
actions. Its a hardly perceived phenomenon but
yet very much present in our everyday lives,
even if its conducted on intention or
unintentionally, by the media or by a close
person, with an ultimate purpose of ruining
someones public image or with an innocent
motivation as being more appreciated by a dear
person by offering her a rose.
What we know for sure is that, as the
main message carriers in the contemporary
society, mass media are able to deliver both
information and specific ideas and opinions
belonging to a few people. And this happens
when the press obeys interests different from the
publics ones. And the result is that the audience
is nudged into changing its perceptions and
eventually into changing its behavior regarding a
certain subject or person.
Still, due to recent technological
discoveries, as interactive media, manipulation is
not as easily to be practiced as it was before.
People have now lots of ways to verify the
truthfulness of the information and they are
taken in more and more difficult. Moreover, the
Internet offers a global debate area that becomes
harder and harder to control every day.
Nevertheless, as the analysis presented
within this paper has proved, perceptions can be
still changed by the media and the written press
is still a powerful weapon when used for other
purposes than for informing.

List of References
1. Barnays L., E. (2003). Cristalizarea opiniei publice, Bucureti: comunicare.ro
2. Burke, P., 2001, Eyewitnessing. The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence, London: Reaktion Books Ltd
3. Cazeneuve, J. (1970). Les pouvoirs de la television, Paris: Gallimard
4. Chelcea, S. (2006). Opinia public. Strategii de persuasiune i manipulare, Cap. 4 Construirea opinie publice:
rolul mass-media, Cap. 6 Manipularea: o perspectiv psihosociologic, Bucureti: Editura Economic
5. Coman, M. (coord.) (1999). Introducere n sistemul mass-media, Bucureti: Polirom
6. Dncu, V. (1999). Comunicarea simbolic, Cluj-Napoca: Dacia
7. Dobrescu, P., Brgoanu, A. (2003). Mass Media i societatea, Bucureti: Comunicare.ro
8. Fulchignoni, E., 1969, La civilisation de l'image, Paris: Payot
9. Giddens, A. (2001). Sociologie ediia a 3a, Bucureti: All
10. Ingold, T. (2002). The Perception of the Environment. Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill, Chap. 14: Stop,
look and listen! Vision, hearing and human movement, Taylor & Francis e-Library, pp. 243-287

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11. Joule, R.V., Beauvois, J.L. (1997). Tratat de manipulare, Bucureti: Antet
12. Lanham, R. (2006). The Economics of Attention, Chap.I, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press
13. Lucrare de diplom: Informare i manipulare n cazul deconspirrii dosarelor Securitii. Studiu de caz: Mona
Musc, absolvent: Alina Petra Marinescu, coordonator: Prof. univ. dr. Marcel Tolcea, 2007
14. McLuhan, M. (2005). Inside the Five Sense Sensorium, in Howes, D., Empire of the Senses: The Sensory
Culture Reader, Oxford: Berg
15. Stan, S. C. (2004). Manipularea prin pres, Bucureti: Humanitas
16. Vlsceanu, L. (2011). Mass media, public i societate n Vlsceanu, L. (coord.), Sociologie, Bucureti: Polirom,
pp. 682-736
17. Volkoff, V. (1999). Tratat de dezinformare, Bucureti: Antet

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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

Film Noir and Femme Fatale. A Contemporary Perspective

Monica ILIE-PRICA1
National School of Political Science
and Public Administration

Abstract: The present article is a contemporary view on film noir and its iconic female character, the femme fatale.
The significance of these two important concepts in cinema history is reflected here through some of the most
relevant studies conducted in this field. It is also a synthetic presentation of the main characteristics that define the
film genre mentioned above and its prominent heroine and, ultimately, it proposes a discussion on the impact that
film noir has on the modern times, mainly on the contemporary public, taking into consideration several aspects
related to the yesterdays and todays society.

Keywords: film noir, film neo-noir, gothic film, femme fatale, Expressionism

In the present article, I also try to

Introduction
Throughout the twentieth century, the
cinema, entitled the seventh art, has become a
means of entertainment and education for a
variety of audiences around the world, and it is
acknowledged its major role in the birth of
television. At the same time, it is an entire
industry that promotes legendary figures and
motion pictures through publicity campaigns.
In my opinion, the cinema is the most
complex form of art, as it represents a
fascinating combination between high culture
and popular culture. Over the time, it promoted
an impressive range of artistic movements (from
German Expressionism and French Poetic
Realism, to Neo-Realism, and Post-Modernism)
and genres (drama, romance, comedy, musical,
horror, thriller, western, adventure, epic, science
fiction etc.).
One of the most interesting creations of
the seventh art is, of course, the film noir. As I
will present in this article, film noir combines
characteristics from other film genres, such as
the Expressionist films, the gangster films, the
gothic films, the horror films, and the
melodramas. It might be as well seen as a
stylised thriller, which depicts fictional or real-
life stories (especially after the late 1950s, when
it became a sort of semi-documentary), with
powerful characters, like the outstanding femme
fatale, who dominates not just the plot of the
film or the hard-boiled hero, but also the
audiences that seem spellbound once she appears
on the screen.
emphasize the main physical and psychological
traits of the femme fatale or the deadly woman,
in accordance with the vision of film scholars
and other specialists who made studies on the
femme fatale and film noir.
Film Noir as a subject for discussion
The subject of film noir has been
debated by many authors who represent all kinds
of fields, not just the cinema. Psychology,
philosophy, sociology, and history are other
domains that films noirs seem to cover not just
because of their stories, but also because of their
impact on the general public. I might as well add
here that film noir is still a popular topic, and as
a cinematic product it is kept as fresh and
modern as always, especially once the neo-noir
genre (the modern phase of film noir) came2 to
surface in the late 1960s-1970s, and which still
exists even nowadays (see The Dark Knight and
The Black Swan, among the most recent titles).
But what is this film noir, after all?
This generic term was first introduced by the
French journalist Nino Frank, in 1946. Inspired
1
Monica Ilie-Prica is currently attending the courses of the
Master in Audio-Visual Communication at the National
School of Political Science and Public Administration, in
Bucharest, and is about to earn a Masters Degree in July
2014. Interested in television, film, public relations,
diplomacy, history. As a film collector, she coordinates
several blogs (http://moniqueclassique.wordpress.com) and
websites dedicated to film actors (Conrad Veidt, Vivien
Leigh, Lana Turner, John van Dreelen, Deborah Kerr and
Yul Brynner). E-mail: monik.ilie@yahoo.com

18

by the crime novels published in France under
the name of srie noire, Frank observed the
sombre and sinister atmosphere of the latest
American thrillers (The Maltese Falcon, Double
Indemnity, Laura, and Murder, My Sweet) that
were shown in the cinemas after the end of
WWII, and so he came up with the name of
film noir. In fact, the films noirs are the screen
versions of several best-selling crime novels that
were published in the 1920s-1930s in Great
Britain and the United States. Some of the
famous authors were Dashiell Hammett, with his
novels The Glass Key and The Maltese Falcon,
James M. Cain, with Double Indemnity and The
Postman Always Rings Twice, Raymond
Chandler, with Lady in the Lake and The Big
Sleep, and Graham Greene, with This Gun for
Hire and The Third Man.
It is considered that there are two stages
in the history of film noir. The first is the
classical period, beginning with John Hustons
The Maltese Falcon (1941) and ending with
Orson Welless Touch of Evil (1958). Then
followed the 1960s, a moment when film noir, as
a genre, became to decline, but it was
revigorated in the late 1960s and the early 1970s,
also known as the postclassical period of film
noir. From then on, renowned filmmakers, like
Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Paul Verhoeven,
and Quentin Tarantino directed retro-noirs, like
The Postman Always Rings Twice and
Chinatown, or neo-noirs, with such films like
Blue Velvet, Basic Instinct, Fatal Atttraction,
Body Heat, and L.A. Confidential.
Film noir definitions
and characteristics
There have been many attempts to
define film noir, but nobody really found a
precise definition. Some people consider it a
genre, an aesthetic movement, or a constellation:
a loose group of motifs, stylistic devices and
plot lines between which a critic can draw
endless imaginary lines connecting them with a
shifting series of figures [Tom Gunning apud
A. Spicer & H. Hanson, 2013: pp.111-112].
Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton were
the first authors who tried to define film noir.
They consider that its the presence of crime
that gives film noir its most distinctive stamp
(). Film noir is a film of death in all the senses
of the word [Borde & Chaumeton, 2002: p. 5].
Owing to its violence, film noir has a certain
impact on the publics perception towards the
real life and the environment, in general. The
19
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
authors argue that the moral ambivalence,
criminal violence, and contradictory complexity
of the situations and motives all combine to give
the public a shared feeling of anguish and
insecurity, which is the identifying sign of film
noir at this time. All the works in this series
exhibit a consistency of an emotional sort;
namely, the state of tension created in the
spectators by the disappearance of their
psychological bearings. The vocation of film
noir has been to create a specific sense of
malaise [Ibidem, p.13].
One of the main characteristics of film
noir is the ambiguity and the ambivalence in
portraying the heroes. As Borde and Chaumeton
noted, usually, in film noir we see angelic
killers, neurotic gangsters, megalomaniac gang
bosses, and disturbing or depraved stooges
[Ibidem, p. 8]. The protagonist is usually a hard-
boiled policeman or an ordinary man who deals
with psychological problems and social crises,
which reflect a seriously disturbed society, with
dangers at every corner. Justice is never a key to
the solution, and the hero takes life in his hands
and tries to clear the difficulties of his existence,
no matter if he commits a crime or becomes a
victim of his own fate. Sometimes he dies
because he is seduced by a femme fatale, the
most important and prominent character in film
noir. The deadly woman is a goddess who
possesses not only a perfect face and a perfect
body, but also a strong personality. Her problem
is that she never stops until she gets things in her
own way and owing to her struggles she, too,
becomes a victim of her own faults. Both
protagonists are punished for their attempt to
betray and break the rules, even if their reasons
are very realistic and pragmatic. They behave
this way because they need money, power,
freedom, and equity. They fight for their goals
and they have a passionate attitude towards life.
The hero and the heroine in film noir dont care
how much they live. They want it all and as soon
as possible. They never surrender easily, unless
they are seriously injured or killed, and they only
live the present. They try to escape from their
problems and to satisfy their most demanding
needs, but in their attempt to set themselves free
from the uneven boundaries of the unfair
society, they become more disturbed and they
get into more troubles than in their initial state.
The crisis of the individuals is always developed
in the city, which is the main background used in
films noirs. Dark alleys, dump streets, rainy
nights, deserted places, funfairs, parks and
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
railway stations, bizarre nightclubs and cafs,
usually used for the clandestine reunions of the
mob. There is a sense of fear and panic that one
could get killed at any time This is the general
setting and mood in film noir.
In terms of cinematography, film noir is
famous for several specific traits that one could
easily identify while watching a motion picture
of this type. For instance, the chiaroscuro
lighting, the fascinating combination between
lights and shadows is one of them. Andrew
Spicer and Helen Hanson consider that Orson
Welles was the first filmmaker who introduced
film noir to the public, through his masterpiece
Citizen Kane (1941), which despite not being
truly a film noir, it became a source of
inspiration for the real films noirs that were
made after 1941. The authors point out several
aspects that define film noir, as follows:
1. Depth staging
2. The sequence shot
3. Subjective camera positions to suggest
psychological states
4. Anti-traditional mise-en-scne
5. Expressive montage instead of dcoupage
classique
6. A baroque visual style characterized by
mannered lighting and photography
7. Formative use of sound: for example,
overlapping dialogue, aural bridges, modulations
in the amplification of sound effects
8. The displacement of wall-to-wall romantic
scores with expressive and interpretative music
9. The use of documentary conventions within
the structure of a narrative film
10. A convoluted temporal structure involving
the use of first person voice-over narration
11. Psychological of Freudian tones
12. Use of an investigator who attempts to order
an inherently incoherent and ambiguous world
13. A morally ambiguous protagonist [Spicer &
Hanson, 2013: p.22].
One could obviously notice that film
noir has some distinctive qualities, not just
visually, but also when it comes to the
storytelling. The narration is made in a
subjective manner (at least in the initial films
noirs), as the hero remembers, in a flashback
depiction of the events, how his life changed,
especially after meeting a femme fatale (see
Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings
Twice, Detour, and Sunset Blvd.). In the later
films noirs, from the 1950s, the narration was
made in a different perspective, more objective,
neutral, without the slightest emotion. The so-
20
called Voice of God was used instead of the
emotional narration of the protagonist. This
different technique of storytelling was inspired
by the news bulletins and it reminds of a
documentary. The city is illustrated as it is,
without exaggerations. Some of the stories were
the screen versions of real criminal cases solved
by the police, and so we can say that reel life
(life in the movies) identifies itself and even
coincides with real life. What is important to
mention here is that film noir is not necessarily
shot in black and white. There are films noirs
(both classical and modern) that were shot in
colour. One of them is the acclaimed motion
picture Leave Her to Heaven (1945), in which
the storytelling, the characters (especially the
heroine, who ruins the life of the hero), the
camera shots, the camera movements and angles
are typical to the noir style. But the most stylised
film noir, which brings to attention the most
stylised femme fatale and, perhaps, the definitive
spider woman in history, is a black and white
masterpiece, directed and produced by the
talented Billy Wilder. Of course, I refer to
Sunset Blvd. (1950), with the enigmatic and
controversial silent film star Norma Desmond, a
character portrayed by a real star of the silent
era, Gloria Swanson, a great personality, larger
than life. What is even more interesting about
this film is the presence of the illustrious giant of
the European cinema, the equally enigmatic and
formidable legend of the silver screen, the actor,
director, screenwriter and producer Erich von
Stroheim. A film noir that has Stroheim and
Swanson in the cast, and Billy Wilder as a
director, is certainly a sample of pure artistic
values. This time, film noir is no longer an
ordinary thriller, but art itself. It is a piece of
artistry, an A-picture, winner of three Academy
Awards, for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay,
Best Art Direction, and Best Music.
In general, film noir has a major artistic
importance, because it encompasses the
characteristics of other film movements and
genres. The most influential of them all is the
German Expressionism. Several prominent
directors of films noirs in Hollywood were actually
Jewish emigrants from Germany, who escaped
from the Nazi regime to save their lives. Among
them were Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Otto
Preminger, Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak, and
Joseph von Sternberg. It is only natural that they
used the filming techniques and style of
Expressionism in order to promote, in the United
States, a very sophisticated and subtle form of

propaganda, during and immediately after WWII.
Expressionist films and films noirs have in
common the psychology of the characters, who are
usually tormented people, the voice-over and
flashback, as narrative methods, and the
chiaroscuro lighting. Film noir has also some
important aspects in common with the French
Poetic Realism (promoted by Julien Duvivier, Jean
Renoir, and Marcel Carn) when it comes to
pessimistic atmosphere, cruel reality and the tough
manner in which the characters and the stories are
depicted. In fact, Expressionism, French Poetic
Realism and film noir have all in common the
social, economic and political crisis, because they
appeared in periods of war or during serious
conflicts, with disastrous consequences on the
people and the society, in general.
At the same time, film noir has a lot in
common with the gothic film, too. They
resemble when it comes to filming and narrative
techniques, direction, general atmosphere, that is
sinister and terrifying, but also when it comes to
symbols like staircases, mirrors, and paintings.
Some of the characters in both genres are
mentally disturbed people, who imagine or really
are in great danger (see Gaslight, The Spiral
Staircase, Secret Beyond the Door, and Alfred
Hitchcocks Rebecca, Suspicion, and Shadow of
a Doubt, among others). Most of the times, the
wife suspects of the husband that he wants to kill
her, and the public comes to believe this, too,
because the hero is ambiguous. But, whilst the
gothic film has a damsel in distress, a heroine
that might be in danger and who investigates a
possible crime and seeks for help, in film noir
the heroine is, indeed, a dangerous woman,
capable of killing her husband (who is usually
much older than her) for money, for freedom
(because she wants to take control of her own
life, without ever depending of anybody else),
and for power. The deadly woman also
condemns her lover to death, as she disposes of
him once he helped her in her malevolent
scheme, which might be described as the
perfect crime, or, in other words, a crime
without trace.
Film noir has something in common with
the horror films, as well, especially when we refer
to the suspenseful moments and the lugubrious
scenes which induce a state of fear, of panic,
maybe even of shock to the public. The difference
is that the horror film is sustained by the
supernatural elements, such as phantoms and
monsters, while film noir is as realistic as possible.
Film noir also has something in common with the
21
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
gangster film from the early 30s (we remember
easily the iconic Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni,
and James Cagney). We have many depictions of
the mob in film noir, and the Scarface type of
character is quite often seen especially in the
productions from the mid-50s, such as The Big
Heat and The Big Combo. But in film noir, not
only the leader of the mob is capable of conducting
criminal activities, but the ordinary citizen, too.
Film noir conveys an important message here: that
the society is profoundly corrupt, unfair, chaotic
and dangerous, even more because no one is really
what he or she pretends to be. In other words, an
angel could be a demon and vice versa. The
continuous switch between the roles of the good
guy and the bad guy is typical to the film noir; but
also the unpredictable situations, the twists and
turns of the plot might take by surprise and confuse
the audiences. So, watching a film noir is equally
tiring and demanding, as it is a challenging and an
interesting experience for the viewers.
The femme fatale the demon
with angelic face
One of the most discussed characters in
cinema history is the femme fatale, the definitive
heroine in film noir. The dominant female image
on the big screen exists for a long time. First it
was inspired by the vamp ladies of the 1910s-
1920s, with such luminaries like Theda Bara,
Alla Nazimova, Gloria Swanson, Louise Brooks,
Clara Bow, and afterwards, in the 1930s, by
legendary actresses like Greta Garbo, Marlene
Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Mae
West... Thus, the transition from the vamp to the
femme fatale was made quite easily, so that in
the 1940s appeared some iconic female
performances in films noirs. I would mention
here Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity,
Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings
Twice, Gene Tierney in Laura, Ava Gardner in
The Killers, Rita Hayworth in Gilda and in The
Lady from Shanghai, Lauren Bacall in The Big
Sleep, Jane Greer in Out of the Past, Joan
Bennett in The Woman in the Window and
Scarlet Street, Veronica Lake in The Blue
Dahlia, Ella Raines in Phantom Lady, Gloria
Grahame in The Big Heat, Gloria Swanson in
Sunset Blvd. and, among the more recent ones,
Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet, Sharon Stone
in Basic Instinct, and Kim Basinger in L.A.
Confidential.
One of the essential traits of the femme
fatale is her beauty and her desire to control
men through her sensuality, sex appeal and
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
domineering attitude. She is self-confident,
intelligent, ambitious, and very much aware of
her physical qualities, but despite her exquisite
looks, she is an evil woman, incapable of love.
Men are only an instrument for the fatales
schemes. She is willing to sacrifice everything
to get what she wants money, power,
freedom, total control over her destiny and over
those who surround her. The female character
in film noir is much stronger than the male
character, but in spite of that, she loses every
time, as she is punished and sentenced to death
by destiny, so she becomes the victim of her
own fatality. Still, in film noir the femme fatale
is not the only female character that we notice.
For instance, we can encounter the
businesswoman (see Mildred Pierce), the loyal
secretary (see Phantom Lady), the mother and
wife devoted to her family (see The Big Heat)
and, probably, an alternative for the hero who is
forced to choose between her and the
antagonist, the deadly woman.
Another interesting aspect is the
duplicity in the portrayal of women in film noir.
This reminds me of The Dark Mirror (1946),
with Olivia de Havilland in a dual role of the
twin sisters, who despite being physically
identical, they differ radically when it comes to
their personalities (one is good, the other one is
evil). In addition to this, the double image of
the heroine is created through symbols like
paintings, photographs, mirrors that are used
for her own contemplation, because the femme
fatale is not only histrionic, but also
narcissistic. Furthermore, these symbols
constitute her alter ego or doppelganger, as
separate images of her own self. The femme
fatale is, in my opinion, both an angel and a
demon (who is, after all, a fallen angel, too).
She is forced by circumstances to make a
drastic change in her life, to avoid the boring
routine of being married to an old man, who
might turn out to be also a cripple or, anyway, a
totally unattractive, but wealthy man. The
beautiful young woman who plans to kill her
husband with her lover and succeeds in doing it
is portrayed in two very famous films noirs,
Double Indemnity and The Postman Always
Rings Twice. Phyllis and, respectively, Cora
manage to dispose of the husband with the
cooperation of the nave and smitten lover, but
their efforts seem to be futile, since both of
them and their accomplices lose their lives
tragically.
22
The controversial depiction of women in
film noir was amply discussed by different
authors over the time. For instance, Helen
Hanson presents, in her interesting book
Hollywood Heroines. Women in Film Noir and
the Female Gothic Film, the reason why such
domineering, ruthless and independent women
were promoted in the cinema. The fact is that
during WWII, the women were obliged to
replace the men who were fighting on the front,
and so they sustained their families by
themselves [Hanson, 2008: p.18]. Rosie the
Riveter, the iconic female worker in the USA,
was no longer the acceptable image of the young
and modern ladies of the 1940s, and so this way
appeared the beautiful and effective secretary,
who earns a living and who manages to arrange
very well her daily life. There was also an
important political and social context in that
period, which had started even much earlier in
time, and that was the feminist movement; it
promoted the liberty, integrity and the status of
women in the society. Thus the womens
identity became a topic that was widely
discussed in the press, in literature, but also in
cinema. Helen Hanson shows the results of a
Gallup poll from 1946, in which 54% of the
female respondents preferred romantic dramas,
while 29% preferred mystery films, types of
films that encompass both the noir crime thriller
and the female gothic film [Ibidem, p.8].
Moreover, the public of the cinema in those
years was mostly composed of women, and that
is how the film industry created the cult for the
great female image, even more because in
Hollywood there were women screenwriters and
directors, like Ida Lupino, a pioneer in this
domain. The stories of the heroines of the big
screen had to resonate with the stories of the
real-life women, and that is how this kind of
motion pictures, including the films noirs and
the female gothic films, appeared.
In the 1940s, women were seeking for a
superior status, both economically and socially.
An interesting study, written by Scott Snyder,
professor at the University of Georgia (USA),
illustrates how several social factors during and
after WWII influenced the portrayal of women
mentally disordered and how this topic itself
shaped the American culture in that period. The
author considers that the 1940s were the period
of the womens pictures, because the public
consisted mainly of women, and the successful
film stars at box office were also women
[Snyder, 2001: p. 155]. That is why, Snyder
 Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

