Hermeneutical analysis of Russian feature school films (1992-2017)*

UDC 316.77:001.8 BBK 60.55.325.1:60.55.57с

Gorbatkova O. I.

The article is devoted to hermeneutic analysis (including: analysis of stereotypes, ideological analysis, identification analysis, iconographic analysis, plot analysis, character analysis, etc.) of Russian feature school films (1992-2017). The generalized hermeneutic analysis is based on the technologies developed by C. Bazalgette, A. Silverblatt, and U. Eco, on the theoretical approaches of N. Khrenov, M. Zhabsky, taking into account the leading concepts of media education: media agencies, media / media text categories, media technologies, media languages, media representations and media audiences. The author comes to the conclusion that the Russian school films (1992-2017) have these trends:

– the educational process has gone beyond the strict framework of maintaining rigid communist landmarks: education began to be humanistic and differentiated;

– schools as an educational institution (with school weekdays, corridors, classrooms, rows of desks, a school board, teachers and students) practically did not exist in the films of the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union;

– the western system of “school cinematographic values” is fully supported since 1999;

– significant problems arising in the characters based on the opposition of  extraordinary teachers and students with the simplicity, grayness of the collective, classmates;

– problem areas (disappointment and fatigue, professional burnout of teachers, pragmatic cynicism of students, teenage aggression and cruelty, obscene lexicon, non-observance of moral and ethical norms, rules of conduct, etc.) were clearly revealed;

– students have the different images (negative and positive);

– the appearance of students and teachers has become more liberated and free;

– the screen images of some teachers were not ideal  (irresponsible, aggressive, corrupt, not distinguished by a high level of intelligence, not respected by society);  there is a lack of prestige of the pedagogical profession in the eyes of students and the public;

– film stories about school are immersed more often in the genre of comedy and  melodrama, with  entertaining character.

Keywords: hermeneutic analysis, media text, cinematography, film, Russia, school, teacher, schoolchild, characters.

* Исследование выполнено за счёт финансовых средств гранта Российского научного фонда (РНФ, проект № 17-18-01001)» в Ростовском государственном экономическом университете. Тема проекта: «Школа и вуз в зеркале советских, российских и западных аудиовизуальных медиатекстов». Руководитель проекта А. В. Федоров

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