Artistic image in animated cinema as an integrative multilevel dynamic phenomenon

Zaitcev Aleksei Yakovlevich ORCID: 0000-0002-1118-1877 Senior Educator, Department of Animation and Computer Graphics, Russian State University of Cinematography named after S. Gerasimov 129226, Russia, Moscow, Wilhelm Peak str., 3 art-mary@mail.ru Other publications by this author

    The creative process in modern animation is largely conditioned and stimulated by the interaction of the latest computer technologies and the author's artistic language of animators. The nature of animation art involves the use of the widest range of creative and technical possibilities when creating an artistic animated image on the screen.  

     This article is devoted to an attempt to define the "image" in animated cinema, which is a kind of reflection of the context of time and combines the expressive and pictorial vision of the director, his creative interpretation of the chosen plot. At the same time, the construction of the image itself is determined by the logic of the ratio of individual elements. In an animated movie, "... the artist draws sketches, gradually approaching reality, collecting matter into some kind of character, space, intra-frame tremor. The image conceals both the form and the content, that is, it remembers the way of expression, some kind of tonal development, and contains a character who in the future should carry a playful and sensual load on the film" ^{[13, p. 108]}.

     Referring to the specific features of the artistic image, artistic form and content of the screen, including animated works, it is necessary to determine the methodological foundations on which further analysis will be based. In the presented study, when using the concepts of "image", "form" and "content", the general predicate "artistic" is meant. However, the very concept of "artistry", i.e. the attribution of the object of analysis to the field of art, can be viewed from different angles, for example, in aesthetics and in art criticism. Prominent Russian aesthetician V.V. Bychkov, defining an artistic image as "specially created in the process of special creative activity according to specific ... laws by the subject of art – the artist ? a phenomenon with a unique nature", calls the image "the purpose and basis, the essential core of a work of art" ^{[2, p. 265]}.

It should be noted that different (including interdisciplinary) approaches to understanding the image in art do not contradict each other, but rather complement and deepen knowledge about it, since an artistic image, unlike a scientific fact, is characterized by its inner versatility, dynamism, variability in the context of space and time of its existence, the level of development of the humanities sciences. In general, it can be stated that theoretical models conceptualizing the understanding of an artistic image, in many respects bear the character of subjective (with all the factual and theoretical argumentation) perception, determined not only by the sensory-intellectual level of the researcher, but also by the cultural (in the broad sense of the concept) context of time and the artistic paradigm, within which one or another is born theoretical concept.

When discussing the image as the essence, purpose and meaning of a work of art, there is inevitably a need to move to the category of "form-content", which determines the way of ideological and material realization of the image in different types of art. The concepts of "form" and "content" are not accidentally combined into one concept here, because, as V.V. Bychkov convincingly showed, "the differentiation of the realities denoted by these terms in relation to art is very conditional, and even ... almost impossible" ^{[2, p. 297]}. In fact, in a work of art, the form cannot be separated from the content, they form a single and unique artistic whole. Form and content are interrelated and determined by each other. At the same time, in theoretical discourse, the separation of form and content is quite traditional and epistemologically productive: a large number of theoretical works have been written on the topic of correspondence or inconsistency of form and content with each other, overcoming or exceeding the form of content, the need to replace the concept of "content" with "material" (in the theory of formalism), etc., including among those who have become classical works. Thus, in the Lectures on Aesthetics, G.V.F. Hegel repeatedly addresses the issues of the unity of the form and content of a work of art as an expression of a spiritual ideal: "The external element of art must be consistent with the internal content, which is consistent with itself and precisely because of this can be found in the external element as itself" ^{[4, p. 164]}. In general, the specificity of the form-content of a cinematic work consists in the spatial-temporal unfolding of the movement of objects on the screen, where "we perceive the action simultaneously in layers: sound, color, light" ^{[13, p. 28]}.

There are two parameters that distinguish an animated film from other forms of screen arts, the first parameter is the creation of the illusion of movement, and not the representation of movement on the screen; the second parameter is the animation (animation) of visual objects in motion using any materials and techniques. It is in these aspects that one can catch the difference in the definition of animation and game cinema, which, in the words of Andre Bazin, is designed to reproduce reality, to recreate "a perfect likeness of the outside world – in sound, color and volume" ^{[1, p. 50]}.   

