Phantasmagoria(from ancient Greek φάντασμα - ghost and ἀγορεύω - speaking publicly). The word has several meanings:

1. Bizarre delusional vision: “Happiness is over for him, and what kind of happiness? phantasmagoria, deception."
2. In a figurative sense - nonsense, an impossible thing.
3. A ghostly, fantastic image obtained through various optical devices.
4. Phantasmagoria (art) - a heap of bizarre images, visions, fantasies; chaos, confusion, grotesque.
5. Phantasmagoria (performance) is a genre of theatrical performance in Europe in the 18th–19th centuries, in which frightening images were shown in the background using a “magic lantern”: skeletons, demons, ghosts.

“Magic lantern” is a device for projecting images, common in the 17th–20th centuries, 19th centuries. - in common use. It is a significant stage in the history of cinema development.

1. Phantasmagoria (cinema) is a subgenre of film fiction, representing films about something completely unreal, depicting bizarre visions, delusional fantasies.
2. Phantasmagoria (in literature) – satirical device, akin to grotesque, that is, an exaggerated caricature of a character, when he is presented to the reader in ugly and incredible forms, the more clearly revealing his essence.

Phantasmagoria in literature

Phantasmagoria as a heap of fantastic images can be one of the techniques of the work, serve as a means of creating a special fantastic, mysterious, fairy world. Typically, phantasmagoria serves the author to show the essence of a phenomenon, but to make it more obvious, more conspicuous, so that the reader not only understands what it is, but also sees the funny sides of this phenomenon. It is no coincidence that phantasmagoria as literary device used by authors whose task is to ridicule and debunk the society they depict in their works.

Main features

The collision of a groundless dream and a falsified reality, the merging of a dream and a dream, a daydream forms a phantasmagoria - a reality where everything is possible, everything can happen, happen. The imposition of the reality of the unconscious on the rationalized reality leads to the inversion and destruction of the meaning of established things and phenomena. Phantasmagoria appears as an accidental, instantaneous narcotic insight, in which a great nothingness flickers behind the ghosts of things. As J. Cocteau wrote:

Where is my rose wreath?

We are the facial pattern of the carpet of metamorphoses,

Death weaves it from the inside out.

As a figment of the imagination, phantasmagoria is a hallucination, a chimera, resulting from the influence of modalities of the unconscious beyond critical thinking. Instant intuitive grasp, vision of absolute reality presupposes the appearance of the ghost of eternity and infinity in the play of possibilities, in relation to which the current time of physical existence loses its meaning. The past of the dream merges with the future of the dream into a kind of timelessness.

An illustration of the phantasmagoria of ceased time is the fading of the spirit in Edgar Poe's story The Well and the Pendulum (1844). A pendulum threatening a person symbolizes the current present outside world, which inexorably brings death closer. The man who is about to be cut by the pendulum is breathless with horror with each swing. Every fiber of the soul is permeated by a passionate desire to stop time.

Phantasmagoria is an indicator highest degree a game in which there are no rules is a game of the forces of eros and aggression, a game of illusions and confusion of feelings. In the dynamic chaos, delusions of the mind, desires, aspirations, hopes, superstitions, latent fears and apprehensions, unrealizable hopes acquire paramount importance. A game hidden feelings shows the highest power over man, reminiscent of the irony of Nero, whose dominance over the world exhausted itself in negative dialectics. The miraculous and supernatural are superimposed on the banal and natural, forming such an element of the fantastic as a cliché - a sign extraordinary in its meaning, but banal in form.

A little about the white rabbit

There is not a single person in the whole world who has not heard about “Alice in Wonderland” by L. Carroll. The characters of this book have long been firmly entrenched in the consciousness of mankind, and yet the author of the work is perhaps the first and most striking example of a writer who turned to phantasmagoria. Lewis Carroll's phantasmagoria is fascinating, mysterious, and sometimes absurdly colorful. On its pages, in the literal sense, magic passes into the world of reality, becomes reality itself. That is why his characters and heroes have become familiar to people for a long time. In addition to the famous “Alice,” Carroll also published a collection of poems, “Phantasmagoria,” which included the poem of the same name. In general, in literature it is the phantasmagoria of the dissected soul that is most often used, when the improbability of existence, a huge world full of hyperbolizations and puns, becomes an integral part of human existence.