says, it may be no accident that the
overabundance of films exhibiting the femme
fatale coincided with female acquisition of
economic and social clout in real life. In
fact, film noir movies may be a result of the
alteration of forties American culture,
symbolizing the female threat to the status quo.
Hollywood simplistically depicted this shift in
terms of the film noir femme fatale a composite
of power, lust, and greed. These motion pictures
implicitly criticized women for considering
alternative roles [Ibidem, pp.155-156].
But the femme fatale is a film character
that continues to be popular even nowadays. She
is seen as being antisocial, narcissistic, and
histrionic. Aesthetically, the femmes fatales look
like goddesses. They have long hair (blonde or
brunette), long legs, prominent breasts, slender
figure, they wear makeup and jewels, and
usually wear clothes that emphasize their
physical qualities.
Another major societal factor that
influenced the production of the films noirs and
the creation of the femme fatale is criminology.
As Snyder argues, the viewing of film noir and
its (...) disordered characters by the general
public may be a reflection of, as well as a
contributing factor to, violent crime of the
1940s. Homicide rates usually increase after
wars. The U.S. homicide rate jumped from
1943-1950 [Ibidem, p. 163]. It might be said
also that the femme fatales tried to break the
rules in a patriarchal structure, because men
became their victims. These femmes fatales are
the archetype of the seductive, aggressive and
malefic woman. As Snyder puts it, the type of
character pathology personified in the femme
fatale may be viewed as representative of certain
misogynistic conceptualizations of the women of
the time. Concurrently, these screen women may
have helped to create a certain cultural image for
some real-life women of the 1940s and 1950s as
reflected in the areas of fashion and style,
personality, and social status. These fatal women
are both a representation of some aspects of the
larger American culture and a causative factor in
helping to create a certain style and personality
for this era. These cinema seductresses, with the
potency and strength to annihilate men, may in
some ways be viewed as overdrawn, cynical,
precursors of the liberated woman of the sixties
[Ibidem, pp.165-166].
As for todays femme fatale, the focus is
mostly on her sexuality, on her eroticism. The
heroines of the neo-noir postmodernist films are
represented by such personalities like Madonna
and Sharon Stone, who contribute to the
proliferation of sexual discourse which
dominates postmodern media, both in images of
sexuality and debate about its import [Stables in
Kaplan, 2012: p. 167]. In my opinion, the
contemporary depiction of the femmes fatales is
quite different from the classical period, because
the actresses of the past possessed a sensual,
mysterious, sophisticated, attractive air, and they
could be sexy without being vulgar, as it
happens with the modern heroines from the so-
called erotic thrillers like Fatal Attraction or
Basic Instinct.
Conclusion
All in all, we might say that film noir is
the genre that survived the best over the years,
without losing any of its qualities for which it is
widely known. Film noir is a unique case in the
history of cinema, as it managed to capture the
attention of the contemporary public and to
adapt itself to the modern times. And the femme
fatale, as an important component of film noir,
manages to keep her popularity and
attractiveness to generations after generations,
from the public of the 1940s to the contemporary
public. She is not just an iconic character of film
noir, but she is also a woman for all seasons,
owing to her extraordinary capacity to reinvent
and to adapt herself to the changes that occur by
the passing of time.

References
BORDE, Raymond, CHAUMETON, Etienne (2002). A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953), San
Francisco: City Lights Books.
HANSON, Helen (2007). Hollywood Heroines. Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film, London: I. B.
Tauris.
SNYDER, Scott (2001). Personality disorder and the film noir femme fatale in Journal of Criminal Justice and
Popular Culture, vol. 8, nr. 3, pp. 155-168, University of Georgia.
SPICER, Andrew, HANSON, Helen (2013). A Companion to Film Noir, West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing.
STABLES, Kate (2012). The postmodern always rings twice: Constructing the femme fatale in 90s cinema in E.
Ann Kaplan (ed.), Women in Film Noir (the 7th edition) (pp. 164-182), London: British Film Institute, Palgrave
MacMillan.

23
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

Exploring the Suspect Dimension of Realism

in the Latest New Wave Romanian Cinema

Beatrice MEDA1, Ph.D c.

National University of Theatre and Film "I.L.Caragiale", Bucharest,

Abstract. Romanian new wave cinema is mainly seen as a homogenous realist direction. Starting from such
unifying elements, this article analyzes the becoming of the genre towards new dimensions found in latest films:
Aurora and Police, Adjective. These works point towards a slightly different approach, a step beyond commonly
known realism. Exploring the limits, film directors rediscover the power of time in cinema. This new coordinate of
the medium, points to a special realism that researches the concept of dure time seen as an element of telling the
story beyond words or even space.

Key words: realism, time, new wave cinema, communism, imagination

Rediscovering neorealism and Hence the answer to the question why

exporting masterpieces.
Highlights and context
This pessimistic cinema that you
wanted to suppress or at least to
reclaim lit a torch in the dark forest
of our age.
Cesare Zavattini
Transition periods always give rise to
unexpected territories, whether they are at the
boundary of political, social or artistic eras. The
border line of 10 years from the communist
period in Romania (since Stuff and Dough
appears in 2001), raised a cultural wave that
very few imagined coming and maybe fewer
from the field of cinema. The socio-political
freedom gained in those recent years, demanded
the same movement in arts. Along with external
reality the inner one also changes and with that
also changes art. The becoming of times would
inevitably bring in Romanian film that specific
generation that not only needed visual delight,
while the mind was anesthetized, but also a
revolution against that lie that had been silently
indulged by previous generations, that lie that
was conjugated in all existing modes, reaching
deeply into the social fabric and, by extension,
into the arts (erban 2009: p. 59). Democracy
awakened a kind of social conscience that
needed truth and life in the most transparent way
possible. A direction cinema could perfectly
lead.
exactly did this happen in film: perhaps because
the new era demanded a new artistic medium as
such or perhaps because this instrument was the
only one that could get the most accurate
reflection of times, delivering 24 instances of
perfect reality per second. Art was indeed
craving for that precious lode of truthfulness that
communist utopia kidnapped. Romanian cinema
emerged with a new generation, and the new
generation needed life and truth along with their
closest to real experience. In these
circumstances, young filmmakers returned to the
first truth of film, which latest formulas have
forgotten, sometimes slightly and imperceptibly:
everything that happens on the screen bears a
realism factor that not any other figurative
technique can claim. Film is always woven from
representation and language, but its first and
universal understanding is the representation.
(Bazin 1968: p. 218) The seventh art inevitable
means reality in the purest possible form;
untainted life captures beyond any convention,
abstraction or metaphor. 3Even passed through
1
Beatrice Meda studied Acting at The National University
of Theatre and Film "I.L.Caragiale", Bucharest, and also
has a Bachelors Degree in Communication and PR from
The National School of Political and Administrative
Studies. She graduated two masters one was an
interdisciplinary programme in theatre and film at The
Centre of Excellence in the Study of Image (University of
Bucharest) and the other in Diplomacy and foreign policy
in international relations at Lucian Blaga University. She is
now a PhD student in Theatre (Aesthetics, theory and
pedagogy) at UNATC I.L.Caragiale, while she also works
at the Research Department there.

24

technical instrumentation, the cinematic product
permanently bears captive in it some concrete
form of reality stamped on the film roll. Light
reflected from objects and actors forever
engraves its mark on the film surface. The
primary function of cinema is revealed since the
early religious origins of statuary art, as being
the salvation of man by his appearance:
artificially fixing the human carnal form
ultimately means to save it from the course of
time: to anchor it in life (Bazin 1968: p. 9), and
beyond fine arts realism cinema is nothing less
than the most evolved aspect of artistic truth.
Its strength that must be released comes
from this significant added dimension. That
strange embalming that Bazin wrote about
brings to the fore a magical factor that most arts
escape time which through cinema becomes
enslaved and trained by directors, like a wild
animal held captive for the insectary. The way in
which the spell of duration is presented and
manipulated, splits common realism in two
distinct areas outlined on one hand by film as
medium and on the other by film as
metamedium. The first category uses time as a
tool of fixation for realism with the purpose of a
closer to life image. However, as we get closer
to a one on one temporal relation with life and
even beyond, the time factor becomes not only a
tool, but a particular kind of analysis and self-
reflection coordinate that turns over on its
environment.
From the certainties of this first belief
had risen in the recent history of Romanian
cinema the movement started by film directors
like Lucian Pintilie, Liviu Ciulei, Andrei Blaier
or Victor Iliu, researching that wonder act born
when the camera bows to the truth with genuine
movements and authenticity. Bringing elements
of real life in counterpoint to imagination, the
new wave first developed daring contact
surfaces to life: documentary style, authentic
filming locations preferred to those made in the
studio, socially defined context, faded
boundaries, means that reach for authenticity
sincerity and interest for an image without any
makeup done, in exchange for the sense of
reality.
Seeking new aesthetic strategies for the
representation of external images to match the
new found freedom, Romanian cinema becomes
an exigency for revalorization, understanding
and approach to contemporary life. A journey
worthy of the most important international
25
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
awards, the past 10 years representing film as
the most important Romanian cultural card.
Although conceptual and artistic lines of
the new wave cinema are easily captured under
the realist theory, latest films imperceptibly
develop a new dimension. Forced to extremes
realism transforms into magical realism. Not
because of the fantasy in space that it brings but
because of time becoming a symbol. Ellipses
and editing can function as extraordinary
metaphors as well as they can become masks
that hide. Set free beyond representing a tool,
time becomes in cinema the new main story.
Marshall McLuhan (1992: p.129)
assessed, in one of his lesser known works, that
there are four lines of analysis to be applied to
any media. The last refers to what would happen
with a medium when pushed beyond its known
limits. What does realism turn into under such
circumstances? Watching carefully some of the
last films trademarks of the Romanian new wave
cinema, for example Aurora and Police,
Adjective, we observe a certain obvious
conceptual turn that reminds us of McLuhan's
idea. So the real question: beyond its borders, in
what can the Romanian new wave cinema
transform into? becomes impossible to avoid.
It is said that a prophet is not the one
who has a vision sensing the future, but he who
perfectly reads the signs of times. If so, then
these two films have that more value, since they
contain signs for the films to come and a
forecasting of the following artistic directions.
Man. Waiting. Life. Consciousness
instruments for the birth
of new wave cinema.
We answer to everyone who asks
where life is, go to the poets and
artists! If they are true artists, they
will speak to you about life, about
the essence of life, about its
importance; for they have the
ability to see, to feel and embody
what is essential. (Vogleman 1991:
p. 28)
The slowest and hardest, although the
most important, of changes taking place in
contemporary world is certainly found in the way
people think. The new realism begins as a basis
for the new movement. It is a concept arising
from this new way of looking at the world,
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
proclaiming freedom from dogmas and
ideologies. Its primary value is life, and man
becomes the most important link to it. It thus
gives up the sacrificing of human issues and
concepts in favor of grotesque and fantastic
elements; gives up the historical staging and
adaptations and the rhetoric that claims that we
are all moved by the same noble feelings
(Lawson 1968: p. 193) all outdated patterns
from the past.
Armed with precise recording
instruments, matching bits of feelings and
memories, using documents, testimonies and
stories (for example, Cristi Puiu in the making of
Aurora recounts a long time watching programs
about criminals and many other materials or
interviews and attending crime scenes), the
most furious neorealists of the moment Puiu,
Porumboiu and Mungiu (erban: 2009, p. 111),
carefully and lucidly dissect life to re-establish
the real image of life, instead of the built one
and the living man instead of the dead one who
does not know how to revolt anymore in search
for himself. They do this in the process of
awakening a new sense in film, society and man.
On Romanian land, this movement has
built incredible reference works, multi-winning
films guaranteeing cinemas ability to become
an important international ambassador for the
national. In full modern age, moving towards
American hegemony, cinema managed to join
this together under a European dome that held
through the most important jury verdicts. In the
"centre of a modern culture now in full process
of globalization (Tomlinson: 2002, p. 5),
Romania manages to value the national
existence trough cinema. A centre in which the
particle man reality finds the position that
humanism praised. And this is not due to
exposure to exotic items revolution, anguished
abortions in hotel rooms or poor hospitals but
by valuing an individual point of view which
can also reach millions of cultural and human
perspectives.
Buried among legends, reality
gradually flourishes (Zavattini: 1968, p. 194) to
research man in the basis of psychological
investigations. Thereby we see images emerge
with nothing below or above life, slices of truth
and magical observation: an old man, a raped a
girl and another who laughs, a provincial
television set, one family dinner, a dictionary, a
criminal all immersed in dilated frames with
an organic care for being, all gathered in
excitement of what and how will it be. As Fellini
26
said the main feature of neorealism is really the
waiting, a heavy and unfulfilled expectation
(Martin: 1981, p.194), solved maybe only
through hope. That waiting which Aurora and
Police, Adjective so profoundly portrait by both
leading characters: Viorel and Cristi.
Times encouraged a truthful cinema, a
cinema with realistic expression based on the
values of life. They discovered that the creative
act is always an overwhelming release through a
living force. Fear, pain, weakness must all be
conquered by creation (Berdiaev: 1992, p. 30),
by assuming life in ever more vivid and sincere
quantities, not by what is added, but by what it
reveals (Bazin: 1992, p. 33). This is precisely
what the end of Police, Adjective recalls
consciousness and awareness human granting
to itself and to the world, by reflecting upon
reality in its applied research: I repeated the
researchers approach in The Death of Mr.
Lzrescu 24 or I saw a show on a local
television station in Vaslui that followed for
years. I really looked for that show, and the first
phone in the movie is real. It was research and
documentation for what I wanted to do3. 5
That's the real artist awakened
consciousness to contemporary man, and the
most important quality of realism is trying to
establish the link between the personal life of the
individual and the social relations system
(Lawson: 1968, p. 201): the friendship kind of
communication Otilia and Gbi in 4 Months,
3 Weeks and 2 Days or the helpful kind of
communication Lzrescu and Mioara in The
Death of Mr. Lzrescu, but also instances of
the impossibility of communication on multiple
levels in Aurora.
The consciousness that Police, Adjective
is so concerned with also regards Bazins belief
of reflecting reality as highest cinematic
formula. The French critic even referred to the
phrase consciousness of reality (Bazin: 1968,
p. 155). This fully awakened state of man and art
in relation to the immediate universe again
reminds their role as social tool but not only.
Following this, after 1989, film began to
work towards its own means by self-reflection.
It seeks freely in lesser known areas of language
and visual thinking. The inner world and reality
2 Interview with Cristi Puiu: http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-
film-15870320-video-interviu-regizorul-cristi-puiu-adica-
chiar-nu-vezi-pai-vezi-esti-tara-adibas-dar-vrei-fii-tara-
adibas.htm
3 Interview with Corneliu Porumboiu TVR Cultural, 2010

all around, both become the foundation for the
new universe of cinema.
Raising the wave and preparing
its transition towards time.
The truth is that I never saw it
coming, this so-called new wave... I
dont call it so, but neorealism, but
these are theorist stuff. (erban:
2009, p. 55)
Theorists truly write about the new wave
as a uniform current. As a whole, it is indeed a
continuous movement but contains however two
perspectives: the first started with social,
political and artistic inner needs, building a new
aesthetic, but the second was born gradually by
pushing the boundaries of those aesthetics,
revealing the inside and thus researching another
dimension.
We may follow Bazin and say that
indeed there is no single realism, but only
realisms (Bazin: 1986, p. 51). Not only that
every age has got its own, with different
techniques and aesthetics, but each ones divides
it in layers and depths. In a perpetual antagonism
but also in balance, Mlis vision, traveling to
the moon by imaginary and fantastic realms, and
the realistic Lumire trend are both on screen
since the beginning in various instances: from
revealing social concerns, to understanding the
complex and irresistible force called time for
which man finally has a control instrument:
cinema.
In this second phase, we dont just have
realistic edited frames, but life raised to power,
the power of time-image as opposed to
movement-image (Deleuze: 1989). There is thus
a real time the first stage of realism and a lived
time on which Gilles Deleuze grounded in film
the time-image and the crystal type of space.
This lived time is equivalent to the experimented
time, passed through the senses, a feeling based
on the theory of active perception, not on simple
observation.
This comes in the Romanian new wave
cinema with the feeling of waiting. Those long
inactive minutes in which the characters along
with the camera apparently do nothing.
Nevertheless this is not the usual nothingness,
but the most powerful one which sets free the
soul of images. Here we get to a point where all
the instruments of film become not only a
27
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
window to life but its translation beyond what
we think we see. Bergson explains: when we
look at the outside world, our perception seems
to be doubled internal and external; as a
subjective state of consciousness and as an
external image of reality (Bergson: 1889).
Thus the sublime transparency that What
is cinema? was speaking of appears clearly. It
cannot interpose any editing lie, no cognitive
theory, no common pattern or fantastic element.
Between the spirit of the viewer and the story in
moving images develops a perpetual flow
unhindered by any illusion or by any word.
We see this performed on many
directions:
- portrayal of man at the beginning of
some great crisis: physical decay towards dying
in The Death of Mr. Lzrescu or advanced
pregnancy that cannot wait in 4 Months, 3 Weeks
and 2 Days,
- cameras constantly chasing the
character (most often hand filmed),
- proliferation of mysteries in most
films for the first 20 minutes we still know
almost nothing about the characters or about the
story: in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 33
minutes pass by until we hear the line How many
months pregnant are you?; The Death of Mr.
Lzrescu even though it is seen as a film about
an old man who dies in the hospital, we spend
the first hour of the film just in his house. And
Aurora even though it speaks about a criminal,
lets us see the crime after 70 minutes of film.
The new Romanian cinema plays
hermeneutics in the layering of meanings, strong
sensory feelings (weaving prolonged moments of
silence to those of unexpected excitement or for
example in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days we
get all sorts of amplified noises that surprise the
viewer ball hitting Mr. Bebes car and scaring
Otilia, the noise that bothers Gbi on the
hallway when she lives Otilia alone with Mr.
Bebe, the fetal body falling in the garbage and so
on).
Just as Torben Grodal (2009: p. 251)
writes again, years after Bazin and strictly from
the cameras point of view, we are dealing with
two types of cinematic realism: that which is
based on the idea of screen as window and
another one that introduces a type of camera
with human features merged inside the movie
scene. In The Death of Mr. Lzrescu (the
camera shakes especially in the first sequence)
or in 12:08 East of Bucharest (camera
movements during the TV show) we clearly see
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
the second technique used. But in 4 Months, 3
Weeks and 2 Days, the lenses of Oleg Mutu
dont freely search everything, resting in long
observation angles.
Easily with the "revealing of tempo,
those specific rhythms which particularizes, we
see a transition towards time (Lazr: p. 159).
Hence, in Cristian Mungius film already, the
camera reaches powerful framing statements. In
the hotel room from 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2
Days, when Gbi stands up to give the money
to Mr. Bebe, the framing catches them in profile,
one on the right and one on the left, separated by
a door in the background. While we only see the
girl from the neck down to the knees, we see Mr.
Bebes face is in front of her abdomen we
have the face of a man and a female body that
seems offered to him. The fact that this frame is
not just passing by, but stays with us for the
whole conversation, proves that time mastered to
its higher power can penetrate the being to its
aching core. Left with the image like an opened
book for our eyes to read, we better understand
the relation between the characters. Our mind
has time to penetrate deeper meanings.
Other strength points in the characters
are defined by very close to natural states,
uncorrected by fast editing. They seem to be
given all the time in the world: they sigh, they
have fix eyes and points of view, verbal tics,
worries, credible gestures and strong feelings; all
framed in authentic frames, used as magnificent
tools. Details of all kinds are used by directors to
support the construct of reality on screen, but
also to emerge empathy for the audience. Like
Alice down the rabbit hole, we fall through this
time factor and enter the process of emotions.
We remember, and memory ultimately means
relation, connection and the human sharing of
feelings perhaps the most valuable but
unintentional product of communism. By means
of cinematic slow time, we connect to a special
kindness for the human being that special
something close to hope and wonder.
That already classic movement of
cutting space-time in precise frames that the
camera processes remains somehow behind.
Driven towards borders in Aurora and Police,
Adjective, it brings glimpses of a new state that
not only shows life as it is, but reveals its magic
core, analyzing it. A camera that captures in a
short frame a man reading a letter is the realism
that we were used to. A camera that shows in
real time the reading of a letter (Police,
Adjective) is already in a kind of suspect
28
dimension of realism. Something new is taking
shape around the waiting that the new directors
are portraying in these two films. Something
new that has little to do with the realism we
know, but maybe with a different kind that is
paradoxically a transition to imagination. A
realism dedicated par excellence to time not to
space and even not to the story but to that
transparence in instruments that makes the film
almost disappear. We only remain with the
characters and with the beautiful appearance of
images cast like a spell in awe. We are dealing
with a different type of cinema communication
process. The one that reaches for the invisible
beyond images.
The new filming rhythm in Aurora and
Police, Adjective brings as to an active
contemplation by an engaged inner world.
Feelings move from screen to the audience mind
slowly and with ease because in the apparent
lack of action we have more time to feel. Only
completely engaged in the outside space and
time we can fall inside ourselves. Time is a call
for the senses and his presence ultimately means
an intimate bound with what we see and
ultimately with our being. To get out of time, to
conquer it, would be the equivalent on an exit
from the cosmic order, which is impossible for
man (as Husserl and Heidegger pointed), but we
know that at least for a few hours, art has the
ability to suspend the real temporality by some
illusion of its constructed worlds. Time thus
becomes the anima of being (Hagen: 2008), its
concrete manifested essence. Researching this
realm, cinema represents objectivity in time
(Bazin: 1986, p. 15) and much more. By its
power of controlling the temporal flow it raises
above all other arts. The reason for this is the
fact that time belongs to all its elements like an
organic component (Balasy: 2010, p. 121).
Communication subject and means
of the story
The communion of such kind of cinema,
to simple communication (be it aesthetically
exquisite) of the usual realist cinema, involves a
merging of the visible and the invisible, a
different time involvement as means of the
story. The first plays within its mirror function,
where image reflects life. We have a whole
series of films which already fulfilled this
instrument, most of them. But the second
direction has the function of a magnifying mirror
by which it penetrates the depths of the soul (in