F.S. Khitruk, expounding his understanding of the nature of animation art, emphasizes the paramount importance of the "sense of movement" that an animator should possess and in which his talent is primarily manifested: "Animation can be called a double illusion: the illusion of an "animated" image and, moreover, the illusion of the reality of this life. The first is not difficult – everyone can make the drawing move. The second requires special training and special talents. One of them (M.B. the most important) is the sense of movement" ^{[15, p. 75]}.  

An animated film is a complex synthetic work, by its nature inextricably linked with fine art, literature, theater, music, photography, absorbing cultural codes and national-historical, folklore artistic traditions, signs and symbols of its time into its artistic space.

Taking into account the specifics of animation as a screen art, we note that animation has a unique toolkit that allows you to create such visual constructions that are impossible to implement in other types of cinematography, and "the true freedom of an artist in cinema is found when he perfectly understands his relationship with the whole, when he understands that his work is only part of it the whole, which will then coalesce on the screen" ^{[13, p. 112]}. At the same time, the animation form combines various audiovisual elements, assuming, as a rule, a very laborious technological embodiment on the screen. Throughout the existence of animation creativity, outstanding directors of animated films have had their own discoveries and technological solutions that allow them to display what they saw from the outside with an "inner eye". Starting with Vladislav Starevich, to this day, animators do not cease to surprise the viewer with their interesting technological discoveries: "... at a recent screening of new films <...>, a short tape <...> called "The Beautiful Lukanida" attracted everyone's attention and delighted everyone. All this amazing drama <...> is played by bugs. The film is so unusual, so new and original in idea that it stuns even experts in cinematic issues" ^{[5, p. 88]}.

As a modern example, let us turn to the choice of animation technologies used in the imaginative solution of films by two completely different Russian directors: D.A. Geller and V.A. Olshvang. For example, Dmitry Geller's film "Declaration of Love" (2006) is entirely dictated by the author's "inner" vision and is synthetic according to the chosen animation technologies. Here, "the technology of computer rearrangement (while the characters themselves are drawn by hand) is combined with the artistic processing of video material, which allows the viewer to immerse himself in the paradoxical and refined world of the artist's imagination" ^[6]. D.A. Geller in his paintings boldly operates with modern technological achievements of computer animation, harmoniously creating his author's worlds.

When analyzing the artistic and technological solutions that V.A. Olshvang chooses in his paintings, "a close connection was revealed between the complexity of searching for the form in which the image is clothed, and, in fact, the search for the image of the film itself" ^[7]. The most complex multi-stage technological process, which V.A. Olshvang chooses to implement his plans, impresses with the pictorial complexity of the chosen, in general, classical animation technology. The recently released film by the director "Your Lady" part 1 (2022) was shot in the already traditional manner of V.A. Olshvang (pencil on tracing paper with subsequent processing of frames on a computer) and delights with panoramic scenes, frame depth, accent glow on the screen.

N.G. Krivulya notes the importance in animation of a visual image that combines expressive and pictorial principles and represents "not only the spatial and plastic idea of the author, his style, graphic and pictorial manner, but also emotional and psychological experiences, artistic and aesthetic orientations" ^{[9, p.11]}. Yu.B. Norstein describes the subtleties of synthetic imagination and image perception in an animated film: "... Yet cinema has a spherical shape. You can talk about its properties from any point of the ball, since this point connects to its parallel and meridian. Start with the sound, move on to the music. And vice versa. If it's about music, you will immediately jump to the scenery, and she will overfoot the character" ^{[13, p.143]}.

An animated film has its own internal space, which can be arranged according to its own laws, and the more talented the creator, the better he himself feels the topic about which he is making a movie, the deeper he immerses the viewer into the world of his animated picture, and the stronger the emotional and aesthetic impact is on the viewer.  In the understanding of Yu.B. Norstein, an animated image, as a set of all audiovisual characteristics of screen movement, constitutes the essential core of the form-content of the film and, in essence, is born in the original image-sketch of the film, but at the same time dynamically develops in the process of creative realization: "The image conceals both the form and the content, that is, it remembers a way of expression, some kind of tonal development, and includes a character who in the future should carry a playful and sensual load on the film" ^{[13, p.15]}.

