Cultural Discourse of the Cinematic Language Evolution
Authors: Horyslavets E. 
Published: October 2021

The relevance. The problems of addressing the issue of crisis phenomena in the development of cinematic language is due to the need to identify and study the contradiction between the need to update the cinematic language and established audience stereotypes in the rigidly established semiotic code of cinema. The development of clip­thinking against the background of the transition from book culture to media culture facilitated the emergence of a new cinematic language, which gave impetus to shift the emphasis of semiotic code from frame­sign, frame­symbol to defragmentation of time pause between structural elements of multi­series audiovisual work: episodes and seasons.

The purpose of the article is to describe the transition from “sign language” to “time language” as a logical revolutionary transformation of the classical language of cinema.

The methodology is based on culturological, historical and semiotic approaches.

The results. The development of modern technologies has led to a significant shift of emphasis from cinema towards the series. This was due to the possibility of expanding the story into projects, where the plot, characters and conflicts can be covered more deeply. A multi­series film can now better reveal the plot narrative, where there are more than twenty story lines and about two hundred important plot twists. Thus, the revolutionary changes in the semiotic code of the cinematic language have shifted towards serial creativity, which cannot be considered second­rate or low­quality — this is a fundamentally different set of logic. If you watch any good series according to the rules of watching a movie, where the frame is a hieroglyph, the result will be really bad. But if you apply clip­thinking­based principle of viewing, where the basic unit of information is time, the result will be completely different. A new cinematic language emerged due to the development of clip­thinking against the background of the transition from book culture to media culture, which gave impetus to shift the emphasis of semiotic code from frame­sign, frame­symbol to defragmentation of time pause between structural elements of multi­series audiovisual work: episodes and seasons.

The topicality. Different approaches to the problem of understanding cinematic text as a complex semiotic device are determined by cultural codes. The article develops a conceptual approach which is based on the fact that the transition from the memory culture and text culture to media culture is accompanied by a rethinking of the semiotic code syntax of the audiovisual work, that is its language that changes rethinking traditional discourse of the semiotics of audiovisual work.

The practical value. In the perspective of art history, the primary basis of cinema is a specific language developed throughout the history of cinema, which must develop, because the language that does not develop becomes a dead language. It is the understanding of cinematic language, the ability to freely express one’s ideas and be understandable to the viewer, allows the author to express his/her idea in cinema.

Conclusions. The formation of clip­thinking in the era of media culture significantly encourages the search for new ways to develop the semiotic code of cinematic language. These processes should be in the field of close attention not only of art critics, but also of culturologists, sociologists, philologists and philosophers. Today, the emphasis of traditional cinema is gradually shifting from local history to expanding of its boundaries to infinity, that is the lack of a rigid structured entry point — transmedia storytelling. Time is a new constant of media text as opposed to cinematic text. The evolutionary development path of the language of traditional cinema did not stop, and the revolution did take place in the serial space, which led to the emergence of a new media syntax.