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ICONOLOGICAL INTERTEXT IN THE ANIMATED FILM “MY LOVE” BY A. PETROV // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 3 (21). P. 216-224

The article discusses particular details associated with turning fictional text into an animation film using the example of the animated film by A. Petrov “My love” based on the novel “The Story of a Love” by I. Shmelev. We analyse how the director creates a new topos of impression in the poetics of the animated text with an iconology approach to the novel text, and through the work with the emotive space of the novel and the rethinking of the framework component of the novel. In our opinion, the change of the title as a framework component from an impersonal and aloof “The Story of a Love” chosen by I. Shmelev to a personalized and intimate “My Love” chosen by A. Petrov triggers a shift in the perspective emphasizing the confessionary nature of the narrative. This nature is also conveyed through the visual component, where at the very start the screen shows the title of the film written in a calligraphic type, which resembles handwriting and reminds the audience of the epistolary genre. The other key point to create the emotive space is the iconology approach to the animated text underlying the analysis methodology in this article. We believe that A. Petrov follows the visual and graphic accents of the original work by I. Shmelev to portray the internal emotive space. He also uses traditional Christian symbols and frequently refers to romantic images that are thought to be cultural universals. Besides, A. Petrov finds it important to metaphorically re-think the kinetics of the characters (introducing illustrative gestures) which help the audience to track social inequality and to guess about psychological interrelation between characters by intuition as the animated film communicates it through undertones, the subtext. We make a special focus on how important it is for A. Petrov to translate the emotive space of the time described by I. Shmelev. For that, the animator resorts to the iconography of genre painting of late 19th – early 20th centuries, landscapes by impressionists, and also fresco painting of Yaroslavl churches (e. g. those of Elijah the Prophet or St Nicholas the Wet), thus making the information code of the film even more complex. Hence, the animated film “My Love” by A. Petrov turns the text of “The Story of a Love” by I. Shmelev into an archetypical parable expanding the boundaries from a particular case of adolescent love to a universal story of conflict between good and evil, light and dark, spirit and flesh.

Keywords: semiotics of cinema, intertext, iconology, iconography, animated text, film text