its surface image, it reflects the inside like
Aurora). Here, the story is not made out by the
text or by the characters, but by the cinematic
instruments that work upon them, like framing,
editing, sound, image and mostly time rhythm.
Time is a dimension aligned with the
focus on contemplation in aesthetic theory and
existential phenomenology. (Wahlberg: 2008,
p. 79) Overcoming the old moving-image, the
time image is created in a different way. Its
viewer finds himself immersed in perception, by
experiences and optic situations that are purely
visual (Deleuze: 1989, p. 47). We have so few
words in Aurora that even the colors of the sky
seem a better candidate for the leading. Most of
the sentences we imagine. We imagine them
running through Viorels mind while he
endlessly waits/prepares. The absence of action
is not an empty space though, but a full of
potential one. It is precisely the void not the
fullness which becomes a vessel for everything.
In Police, Adjective, Cristi is also
walking on the edge of time, in his stakeouts,
like the world wouldnt exist for him. The
camera silently follows. And its not only the
waiting, but the fact that nothing seems to be
happening. Are we in a point of a strange
communication without communication? Yes,
because again this nothingness it the only way of
really communicating everything, from the
inside out and backwards.
In interviews for their latest works,
Cristi Puiu and Corneliu Porumboiu, talk about
two directions that reveal the act of
communication: primarily seen as a process
happening between characters and the outside
world or between characters and their selves
(especially for Viorel in Aurora) and second in
relation to the cinema language, bringing the
film in the middle between transmitter and
receiver, as means. In this special turn towards a
language cinema the filmmaker can bring out
a precise meaning which at first sight is only
representation (Martin: 1981, p. 32). The
images are not those who make the film said
Abel Gance but their soul; more precisely
communicating their soul.
To address this, film begins to research
itself right from within. Police, Adjective is
investigating along with words its own language,
while Aurora becomes an enormous experience
centered on senses beyond the limits of words.
The direction in these two last films, comes up
from the vast raw elements of realism and raises
towards the completion in time of photographic
29
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
objectivity. For the first time the image of things
is also the image of their duration. (Bazin:
1986, p. 14) In the last new wave films that the
exterior appearance begins to be equal with the
interior realm, reveling it in cinematic form.
With a subject that can be told in just
one sentence, Porumboiu's film is translucent
and sharp both for cinematic language and for its
story questioning. Following 12:08 East of
Bucharest in which the television show started
with you may be wondering why we still make
today broadcasts about revolution which
translates easily into you may wonder why we
still make today films about revolution; Police,
Adjective goes a step forward and says directly,
through Cristi's wife: I dont think theyre
images, theyre symbols. In fact, these are
related. Images that become symbols. Images
by through time become symbols. This is the
new dimension of realism.
As with Aurora, meaning is layered in
complex structures, from self-reflexivity of
cinema, to representing the invisible through
visible the interior of mind through the
exterior of image.
We have two movies about solitude,
lack of communication and the impossibility of
leaving the labyrinth of ones own thoughts and
open towards another human being. These works
understand Bazins realism in its double
perspective: as essence for cinema its ontology
but also as rhetoric in simplicity, purity and
time.
From this we also have two perspectives
of communication in cinema. The first is called
contemplation, an intellectual and spiritual
exercise meant to restore our relationship with
the outside world. It belongs to the artistic
realism, like the philosopher Stanley Cavell
wrote (Cavell: 1979). The second is imagination
faculty of mind exercised mostly through
fantasy and illusion, which projects us away
from reality and life. The filmmakers in the new
Romanian cinema, are moving towards the
exploration of language by a critique of illusion,
because here the camera, the way in which the
film is shot i.e. his grammar tells you,
audience, how to watch the film, because here
we talk about cinema and not about an
illustrated story4. 6
4
Interview with Cristi Puiu http://renne.ro/cultura/aurora-
impresioneaza-la-cannes-%E2%80%93-interviu-cu-cristi-
puiu/234
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Of all communication processes, new
Romanian cinema focuses on human value and
action. Not fast rhythm like action as Hollywood
understands it but as subjective fact. Like Puiu
said about Aurora, action fades away to make
room for the how, instead of the what. This is
about emotions coming prior to composing
objective elements, and verb coming prior to
subject. As a matter of fact, its neither about the
verb nor about the subject. Its about the
adjective. Like in Porumboiu's film which urges
us to put an adjective next the subject, the new
cinema places feelings right next to images,
because it claiming the filmic processes itself
(Martin: 1981, p. 256) along with that irresistible
and irreversible force called time. Temporality is
not just the subject anymore, but the powerful
adjective which determines and names the new
attributes for cinema. Our consciousness is
permanently and almost exclusively under the
control of the time factor, for it is the essential
condition of the human being. (Lawson: 1986,
p. 185)
Time, Adjective
Time is a state: the flame in which
the salamander of human soul lives.
Andrei Tarkovsky
There is nothing more superna-
tural than reality itself.
Salvator Dali
A truly realistic cinema is a cinema of
duration (Bazin: 1986, p. 185) and besides the
masters of words we need, for the same kind of
purpose, the language creators for image,
movement and sound; because indeed words
cannot express all, as the director of Aurora
recalled. Life is the highest known value but
before everything, we must experience it, with
our eyes opened, in its closest possible form.
This is reachable in film because precisely this
medium represents a rebellion against the old
methods of literature and a plus over fine arts.
An assault... The film reveals movement, and
this is a big thing (Tolstoi apud Barna: 1963).
Romanian realism reaches artistic form of
moving in time by manipulating its matrix
beyond the using of words.
Commonly, films are laid on an editing
structure where we have information cut
information cut and so on. However in Aurora
30
we have the same formula but on a brief moment
of action and then a long moment of silence in
which the realist story can become absolutely
magical or abstract, a magic of concreteness that
overwhelms perception. Before this formula,
information regarded only the story. For the new
direction followed by Puiu and Porumboiu, it
already regards many other things and much of
that information is expressed in the area of
space-time. Yes, we also have space here, but
why isnt it an equally important element in this
theory? Because despite the realistic
appearances of the image, when we connect with
a film, it is not space that speaks most powerful,
but time (Khatchadourian: 1986, pp. 169-177).
Here we get to the point of transition from
chronotop (Bakhtin) to the concept of dure
(Bergson). Assuming the version in which time
would be related to space, Bergson clearly
answers: Can time be adequately represented
by space? Yes, if we refer to elapsed time. No, if
we refer to elapsing time. All problems within
this vision, start with the desire to see this dure
as being expensed, by expressing the idea of
freedom in a language which is obviously
impossible to translate (Bergson: 2010, p. 221).
Therefore we have a time from the
space-time construct (in chronotop) and another
time which is strangely unrelated to space
dure. The pure dure is that state which the
successions of our consciousness when our
selves allow themselves to live, when we abstain
from going on separating thing from their past
states [] as it happens when we recall the
notes of a song that melt lets say one into each
other. (Bergson: 2010, p. 100)
In Police, Adjective and Aurora,
transition is made towards the most active level
of film the selection of time and its investment
with meaning (Lazr: 1986, p. 159). The
narrative usually takes place in present tense.
Now it goes not just towards the real time but
beyond. For example, after each stakeout,
policeman Cristi prepares his report which the
camera is filming slowly, in real time, while he
reads it. Reality is cleared of any musical or
plastic intervention and just remains in front of
us floating slowly in a sea of time patient and
profound, until it reveals all insights. From an
apparently dole action, like eating or smoking a
cigar in the street, we feel unrevealing the
thoughts that torment Cristis mind and
conscious.
Police, Adjective is a film about signs,
but does not stop in just using them. In a sign

meaning could have been induced by two or
three simple frames, maybe an ellipse, but for
Porumboiu a sign is not enough, nor a symbol.
Facts need its mark present in real form and time
to signify in a sensitive way. For time to stop
we must get rid of the consciousness of its flow,
but if it is materialized by a slow motion in
image, it imposes even more awareness
(Martin: 1981, p. 256). That's what all those long
empty actions are all about: waiting outside the
house of the offender, chases, eating dinner,
waiting outside the chiefs office and so on. We
have an almost undivided and untouched time,
not as a series of events but as dure, awarding
the film with a special capacity, for this is what
contemplation means: unmediated perception,
that occurs in the process of interaction
(communication) between man and the
surrounding world (or the film world), which
gives people (audiences) a fair reflection for the
properties of objects, vivid intuition (DEX:
1998).
Capturing on film the actual duration of
events, especially in relation to a being that only
lives a long waiting is without a doubt really rare
we have the example of Jeanne Dielman, 23
Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles director
Chantal Akerman or Gerry director Gus Van
Sant. There's something strangely suspicious
happening with reality along this emptiness. Its
as if time could increase or completely fall apart,
step by step, through its ruptures reveal the
realms of a new universe. The image of an
object or of a simple and day to day action,
filmed for 10-15 seconds is more that tolerable
and passes by as pure reality, emptied of
meaning in itself. Maintaining the same frame
for 2-3 up to 10 minutes, unfolds reality with an
increasing tension. This brings power of
attention, image settlement in the mind and
spatial-temporal suspense. The film seems
flooded with a strange possible meaning in every
framed corner. When images give it freedom in
time, the human mind that is not programmed to
easily stop, continues on, restless looking for
meaning. Thats why one of the ladies who
interviewed Cristi Puiu after Aurora said: I feel
like my mind is exhausted, Ive been doing
gymnastics with it.
Police, Adjective is a film about signs in
the sense that it tested their limits within its own
system. Along Puiu's film aiming toward a slow
frame fresco, having more alert and sharp cuts
Porumboiu sets off far beyond the perimeter of
the usual cinema. He discovers something not
31
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
necessarily new but certainly unprecedented at
such magnitude in the national landscape. A
work in which restlessness transmits its palpable
strangeness and heaviness.
The only obvious designed cut in
Porumboiu film is that of the opening of some
doors passing from one space in a completely
other. The first time that Cristi goes to Alexs
girlfriend home, after heading down the stairs,
he disappears around a corner cut and we see
another door that opens into from foreground
exactly into Cristi's office. Or, When Alex's dad
comes home, gate closes cut and again the
door to the police office opens. So thus arises a
middle world of infinite possibilities and
cinematic language research, in which realism
becomes, as Alex Leo Serban mentioned, a
necessary instrument for abstraction. Porumboiu
and Puiu have the credit of announcing a new
way of exploratory research beyond the so well
knew neorealism of the new wave. Police,
Adjective together with Aurora are not just a
great exhibit of realism but a marvelous step
outside it and forward on.
It is true that space and time are
organizing principles in any art, as well as they
provide the basic structure of the (Kant); but the
power of time mainly belongs to film, and Cristi
Puiu along with Corneliu Porumboiu managed
to reach this power different than others, much
more profound and sensitive. This kind of
cinema calls you barely whispered and ever-
patient. It does not roughly assault you whit its
dynamic visual universe. This is not about a
controlled audience conquer, but about a delicate
call. Being so subtle and unusual thats why it
hasnt got very large audiences. Awards though
show its worth, because the real value is the
actual experience, and space and time are the
two only categories that life is built on so on
them we must also raise our art. (Boldea: 2002,
p. 353)
Always young, unable to age or die, it
goes pursuing its destiny and sees succeeding
generations. It is present in every morning as a
symbol of all possibilities, as a sign of
awakening the rediscovered world. (Chevalier
& Alain: 1993, pp. 158-159) Aurora in Cristi
Puiu's universe becomes a state that marks a
spiritual tension (that in which the primary event
takes place). We have a boundary place in the
silenced twilight of nature still deciding whether
to continue night or go towards day. At such
times theres no speaking, no leaving the self
and no explanation, beyond the puzzling words
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
of Viorel: Amalia is a child... she doesnt... I do
not think that justice has access to understand
the nature of the relationship I had with my
wife or I've listened and I saw how you think
you know and have understanding of what I say
and... I became frightened. Because the very
thought that anyone could understand what is on
your mind is awfully surreal, close to
impossible. But really incredible and almost
magical, is only the fact that Puiu succeeds in
not using words, but still moves those instances
of mind and feelings through film.
By a mysterious process of the image
developed in space and time, in the lights
rhythm and ritual, something new gets perceived
a reality that seems to exceed its coordinates.
It's not just social, nor just ontological; its
cosmic, because Aurora has also a delicate care
for the colors and faces of time in nature. The
frames voluptuous run directly to the senses.
With smooth attention to light, the moving
images capture the inner turmoil of human
wanderings. And they do this with the same
sensitivity that captures translucent light beams
in almost surreal frames. The visuals in Aurora
speak in times and spaces language about the
ending of being and also about the ending of
days. This interior-exterior established
relationship in the thoughts of the character
and in the essence of nature releases in
audience a certain atmosphere that kneels any
possible spoken words. We are dealing with
films that tell their story by the language of
image and far less in the language of words.
Cinema makes another big step outside literature
and into perception, affirming its visual and
imaginative nature.
Hence the eerie dimension of realism.
Working with time and space can just become a
mirror for life or its true visual symbol. In
Aurora and Police, Adjective this is not even
happening as it usually would within the time-
image concept of Deleuze. We dont have a
maze of overlapping temporal lines or a garden
of forking paths as Borges would see it. It is just
time working in its slowest way and so
becoming a magnifier. Even in life we rarely
stop and contemplate the surroundings be they
References
A aptea art, ngrijit de Ervin Voiculescu (1966): vol. 1, Bucureti: Meridiane.
Aitken, Ian (2001): European Film Theory and Cinema, Edinburg: University Press.
Balasy, Bela (2010): Theory of the Film. Nabu Press.
Bazin, Andre (1968): Ce este cinematograful?, Bucureti: Meridiane.
32
objects or people around us. The second we do
reality begins unfolding in front of us and starts
whispering all sorts of possible meanings. It
unravels the story not in the sense that it actually
speaks some kind of silenced language, but in
the sense that it actually lets out mind do the
talking, imagining. And sometime, in front of
breath taking images and curious human
emotions, it has some very interesting things to
say. The three hours of the silenced Aurora
clicks something inside us that is worthy of
being cinemas precious research material.
Following the direction presented by
Christian Metz in The Imaginary Signifier, we
could say that this new direction in cinema
develops somewhere in the space between
dream and conscious fantasy: in reverie neither
in pure realism that we are used with, nor in the
fantastic imagery. Dreaming has in itself the
childhood and also the night. Film is about
reverie. Like an adult who belongs to day but
not in its fullest light, but rather in a kind of
dusk (Metz: 1977, p. 168) or in aurora some
diffused and reddish light that, for a few
moments, becomes perceptible somewhere
between realism and imagination. Just as it
happened when the moon and the sun intertwine
giving birth to that strange light on Viorels
face in the moments of his final confession.
Tarkovsky was right; the film is not
defined by real time, but by the possibility of
sculpting this time thus creating a new shape a
different universe. Time printed in its factual
manifestations and forms: this is the supreme
idea of cinema as art. [] What is the essence of
the director's work? We could define it as a
sculpture in time. (Tarkovsky: 1989, p. 63) Just
as the work of Garrett Stewart Framed Time.
Toward a Postfilmic Cinema analyzes it, the
editing, by this means, doesnt record time, but
makes it (Stewart: 2007, p. 114). What kinds of
time can cinema fabric? remains a question
that can continuously define and redefine the
genres. Still, it appears that the highest name for
time in cinema is not just real time but dure
as being liberated of space and reality as we
common perceive it the time of imagination
and contemplation.
 Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

Berdiaev, Nikolai (1992): Sensul creaie, Bucureti:Humanitas.

Bergson, Henry (2010): Time and Free Will, Nabu Press.
Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin (2008): Film as Art, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Chevalier, Jean i Gheerbrant, Alain (1993): Dicionar de simboluri, vol. 2, Bucureti: Editura Artemis.
Deleuze, Gilles (1989): Cinema 2. The Time-Image, Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press.
Gorzo Andrei (2012): Lucruri care nu pot fi spuse altfel. Un mod de a gndi cinematograful, de la Andre Bazin la
Cristi Puiu, Bucureti: Humanitas.
Grodal, Torben (2009): Embodied Visions, New York: Oxford University Press.
Hagen, William (2008): Time: the Anima of Being, http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-
files/Hagen_ANIMA01.pdf?phpMyAdmin=0c371ccdae9b5ff3071bae814fb4f9e9
Khatchadourian, Haig (1986): Space and Time in Film, The British Journal of Aesthetics, no. 27
Lawson, H. John (1968): Film i creaie, Bucureti: Meridiane.
Lazr, Ion (1986): Cum se face un film, Bucureti: Cartea Romneasc.
Martin, Marcel (1981): Limbajul cinematografic, Bucureti: Meridiane
McLuhan Marshall and Eric (1992): Laws of Media: The New Science, University of Toronto Press.
Metz, Christian (1977): Le signifiant imaginaire. Psychanalyse et cinema, Paris: Union General d Editions.
Miller, Toby and Stam, Robert (2004): A Companion to Film Theory, Blackwell Publishing.
Rosellini, Roberto (1995): Aspectul microscopic al cinematografului n Cahiers du Cinema, September-November.
Stewart, Garrett (2007): Framed Time. Toward a Postfilmic Cinema, London: University of Chicago Press.
erban, Alex. Leo (2009): 4 decenii, 3 ani i 2 luni cu filmul romnesc, Iai: Polirom.
Tarkovsky, Andrey (1989): Sculpting in Time, University of Texas Press.
Tomlinson, John (2002): Globalizare i cultutr, Timioara: Amarcord.
Vogleman, Bruno (1991): Noul realism, Timioara: Centro de Esperanta.
Wahlberg, Malin (2008) Documentary Time. Film and Phenomenology, London: University of Minesotta Press.

33
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

The Romanian New Wave

Daniela DIMA-RIAIN1 BA,

International Make-Up Artist Trade Show, London

Abstract. This article explores the disconnect between the Romanian audience and the films that are part of the
phenomenon recognised as the Romanian New Wave, a cinematographic movement awarded many prestigious
prizes at top international festivals, yet which has had little box office success in its country of origin.

Keywords: realism, black humour, detail, voyeurism, trapped

Introduction. Out of the twelve movies mentioned

The starting point for the movement is
considered to be Cristi Puius The Death Of Mr.
Lazarescu, which won the Un Certain
Regard award at Cannes in 2005. The movies
that followed in 2006, Catalin Mitulescus The
Way I Spent The End Of The World (Un Certain
Regard for Best Actress award at Cannes) and
Corneliu Porumboius 12:08 East of Bucharest
(Camera DOr at Cannes), ensured that Puius
movie was not just an isolated incident, and that
the new wave continued gathering international
critical acclaim. A new style of cinema was born
and Romania was viewed as a strong contender
on the international movie scene.
In 2007 Romanian cinema had another
strong showing at the Cannes festival with
Cristian Mungius masterpiece, 4 Months, 3
Weeks and 2 Days, winning the the Palme Dor
and Cristian Nemescus California Dreamin
taking the Un Certain Regard award.
More films followed in the same genre
from Cornel Porumboiu (Police, Adjective
2009), a collective effort from directors Cristian
Mungiu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru and
Razvan Marculescu (Tales From The Golden
Age 2009), Radu Muntean (Tuesday, After
Christmas 2010) and Florin Serban (If I Want
To Whistle I Whistle 2010).
2012 was also a good year for Romanian
cinema abroad, with Cristian Mungius Beyond
The Hills taking the Best Screenplay and Best
Actress at Cannes, and then in 2013 Calin Peter
Netzers drama Childs Pose taking the top
award the Golden Bear at Berlin International
Film Festival.7
above, seven of them have been Oscar
submissions for Best Foreign Language Film.
As we can see, these new wave Romanian films
have been met with critical acclaim by foreign
critics, however despite their success abroad
they have found no favour with the Romanian
audience, with the exceptions of The Death Of
Mr Lazarescu, which was considered the most
successful Romanian film of 2005 by number
of spectators, and Childss Pose, which took the
top spot in 2013, having sold 117,809 tickets.
This made Childs Pose not only the most
successful film of the Romanian New Wave, but
also the best received movie of the decade by the
Romanian audience.
The rest of the New Romanian Wave
movies fared quite badly; Even Mungius 4
Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days managed only
7th place in 2007s most successful movies list
with 70,953 tickets sold, while the other films
barely registered at the Romanian box
office. There are a variety of reasons for the low
takings of these movies, including a poor
distribution network due to the lack of cinemas
and the lack of financial support and promotion
from the CNC (National Council of
Cinematography), but what will be addressed in
this article will be how the themes chosen by the
directors and the artistic style used to deliver the
movies to the audience affected their popularity
in Romania.
Themes.
The main theme linking the movies is that
of the individual trapped in a set of circumstances

1Diploma in Spanish, Instituto Cervantes, Dublin, Ireland Show) London. With an interest in cross-media, and
Translator for Make-Up Artist Magazine, Vancouver, WA, holding a BA in Economics from the Academy of
USA and IMATS (International Make-Up Artist Trade Economic Studies, Bucharest.