The emergence of phantasmagoria in animation and cinema

Phantasmagoria includes the world's first hand-drawn cartoon with a telling name Phantasmagoria, released in 1908. French film director Jean Vigo also worked in the phantasmagoria genre. In 1930, he made the film “About Nice,” where phantasmagoria is shown as a ghostly picture obtained with the help of optical devices. In Vigo’s next film, “Jean Taris, Swimming Champion,” the element of phantasmagoria works at the narrative level, demonstrating “delirium in reality” and “whimsies in reality.” The film “Lieutenant Kizhe,” based on the story of the same name by Yuri Tynyanov and directed by Alexander Faintzimmer in 1934, also contains elements of phantasmagoria. Subsequently, a number of unpopular films were made, partially using phantasmagoria.

Films in the genre of phantasmagoria

Phantasmagoria in cinema: famous directors

Cinema is a visual art. And with the help of modern special effects and animation it makes it possible to create the most unrealistic landscapes, color combinations and whimsical images. Let's remember three modern directors specializing in film fairy tales for adults: the Frenchman Michel Gondry, the American Wes Anderson and the main Indian of Hollywood - Tarsem Sinha. What these directors also have in common is that they create their amazing film worlds virtually without the use of computer special effects.

Michel Gondry

As a child, the Oscar-winning director wanted to become an artist or inventor, like his grandfather Constant Martin, who created one of the first synthesizers. While Michel was studying at art school, he organized a punk rock band, but demand and success came to him when he began directing music videos and commercials. He has directed videos for Björk, Paul McCartney and Radiohead. Adidas, Coca-Cola, Polaroid, Nescafe commercials with George Clooney, and an advertisement for Levis jeans directed by Gondry entered the Guinness Book of Records as the video that collected the most big number awards in the history of this genre. He was one of the first to use the Bullet time slow-motion technique in advertising, which became famous after the release of the film “The Matrix.”

"The Science of Sleep"

In this film, Michel Gondry decided to completely erase the boundaries between dreams and reality and mix them up. He admitted that “The Science of Sleep” is an autobiographical film: “We shot the film in the house where I lived with my son and his mother. I wanted to explore the story that happened to me 25 years ago in 1983, when I was in Paris, and the one that happened to me in New York two years ago, so I combined them into one ... "

The huge hands of Bernal's hero, which grow while he sleeps, are also a real nightmare that Michel Gondry saw as a child. The necklace made from nail clippings is also part of the director’s biography. Gondry spoke about his ex-girlfriend: “She was unhappy with my long nails. So I connected them with a chain and turned them into jewelry.” The characters in The Science of Sleep speak English, French and Spanish. It was unplanned: Gondry asked Spanish actor Gabriel García Bernal to learn French before filming began, but he did not have time to do so.

"Foam of Days"

This film is an adaptation of the novel by Boris Vian. And the world, which is the setting of the story, will give odds to any dream: in an apartment where the real sun lives, housekeeper mice talk with cats, lovers spend a date flying on clouds, great philosopher Jean-Sol Partre (a parody of Sartre) gives lectures, and flowers can grow in a person's lungs, and this disease is fatal and incurable. Despite the irony over Sartre, the philosopher himself spoke highly of Vian’s work.

Wes Anderson

When little Anderson, growing up in Texas, was 8 years old, his parents divorced. He would later refer to it as “the most important event in my life and the lives of my brothers,” and this divorce will form the basis of his film “The Tenenbaums.”

At first glance, it seems that his films are not phantasmagoria at all. These are quite plausible realistic stories, tragicomedies, melodramas, albeit a little eccentric. But the world that Wes Anderson builds in his paintings excites the imagination and pleases the eye more than any fairy tale. Wes Anderson's style is perfect symmetry in all paintings, the hero or central figure is always in the center of the frame. Very a large number of detailed details. He works on films independently at all stages of production. All this forms what is called “Wes Anderson style.” He cannot be confused with anyone.

“When I conceive a new film, I imagine the world in which the action will take place. All these design details are my attempts to create this world, perhaps not similar to reality and, I hope, not similar to the places you have already been,” says the director himself.