An animated film as a product of creative and artistic production involves a wide range of actions necessary for its creation. At the same time, the image that is born in the author's head may change depending on the chosen technological solution or on some small detail that has arisen in collaboration with the production designer, the course of the author's thought may change, which will entail a different way of developing the script, will subject the artistic solution to correction. Thus, the development of the artistic and stylistic solution of the animated film "The Heron and the Crane" (directed by Yu. Norstein, 1974) was decisively influenced by the image of space inspired by the director's illustration from a book on the history of Ancient Greece, which depicted a bird in the middle of ancient stone ruins. The director came up with the idea to "settle" his animated bird characters inside the ruins of an old manor. And this space began to "dictate" to the authors all their further actions (a swing for a heron, a broken cast-iron bench, fireworks appeared in the frame), up to the musical accompaniment of the picture (waltz, march): "The details appeared by themselves, which meant that the artist and I had accurately connected the history and the space we had chosen" ^{[14, p.107]}.

The form of an animated film assumes the integrity of its artistic concept, which is ensured by the following factors:

- the visual solution is subordinated to the author's idea, and the author's idea corresponds to the choice of the visual solution by the production designer;

- the connection of the author's idea of the solution with the technologies of its screen embodiment is traced;

- the relationship between materials and production methods used in the process of making a film is traced.

If we consider an animated film as a whole, it can be noted that it is a dynamic artistic structure, the concept of which, as a rule, undergoes changes and adjustments in relation to the original idea during the creation of the picture. According to the statement of Yu.B. Norstein, "the film grows out of itself on the set," work on the storyboard is carried out constantly in the process of making the film, and as a result, the result can go very far from the script" ^{[12, p.100]}.

What appears to be a complete and complete work in the author's mind unfolds in the viewer's mind in the time range, and over time the author also begins to perceive his film more distantly and distantly as a spectator. In this regard, the thesis of hermeneutical aesthetics presented by G.G. is applicable. Gadamer: "An artistic creation opens, opens its own world," and its creator, who becomes a contemplator of his own work, is forced to "stay with him" ^{[3, p.109]}. This paradoxical reaction of the author to his own work becomes all the more distinct and strong the more time has passed since the creation of the work, which is undoubtedly connected with the development of a person, a change in his views, aesthetic attitudes, psychological evolution. Some images referring to various cultural codes or psychological archetypes can be realized by the viewer only after a long time after watching the film. For example, in the film "His wife is a chicken" (directed by I.A. Kovalev, 1990) there are such "psychoanalytic" images-metaphors as a caterpillar with a man's face; "naked", an inexperienced female chicken; dreams of the main character; elevator, etc. As the film critic L.L. Malyukova wrote: "... behind the attractive artlessness, the bright wafer of the external action ? the finest lace of psychological characteristics, existential reflections, at different times read in their own way" ^{[11, p.27]}.

The artistic image in animation is a multilevel and dynamic phenomenon that expresses the expressive and visual vision of the director and conveys the content through the artistic form.

In the context of discussing the image of an animated film, it is necessary to take into account N.G. Krivuli's remark that "attempts to create unifications and build a system of terms based on the models existing in the exact sciences are fraught with the danger of unambiguous interpretations, which is not always acceptable in relation to the description of animation phenomena" ^{[8, pp.7-8]}.

Considering this fact, and proceeding from the above, the image of an animated work can be characterized as a reflection in the viewer's mind of a multidimensional, synthetic audiovisual screen work of art with a unique artistic and spatial solution endowed with subjectively determined emotional and semantic content. The described interpretation, according to the author of this article, is the most capacious and concise definition of the essence of the image of an animated film and can be used as a conceptual and methodological basis in further scientific research.

In conclusion, we note that the image of an animated film as an artistic phenomenon is one of the most important aspects characterizing the integrity of an animated film.

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