34

that offer no chance of escape. It does not matter if
the movies are set at the end of the Ceausescu
regime (The Way I Spent The End Of The World, 4
Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Tales From The
Golden Age), or in its aftermath, as society both
pre and post revolution society is bleak, beset by
the same problems lack of empathy, corruption,
oppression of the poorest, inability to help the ones
in need; in the end there is little hope for those
caught in the web of a dysfunctional society.
These films are characterized by a stark,
gritty realism that makes viewers recoil when
watching them. They offer an almost voyeuristic
experience, by the way in which the audience has
access to the private lives of the characters. The
stories open a window into what amounts to real
life for a majority of Romanians, portraying the
familiar, demeaning, depressing, hopeless
situations the average person has to endure the
neglect of an ailing senior citizen and the utter lack
of empathy by the health care system (The Death
Of Mr Lazarescu), the absurdity of the Romanian
revolution (12:08 East Of Bucharest), an
extramarital affair that destroys a marriage
(Tuesday, After Christmas), the plight of the
children left behind by those who went abroad to
earn money to provide for them after the fall of
communism (If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle), the
ordeal of illegal abortion under the communist
regime (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), the entire
system failing the poorest and most vulnerable in
society (Beyond The Hills), a policeman's struggle
between his duty to follow outdated
laws mindlessly and his conscience (Police,
Adjective), a dysfunctional mother/son relationship
(Childs Pose), and post-revolution hopes ending
in disappointment (California Dreamin).
As the director follows the main characters
through their story, there is a complete lack of
artificiality, enhanced visually by the use of long
takes, natural light and a sparing use of soundtrack.
The general pace of the movies is slow, but with
great attention to detail. The communist era is
recreated in minute detail, down to the period-
correct milk bottles in The Way I Spent The End Of
The World or the ever-pervasive colour grey in 4
Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. This is real-time
cinema as the audience follows the characters over
a set period of time, so an intense voyeuristic
feeling is derived, as viewers get to see up close the
daily life of the characters, including their most
intimate and embarrassing moments.
In the The Death Of Mr Lazarescu, we
follow Mr Lazarescu from mid-evening to dawn,
in his journey through hospitals, while in 4
35
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Months, 3 weeks and 2 days the events unravel in a
single wintry afternoon and evening of 1987. In
the others, we follow the main character or
characters over the course of a few days or weeks
of their lives.
The characters are powerless against what
fate awaits them the breakdown of a marriage
in Tuesday, After Christmas, the oppression of
humanity in Police, Adjective, death in both The
Death Of Mr Lazarescu and Beyond The Hills,
degradation of human beings in 4 Months, 3 Weeks
and 2 Days, loss of a mothers love in If I Want To
Whistle, I Whistle, Tales From The Golden Age,
loss of a child in Childs Pose. The only way to
mitigate the grim circumstances is through black
humour, such as in The Death Of Mr
Lazarescu (situations that become hilarious due to
their sheer absurdity), The Way I Spent The End Of
The World (three children taking on the communist
regime, hatching a plan to assassinate
Ceausescu) and Tales From The Golden Age (the
pig killed by gas which explodes when the owner
decides to singe its hair in his kitchen by
blowtorch, the to-and-fro caused by a possible visit
by Ceausescu to a middle-of-nowhere village
ending up with everyone ordered to get on a fair
ride, including the one person responsible for
stopping the ride, resulting in the entire inspection
party trapped overnight on a whirling fairground
swing).
These stories are woven into the fabric
of the average Romanians life they are not
unusual, unique situations meant to shock or
delight the audience, rather they are a reminder
of the facts of life in a broken society, of events
that happened to the viewer or to someone they
know. For the Romanian audience, viewing
these films imparts a sudden sinking feeling in
the pit of the stomach, a loss of heart when these
familiar scenarios resurface in the their memory
during the movie. It is as if something
unpleasant was dredged up from the past that
had been consigned to oblivion, brought back to
stare the viewer in their face from the silver
screen.
Some of the movies are inspired by real
events, such as the actual case in 1997 of a 52-
year old man that was turned away from several
hospitals and then left in the street by the
paramedics to die (The Death Of Mr Lazarescu),
the death of a young woman in 2005 at a
monastery following an exorcism ritual (Beyond
The Hills) and even the car accident resulting in
the death of a child, with the wealthy parents of
the driver resorting to all possible methods to
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
exonerate their son's guilt, exposing the
corruption permeating every aspect of life in
Romania (Childs Pose).
But then there are the other stories which
are easily recognized by any Romanian as part
of their cultural heritage the endless wait for
the arrival of the Americans at the end of the
WW2 in the hope they would bring prosperity
and freedom when this eventually does happen
after the Revolution its meaning is completely
reversed, as the Americans come bearing arms
and not flowers (California Dreamin), the
reference to the end of the Ceausescu regime as
the end of the world, which was indeed the
case for many of the people who lived most of
their lives under the communism and were
completely unprepared for the lack of
compassion on the part of the majority of the
population, which is a characterisation of
capitalism, which has as its goal the
concentration of the most wealth in the hands of
a capable few (The Way I Spent The End Of The
World), the children never to be saved, forever
affected by the neglect of the parents who went
abroad to work and never came back to offer
them the love and care they needed much more
than any money or material possessions (If I
Want To Whistle, I Whistle), the failure of all
levels of society, including the Church, to care
for the most vulnerable specifically
orphans having literally nowhere to go when
reaching the age of release from the orphanage,
and even those still in the orphanage being
vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse (Beyond
The Hills), the decision to be made between
obeying the rules and obeying one's conscience
(Police, Adjective), the truth behind the
Revolution (12:08 East of Bucharest).
These stories are not easy to watch, due
to the subjects presented, but they have been
made into amazing, realist movies, filmed in an
almost documentary style. There is no
embellishment and nothing to ease the
shock, save for the black humour present in
some of them. No judgment is passed on what
happens on screen, the audience is simply
observing the fly blindly following its path, to
eventually become trapped in the spider's web.
There are no guilty parties. This is the only life
that can be known.
There is empathy for the suffering of the
characters, and their humanity shines through at
36
certain moments, such as the wifes reaction to
the husbands confession in Tuesday, After
Christmas or the belated attempt by Voichita to
set Alina free in Beyond The Hills, the kiss
between the young offender and his kidnapping
victim in If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle and the
mothers attempt to connect to her sons
girlfriend in the hope of regaining his love in
Childs Pose.
Conclusion.
The Romanian New Wave films are
characterized by such blunt realism that they
come as a shock to anyone watching them who
actually lives in the society portrayed. The
negative reaction of the general moviegoing
Romanian public is understandable, as the
subjects presented are too close to home and
touch a nerve. These are people that still carry
raw wounds from their own private 'movies' and
viewing them again, this time on the big screen,
provokes a visceral reaction of rejection of these
films.
The movies themselves are cinematic
treasures, raw and unsettling, filmed in
painstaking detail and feature world-class
performances by the actors, some of which were
inexperienced and made their acting debut in
these productions.
Unfortunately, it is clearly impossible
for these movies to enjoy box office success in
their own country similar to that of the
Hollywood movies, which offer exactly the
opposite experience to the audience an escape
from the grim daily reality using special effects,
explosions and emphatic music or easy laughter
with no sting in the heart.
The Romanian New Wave stories, with
their slow pace but captivating simplicity, grip
you by the heart and throat and throw you in a
thriller's atmosphere, where the end can be
foreseen but not stopped. No lessons have been
learnt or unlearnt, at the end of each film there is
no sense of accomplishment, no possibility of
placing the blame in order to get closure. An
uncomfortable, unsettled feeling stays with the
viewer, resurfacing whenever thinking back to
the story which can explain these movies have
been quite unpopular with the average Romanian
moviegoer.
 Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

References
http://www.cinemagia.ro/stiri/filmul-romanesc-in-cadere-libera-24877/
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/jan/11/worldcinema.drama
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2008/mar/25/canromaniasnewwavesustain
http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/tuesday-after-christmas/5038
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/mar/12/romanian-new-wave-after-hollywood
http://iknowwhereimgoing.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/nowhere-to-turn-beyond-the-hills-2012/
http://www.filmcomment.com/article/cristian-mungiu-interview-beyond-the-hills
http://www.leftfieldcinema.com/analysis-the-romanian-new-wave

37
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

Rves veills, entropie et paradoxe de la reine rouge

Le pouvoir ambigu du cinma

Alexandru IORDACHESCU,1 M.A.

Elefant Films, Geneva

Abstract: The cinema, as a media, includes a technology platform in constant evolution. The question is what is the
driving force of this trend and if there is any direction. A theory of thermodynamics physics gives us a new angle on
this question: extrapolating it to the cinema, we can forward the hypothesis that it is not the quality (variable cultural
criterion) that determines the evolution of cinema, but its ability to reduce the entropy of its environment.

Keywords: Film, entropy, thermodynamics, lucid dreams, meaning and information

Rsum: Le cinma, en tant que mdia, comprend une forme technologique en constante volution. La question est
de savoir quel est le moteur de cette volution et, implicitement, sil y a une direction. Une thorie issue de la
physique thermodynamique nous donne un angle indit sur cette question : en lextrapolant au cinma, nous
pouvons mettre lhypothse que ce nest pas la qualit (critre culturel variable) qui dtermine lvolution du
cinma, mais sa capacit rduire lentropie de son contexte.

Mots-cl: Film, entropie, thermodynamique, rves lucides, sens et information

Introduction se vivre en temps rel du point de vue de chaque

Le cinma a le pouvoir de vous
endormir, de vous mettre dans un tat
dhypnose : un blanc se rve noir, un noir blanc,
un homme se rve femme et une femme
homme , nous dit Luc Dardenne.
Sans doute, le cinma ce pouvoir, mais
il nen a pas le monopole. De tout temps, les
tres humains ont tent daltrer leur tat de
conscience, de llargir, de le modifier et de le
hacker laide de pratiques, substances ou
technologies.
Le cinma est la rencontre entre lart
(dramaturgique, pictural, musical), et la
science (optique, chimie, lectromagntisme).
Aujourdhui la technologie numrique et
llectronique ont remplac le support
chimique : alors quen 2007, 80 % des
projections en salles de cinma se faisaient
encore sur le support argentique, en 2014,
largentique ne reprsente plus que 1 %.
Ainsi, la question qui nous posons dans
cet article est de savoir si le cinma est une
forme narrative unique, caractrise par sa
capacit produire du sens ou si ses
caractristiques sont principalement dtermines
par la technologie et vont voluer avec celle-ci.
Le jour o la technologie permettra une
immersion multi sensorielle, avec la capacit de
personnage, den changer sa guise et den
ressentir les motions, est-ce que le cinma, tel
que nous le connaissons, aura encore une raison
dexister ?
Autrement dit, est-ce que le cinma
survivra des formes technologiques de ralit
immersives, tout comme le livre a survcu
lapparition du cinma ?
Pour rpondre ces questions, nous
devons identifier dabord les paramtres qui
permettent au cinma dexister aujourdhui, du
moins en tant quindustrie. Or, quelque soit
langle selon lequel ces paramtres sont abords,
le dnominateur commun est le mme : il sagit
du public.8
Cest le public quel quil soit qui
dcide posteriori de lexistence des diffrentes
1
Alex Iordachescu is a producer and director film, known
for Copilaria lui Icar (2009), Le tramway d'Andra (2005)
and Le jardin des autres roses (2000). He is also the
director of Elefant Film production studio (Geneva).
Productions: Le Mur et lEau, de Alice Fargier, 2014.
Production Elefant Films
Gravity, de Alfonso Cuarn, 2013. Production Warner
Bros.
2001: A Space Odyssey, de Stanley Kubrick, 1968.
Production Metro-Goldwin-Mayer.

38

formes de cinma, de leur budgets et de leur
volution.
Car, une uvre sans public aussi
gniale soit-elle , na aucune chance de se
rpliquer, de voir ses ides reprises et intgres
dans la culture. Tout comme une espce qui na
pas de descendance est condamne disparatre,
une uvre sans public subira le mme sort.
Rpondre de la sorte, toutefois,
ressemble une mise en abme. Car nous
pouvons nous engluer dans une rgression
infinie sur les paramtres qui conduisent le
public apprcier telle ou telle uvre : culturels,
sociaux, politiques, psychologiques,
motionnels, etc.
Il y a toutefois une autre approche, qui
ressemble une voie diagonale de par sa
particularit traverser plusieurs disciplines,
mais qui peut nous conduire envisager la
question dune faon indite.
Lapproche est peut-tre tmraire,
considrant le fait que nous allons faire dabord
un dtour parmi des thories rcentes qui
mlangent volution, astrophysique et
thermodynamique, tout en tentant de les
extrapoler au cinma dans la conclusion de cet
article.
Evolution : du gntique
au mmtique, la puissance
exponentielle de la culture
A la question initiale, qui consiste se
demander si le cinma sera relgu au sort des
dinosaures par les nouvelles formes
technologiques de type ARG , interfaces
directes cerveau / contenu ou
nanotechnologiques, il se peut que la rponse
nous soit fournie par la thorie de lvolution,
savoir que, durant des priodes de transition,
certaines espces coexistent pendant un temps
plus ou moins long avec celles qui les
remplacent.
Tout comme la slection des espces
opre par la nature se fait dabord de faon
progressive et prudente, il semblerait que la
slection culturelle suive un processus similaire.
Mais, une fois certains seuils atteints, le
processus sacclre de faon exponentielle et
telle espce disparat brutalement, alors quune
autre voit son dveloppement samplifier. Cela a
t le cas du rapport entre la projection sur
support argentique et sur support numrique,
dcrit dans lintroduction de cet article, o
personne ne sattendait que leffondrement de
39
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
largentique survienne si brusquement. Le
processus peut tre expliqu et modlis de
faon mathmatique, mais cela nenlve rien
laspect contre-intuitif que nous pouvons
ressentir parfois face lvolution, qui est tout
sauf linaire.
Revenons sur le terme introduit dans le
paragraphe prcdent, celui de slection
culturelle : est-ce que nous pouvons appliquer
au domaine culturel les rgles formules par la
thorie de la slection dite naturelle ?
Selon des chercheurs tels que Dawkins,
Serres ou Dennett, la rponse est affirmative.
Certains vont mme plus loin et supposent que
lvolution culturelle de lhomme a remplac
son volution biologique.
Ainsi, le pendant culturel au code
gntique serait le code mmtique , dont
lADN serait notre langage et les
units conceptuelles qui le constituent. Ce
qui se construit travers eux, cest notre culture.
Et de la mme manire dont des gnes
sont en permanente comptition dans la nature,
les ides que nous exprimons sont en
comptition culturelle : la culture dominante est
celle qui pourra se reproduire et subsister dans le
temps.
Donnez un homme un poisson et
vous allez le nourrir pour la journe ; apprenez-
lui pcher et vous allez le nourrir pour le vie ,
nous dit un proverbe chinois.
Selon cette thorie, la raison pour
laquelle notre volution passe d'une slection
gntique une slection culturelle serait lie au
fait que les changements induits par les ides
qui peuvent se rpliquer et transmettre beaucoup
plus vite et moindre nergie que des gnes
sont beaucoup plus efficaces pour crer et
mmoriser de linformation.
Autrement dit, le corpus culturel nous
permet de nous adapter plus vite et moindre
nergie notre environnement que ne le feraient
les gnes, qui seraient autrement obliges de
dpenser des nombreuses gnrations
dindividus pour arriver par slection gntique
aux mmes rsultats.
La cl de ce processus, quil soit
gntique ou culturel, est la transmission et la
cration dinformations pertinentes par rapport
notre environnement, nous permettant de mieux
nous adapter, et lvolution semble privilgier
les formes qui en sont les plus efficaces.
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Mais quelle serait cette suppose
efficacit informationnelle recherche par la
nature ? Y aurait-il un sens cach notre
existence, une direction quelconque dans
lvolution autre que celle dicte par le pur
hasard ?
Entropie : une dramaturgie
pique au sein de lUnivers
La thorie trs audacieuse propose par
Franois Roddier, astrophysicien, mrite dtre
mentionne ici :
Roddier suppose que linvariant
physique depuis le Big Bang jusqu nous est
lnergie, comprise dans ses transformations.
Celles-ci sont modlises par les principes
thermodynamiques et par le principe de
lentropie.
Lobservation de lUnivers nous apprend
que lentropie (la tendance vers le chaos ,
ltat dhomognit absolu dans lequel il ny a
plus aucun change possible) se trouve dans un
rapport dynamique avec la nguentropie (le
processus inverse lentropie), manifeste dans
les structures qui organisent la matire et crent
de linformation .
Notre soleil est lune de ces formes. La
vie en est une autre. Ce sont des formes auto
organises qui permettent de maximiser la
dissipation du flux dnergie qui les traverse et,
de faon corollaire, de crer des structures et de
linformation.
Ainsi, la seule observation nous montre
que lunivers est dans une lutte permanente
entre ces deux principes : lun structurant et
lautre dstructurant.
Notre univers se dilate et se refroidit,
tend vers cet tat de mort thermodynamique .
Dautre part, des formes volues trs
complexes, tels que la vie intelligente ,
mergent localement et sopposent lentropie,
cette mort thermodynamique.
Le paradoxe de la reine rouge, imagin
par Leigh van Allen partir de lhistoire de
Lewis Carroll, est le constat que pour rester sur
place nous devons courir de plus en plus vite .
Nos socits semblent condamnes la
croissance pour survivre, tre de plus en plus
dpensires en nergie et crer de
linformation de faon exponentielle. Car
production de linformation et cration
dentropie vont de pair : plus nous nous
adaptons notre environnement, plus nous
modifions ce dernier. Et plus nous le modifions,
plus vite nous devons nous adapter. Un cercle
vicieux.
Nos ressources nergtiques spuisent,
nous avons modifi notre environnement au
point dapprocher des seuils dirrversibilit et
nous sommes condamns trouver des
solutions technologiques, culturelles, sociales,
politiques de plus en plus innovantes pour
survivre.
Le cinma :
un systme de reprsentation
alliant ides et motions
Quel lien avec le cinma ?
Ce dtour nous permet de comprendre
que la place du cinma, en tant quactivit
crative et culturelle humaine, a des
ramifications et implications importantes.
Si nous revenons aux conclusions
auxquelles nous avons abouti au chapitre sur le
glissement gntique / mmtique, savoir que
lvolution de notre civilisation est aujourdhui
essentiellement de nature culturelle, nous
comprenons que le cinma a une place et un rle
particulier jouer.
Car, en plus de vhiculer des
informations, le cinma la capacit de leur
associer des motions, ou, plutt, nous devrions
renverser les termes et affirmer : lmotion est la
forme la plus intuitive qui nous soit donne et
permet dancrer durablement une information
chez le sujet qui la peroit.
Or pour reprendre la citation qui ouvre
cet article, le cinma a galement la capacit de
plonger le spectateur dans un tat hypnotique.
Quels avantages pouvons-nous en tirer ?
Le cinma nest pas seulement une
machine rver , une forme dhypnose
collective. En permettant dexplorer nos
reprsentations possibles de la ralit et de nous-
mmes, le cinma en devient le support de
projection, o prennent formes nos dsirs,
fantasmes et peurs, conscients et inconscients.
Il est lantichambre du rel, un espace o
nous pouvons projeter des formes indites, les
valuer comme dans une simulation, avant de les
accueillir dans la ralit ou, au contraire, les
renvoyer dans locan de potentiels infinis.
Luc Dardenne nous rappelle galement
que Le cinma peut soigner des grandes
blessures . Si cette qualit est probablement
lune des plus belles, elle nest pas la seule. Le
cinma permet galement, travers des rves
veilles , de nous donner confiance dans notre
40

nature profonde, nous aider reconnatre et
nous rapprocher de celle-ci.
Dans le cadre de cet article, la qualit
qui nous intresse le plus est celle que jvoquais
plus haut : en jouant le rle dinterface entre le
rel et limaginaire, le cinma est une sorte
dAnti-Charon qui fait entrer les formes
prexistantes dans la ralit ; en agissant sur la
reprsentation que nous avons de nous-mmes, il
a le pouvoir de transgresser les processus
volutifs, en les acclrant ou en les modifiant,
en faisant merger des nouvelles formes du
nant.
Conclusion
Si nous devons considrer la thorie de
Roddier, qui suppose que la production
dinformation sacclre au mme rythme que
lentropie, la dernire tant un rsidu invitable
de la premire, le processus ne peut que
semballer et notre volution est condamne au
paradoxe de la Reine Rouge.
Dans ce cas, nous sommes confronts
un pige : la production dinformation devient
une ncessit quantitative et non pas qualitative.
Et suivant cette observation, de la mme manire
quune personne dpendante dune substance
doit augmenter constamment ses doses pour
retrouver leffet souhait, ce qui simposera
culturellement dans le cas du cinma, cest la
forme susceptible de gnrer le plus dexcitation
neurologique, quel que soit sa nature ou son
niveau intellectuel.
Si lhypothse est juste et nous tombons
dans ce pige, alors le cinma disparatra, sous
sa forme actuelle, trs prochainement. Des
technologies ARG, immersives et multi
sensorielles vont conduire lapparition de
nouvelles formes narratives et motionnelles.
Est-ce que le succs rcent aux Oscars
de Gravity, qui fait passer 2001, lOdysse de
lespace pour une production appartenant un
espce trs diffrente de celle contemporaine,
marque ce glissement ?
Car si le premier exemple est
indniablement une prouesse technologique
extraordinaire, le second arrive y adjoindre une
dimension rflexive, mtaphysique et spirituelle.
Fait intressant, le ralisateur de Gravity
nest pas tranger (au moins lune de) ces
dimensions, mais il fait un film qui va avec son
temps.
Car au vu de lacclration laquelle
nous sommes confronts, seule lefficacit
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
informationnelle est favorise, une forme que
nous pourrions appeler hyper
impressionnisme , en rfrence la premire
avant-garde de cinma impressionniste des
annes 1920, qui sest solde par le constat que
la principale tche du ralisateur consiste
introduire, par une sorte de ruse, le plus grand
nombre de thmes purement visuels dans un
scnario fait pour contenter tout le monde .
La ruse a bien fonctionn pendant prs
de 100 ans. Lindustrie du cinma a su faire
preuve dinventivit, mais elle sest fait malgr
tout rattraper par la technologie, qui volue plus
vite sur dautres supports, comme le jeu vido.
Ds lors, elle semble condamne la
surenchre : pour provoquer la dcharge
dadrnaline ou de srotonine, il lui faut toujours
plus dexcitation visuelle, daction, deffets,
dmotion, de spectacle.
Dans ce sens, pour rpondre la
question pose au dbut de cet article, le cinma,
en tant que langage et recherche, ne disparatra
pas tant quil conservera ses qualits et fonctions
essentielles, dont nous avons encore besoin, quel
que soit la forme par lesquelles elles
sexpriment.
Mais si le cinma se laisse piger par le
paradoxe de la reine rouge, alors son langage va
seffriter et le sens sera perdu au profit de la
densit informationnelle.
Ce que le cinma, en tant que forme de
recherche, peut encore nous amener, cest la
capacit de nous rver autrement, denvisager la
vie diffremment et donner ainsi de lespoir.
Lespoir qui peut natre dun nouveau
point de vue, viendrait point nomm. Car notre
socit contemporaine, en tant quentit, est
doublement traumatise travers ses deux pertes
la fois symboliques et structurelles.
La premire est ne avec lavnement de
la science : cest la mort de Dieu et la mort
symbolique de lArt Classique, remplacs par la
vision positiviste et la technologie; la seconde
perte ressemble un retour ironique des choses,
cest la perte de confiance dans la science,
inaugure par les explosions de Hiroshima et de
Nagasaki et confirme par la difficult de
construire un monde juste et quitable.
Nous voici doublements orphelins en
quelque sorte, privs la fois des figures
tutlaires de Dieu et de la Science.
Le cinma est le fruit du mariage entre
lart et la science. En toute logique, il ne peut
41
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

sabstraire la chute de lArt et de la leur fonction a t accomplie et quelles doivent

Science.
Mais il peut en rendre compte et plutt
que narrer leur chute , considrer leur
transformation. Corollairement, il peut esquisser
des nouvelles pistes, tmoigner des dmarches
qui mergent ici et l, voire les accompagner ou
les encourager. Et ce faisant, il donne nouveau
du sens au monde qui nous entoure, tout en
rinventant sa propre raison dexister.
Car, selon Roddier, si les anciennes
valeurs viennent chuter , cest parce que
tre remplaces par dautres, mieux adaptes
notre socit moderne et ses dfis. Roddier
suppose par exemple lapparition dune forme de
cerveau global , travers lequel lhumanit
transcendera les conflits individuels et la peur de
lautre.
Quil y ait cerveau global ou pas, ce qui
est certain cest que nous aurons toujours besoin
dhistoires nous raconter.
Et pour cela, le cinma, tel que je le
rve, demeure un outil formidable.