« Hotel“ Grand Budapest” »

This Oscar-winning film was shot in three different aspect ratios: 1.33, 1.85 and 2.35:1. They were not chosen randomly and correspond to three different periods of time - different frame proportions indicate which time period lasts on the screen.

In advance, before the start of production of the film, Wes Anderson made an animated stop-motion version of the film, a kind of guide to the plot, which was later used by the film crew as an aid in their work and was shown to the actors. The actual filming of the non-existent hotel took place on the border of Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland - in the Saxon city of Görlitz and partly in Dresden.

In addition to working with shot composition, the film contains many jokes. For example, almost everything male characters in the picture they wear a mustache. The end credits say that the film was based on a story by Stefan Zweig, although the creators of the film later named several works at once: “Impatience of the Heart,” “Notes of a European,” “24 Hours in the Life of a Woman.”

"Kingdom full moon»

In one of the scenes of this film, the girl Susie finds at home a brochure “Fighting naughty child" This moment is autobiographical for Anderson, who had a similar experience in his childhood: “It was no big deal. It was only at the moment when I found her that I was very surprised.” Another scene in the film is part of the biography of screenwriter Roman Coppola (Anderson's friend). His mother, like the film's heroine Laura Bishop, screamed at family members through a megaphone.

This is how the plots of Wes Anderson’s phantasmagoria are built, piece by piece, like a mosaic. And the filming process itself is often unusual. For example, while working on Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson rented an old mansion so that he, the cinematographer and the film's editor could work there. The actors were put up in a hotel next door, but in the end, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, and Jason Schwartzman moved into the old house.

Tarsem Singha

The director of Indian origin spent his childhood in Iran and then in the Himalayas. When his father found out that his son had decided to go into film instead of Harvard, he said that he was no longer his son. “In India, I saw a book called “A Guide to Film Schools in America” and was simply amazed by it. It changed my life because before I thought that going to college was about studying something your dad loves and you hate. I told my father that I wanted to study film, and he said that he would never allow me to study it. But I went to Los Angeles and made a film, thanks to which I received a scholarship to art college,” says the director. Now the director lives alternately in London and Los Angeles. But for his films there are no geographical boundaries, for example, the filming of “Outland” took place in 18 countries.

The peculiarity of Tarsem Singh's style is balancing on the brink of dream and reality. Singh's style was greatly influenced by Russian directors - Tarkovsky and Parajanov. Like Gondry, Tarsem Singh began his film career in advertising. He shot dozens of commercials before making his big-screen debut in The Cage.

"Outland"

Tarsem Singh worked on the script for Outland for 17 years. He himself acted as the scriptwriter, director and producer of the film. He watched Zako Heskia's 1981 Bulgarian film Yo Ho Ho, about an actor who is in hospital due to an injury. The injury is serious, the actor may no longer be able to walk. He tells his roommate boy fairy tales. This plot formed the basis of “Outland”. The fantastic shots and worlds that we see in the film, according to the director, were created without the use of special effects at all. For this purpose 26 were used various parts planet in 18 countries.

The little actress Katinka Huantaru, who plays the role of the girl Alexandria, who, by analogy with the Bulgarian source, listens to the stories of the crippled stuntman, was sure that he was really injured and his legs were paralyzed. They didn't try to convince her. It’s cruel, but in this case art requires such sacrifices - the girl did not play, but lived her role.

Phantasmagoria in painting

If we take into account the fact that phantasmagoria is, first of all, going beyond the usual, a certain amount of madness, mental insanity, then the greatest admirer this phenomenon, without a doubt, can be called Hieronymus Bosch. It is difficult to find works more phantasmagoric, strange, surprising and frightening at the same time. Of course, this example is far from the only one. Phantasmagoria is Dali, Rodney Matthews, and, undoubtedly, Goya, for whom this direction was the final one. The phenomenon of phantasmagoria is quite difficult to correlate with a particular time period, a specific era. Of course, in the era of classicism, turning to this kind of figurative system was unusual, but baroque architecture and painting can provide countless examples of phantasmagoria. Appeal to this kind of art is, first of all, an attempt to convey, broadcast the vulnerability, fragility of human nature, its place in the context of the immensity of the soul, consciousness, and world. This is an attempt to focus attention on how frightening and at the same time beautiful the world can be, passed through the prism of human perception.