Rfrences

Livres :
CARROLL Lewis (1871). Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
DAWKINS Richard (1989). Le gne goste, ditions Odile Jacob
DENNETT Daniel (1995). Darwins dangerous idea. NY, Simon & Schuster
RODDIER Franois (2012). Thermodynamique de l'volution: Un essai de thermo-bio-sociologie, Parole ditions
SERRES Michel (2006). Rcits d'humanisme, Le Pommier

Articles :
VAN VALEN Leigh (1973). A new evolutionary law, Evolutionary Theory, Vol. 1, pp. 1-30

Confrences :
http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzweil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us

42
 Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

II. Cultural Studies:

Inherited ideas

A Cultural Perspective: Suggestion for a Documentary Film.

The toponymic heritage of Bucharest Streets bearing Jewish names

Irina AIRINEI VASILE, Ph.D.,

National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest.
Sorin BORDUANU,
Vicepresident of the Assigning Names Committee of Bucharest

Abstract. Regarding the protection of cultural heritage and its integration into greater projects of durable
development, Romania has yet to implement efficient, consequent measures according to international conventions
and public interest represented by cultural and natural heritage. Toponymic heritage is part of cultural heritage;
however it has not been the object of systematic, synchronic and diachronic study. As can be observed, the
consequence is a rapidly progressing loss of heritage. What Romania has lacked after 1989 was a coherent approach
by the responsible authorities, which would have required judiciary acknowledgement of the fact that cultural and
natural heritage is a national priority, as well as the necessary financial support and consideration. Architectural and
toponymic heritage must become part of the curriculum of all higher schools of public administration, so that they
can be known, preserved and protected by future civil servants. This would help configure a local spiritual identity
and preserve the particularities of the respective areas.
The present paper, regarding Bucharest streets named after people of Jewish origin, past and present, is a component
of the interdisciplinary, comparative study of the toponymy of Bucharest streets. These streets, having survived the
destructive fury of the Ceausescu era, situated in old quarters of the city, with historic houses and gardens, bear the
names of notable figures in the local Jewish community. They are a definitory component of European identity,
which must be known to the public in order to increase the respective areas appeal and promote durable
development and social cohesion.
The toponymic heritage in Bucharest is proof of a natural cohabitation of Romanian and Jewish populations,
thankfully without having been separated by the walls of a ghetto.

Key words: Jewish, streets, toponymic heritage, Bucharest

Throughout the territory between the
Danube and Tisza, from the Dnestr to the Cri
rivers, the lands once inhabited by the Dacians,
the northern branch of the Thracians, were
crossed throughout the last two millennia by
numerous populations stemming from the East
or West. All those who passed through these
lands, be they warring migrators or peaceful
settlers, left their marks on the conscience of the
Romanian people, whose ethnogenesis took
place in this area. Reminding us every day of
these peoples are toponyms assigned to regions,
rivers, roads and settlements, with their
respective quarters and streets.
One of the peoples who passed or settled
the current territory of Romania were the Jews.
Certain historians who have studied ancient
epigraphs consider that the Jewish people began
to arrive in these lands since the first millennium
of our era. According to some analysts of the
migration phenomenon, the Jews were the last
migrating people in Europe, which however is
not correct in strict terms of historiography.
Beyond controversy and speculation, it
is certain that, in the 14th century, the Romanian
principalities were settled by Jews coming from
Central Europe, the so-called Ashkenazi Jews
speaking Yiddish, an idiom based on a German
dialect, while during Ottoman domination these
lands were settled by Sephardi Jews, originating
from Western Europe and bringing to the
Balkans their Spanish-born dialect called
Ladino.
The presence of Jews in Romania
became numerically, economically and
culturally significant beginning with the first
half of the 19th Century, after large numbers of
Galician Jews were forced westward by anti-
Semitic measures undertaken by the Russian
Tsarist regime. Their integration into social and
cultural life took place together with the

43
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

emancipation of the population settled in Current street names reflecting Jewish

Moldavia and Wallachia.
Members of the Jewish community
actively supported the 1848 Revolution, with
names such as Barbu Iscovescu, Constantin
Daniel Rosenthal, Solomon Halfon, Davicion
Bally, Hillel Manoaha. The painter Constantin
Daniel Rosenthal gave his life for the
Revolution, after Austro-Hungarian authorities
captured him, took him to Budapest and tortured
him to death. The Islaz Proclamation demanded,
among others, the emancipation of Israelites
and political rights for fellow countrymen of a
different faith. After the two Romanian
principalities were united under Alexandru Ioan
Cuza, important steps were taken towards
integration, with many Jews being appointed to
public office and receiving the right to
participate in municipal elections. In solidarity
with the rest of the inhabitants of the Kingdom
of Romania, many Jews took part in the First
World War, with some reaching the rank of
colonel or being decorated for their heroism.
The presence of Jewish people
throughout the ages, from the conquest of Dacia
by Trajan to the modern-day Romanian state,
convinced the great historian Nicolae Iorga to
consecrate one of his works to this subject.
The history of Bucharest also brings out
the spirit of cohabitation of different ethnic
backgrounds, with the citys administration
taking care to keep or attribute street names
reminding of great Jewish figures who, through
their activity, brought a contribution to the
evolution of Romanian society.
No matter the historical period, the
Romanian people has always recognized the
worthiness of important persons, adding their
names to the index of street names. People of
Jewish origin are continuously present in the life
of the city, despite the hardships of the last
century and a half of modern history.
The present study contains
systematization, an analysis and a generalization
of streets bearing names of Romanian figures of
Jewish heritage, throughout three chapters:
Current names of streets
Past names of streets, presently bearing
different names
Streets which no longer exist
figures:
YEAR OF ATTRIBUTION NAME
1911 Dr. Iacob Felix (1832-1905)
1930 Mmulari
1947 Iuliu Barasch (1815-1863)
1948 Barbu Iscovescu (1816-1854)
1948 Constantin Daniel Rosenthal
(1820-1851)
1948 Barbu Lazareanu (1881-1957)
1948 Constantin Dobrogeanu Gherea
(1855-1920)
1948 Jacques M. Elias (1844-1923)
1961 Maximilian Popper
1993 Marcel Iancu (1895-1984)
1994 Victor Brauner (1903-1966)
1995 Margareta Sterian (1897-1992)
1995 Mihail Sebastian (1907-1945)
1996 Wilhelm Filderman (1882-1963)
2003 Iosif Sava (1933-1998)
Traian Popovici (1892-1946)
In the immediate vicinity of Filantropia
hospital, starting 1911 we find the name Dr.
Iacob Felix attributed to the street going from
Buzeti to Filantropia (now Ion Mihalache)
boulevards.
Born January 6th 1832 in Horschitz
(Bohemia, Austrian Empire, now Czech
Republic) in a family of Austrian Jews, Iacob
Dimitrie Felix studies in Gitschin and Prague.
Later on, he studies Medicine in Prague and
Vienna. On the 22nd of January 1858 he obtains
his medical degree, on the 15th of April of the
same year the title of master of obstetrics and on
the 20th of April he receives his surgeons
license. He then moves to Bucharest where, as
chief doctor of the city, he makes great advances
in the field of hygiene. He leads the Turnu
Mgurele military hospitals during the
Independence War. Due to his great merits, he is
a appointed to the Romanian Academy as a titular
member in June 1879, where he serves as Vice-
President between 1885 and 1886. He dies in
Bucharest on the 19th of January 1905.
After 1945, following a great increase in
the territory of Bucharest through incorporation
of suburban settlements, more names of Jewish
origin are assigned to streets as the index of
street names had to be updated and reviewed.

Thus, in the Bucharest Jewish quarter,

the name of Iuliu Barasch is granted 1947 to the
street formerly known as Biserica Udricani,

44

stretching between Matei Basarab and Olteni
streets.
Iuliu Barasch was born July 17th 1815
in Brody, Galicia, then in the Austrian Empire.
He studies Medicine in Berlin and Leipzig and
then settles in Romania, becoming a doctor in
Bucharest and teaching natural history in St.
Sava College, the School of Agriculture and the
Bucharest Military School, later becoming a
professor in the National School of Medicine
and Pharmacy. Starting 1858, he lays the
outlines of Romanian pediatric care, organizing
a pediatric dispensary and the first Bucharest
childrens hospital. 1856, he founds the journal
Isis (Natura since 1862), printed in Iosif
Romanovs National Press. Iuliu Barasch was an
outstanding medic, philosopher, paedagogist and
had an important role in modernizing Jewish
community life in Bucharest.
In 1948, a year which marked a wider
operation of renaming streets in Bucharest and
the surrounding communes and urban
settlements, more roads are dedicated to Jewish
people who contributed to the countrys political
and cultural life.
In the Marmorosh Blank parcel area,
known today as Primverii neighborhood, the
names of two important painters from the time
of the 1848 Revolution are attributed to
neighboring streets spanning between Teheran
street and Primverii boulevard: Barbu
Iscovescu and Constantin Daniel Rosenthal.
A Romanian painter and revolutionary
of Jewish descent, Barbu (Baruh, Iehuda)
Iscovescu, born November 24th in Bucharest,
studied in Vienna and Paris, participating
actively in the preparation and development of
the 1848 Revolution in Wallachia. Exiled in
Zemun, next to Belgrade, Iscovescu met several
Serbian revolutionaries and portrayed them, as
well as Dimitrie Bolintineanu, who was also in
exile. In 1849, he moved to Paris, where he
executed copies of famous paintings and, at
Nicolae Blcescus advice, copies of portraits of
Romanian voivodes inspired from old
engravings. He died 1854 in Constantinople,
being laid to rest in the Greek Orthodox
cemetery together with his fellow revolutionaries
Ion Negulici and priest Atanasie Luzin.
Constantin Daniel Rosenthal, another
famous painter and revolutionary of Jewish
descent, born 1820 in Budapest in a family of
merchants, graduated from the Academy of Arts
in Vienna. He befriends Ion Negulici, Constantin
A. Rosetti and other young revolutionaries. In
45
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
1842 he settles in Bucharest as an emissary of
the Freemasonry, thanks to painter Ioan D.
Negulici, in order to support the movement of
national awakening which generated the 1848
Revolution. He was a member of C. A. Rosettis
secret movement (the Brotherhood) and joined
him in exile after the Revolution was defeated,
settling in Pest. Rosenthal studies and paints in
London and Paris between 1845 and 1848,
where he becomes a member of the Society of
Romanian Students in Paris. He converts to
Christianity in 1847 assuming the first name
Constantin.
Rosenthal is arrested in Budapest while
carrying revolutionary literature and dies on the
night between the 22nd and 23rd of April 1851,
having been tortured in prison, without ever
betraying his fellows.
In the same year (1948), in the central
area neighboring Lipscani street, the street name
Frnge Fier is replaced with the name of one
of the greatest Romanian figures in economic
and social life, Jacques Menachem Elias, born
1844 in a family of Sephardi Jews. He was an
important businessman (owner of sugar
factories), banker (president and shareholder of
the Romanian General Bank) and industrialist.
He sponsored the reconstruction of the
Sephardic Jewish Temple in Bucharest, which
was however devastated and set on fire by the
Legionnaires on January 21st, 1941. Through his
will, drafted December 1914, he left his mobile
and immobile wealth at home and abroad
(estimated at 1 billion lei at the time) to the
Romanian Academy. According to his wish, the
Academy founded a cultural and philantropic
foundation, the Foundation of the Menachem
H. Elias Family, his wealth being used for
promoting Romanian culture, curing the
illnesses of our poor, encouraging virtue and
upholding noble causes, without discrimination.
The foundation was named after his father.
His gesture of great philantropy was
praised by his contemporaries, with Nicolae
Iorga naming it a powerful example of human
generosity. Grigore Antipa, vicepresident of the
Romanian Academy, in his speech at the
Sephardic Temple shortly after the death of
Elias, would honor the philantropist who
dedicated all fruits of his labor toward fulfilling
a grand ideal, that of raising the fatherland
through culture. 1993, Elias was posthumously
elected an honorary member of the Romanian
Academy.
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
On the grounds of the former Dudeti-
Cioplea commune, currently the third sector of
Bucharest, the name Barbu Lzreanu is granted
to a street neighboring Lt. Pascu Nicolae and
Danubiu streets.
Barbu Lzreanu, born October 5th 1881
in Botoani, was a Jewish-Romanian literary
historian and publicist, a titular member of the
Romanian Academy (1948) who was also a
Communist militant. During the deportation of
the Jews, he was saved by Queen Mother Helen
of Romania. Barbu Lzreanu died January 19th
1957 in Bucharest.
Within the former commune of Bneasa,
currently in the 1st sector, the Communist
regime replaced the name of King Ferdinand I
street, between Bucharest-Ploieti highway and
Ion Ionescu de la Brad boulevard, with the name
of Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea.
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, a
Romanian writer and socialist activist of Jewish
descent, was born May 21st 1855 in the village
of Slavianka, Ekaterinoslav, in the Russian
Empire (currently in Ukraine). His real name
was Solomon Katz, while his Ukrainian name
was Mikhail Nikitich Kass. He was an important
member of the Romanian Social Democratic
Party and a prodigious literary critic, known for
his debates with Titu Maiorescu.
Leon Trotski portrays Gherea as follows:
Among the ministers, diplomats and prefects in
Romania, more than a few have learned their
political ABC from Gherea. Luckily, they are
not alone. Starting 1890, Gherea has led the first
generation of Romanian Socialist workers
toward the teachings of Marxism. Gherea and
Rakovsky were the first who oriented their
socialist parties toward the Russian Revolution,
initiating a new kind of socialist party. Through
his 1910 volume, Neoiobgia (Studiu
economico-sociologic al problemei noastre
agrare) "Neo-Serfdom (A Social and
Economical Study of Our Land Issue)" Gherea
becomes one of the fathers of Romanian
sociology. He tries to establish possible social
causes for Mihai Eminescus pessimism, his
being one of the first studies on the reception of
the great poets writings. His fundamental work,
a true ars poetica of literary critique, remains
Asupra Criticii (On Critique). Gherea dies
May 7th 1920 in Bucharest.
In the year 1961, the name of the famous
doctor Maximilian Popper (1948-1951) is
attributed to Trinitii street, situated in Dudeti
46
quarter, a neighborhood inhabited by numerous
Jews.
After 1989, a number of Bucharest
roads are granted names of cultural figures of
Jewish origin.
One of these is situated between Moilor
road and Episcop Radu street. Formerly known
as Arge street, it bears since 1993 the name of
Marcel Iancu. Marcel Iancu, a painter, architect
and essayist born 1895 in Bucharest and later
settled in Israel, studied the fine arts with Iosif
Iser and graduates 1917 from the Zrich
Academy of Architecture. Together with Tristan
Tzara and Ion Vinea he publishes the journal
Simbol. In Zrich, he frequents the art
reunions at the Cabaret Voltaire, where he meets
Hans Arp and, together with Tzara, participates
in the initiation of the Dada movement. After a
short stay in Paris (1921), he parts from
Surrealism and Dada. Returning to Romania in
1922, he becomes one of the promoters of avant-
garde art. Together with Ion Vinea, he joins the
collective around Contimporanul journal
(1924-1936) and takes part in art exhibitions
together with sculptor Milia Petracu and
painter Margareta Sterian. In the effervescent
spirit of the time, he joins avant-garde groups
such as Arta nou (1929-1932) or Criterion
(1933-1937), where we also find M.H. Maxy,
Victor Brauner, Mattias Teusch, Corneliu
Michilescu. Together with Horia Creang and
Octav Doicescu, he publishes the manifest
Towards an architecture of Bucharest, a true
manifest for a modern capital city. In Romania
and later in Ein Hod, Israel, he paints countless
works of art, as well as authoring works of
architecture in both countries. He dies in Israel
on the 21st of April 1984.
In the year 1994, a street cornering
Camil Ressu boulevard is dedicated to Victor
Brauner, a Surrealist painter and poet of Jewish
descent, born in Romania. Born June 15th 1903
in Bucharest, Victor Brauner was the brother of
folklorist Harry Brauner and brother-in-law of
artist Lena Constante.
He attends the National School of Fine
Arts in Bucharest and Horia Igiroanu's private
school of painting. He visits Flticeni and
Balcic, and starts painting landscapes in the
manner of Paul Czanne. Then, as he testifies
himself, he goes through all the stages: "Dadaist,
Abstractionist, Expressionist".
In 1930, he settles in Paris, where he
meets Constantin Brncui, who instructs him in
methods of art photography. In that same period