• Phantasmagoria (game) - computer game, developed by Sierra On-Line, 1995.
  • Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh- computer game, sequel to Phantasmagoria.
• Phantasmagoria (band) is a Japanese visual kei band.
• Phantasmagoria (album)- 3rd studio album by British prog rock band Curved Air, 1972.
• Phantasmagoria (song) is a song by the Canadian metal band Annihilator from the album Never, Neverland.
• Phantasmagoria (album, Limbonic Art)- 7th studio album by the Norwegian symphonic black metal band Limbonic Art.
• Fantasmagoria (song)- song by power metal band Emerald Sun from the album Regeneration.

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See what “Phantasmagoria” is in other dictionaries:

phantasmagoria- and, f. fantasmagorie gr. phantasma ghost + agoreuo I say. 1. Display of light pictures using optical devices. BAS 1. After the lecture Strakhov showed experiments on what phantasmagoria is based on (he imagined shadows, say... ... Historical Dictionary Gallicisms of the Russian language

- (Greek, from phantasma vision, and agora collection). 1) the art of showing ghosts. 2) an image or picture that appears to the viewer. Dictionary foreign words, included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. PHANTASMAGORIA Greek, from phantasma, ... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

PHANTASMAGORIA, phantasmagoria, female. (from the Greek phantasma ghost and agoreuo I say). 1. Bizarre delusional vision (book). “Happiness is over for him, and what kind of happiness? phantasmagoria, deception." Goncharov. 2. transfer Nonsense, impossible thing (colloquial) ... Dictionary Ushakova

Cm … Synonym dictionary

- (Greek phantasma vision, ghost and agoreuo I say), something unreal, bizarre visions, delusional fantasies ... Modern encyclopedia

- (from the Greek phantasma vision ghost and agoreuo I say), something unreal, bizarre visions, delusional fantasies ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

PHANTASMAGORIA, and, female. Bizarre delusional vision. | adj. phantasmagoric, oh, oh. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

- (from the Greek phantasma - vision, ghost and agoreuo - I say) a bizarre vision, a fantastic image, a ghost, a hallucination, something unreal. Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. 2010… Philosophical Encyclopedia

- (from the Greek phantasma vision, ghost and ado geio I say) English. phantasmagoria; German Phantasmagoric. A ghostly, fantastic idea of ​​something, delusional ideas. Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009 ... Encyclopedia of Sociology

- (from the Greek phantasma vision, ghost and agoreuo I say) something unreal, bizarre visions, delusional fantasies. Political science: Dictionary reference book. comp. Prof. Science Sanzharevsky I.I.. 2010 ... Political science. Dictionary.

Phantasmagoria- (Greek phantasma vision, ghost and agoreuo I say), something unreal, bizarre visions, delusional fantasies. ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

• Phantasmagoria, Bruce Julia. This book is the most complete guide to supernatural creatures, magical beings and evil monsters. In it you will find the stories that made them famous, from ancient legends to...

Riddle, sacrament, mystery, strangeness - all this is contained in the semantics of the word phantasmagoria. Everyone feels this subconsciously when they use this combination of letters in their speech, but not everyone is fully aware of the versatility of its meaning.

Phantasmagoria in literature

For verbal creativity, the use of phantasmagoria is quite common. Among representatives of Russian literature, this phenomenon was actively used by N.V. Gogol, M. Bulgakov, Saltykov-Shchedrin and many others.

Inverted motif strange world, in which the boundaries of natural and unnatural are blurred, was fundamental in this case. Phantasmagoria in literature, of course, was used widely and on a large scale.

We must not forget about the works of the great Edgar Allan Poe, where mysticism and reality are intertwined into close, almost inextricable knots. Another inimitable example of the use of phantasmagoria can be called “Dracula”

A little about the white rabbit

There is not a single person in the whole world who has not heard about “Alice in Wonderland” by L. Carroll. The characters of this book have long been firmly entrenched in the consciousness of mankind, and yet the author of the work is perhaps the first and most striking example of a writer who turned to phantasmagoria.