he becomes a friend of the Romanian poet Barbu
Fundoianu and meets Yves Tanguy, who would
later introduce him to the circle of the
Surrealists. He lives on Moulin Vert Street, in
the same building as Alberto Giacometti and
Tanguy. There, he paints "Self-portrait with
enucleated eye", a premonitory theme.
In 1933, Andr Breton opens Brauner's
first personal exhibition in Paris, at the Pierre
Gallery. The theme of the eye was omnipresent
in Brauners paintings: Mr. K's power of
concentration and The strange case of Mr. K are
paintings that Breton compared with Alfred
Jarrys play Ubu Roi, "a huge, caricature-like
satire of the bourgeoisie". Afterwards, Brauner
takes part in numerous other Surrealist
exhibitions.
After the Second World War, Brauner
travels to Italy. In 1965, he creates an ensemble
of object-paintings full of inventiveness, known
as "Mythologie" and "Ftes des mythes". The
mythology of the modern world, where man is
portrayed with humor, tenderness as well as
pessimism, is clearly visible in his paintings of
the time, including those painted in Varangville
and Athanor, where Brauner spends his late
years.
In the year 1995, streets are dedicated
both to Margareta Sterian and Mihail
Sebastian.
The name Margareta Sterian is granted
to a street stretching between Dacia boulevard
and Alecu Russo street, formerly a part of
Dimitrie Orbescu street.
Margareta Sterian, born March 16th
1897 in Buzu as Margareta Weinberg, was a
painter, writer and translator of Jewish origin.
She was married to a Piteti banker, and then
later to poet Paul Sterian. She dies September
9th 1992, and since 1993 a foundation bearing
her name promotes and rewards museographical
and artistic creation.
Mihail Sebastian street is situated
between Rahovei and Srii roads. Born October
18th 1907 in Brila as Iosif Hechter, Mihail
Sebastian was a novelist and playwright who
studied Law and Philosophy in Bucharest and
worked as a pleading attorney. Invited by Nae
Ionescu, chairman of his Baccalaureate
comission, to contribute to Cuvntul journal,
he befriends Mircea Eliade. Antisemitic laws of
1940 forbid him to work as a lawyer and ban his
plays. Amongst his better-known novels are
Oraul cu salcmi and Accidentul.
Successful plays by Sebastian include Steaua
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
fr nume, Ultima or, Jocul de-a vacana.
The latter was adapted into a successful
Romanian-French film (Mona, l'toile sans nom
1967) in which the leading role was played by
Marina Vlady.
Mihail Sebastian dies in a road accident
in 1945, only a short time after fascism had been
driven out of Romania.
In the year 1996, at the proposal of the
Jewish Federation, the name of Wilhelm
Filderman is granted to former Agrielor alley.
Wilhelm Filderman (November 14th
1882, Bucharest 1963, Paris) was a Romanian
politician and lawyer of Jewish descent who led
the Jewish secular community between the end
of the 1st World War and the end of the 2nd
World War. Filderman was president of the
Federation of the Union of Jewish Communities
in Romania (FUCE) and representative of the
Jews in the Romanian Parliament. During high
school, he befriended Ion Antonescu.
Filderman graduated from law school
and received his doctoral degree in 1910 at the
University of Paris Sorbonne. During the First
World War he fought as an officer in the
Romanian army. He was a delegate in the Paris
Peace Conference of 1918 and a deputy in the
Romanian parliament. He was temporarily
deported to Transnistria by the Antonescu
regime and fled to Western Europe in 1948,
when Romania was under the Communists. He
died 1963 in Paris.
In the year 2003, the name Iosif Sava is
granted to a square situated between Brezoianu,
ipotul Fntnilor, Poiana Narciselor and Vasile
Sion street, neighboring the Bucharest
University of Music. A bust of Iosif Sava is also
unveiled there.
Iosif Sava (Iosif Segal), b. February
15th 1933, Iai d. August 18th, 1998,
Bucharest was a renowned Romanian
musicologist, radio and TV host born to a Jewish
family with a three century-long musical
tradition. He studied at the Iai Conservatory
(1944-1945), the George Enescu Academy of
Music (1945-1947), the Arts Institute (1947-
1949) and the Art High School (1949-1951),
then at the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory in
Bucharest (1962-1966). He also took courses at
the Faculty of Philosophy between 1951 and
1955.
Between 1974 and 1984, Sava played
the piano and harpsichord in a number of
chamber music groups, earning numerous prizes
including the Prize of the Romanian Academy.
47
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
In 1972 he was received into the Union of
Composers and Musicologists of Romania
(UCMR). As a music critic and TV host, he
produced the weekly show TV Music Evening
(Serata muzical TV), between 1980 and 1985,
as well as after 1990. The show was a forum of
discussion with important figures, orbiting
around music, but including cultural policy and
other contemporary issues. Over 40 books
dedicated to the worlds musicians bear Iosif
Savas signature, among which several, edited
by Hasefer publishing house The harpists of
King David, Musicians on the roof and
Variations on a theme by Chagall are
encyclopedias of renowned Jewish musicians.
In the toponymy of Bucharest street
names, we also find names reminding of the
main occupation of ethnic Jews in Romania:
commerce. One such street is Mmulari street
(the archaic term mmular means a small
trader). We also find names of famous people
who supported the community in its most
difficult periods, including the Second World
War. One of these is Traian Popovici.
Through Decision no. 52 of March the
6th 2003, by demand of the Ministry of Culture,
the General Council of the Municipality of
Bucharest changed the name of Unitii street to
Dr. Traian Popovici, honoring the mayor of
Cernui who saved nearly 20,000 Jews from
deportation.
Traian Popovici, born on the 17th of
October, 1892 in Ruii Mnstioarei village,
belonging to the Duchy of Bukovine, Austria-
Hungary was a Romanian lawyer and mayor of
the city of Cernui during the Second World
War, known for saving Bukovine jews from
being deported.
In 1989, Israel awarded lawyer dr.
Traian Popovici the title, medal and certificate of
Law between peoples, a distinction given to non-
Jewish persons that carried out heroic acts, with
the risk of losing their own lives, families and
belongings, with the purpose of saving Jews
from the Holocaust genocide. As a recognition
to his brave attitude and his efforts to protect the
Jews in Bukovine, in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv
a monument was built in the memory of dr.
Traian Popovici.
The same year, the memoirs of Traian
Popovici were published in a book called
Spovedanii (bilingual Romanian and English
edition) at the initiative of dr. Wilhelm
Filderman and with funds provided by the
48
Ministry of Culture. The volume had a foreword
written by acad. Prof. dr. Rzvan Theodorescu,
the Romanian cultural minister.
On the 21st of April 2009, at the initiative
of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, and also
with the help of local authorities in Cernui, a
black marble memorial plaque was placed on the
former house of Traian Popovici
(6th Zankovetka Street). In this event, Volodimir
Kuli (governor of Cernui district) and Dorin
Popescu (diplomatic counsellor, interim consul
of Romania in Cernui) also took part among
other participants. Written in three languages,
Romanian, Ukrainian and English, the memorial
plaque pays homage to the personality of mayor
Traian Popovici (d. 4th of June, 1946, Colacu
village, Fundu Moldovei, Suceava district).
Previous names of traffic arteries which
are now renamed
PERIOD NAME RENAMED AS
1889 1940 Dr. Beck/ Vasile Adamachi
Radu Bek, dr.rabin
1948 1990 Olga Bancic Alexandru
Philippide
1948 1993 Max Wexler Sic Alexandrescu
1948 1990 Lazar Grumberg Alecu Mateevici
1948 1964 Baruch Berea strada Clinului
(merchant)
1948 1964 Andrei Berneth Remetea
1949 1965 Haia Lifschitz Washington
1975 1990 Miron Sibiu
Constantinescu
Between 1889 and 1940, a street in
Unirii neighbourhood, located near dr. Iuliu
Barasch Street and Sfnta Vineri Street, bore the
name of Dr. Beck/Radu Bek, dr. Rabin, and is
at present called Vasile Adamachi. This is where
the Great Synagogue lies.
Olga Bancic street, a traffic artery
located between Aurel Vlaicu Street and Polon
Street, kept its name between 1948 and 1990,
but was eventually renamed Alexandru
Philippide.
Olga Bancic (Golda) (b. 10th of May
1912, in Chiinu, Gubernia Basarabia, within
the Russian Empire, d. 10th of May 1944,
Stuttgart, the Third Reich) was a Romanian and
French communist activist, anti fascist fighter, a
heroine of the French Resistance during the Nazi
Germany occupation of France. In 1940, France
was occupied by the German army. A member
of the French Communist Party, she left her
daughter Dolores in the care of a French family
in order to protect her while she would be

joining the resistance group Francs-tireurs et
partisans Main-d'uvre immigre (FTP/MOI),
located near Paris and led by Missak
Manouchian, with the purpose to fight the
Germans. Olga Bancic adopted the surname
Pirrette. She assembled bombs and transported
explosives used to sabotage German trains that
carried troops and food. On November the 6th,
1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo. Although
she had been tortured, she never revealed her
accomplices. On the 21st of February, 1944 she
was sentenced to death, along with another 22 of
her comrades from the famous group Affiche
Rouge (The Red Posters). The 22 comrades
were in fact all men and were shot the same day.
Because the laws of France prohibited the
shooting of women, Olga was transferred by the
Germans to a prison in Stuttgart, where she
would stand trial again only to be sentenced to
death for the second time. The interrogatories
and the tortures continued even after her
conviction. She was beheaded on her birthday,
the 10th of May 1944, when she was only 32
years old.
In 1959, Romanian painter Alexandru
Ciucurencu presented the work called Olga
Bancic on a Scaffold. In France, on the wall of
the building located at 19, rue au Maire, 3me,
Paris (75003), Ile-de-France a memorial plaque
in the memory of the resistance group Francs-
Tireurs et Partisans (FTP/MOI) that also depicts
the name of the heroine Olga Bancic.
In Bucharest, in 1995, after renaming
Olga Bancic Street as Alexandru Philippide
Street, the memorial plaque was removed from
its original place.The commemorative
(memorial) stones in Paris 3e, 19 rue au Maire
and Valence built for the members of the
Manouchian Group and Rue du Groupe-
Manouchian, Paris 20e, still exist today.
Between 1948 and 1993 a street located
in the second district, between Dumitru
Marinescu and Ruchia Street, bore the name of
Max Wexler and is now called Sic
Alexandrescu Street. The Romanian postmodern
painter of Jewish descent, Max W. Arnold, born
in the 25th of March 1897 in Iai, was a student
of the Belle-Arte School in Iai during 1913-
1919, where Gheorghe Popovici and Octav
Bancil had been two of his teachers. He
traveled to Germany between 1923-1924, to
Mnchen and Dresda, because he wanted to
study the German expressionists. During 1925-
1927 he left for Italy. In Rome, he continued his
studies at the Superior Institute of Arts where he
49
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
met painters Sabin Popp and Lucian Grigorescu.
Later he went on a new trip to Palestine, Egypt
and Syria, exhibiting at Hasefer Gallery the
works he made during his trips during the winter
of 1927-1928. In 1928, he leaves for Paris, and
then for Spain. In France, he was very prolific on
the Breton coast, at Concarneau and
Douarnenez, where he created artistic
compositions of static nature with sea fruits,
prawns and lobsters. New exhibitions will be
held in Paris in 1933 and in Bucharest, in 1934.
He became renowned as a watercolor and oil
painter after his visits to Balchik, and then to the
French Bretagne, Belgium, Greece, England.
Although Max Arnold admired him, Paul
Czanne had little influence on his works, as
opposed to the greater influence of Henri
Matisse, Raoul Dufy and Albert Marquet. His
paintings approach a large variety of subjects,
such as oriental landscapes, the scenery of
Dobrogea (Romania), the Seine river, Hyde
Park, Florence, nudes, portraits, static nature,
interiors, streets etc. He dies on the 29th of July
1946 in Bucharest.
During 1948-1990, a street located
between the streets Clin Ottoi and Sic
Alexandrescu in the second district was called
Lazar Grumberg as of 1990 it was renamed
Alecu Mateevici.
Lazr Grnberg (1911-1944) was an
activist for the Romanian youth and an anti
fascist. Grnberg joined the Communist Youth
League (CYL), in 1927. In 1935 he was arrested
and received a sentence of nine years and ten
months in jail. During the Second World War he
was imprisoned in the Vapniarka camp (1942)
and then in Rbnia jail in the Soviet-occupied
Ukraine. He was killed by the Gestapo while
imprisoned.
Between 1948 and 1964, the name of a
traffic artery was Baruch Berea (glory to
Berea/Merchant Berea). Now, its name is
Clinului Street.
Andrei Bernath Street, which had this
name during 1948 and 1964 was later renamed
as Remetea Street.
Andrei Bernath (1908-1944) became in
1927 a member of Communist Youth League,
and later became the secretary of the Central
Committee of CYL. Since 1935 he was
incarcerated in various prisons until his death, in
1944.
Between 1949 and 1965, the street that
neighbors the building of the Romanian
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Government, known today as Washington Street,
was called Haia Lifschitz.
Haia Lifi or Lifschitz (1903 1929)
was born in Chiinu, Basarabia, in a family of
ordinary clerks that were of Jewish descent.
During high-school she joined the local
communist organization. Later, Haia worked as
a teacher, but nevertheless she was immediately
arrested for her political options by the
Romanian authorities when Basarabia became
part of the Greater Romania in 1918. She
emigrated to Belgium and then to Germany, but
finally settled in Vienna, Austria. During the
spring of 1926 she came back to Romania, but
was rapidly caught and released due to lack of
evidence. Her political activities eventually led
her to several arrests in June 1929. In prison, she
initiated a hunger strike along with other
collaborators convicted in the same trial,
requesting to be released according to a recently
announced amnesty decree. The next 43 days
she only accepted to drink water, at the same
time rejecting any other type of food. This led to
a deterioration of her health which resulted in
her death on the 17th of August, 1929, only a few
days before the amnesty decree would have
entered into force.
Between 1975 and 1990, a street in the
6th district of Bucharest had been called Miron
Constantinescu, but was later renamed as Sibiu
Street.
Miron Constantinescu (Meir Kohn)
(19171974), distinguished Romanian
intellectual, was a member of the Romanian
Communist Party since its early beginnings. He
was the editor-in-chief of Scnteia, the main
newspaper during the communist regime, and
held important leadership positions. He tried to
overthrow communist leader Gheorghe
Gheorghiu-Dej but did not succeed. He is
rehabilitated by Nicolae Ceauescu, who offers
him the position of Education Minister, president
of the Great National Assembly and rector of
Political Academy tefan Gheorghiu.
Streets that no longer exist
PERIOD NAME RENAMED/
DISCARDED
1880 1948 Fundaia Intrarea Pitagora
Mozaic
1911 1948 Col. Orero Abraham
Golfaden
1940 1964 Dr. Schachman Colnicul Mic
1948 1964 S. I. Halfon Mcin
1911 1930 Aleea Halfon
50
The Mosaic Foundation (Fundaia
Mozaic) was a street that existed between 1880
and 1948 and later became Pitagora Entrance
(Intrarea Pitagora). Col. Orero, a street found
between 1911 and 1948 was subsequently called
Abraham Golfaden.
Abraham Goldfaden (b. 1840,
Starokostiantniv d. 1908, New York) was a
poet, dramatist, director and Jewish actor of
Yiddish and Hebrew language, native of
Ukraine, author of 40 theatre plays. He is
considered to be the father of the modern Jewish
theatre. In 1876 he founded in the city of Iai the
first professional Yiddish language theatre in the
world. Moreover, he is the author of the first
Hebrew language play ever performed in the
United States. The Avram Goldfaden Festival in
Iai is held in his honour.
Between 1940 and 1964, there was a
street that bore the name of dr. Schachman and
was later renamed as Colnicul Mic. The street
named S. I. Halfon during 1948-1964 was
renamed Mcin. Both streets no longer exist
today.
Solomon Halfon (b. 1790 d. 1862)
was a Romanian Jewish banker of Spanish rite,
founder of Halfon Bank, friend of Hillel
Manoah, one of the 1848 wallachian
revolutionaries, who also had a position in the
City Council of the capital city. Solomon
Halfon, along with Barbu Iscovescu, Davicion
Bally and many other jews took part in the 1848
Revolution in Wallachia.
Up to 1930, in the vicinity of Kiseleff
Road there was an acces alley that led to a group
of mansions that was called Halfon Alley, but
this name was eventually removed from
Bucharests street list.
Regarding the protection of cultural
heritage and its integration into greater projects
of durable development, Romania has yet to
implement efficient, consequent measures
according to international conventions and
public interest represented by cultural and
natural heritage. Toponymic heritage is part of
cultural heritage, however it has not been the
object of systematic, synchronic and diachronic
study. As can be observed, the consequence is a
rapidly progressing loss of heritage. What
Romania has lacked after 1989 was a coherent
approach by the responsible authorities, which
would have required judiciary acknowledgement
of the fact that cultural and natural heritage is a
 Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

national priority, as well as the necessary
financial support and consideration.
Architectural and toponymic heritage must
become part of the curriculum of all higher
schools of public administration, so that they can
be known, preserved and protected by future
civil servants. This would help configure a local
spiritual identity and preserve the particularities
of the respective areas.
The present paper, regarding Bucharest
streets named after people of Jewish origin, past
and present, is a component of the
interdisciplinary, comparative study of the
toponymy of Bucharest streets. These streets,
having survived the destructive fury of the
Ceausescu era, situated in old quarters of the
city, with historic houses and gardens, bear the
names of notable figures in the local Jewish
community. They are a definitory component of
European identity, which must be known to the
public in order to increase the respective areas
appeal and promote durable development and
social cohesion.
The toponymic heritage in Bucharest is
proof of a natural cohabitation of Romanian and
Jewish populations, thankfully without having
been separated by the walls of a ghetto.
The Jewish toponymic heritage found in
the capital city of Romania reveals a page of
harmonious history shared by different ethnic
groups, especially because during the past
century the Holocaust affected mainly the
northern region of Transylvania that was
occupied by the horthyst Hungary and caused
the death of over 150.000 innocent jews. The
Jewish toponymic heritage encompasses
knowledge, respect and the preservation of real
History as a memento that a metapolitical
phenomenon like fascism should never be given
the opportunity to repeat itself.

References:
***Dicionar Enciclopedic Romn, Editura Politic, Bucureti, 1962-1964
Alexandru Ofrim (2007): Strzi vechi din Bucureti, Bucharest: Humanitas.
Constantin C. Giurescu (2008): Istoria Bucurestilor, Bucureti: Editura Vremea.
Gheorghe Crutzescu (1987): Podul Mogooaiei , Bucureti:Ed. Meridiane.
Ioni, Elisabeta (1969). "Haia Lifi" n Anale de istorie, Vol.. XV, Nr. 5. Institutul de Studii Istorice si Social-
Politice de pe linga CC al PCR, Bucureti. pp. 178-180.
Dimitrie Papazoglu (2005): Istoria Fondrei Oraului Bucureti, Capitala Regatului Romn, Bucureti, Bucureti:
Paideia.
Michel Allenou, Magditions. Rieux-Volvestre (1998): Guide des professions artistiques
Michel Magnien, Delmas. Paris, 1995, L'entreprise de spectacles et les contrats du spectacle
Presidential Commission for Architecture Report/2009: "Romania's natural and built heritage in danger"
Raymond Citterio (1993): Action culturelle et pratiques artistiques, Paris: Hachette.
Spectacles. Rglementation protection sociale, fiscalit, Imprimerie des journaux officiels, 1995
UNESCO SECTOR FOR CULTURE http://www.unesco.org/culture
UNESCO www.unesco.org
Vade Mecum pour un projet culturel de territoire, ADCEI, 2006

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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

The Golden Ratio From the oldest to the newest arts

Diana MEIU1, Ph.D,

Hyperion University, Bucharest

Abstract Golden proportion from the oldest to the newest arts shows portions of the road of the golden number,
from nature, human, fine arts, to cinema. The idea of artistic perfection realized by the golden proportion of
Leonardo da Vinci, borne in ancient times, was taken in Fine Arts until today. But, the photography and movies was
simplified this idea to rule of thirds. Moreover, they allowed to take out of context and analyze inside portions of
the frame. Here the analysis of this golden ratio in several of the last movies admired by the public and
professionals.

Keywords: film, frames, golden section, golden number, golden proportion.

What do the Milky Way, the sunflowers,
the rose petals, the pine cones or the mollusc
shells have in common with bee reproduction,
with the Egyptian pyramids, with Salvador Dali's
amazing paintings, with the harmonious
sculptures of Phidias or with famous images
from movies like Anna Karenina or The
Grandmaster? What is the common element that
unites science, art, nature and divinity? It's the
golden number or, more concisely, The Golden
Ratio. It is present in all of human's great
artworks, but also in all of God's creations,
including the most majestic one, MAN. 9Beauty,
harmony and balance are called, mathematically,
1,618033988... And, as with mathematics, this
irrational and immeasurable number is as
irrational and immeasurable as beauty itself and
seems to be part of the basic structure of the
Universe. ''God's existence cannot be proved
with the help of words. Likewise, this ratio
cannot be defined through a rational number, but
it always stays hidden and secret, and that is why
1. Diana Meiu is Ph.D in Visual Arts and
Communication&PR expert, coach and personal
development trainer. In addition to the counselling of
various companies and private individuals in optimal
transmission of messages, she is teaching at the Faculty of
Arts of the University "Hyperion". She obtained her Ph.D at
the National University of Arts, with the thesis "Trash Art
aspects of using waste in the Visual Arts." She is
passionate about the relationship between the visual arts
and communication and how they influence decisions at
conscious and subconscious level. Her profile at:
ro.linkedin.com/in/dianametiu/. Her email address:
Diana@dmi.ro
it is called irrational by mathematicians'', said
Luca Pacioli in 14962. 10
The History of the Golden Ratio
Although this proportion has been known
ever since the dawn of the first human
civilizations, it was only late in 1835 that it has
become known in history by the name of divine
proportion, used by the mathematician Martin
Ohm (1792 1872). Until then, Leonardo da
Vinci called it sectio aurea and had found out
about it from the handbook of roman architect
Marcus Pollio Vitruvius. But the first text in
which the golden number is defined is Euclid's
''Elements (300 BC). Afterwards, the Italian
mathematician Luca Pacioli, in his book called
The Golden Ratio, illustrated by Leonardo da
Vinci (see photo De Divina Proportione Luca
Pacioli illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci), that
also included The Vitruvian Man (the ideal
proportions of the human body), considered the
golden ratio to be the formula of perfect beauty
and said that there is no art without
mathematics. Here, Luca Pacioli presents
thirteen effects of the divine proportion (the
essential, the singular, the ineffable, the
admirable, the inexpressible, the inestimable, the
excessive, the supreme, the excellent, the
unknowable and the dignisim), throughout which
you can create a large variety of simple
geometrical figures, from which the regular
pentagon is obtained. (see photo De Divina
Proportione Luca Pacioli 2 and De Divina
2.
De Divina Proportione by Luca Pacioli (1446/7, Borgo
Sansepolcro, Toscana, June 19th 1517, Roma),
mathematician and Francincan monk and Da Vinci discipol.

52

Proportione Luca Pacioli attributed to Jacopo
de' Barbari, 1495). All these effects have an
enormous impact on the sensations we have when
we meet beauty in nature or in works of art.
In 1202, the work The Book of
Calculation comes out in Italy; written by
Leonardo Pisano (alias Fibonacci), the book
contains a sequence of numbers that appear as a
solution to a practical problem related to the
reproduction of rabbits: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21,
34, 55, 89. The Fibonacci's series is a sequence
of numbers where each subsequent number is the
sum of the previous two. Dividing each number
by its predecessor, you get approximately the
golden number (see photo irul-lui-fibonacci).
The value keeps approaching phi as you go
further in the sequence, but it never reaches its
exact value.
Leonardo da Vinci was the one who
frequently used the concept of golden section in
his work; starting with the Vitruvian Man,
following with the controversial The Last
Supper, the series of Madonnas and finishing
with Gioconda, the world's most famous painting
at which da Vinci worked for four years you
can clearly see the painter's conception that the
divine proportion for a face is the proportion
between the height and the length of a face.
At the beginning of the twentieth
century, the American mathematician Mark Barr
gave the report the name (phi), as a tribute to
the great Greek sculptor Phidias, a master of
harmony in portraying the beauty of the human
body, the author of one of the seven wonders of
the ancient world, Zeus of Olympia. In ancient
Greek culture, the golden number was the
symbol of Pythagoreans, who believed that
1.618033988 is the expression of life, love and
beauty.
Modern man has created various
programs due to mimic nature. One such
program is the Golden Section Photoshop plugin
that transforms you into a talented photographer
with a highly developed sense of proportion,
obtaining for you the divine proportion, the
golden spiral, the golden triangle or the
harmonic triangles of any image.
Such programs are used in the design
process of various objects, from cars to porcelain
cups, correcting the shape, size and proportions
of each object that does not comply with the
golden ratio.
Many companies such as Pepsi, Apple
and Toyota have used the golden ratio to create
their logos or products.
53
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
Rules of Composition Based
on The Golden Ratio also called
The Divine Proportion: The Golden
Spiral, The Concordant Spiral,
Spira Mirabilis
This spiral, built after the Fibonacci rule,
is found everywhere in nature and from there it
has been copied by the human genius and used
in art, for the human mind finds it much easier to
accept and understand things that we recognize
in nature. According to this rule, for a whole
divided into unequal parts to look nice, we must
have the same ratio between the smallest and the
largest part, as well as between the big part and
the whole". (see Vermeer, Golden Spiral3) 11
The Rule of Thirds
It refers to the fact that the important
elements of the plastic composition should be
placed along imaginary lines that divide the
image into thirds, horizontally and vertically,
thereby obtaining nine equal parts. Items of
interest can be placed right at the intersection of
these lines, for a more expressive and pleasing
composition. By following this rule, we get
aesthetic asymmetry, enhancing the drama and
dynamism, drawing the eye and the attention
from the centre to one of the areas of intersection
of the imaginary lines that divide the image into
three equal parts. In addition, we can also
mention dynamic equilibrium, which is obtained
by placing objects of interest (eyes or other
anatomical parts that are representative for the
idea of the image, the place where the light
flows, certain objects that we want to emphasize,
etc.), as opposed to the negative space or the
empty space of the image.
The Golden Rectangle
The special property of the golden
rectangle is that the ratio between the length and
the width is equal to about 1,618. The head of
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa fits perfectly in
this report. (see photo Mona Lisa, golden
rectangle4)12Another famous painting depicting
the subject more clearly, although belonging to
abstract art is Piet Mondrian's "Composition in
Red, Blue and Yellow" a modern Dutch artist
who lived between 1872 and 1944. The
universality of this theme is emphasized by the
fact that it was repeated in the aesthetics of the
most different objects (see photo Piet Mondrian
3. http://powerretouche.com/Divine_proportion_tutorial.htm
4. http://schoolcommunicationarts.com/14212-2/
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
reinterpretat). Drawing more golden rectangles
creates a spiral of gold that continues
indefinitely.
We start from the segment AB = 1, we
raise on A a perpendicular on which we take AC
= AB = 1 and build the arc with centre in D
(middle of the segment AB) and radius DC. We
find point E and then the relationship between
AB and EB represents the golden number (by
applying the Pythagorean Theorem). We repeat
this reasoning to each vertex of the triangle, in
the same order, and we get the following
diagram. Between the sides of the rectangle we
use a ratio very close to the golden number,
having as sizes two consecutive numbers of
Fibonacci's sequence or their multiples
The Golden Ratio in Cinemas
In photography and film, the golden
ratio has been restrained to the rule of thirds, in
the detriment of the golden section used in
painting, sculpture and architecture. If the
painter prepared by himself the size of his
canvas, photographers or cameramens have to
settle for predetermined dimensions. The 135
standard that used 35 mm perforated cassettes
for fixed cameras had a frame size of 24 x 36
mm, twice than that of a teaching film and
became by far the most used video until the
invention of the camera. So this 1.5 framework
ratio is pretty far from 1.618033988... The size
of a film frame varies greatly (the lowest: 8 mm
amateur format, which is only 4.8 x 3.5 mm,
while an IMAX frame is 69.6 x 48.5 mm), and
very little are close to the golden ratio. Today, all
cameras and video cameras have the option to
display the image of thirds over the grid, in order
to ease the frame.
In cinema, the Golden Ratio is explained
in images rather than words by Ali Shirazi, a
young director and screenwriter, in "Golden
Ratio on Film: The math in There Will Be
Blood's cinematography. The film was
nominated eight times and received an Oscar for
Image (cinematography) in 2008. Shirazi
examines in only 6 minutes and 15 seconds the
most iconic scenes of the film and applies across
the running images various grids of the golden
proportion, highlighting the talent of Robert
Elswit. (see all the photos from the series Paul
Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood)
To see how the rules are applied to the
golden proportion in the cinema, we propose a
similar analysis of three of the most popular
54
movies of the recent years, movies that have
been nominated or have won an Oscar for best
picture. 2012 Academy Awards Movies was
awarded to Claudio Miranda for his stunning and
controversial Life of Pi (Viaa lui Pi), and the
nominees were: Anna Karenina (Seamus
McGarvey), Django Unchained (Django
dezlnuit) (Robert Richardson), Lincoln (Janusz
Kamiski) and Skyfall (Coordonata Skyfall)
(Roger Deakins). In 2014, the award for best
picture was won by Gravity with the signature of
Emmanuel Lubezki, in competition with The
Grandmaster (Philippe Le Sourd), Inside Llewyn
Davis (Bruno Delbonnel), Nebraska (Phedon
Papamichael) and Prisoners (Roger Deakins).
Life of Pi
The film recounts the life of an
exceptional character that bears a great name, Pi,
tied somewhat to phi. Pi, as phi, is an irrational
number, as the character himself says in the film
("my irrational nickname") and represents the
ratio of the circumference of any circle and its
diameter in Euclidean space, or the ratio of the
area of a circle and the square of its radius.
In the three selected frames of the film,
besides the exceptional light that emphasizes the
sky's colour, the sea and the skin of the
character, we can admire the perfect plastic
composition.
In the first frame, the two elements that
compose it the boat that dominates the left and
Pi, the main character that just stands to the right
of the image are filmed from above in a
spectacular perspective. The interesting and
unconventional form of the boat on which he
stands fall within the golden spiral, segments
three, four, five, eight and nine being highlighted
by the boat. In the eighth segment we have the
character and three of the boat's elements
surrounding him like a fan. (see frame 57:30)
If we apply the same trinity grid on the
frame, we see that the boat occupies the top right
corner composed of three rectangles in the top
right, and the character is placed in the bottom
left corner, right on the first section, forming a
diagonal line easily stressed by the white and
thin rope that binds them. (see frame 57:30)
The second frame changes the
perspective, light, for it is another time of day,
and brings a new character, the tiger. The man,
floating on the raft, is in the foreground and the
animal floating in the boat, in the far, builds a
small upward bias. The boy and the end of the
boat are on sections. The eyes of the two

characters meet right in the centre of the image /
composition. (see frame 57:06) The same frame
respects the compositional rules of the golden
spiral. (see frame 57:06)
The third frame is emblematic for the
film, as it is used for both the movie poster and
the trailer (see 1:51). It is composed of three
parts: two characters, the boat upright and
horizontal, all designed on blue water and sky as
background. Applying grid of thirds, we find the
horizon placed right on the centre of the image,
most of the animal's image being projected on
the boat / water and most of the man's image on
the sky. The tiger is located right on the left
golden section and the man is placed in the
centre. (see frame 74:37)
The same framework composed with
Spira Mirabilis has the tiger positioned in all
nine segments, and the ninth is occupied by the
human character and by a great part of the boat.
Thus, this area focuses the entire dynamic of the
image. (see frame 74:37)
Anna Karenina
Even if you havent read the book or
have not seen any of the screenings, you only
need to watch a few frames of composition from
one of the most significant recent films inspired
by this story to understand who the character
around which everything revolves is and which
are the important emotions. The first frame
contains two characters: Anna Karenina, in
black, and Count Alexei Vronsky Kirilov, her
lover, in a white suit, dancing in the ballroom.
Placing Anna in the centre of the image makes it
clear that she is the main character and the
count's hand in the golden section, touching the
woman's hand, indicates the relationship
between them. (see frame 29:37) The same idea
emerges if we apply the golden spiral grid
framework that has the man's fascinated gaze in
the centre. (see frame 29:37)
The passion between the two characters
is seen not only from the woman's clenching
fists or from her aglow look, but also from the
composition. Their faces are grouped in the
centre of the image, between the two vertical
sections and the fingertip he touches her face
with is at the point of intersection between the
horizontal and vertical sections. (see the 107:37)
Applying the golden spiral grid over the
romantic setting, we note the placement of the
faces of the two characters in the latest and
widest segment of the coil. (see frame 107:37)
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
The next frame presents Anna Karenina
at the station, in the train, during her first
meeting with Count Vronsky. The woman is
placed back in the foreground, blurred, and the
man is placed on the golden section, so this
character is emphasized with light and clarity.
The point of intersection of the sections on the
left side of the frame is near the left eye of the
count, because the whole scene takes place under
the sign of the intense gaze that will mark their
life afterwards. That fatal coup de foudre is
outlined by the intersection of the golden
sections. (see frame 17:25)
The third frame, another close-up of
count Vrosky, is made by placing the character in
the centre and occupying all the space between
the two vertical sections of the trinity. (see the
18:27) The scene takes place in the same train
where the two are introduced to each other
although they had seen each other with other
occasions. The count ceremoniously bows and
kisses the hand of Anna, keeping his eyes raised
towards hers. Very close to the golden section
are the open eyes of the count, enchanted by
Anna's gaze.
The Grandmaster.
Although it didn't get the Oscar, this film
about Kung Fu is astounding in terms of
composition. Apart from a few hypnotic and
perfect thick-ups which, paradoxically, increase
the dynamics, many of the film's images seem
detached from the walls of Baroque art
museums. Even if the subject is physical combat,
Kung Fu, most of the characters are fighting
while they are very well dressed, in elegant
sceneries. With regard to the fluidity of
movement, most of the scenes take place in the
fluid element of nature water. Thus we cast
scenes in rain, snow, steam. By contrast, we see
more stop-frames, as sepia group photos. During
the fight scenes, we have characters who use
their hands in order to build frames for their own
faces, as a frame within another frame, as if
highlighting through graphics or imaging Yip
Man's theory about this martial art: "Kung Fu,
two words: one horizontal, the other vertical."
(frames 25:17 , the 25:26 , the 25:40 , 28:34 ,
28:49 , 29:00 , 29:12 , 29:33 , 41:05 etc.).
The first frame is one of the most
elegant in the film, both by the perfect position
of each character and by the very well balanced
framing. The action takes place in a brothel,
where the daughter of a Kung Fu grandmaster
waits for Ip Man in order to face him. Dividing
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
the image using the third rule, we get three
perfectly aligned planes: the foreground of the
two symmetrical women who seem to fit the
image by bending their body, the background
the women at the table, surrounded
symmetrically by the two blue lamps and the
third plane, composed of characters who stand in
the background, framed symmetrically by two
men in white. The first horizontal section is
made at the table, from the woman's flexed arm
of the woman in green to the chest of the woman
with green beads, and the final sections follows
the nose lines of the first and last man. The main
character is centrally located and respects the
position of all the women surrounding him. (see
frame 39:12)
In a film about fighting, the core of
many of the frames is the hand, the hand that is
about to strike, hits, or rests after an impact. This
framework can be an eulogy brought to the
hands of a fighter, because of the composition.
Ip Man's arm is positioned in the centre of the
image, with palm elegantly twisted right at the
intersection of the golden sections. On the
vertical sections we have the man's body and one
of the pillars of the richly decorated room. If we
apply the gold spiral grid over this framework,
we emphasize the weight and elegance of the
composition. The spiral seems to be coiled
around the fingers, the arm, on the forearm, in
order to open widely to everything including the
torso and the character's head. (see frame 27:28)
The next frame is a close-up of the
female character. The composition
unorthodox, in the way that the character looks
far beyond the frame, as most of the characters
Refrences:
Mario Livio (2005): Golden Section The story of Phi, the most astonishing number, Bucharest: Humanitas
Publishing.
Mario Livio (2011): It is God a Mathematician? Bucharest: Humanitas Publishing
in this film, being turned towards the edge of the
image. From the point of view of the third rule,
the composition is classic, because it sets on the
nose, eyes on both sides of the section and the
mouth on the intersection point. If we apply the
sharing of the framework based on the golden
section, we find that the positioning of the eyes
and mouth is made close to the horizontal golden
sections, and the nose near the vertical ones. (see
frame 69:07)
In cinematography, the frame
construction is done as it is done in painting,
respecting the same rules of composition. And
the olden proportion, in all its forms, appears in
the works of all talented artists in this area. For
talent, like every man's natural quality, makes
you see the beauty and the balance in nature and
determines you to replicate it in everything you
do.
The famous number was not only loved
by artists and scientists, but also mystics like
Jakob Lorber: And the Earth took love, which
was like the seed over the creamy milk and, with
the mysterious Power of its hands, he battered it
well and made out of it the first human, in
accordance to the Golden Number of his order,
and then he gave him the Spirit of Life. And Her
Spirit became soul inside the man and it quickly
spread into his entire body, sealing for ever his
bond with the Golden Number of Order. But
know that not only man was created after the
number, but all the spirits and all the worlds that
exist in infinite space, in which we also include
is Earth with all that is on it, the Moon and the
sun.
56

Postmodernism in the art of film
- lecture notes-
Florin Toader1
Ph. D, Hyperion University, Bucharest
Artists of all times have searched for the
state of excellence. This has always been the
underlying reality of practicing the art, but
modernism proved to be the one that brought it
fully to light. Modernism was singled out by its
answer to a heightened sense of threat to the
aesthetic value, threats coming from the social
and material environment, from the spirit of the
time. In fact, modernism is the ongoing effort to
stem the decline of aesthetic standards
threatened by the relative democratization of
culture in the era of industrialization. The
romantic crisis to be overcome was it seems
an expression of the so-called democratization,
as Romanticism contributed to a confusion of
criteria and quality levels. Before these threats
coming mostly from the appreciation level
promoted by the new middle class public,
modernism was a possible replica. Innovation
has come to be taken as the hallmark of
modernism, novelty is desired and sought by all
means. However, all the great modernist artists
who have stood the test of time were actually
reluctant innovators, innovating just because
they had no other choice, for the sake of quality
and self-expression.
At some point, however, it was
considered that modernism is not advanced
enough; it will remain behind times if it
continues to be concerned with things such as
standards and quality. For though to make high
art is usually part of a difficult process, during
modernism, satisfaction and exhilaration
required when assessing artistic products were
toilsomely acquired. Over the last century, the
best new painting and sculpture or new poetry
proved, in their time, to be a challenge and a test
for art lover. And so postmodernism came a
form of artistic expression that is no longer
"obliged" to be critical in relation to itself,
discrowning modernism in terms of stylistic
development which is rather connected to the
cyclical evaluation criteria of the public.
57
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
The urge to relax that has always been,
but now it seems stronger than ever identified
the postmodern "business", promoting less
intellectually demanding art. Aching for the
relaxation has come to be expressed aloud in
avant-garde circles with the "challenges" of
ready-made sites "brand" Marcel Duchamp and
the Dadaists, and then in some manifestations of
surrealism. But the most coherent expression of
that relaxation was the pop art, whose influence
has been perpetuated in all different subsequent
fashions and trends of artistic fields. The notion
of postmodernism arose and spread in the same
relaxed atmosphere of taste and opinion where
the pop art and its successors flourished.
Where modernists hoped to highlight the
universality or the fundamentals of art as a form
of creation, postmodernism seeks to discrown, to
embrace diversity and contradiction. When the
highest quality requirements are not upheld
creation, taste or appreciation new artistic
approach rejects the distinction between
"inferior" or "superior" art, rejecting also rigid
boundaries, favoring eclecticism, mixing ideas
and forms. Partly due to this rejection,
postmodernism promotes parody and irony, as
the serious tone that accompanied the act of
searching for truth will be replaced by the idea
of "play".13
In the context of postmodernism, "play"
means changing the level of connection of the
terms of the discussion, thus allowing for the
figurative meanings or the passage of a metaphor
from one context to another, from one reference
framework to another. As inside postmodernist
thinking, the text is composed of a number of
"marks" whose meaning is assigned to the
reader, not the author, this play is based on the
1.
Florin Toader is an associate professor at the Faculty of
Arts of the University Hypeion, specializing in
photography. He wrote the essay "Oglinda element
fundamental la grania dintre teatru i film", Europolis,
2010
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
means by which the reader constructs or
interprets the text, and by means of which the
author becomes a presence in the readers mind.
The play involves also works written in the same
style in order to weaken the authority, either by
parodying their meanings or style, or by
successive layers of false indications regarding
the author's intention.
Posmodernism, attacking Modernism
elites sought a strong connection with a wider
public, and so-called availability has become a
focus of dispute in favor of postmodern art. The
mixture of artistic languages, the quotation or
the collage were attempts to multiply and
diversify media and messages, many elements
focusing on a change when choosing the themes,
closer to the average taste of the viewer. In this
context, postmodern artists see media as one of
the fundamental sources of inspiration. Andy
Warhol is an early example of post-modern
artistic trends by how he assumes common
popular symbols and ready-made cultural
artifacts, making what was once considered,
"worldly" or trivial on the field of high art.
Postmodern cinema is distinguished, in
the opinion of many commentators, through
various forms of pastiche or stylistic
multiplicity. Sometimes it is an intrinsic element
of the film, as in Kiss of the Spider Woman,
where the parody of Hollywood romance and
melodrama is inserted into the story of the
relationship blossoming between two political
prisoners. (...) Another interesting frequently
commented manifestation of postmodernism in
the film is the deletion of previously existing
borders between elevated culture and mass
culture, postmodern films can evoke complex
problems of an elevated theory, but this is at
odds with its apparent accessibility and the box
office of so flawless postmodern films like Blade
Runner, True Stories, Diva and the
Draughtman's Contract. (Steven Connor
Cultura postmodern)
Revisiting the subject
"From the postmodern perspective, as
the extension and complexity of modern
societies accelerate, identity becomes more and
more unstable, more and more fragile. Within
this situation, the discourses of postmodernity
problematize the very notion of identity,
claiming that it is a myth and an illusion. One
reads both in modern theorists like the Frankfurt
School, and in Baudrillard and other postmodern
theorists, that the autonomous, self-constituting
58
subject that was the achievement of modern
individuals, of a culture of individualism, is
fragmenting and disappearing, due to social
processes which produce the leveling of
individuality in a rationalized, bureaucratized
and consumerized mass society, and media
culture." (Douglas Kellner, Cultura media)
Zelig (1983)
"Ten years of a 'human chameleon'
(1920-1930) life. To such an extent a conformist
that, to be approved, he is able to acquire the
traits of anyone who sits around, either black or
Asian, Pope or Hitler. [...] Very original
narrative technique, collage-film more
chameleonic than Zelig himself, a masterpiece of
inventiveness and humor, simulating
cinematographic journalism rhetoric, combining
frames of the news of the '20s with simulations
of interviews and footages from the set." (Tudor
Caranfil Dicionar universal de filme, 2002)
Zelig (directed by Woody Allen) is
about the formation of subjectivity, both the
subjectivity of the spectator, and that created by
the spectator the Star. (Linda Hutcheon, The
Politics of Postmodernism)
Marlene (1984)
But a film like Maximilian Schells
Marlene can also parody the documentary genre
in a postmodern cinematic way. It opens asking
Who is Dietrich?, and the question is revealed
as unanswerable. The postmodernist
investigation of the formation of postmodern
subject is combined here with one of the forms
the challenge of postmodern historical
knowledge has taken: one that operates in the
private history that is the biography. Novels such
as Banville's Kepler or Wiebes The Temptations
of Big Bear or Kennedys Legs aim to portray an
individual and at the same time, to undermine
any stability or certainty in knowing or
representing that subject. This is what Marlene
is about. Dietrich is offstage, never represented
visually. She is merely a plaintive voice, a feisty
presence of absence. Schell reverses this
situation to postmodernism advantage: his film
talks about trying to make a documentary about
a subject that is intentionally absent, a topic that
refuses to be subject to discourses and
representations of the others. (...) Marlene is the
kind of movie I would label as postmodern: a
parody, metacinematic, challenging. Its double
speech, constantly contradictory brings to our
attention the question of ideological construction

of subjectivity and how we know history, both
the personal history and the public history."
(Linda Hutcheon, Politica postmodernismului)
A Zed and Two Noughts (1985)
In this film by Peter Greenaway
everything is duplicated, from characters to
parodies. The main intertext is the realistic
('photographic') representation of Vermeers
paintings. But even this explicit intertext
becomes problematic. In the narrative of the film
there is a surgeon named Van Meergeren. This is
the name of the most famous of Vermeers
works counterfeiters, the man who persuaded
Goebbels (and the entire world) that there were
more works than the twenty-six paintings
authenticated. (...) A Zed and Two Noughts
seems to me to be a border case of postmodern
film. [...] Although its contradictions are not
really solved, they are highly stylized. The
postmodern film, as I see it, should be more
compromised than that. Its tensions should be
even more deliberately left unresolved, the
contradictions even more deliberately
manifest." (Linda Hutcheon, Politica
postmodernismului)
Revisiting the past
Zelig, Carmen, The French Lieutenant's
Woman, and other postmodern films really
dealing with history, ironically, but not on
entirely frivolous. (...) On the contrary, these
films suggest that there is a past 'real' directly
and naturally accessible to us today: we can not
know and build the past but by his tracks, by
its representations. (...) Whether they are
documents, eyewitness accounts, long-/short-
films, documentaries or other works of art, they
remain, however, representations and they are
our only means of access to the past. (...) The
film and postmodern fiction are primarily
obsessed with history and how we can know the
past today.(Linda Hutcheon, Politica
postmodernismului)
Brazil (1985)
A strange film by Terry Gilliam that
Linda Hutcheon considers postmodern because
"it ironically rethinks history ' by a parody of
other movies like Star Wars and Battleship
Potemkin, with the reevaluation of different
periods of the past that can not be identified
precisely, futuristic decors mixed with
monotonous costumes in the '30s and presenting
a world dominated by computers and advanced
59
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
automation with an archaic design and a lack of
safety, suggesting that they also belong to the
'30s. Perhaps Brazil is another example of the
'retro' style because what it is evoked here is not
a real machine phase, but rather, an imaginary
technology of that mid-century science fiction.
These forms of temporal discontinuity
correspond to the generic heterogeneity of the
film with his erratic swings between comedy and
tragedy, utopia and dystopia, tales of adventure
and satire. (Steven Connor, Cultura
postmodern)
"Brazil belongs, out of grounds and even
recipe to A Clockwork Orange, '1984 ',
Fahrenheit and other political-fiction film. The
film, equivocal alloy of black comedy, burlesque
and dramatic baroque is cerebral even into its
lyrical parts and the abundance of final twists is
more tiresome than surprised. To be noted the
delusional scenography, characteristic to
Gilliam." (Tudor Caranfil Universal Dictionary
of movies, 2002)
Terry Gilliam is "the author of a new
baroque theater built on postmodern elements:
spacing, demystifying, eclectism, pastiche cult,
imitation, parody, and metafiction. The result of
this option is a flamboyant opera, full of fantasy
and a remarkable plasticity, which puts forward
the dehumanization of society." (Dictionary of
Cinema, 1997)
Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (1991)
The movie Robin Hood, Prince of
Thieves introduces the medieval outlaw who
suffers from PTSD after the Crusades.
Accompanied by a cheerful band of
multicultural homeless victims, he and the
feminist Marian fight against the multinational
corporation of the sheriff of Nottingham and
save the Sherwood Forest area. Therefore
postmodernism has history, but not a 'sense of
history', since all historical moments are
minimized, swallowed by present and context."
(Gene Edward Veith, Guide to Contemporary
Culture)
Intertextuality
Last Tango in Paris (1972)
The Last Tango in Paris, Bertolucci
creates an intertextual love story based both on
the history of the cinema after 1950 and fiction.
It uses Marlon Brando remarkably, in the main
role, mixing elements from his real life, his
career and the life character in order to create a
fourth person who rises above the three. For
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
example, the description of the history of
Brando's character career as "a boxer, a singer
from bongos, a revolutionary' are references to
the characters' businesses, interpreted by Brando
in films such as On the Waterfront and Viva
Zapata!"
(http://lifegoesoff.blogspot.com/2005/05
/essay-title-re-postmodernism-in-film.html)
Carmen (1983)
The complex transcoding from Carlos
Sauras film Carmen, of the high French art
(opera by Bizet and the literary text of
Mrrime) under the conventions of the Spanish
flamenco provide a good illustration of the type
of political critics the parodic representation is
indeed capable. (...) Saura's film concerns the
relationship of the present to the traditions of the
past, of the Spanish popular, and the culture of
the high European art (with its fascination for
the exotic stereotype). [...] The somewhat
reminiscent of Fellini's The Orchestra Rehersal,
this "show" is also both a documentary about a
particular form of music, and the repetition of a
fiction. Add to this the reflectivity of the plot
structure, manifested in that the dancers begin to
play in their private life the jealousy and
passion of fiction. The fact that often, as
spectators, we can not say if we have to face life
fiction or dancers in the real life action,
highlights the play of dual boundaries in the
film. (Linda Hutcheon, Politica
postmodernismului)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
"Like Citizen Kane,Pulp Fiction is
constructed in such a nonlinear way that you
could see it a dozen times and not be able to
remember what comes next. It doubles back on
itself, telling several interlocking stories about
characters who inhabit a world of crime and
intrigue, triple-crosses, a world where there are
no normal people and no ordinary days." (Roger
Ebert, Cinema un secol i ceva, 2002).
Fight Club (1999)
"In the complex postmodern
construction, clip-like, of the filmmaker one can
identify multiple narrative techniques: from
flashback to anticipations of the action, open
stage confessions, oneiric delirium, episodes
resumed from another angle, even subliminal
images. The challenging masterpiece 'pop' is part
of the joint anarchic current of films that mark
60
the arrival of the XXIth century." (Tudor
Caranfil Dicionar universal de filme, 2002)
Memento (2000)
Memento is a new challenge, this time
of the narrative concepts not so much because
it starts with the end (Citizen Kane, made in
1941, also started with the end), but because we
witness a reverse, unnatural chronology, where
every scene is paradoxically the continuation of
the next scene! Perhaps the film noir has never
been so labyrinthine it is a puzzle where each
'answer' raises a new question, where the
actions, the images, the stereotypes are repeated
endlessly, resulting in a feeling of stagnation of
the investigation and the film itself. (Corina
Marculescu, Observator Cultural, no. 192,
28.10-03.11.2003)
Collage/Polistilism
Pierrot le fou (1965)
Everything is backwards. (...) Pierrot ...
is undoubtedly an antifilm, and this status can be
detected at all levels. (...) The film with
gangsters, the touristic film, the romance movie,
the parody, the mime, the exotic film, the art
film, the television reportage, the filmed theater,
the compilation carried out at dialogue level, as
well as by imagistic, painting quoting, are the
disparate elements falling within this general
hotchpotch named Pierrot the fool. (John Lazar,
Teme i stiluri cinematografice)
Blue Velvet (1986)
"The film parodies 1940s American
films small town films, film noir and films of
other genres. A mixture of different genres and
different times are seen in this film which is an
example of pastiche."
(Asim Ratan Ghosh,
www.geocities.com-postmodernismandcinema/
pmincin.html)
Norman Denzin sees Blue Velvet as a
postmodern film out of a number of reasons.
First, the film offers an unlikely and disturbing
juxtaposition of different genres and related
expectations. [...] Denzin argues that Blue
Velvet combines in a postmodern manner the
tradition of the small town (illustrated by Frank
Capra's works in the '40s) with cult pornographic
films. Also postmodern, in Denzin's opinion, is
the way the film combines the "non-presentable'
(rotting ears, sexual excesses, brutality,
dementia) with clich existence, thereby
challenging the boundaries that separate them.

(...) If Blue Velvet seeks new ways 'to present the
non- presentable in order to destroy the barriers
that hinder the mixture of profane in everyday
life', in equal measure, especially when
presenting male and female sexuality, he
reproduces without mercy and apparently
without irony the narrowest cultural stereotypes.
(...) Denzin concludes that 'postmodern
individuals want movies like their violence and
politics, all at the same time. (Steven Connor,
Postmodernist Culture)
Ghost Dog (2000)
"Far from being the most elaborate film
by Jim Jarmusch, Ghost Dog is probably one of
the major cinematic creations of 'post-
postmodern' cinema, integrating into its narrative
thread senile gangsters, cartoons, code of
conduct Hagakure of the samurai, messenger-
pigeons, overcoming barriers of language and
race, the ghost of a dog, a man who builds a boat
on the roof and, of course, rap. But the
importance of the film does not come from the
abundance of narrative elements, but from the
author's attitude towards them. Jarmusch breaks
down New York reality which in itself is a
hodge-podge (the boat on the roof an the
gangsters who love rap are inspired by reality)
and recomposes it as a modern fairy tale (...) in
order to be able to penetrate its meaning, the
story must be read carefully, each element is a
symbol awaiting to be interpreted." (Carina
Tutu)
Parody
On the whole, the parody is
characteristic of a multilayered society, enjoying
a cultural tradition that can make significant
references, universally recognizable.
The parody delivered simultaneously to
and beyond the cinematic textuality, ideological
formation of the subject by our various cultural
representations. (...) Parody often called ironic
quotation, pastiche, closeness intertextuality is
usually considered central to postmodernism,
both by detractors and its defenders. For the
artists, the postmodern seems to imply
ransacking the image reserves of the past in
order to reveal the history of representations on
which their parody draws our attention. In terms
of happily chosen by Abigail Solomon-Gode
(1984), the modernist 'ready mades' of Duchamp
became 'already mades' in postmodernism. But
this parodic replay of the past of the art is not
nostalgic, but always critical, it is not ahistorical
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
or unhistorical, but do not draw out the art of the
past in its historical original context to
reassemble it in a presentation show. (...)
Parody, of course, is omnipresent in the
contemporary film, although its method is not
always challenging. (...) Paradoxically the
postmodern film wants to challenge the external
boundaries of cinema and wants to question
(though rarely provides responses) on the role
played by ideology in shaping the subject and
historical knowledge. Perhaps parody is a
particularly appropriate representational strategy
of postmodernism, a strategy once described as
the use of a parallel scenario rather than an
original writing." (Linda Hutcheon, Politica
postmodernismului)
Take the money and run (1969)
Along with Pierrot the fool, Take the
money and run is part of the category of avant-la-
lettre postmodernist films, the writer and director
Woody Allen parodies here the film noir as well as
the conventionalism in treating documentaries
Discovery Channel type. Take the money and
run fits perfectly the typology of mockumentary,
where the protagonist is analyzed impersonally by
the documentary, the comic feature arises,
apparently involuntarily, from the absurd situations
that, the whole seemingly trivial scheme of
characters is bound to enter at some point.
Bananas (1971)
The film directed by Woody Allen is a
carefully constructed parody of political films
and also war films that are based on romance.
Satire and absurd humor, specific to Allen,
imbue the development of apparently dramatic
action, with a subtle but irresistible comic.
Everything You Always Wanted
to Know About Sex * But Were
Afraid to Ask (1972)
Based on excerpts of the book by David
Reuben that interrelate, the screenplay of the
film by the same Woody Allen parodies here the
idea of counseling, highlighting the absurdity of
the solutions pushed to potential limitations.
Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
Postmodern parody evokes what
promoters of the reception theory call
expectation horizon of the spectator consisting
of recognizable conventions of genre, style or
form of representation. This horizon of
expectation is then destabilized and dismantled
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
step by step. It is no accident, of course, that
irony was often rhetorical vehicle of satire. Even
a parody relatively ' light' such as Brian De
Palma's film Phantom of the Paradise, gives a
version of irony working with satire and
selecting anything as target from sexism of Hugh
Hefner harems type (Swan's ironic echoes
perhaps of Du ct chez Swann) to the
interpellation movie star by the public and his
taste for the extremes. This vehicle of this satire
is the multiple parody: from The Bird Man of
Alcatraz is transported to Sing Sing , to Psycho
the knife is replaced by a waterpipe plunger
and the female victim by a male, to The Portrait
Dorian Gray the portrait is upgraded as video
tape. Despite the obvious entertainment, we are
dealing with a film (...) about the representation
of the original subject and originary as artist,
about the dangers, the victims, the consequences.
Its major intertexts are Faust and the previous
film, The Phantom of the Opera, here transcoded
in terms of rock music. This latter parodied text
can explain the details, otherwise unmotivated
like organ notes of the piano interpretation of the
protagonist from the beginning of the film. Faust
parody is as declared, because the ghost writes
rock inspired by the subject of the dramatic
poem. And, of course, the pact with the demonic
Swann is signed in blood. (Linda Hutcheon,
Politica postmodernismului)
Spaceballs (1987)
"A new prank by which Brooks (in the
double role as king and wizard) strokes against
the hair, this time, the habits of interplanetary SF
aiming openly in the Space Wars and George
Lucas routine. The stereotypes of the fairytale
for children are added to the modern
technological jargon and...the SF masterpiece is
ready! In addition, the garlands of allusions for
moviegoersuse from Snow White, where hooded
dwarves sing in the choir of the Bridge on the
River Kwai, spectres from the Planet of the
Apes, references to Lawrence of Arabia in the
desert planet. "(Tudor Caranfil Dicionar
universal de filme, 2002)
The Big Lebowski (1997)
"The Coen Brothers invent extravagant
situations, distort waggishly any situation no
matter how dramatic, coating everything with
political allusions and references to
cinematographic myths cinema." (Tudor Caranfil
Dicionar universal de filme, 2002)
62
Simulacrum
In an article entitled 'The precession of
simulacra', Baudrillard argued that reality had
been subsequently neutralized by the media who
first reflected it, then masked and distorted it,
and then it had to hide its absence, and finally
produced instead the simulacrum of reality,
destroying meaning and any relationship with
reality. (Linda Hutcheon, Politica
postmodernismului)
"The fact that the simulacrum became
the emblematic figure of postmodern culture is
largely a consequence of the increasing
instability of fronteers between formerly distinct
areas. The simulacrum is significant for the
postmodern culture also because ambiguities and
issues associated with it have become relevant in
the contemporary cultural situation. The
Fundamental questions to which the narrative
and visual art in contemporary culture of the
simulacrum must answer no longer deal with the
old metaphysical problems related to the origin,
the legitimacy and the identity. Once with the
advent of the show society, the focus moves to
the pragmatical or 'existential' questions aiming
the relationship of the images with the
audience." (...) "The media is now a vital
element of our ability to interpret and reinvent
our world. In Whillock's opinion, the film (along
with the TV set and the computer) amended the
contemporary discourse, changing completely
the concept of reality. The same position is
reinforced also by postmodernists constantly
stating that we live in a world where images
proliferate independently of the existence of
references to the "real" world. One of the
primary effects of the fact that the film
insinuates easily in the minds of viewers is its
ability to convince them of the 'reality' of the
images produced artificially. The illusory quality
of the film facilitates the identification of the
viewer with the images on the screen: in these
images, the viewers perceive alternative
'realities', including identities that can be
adopted temporarily or possibilities to project
desires." (Mihaela Constantinescu
Post/postmodernismul: Cultura
divertismentului)
Sex, lies and videotape (1989)
"A remarkable picture of mores
depicting an obsessed world, invaded by lies,
which contemplates itself on the video. The
video man is not a mere maniac of voyeurism,
but a therapist, a psychoanalyst who frees

women from their sexual anxieties." (Tudor
Caranfil Dicionar universal de filme, 2002)
"All characters of the film are
postmodern simulacra. They have become
sexual objects and images." (Asim Ratan Ghosh,
www.geocities.com-postmodernism-
andcinema/pmincin.html)
Wag the Dog (1997)
"Wag the Dog confirms that we live in
an age where the simulacrum undermined
permanently the reality. The character played by
Robert De Niro has to make a story to divert
media attention from the sex scandal involving
the U.S. President. He decides to ooze out
information that denies the existence of serious
problems in Albania (a country chosen
arbitrarily, relying on the total lack of
knowledge of the American public about the
Balkans) and the possibility that U.S. troops be
sent there.[...] He has to hire a successful
producer from Hollywood to stage the war: he
knows what it is catchy and what it is not, who
can write the script the best, direct pictures,
compose the distribution, when and what kind of
hero is needed to win the hearts of the public.
[...] The film provides an interesting contact
point between the 'realm of television' and the
postmodern theory on television textuality; it is
about a 'fictional' artefact commenting a
phenomenon of the 'real' world which in its turn
was literally dramatized in the end on the
American political scene. And the fact that in
Albania there was no war but the one produced
in Hollywood proves to match our
post/postmodern suspicions: there is nothing
outside the house we live, the office building
where we work, the street that leads to the
station subway or the car we drive each day,
there is nothing beyond the orbit of our own
planet or our own reality." (Mihaela
Constantinescu Post / postmodernismul: Cultura
divertismentului)
The Truman Show (1998)
"The film a parable of the power of
television to counterfeit the real world shows
that 'live' entertainment can successfully replace
reality, and the boundary between the two is not
even necessary. The main character of the film,
Truman Burbank, is adopted at birth by a media
conglomerate that employs two actors to be his
parents. Thus Truman lives his whole life
without knowing, watched day and night by
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Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
thousands of cameras hidden everywhere. Life is
a television series broadcast live a series that,
as the producer says, 'gives hope and joy and
inspiration to millions of viewers.' This is
because the audience got bored watching actors
interpreting false emotions. The simulacrum of a
cruel reality, not staged, is a much more
interesting entertainment. The symbolic order is
already established: the reality is a construction,
and Truman, at first innocent, suddenly becomes
aware that he is the subject of a conspiracy
which is recorded and consumes life live.
Afterwards, inflamed with paranoia and having
confirmation of the storyline that determines his
existence, Truman escapes from the symbolic
order of the film, in the 'more real' reality
beyond the movie set, of the imaginary and real
public of the film 'The Truman Show' a virtual
construction as the one he left. [...]" (Mihaela
Constantinescu Post/postmodernismul: Cultura
divertismentului)
Metacinema
It brings out not only the formation
process of subjectivity, but also of the narration
and the visual representation became the raw
matter of metacinema today. The postmodernist
version of this kind of self-reflexivity draws
attention to the very act of production and
reception of the film. (Linda Hutcheon, Politica
postmodernismului)
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1984)
The fate of the characters of this film
cross sensibly with the whole development of
universal cinema, on which the film opens new
perspectives for interpretation.
The nostalgic painting of splendor and
decay of the cinema show. A youth film, of a
young man who shows he knew how to look at
Fellini and Monicelli. From traditional Italian
melodrama and comedy he extracts a live film,
full of ideas and excitement." (Tudor Caranfil
Dicionar universal de filme, 2002)
The Purple Rose from Cairo (1985)
"Who has not dreamed that the
characters of a movie come down the screen and
join him alive? Woody Allen develops here this
wonderful idea with a funny, human, poetic
result, with a moving Mia Farrow. The
denouement, the double detente, allows the
author to save both lucidity and taste for
dreaming." (Bernard Rapp, Dictionnaire du
Cinema Larousse)
Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014
The Player (1992)
"A captivating exercise of lucidity on
contemporary Hollywood theme. The false
dilemma 'entertainment or trade' is solved by
Altman in the natural context of trade. (...) The
director creates at the same time, suspense and
comedy, (...) parable and political film, tragedy
and happy end, playing the industry at its own
game." (Tudor Caranfil Dicionar universal de
filme, 2002)
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Introducing deconstructivist work tools
in the postmodern equation (such as
unpredictability and "controlled" chaos), on the
border with the fantastic, Woody Allen brings to
the forefront of this film, against a creative jam
of the character-writer Harry Block, the mixture
of fiction and reality. Waiting for his writings to
be rewarded, Harry remembers events from his
past but also from his best-sellers, coming to be
invaded by the characters created joining the
ones in his past. The film speculates this very
moment of breaking the boundary between
reality and illusion, a meta-vision of the creative
process itself.
Techno-culture/Cyborg
postmodernism
Blade Runner (1982)
Blade Runner is a utopia that combines
futurism and decay, computer technology and
fetishism, urbanism and retro-styling, Los
Angeles and Tokyo. Its 'tech-noir' quality was
repeated in countless novels, films, computer
games and other cultural objects, but none able
to match the impact of 'Blade Runner' in
conceptualizing the future. (Mihaela
Constantinescu Post/postmodernismul: Cultura
divertismentului)
Matrix (1999)
"A combination, almost surreal, of
western, comic book, Kafka, Mortal Kombat,
Sleeping Beauty, John Woo, manga cartoons
and, why not, 'Alice in Wonderland'." (Michael
Chirilov Cinema un secol i ceva, 2002)
Very few films that respect the
Hollywood canons make direct references to
postmodernist theory such as Matrix. In the first
References
Steven Connor (1999): Cultura postmodern. O introducere n cultura contemporan, Bucureti: Ed. Meridiane
Linda Hutcheon (1997): Politica postmodernismului, Bucureti: Ed. Univers.
64
scene that sets up the protagonist, Neo, we
discover he hid the haking programme in a copy
of Jean Baudrillards book Simulacra and
Simulation, a work which, despite its difficulties
(both in terms of linguistics and rationale) had a
major impact on the understanding of the era we
live in, an age that for better or worse has
been baptized 'postmodernism'." (...) What the
Wachowski brothers undoubtedly manage to do
is to urge the public to think, which is quite
unusual for a typical Hollywood product. They
allow the public to engage in a dialogue with
some of our era elite theorists of our
postmodernist era, and it resists the desire to
investigate through the film a mimetic and easy
'reality' (as Cypher is able to see not codes, but '
blonde, brunettes and redheads'). The
Wachowski brothers oblige us to identify
matrices that structure, manipulate and they
reproduce this reality, feeding our fantasies.
They always remind us of their always censoring
presence and the ability of the technology to
create new perceptions of reality (the innovative
footage when he avoids the bullets). They insist
on the cinematographic art and highlight the
manipulative technology we are addicted to
which show their vision: not only the role of
reality, but also the reel becomes tangible. (Dino
Felluga, Matrix: tiin, filozofie i religie)
As a conclusion, can we imagine how
postmodernism could end? And what it would
become? It does not even have a well defined
beginning, always "entangled" in modernism, as
some features seem new but in reality they are
just taking over the advanced ideas of earlier
styles, with changed meanings. Although the
absence of a consensus on the general
characteristics of postmodernism is easy to note,
we are dealing with a stable paradoxical element
in its structure: the dissemination of speech in an
amount of fragments that fight against coherent
meanings! Furthermore postmodernism accepts
unconditionally the transience, the discontinuity
and the chaos; these are the signs of an ongoing
metamorphosis of the epoch it successfully
represents. Currently, the researcher has no other
choice but to adopt himself the same
postmodernist attitude, of acceptance...
Trans. Zenovia Popa
 Cinematografic Art & Documentation, nr. 9 (13) /2014

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