Lewis Carroll's phantasmagoria is fascinating, mysterious, and sometimes absurdly colorful. On its pages, in the literal sense, magic passes into the world of reality, becomes reality itself. That is why his characters and heroes have become familiar to people for a long time.

In addition to the famous “Alice,” Carroll also published a collection of poems, “Phantasmagoria,” which included the poem of the same name.

In general, in literature it is the phantasmagoria of the dissected soul that is most often used, when the improbability of existence, a huge world full of hyperbolizations and puns, becomes an integral part of human existence.

Phantasmagoria and cinema

Touching upon the topic of literary phantasmagoria and, of course, the work of Lewis Carroll, one cannot help but mention the film that the leader intended to release music group"Marilyn Manson".

It should be noted right away that this, although not accomplished, differed significantly from the original. Despite the quite obvious dedication to the writer, the author of the film invented his own phantasmagoria (the film should have been called “Phantasmagoria: Visions of Lewis Carroll”) - a completely new, strange, in some way even disturbing reading of the famous “Alice in Wonderland”.

Work on the film began, but for unknown reasons the work was never released on the big screen.

Computer games industry

Phantasmagoria is, first of all, an incredible image, and nothing gives a more powerful sense of image than computer games. More or less thought out plot, good graphics and high-quality musical accompaniment allow you to immerse yourself in a world of mysteries and secrets. This kind of work has always been and will be in demand among lovers of adventure and mystery.

“Phantasmagoria” is a game that owes its appearance to famous Roberta Williams, who became the ideological inspirer and one of the creators of the masterpiece. Despite the fact that horror cannot boast of powerful graphics, it simply has no equal in its atmosphere of indescribable horror.

Of course, this is far from the only example of the use of phantasmagoric elements in the creation of video games. The same sensational “Silent Hill” or “Amnesia” use this phenomenon in full.

Painting and phantasmagoria

If we take into account the fact that phantasmagoria is, first of all, going beyond the usual, a certain amount of madness, mental insanity, then the greatest admirer of this phenomenon, without a doubt, can be called Hieronymus Bosch. It is difficult to find works more phantasmagoric, strange, surprising and frightening at the same time.

Of course, this example is far from the only one. Phantasmagoria is Dali, Rodney Matthews, and, undoubtedly, Goya, for whom this direction was the final one.

The phenomenon of phantasmagoria is quite difficult to correlate with a particular time period, a specific era. Of course, in the era of classicism, turning to this kind of figurative system was unusual, but baroque architecture and painting can provide countless examples of phantasmagoria.

Appeal to this kind of art is, first of all, an attempt to convey, broadcast the vulnerability, fragility of human nature, its place in the context of the immensity of the soul, consciousness, and world. This is an attempt to focus attention on how frightening and at the same time beautiful the world can be, passed through the prism of human perception.

Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Phantasmagoria(from ancient Greek. φάντασμα - ghost and ἀγορεύω - speaking publicly):

• Phantasmagoria (art) - a jumble of bizarre images, visions, fantasies; chaos, confusion, grotesque.
• Phantasmagoria (performance) is a genre of theatrical performance in Europe in the 18th-19th centuries, in which frightening images were shown in the background using a “magic lantern”: skeletons, demons, ghosts.
• Phantasmagoria (cinema) is a subgenre of film fantasy, representing films about something completely unreal, depicting bizarre visions, delusional fantasies.
• Phantasmagoria (cartoon) - silent short cartoon, France, 1908. Director - Kohl, Emil.
• Phantasmagoria (target designation system) is a Russian aviation target designation station for Kh-58 and Kh-25 MPU anti-radar missiles.

Phantasmagoria

• Phantasmagoria (game) is a computer game developed by Sierra On-Line, 1995.
  • Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh is a computer game, a sequel to Phantasmagoria.
• Phantasmagoria (Touhou Project) - games in the series united by this name, which have non-standard gameplay: scrolling shooters for two players (Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, Phantasmagoria of Flower View).
• Phantasmagoria (band) is a Japanese visual kei band.
• Phantasmagoria (album) is the 3rd studio album by British prog rock band Curved Air, 1972.
• Phantasmagoria (song) is a song by Canadian metal band Annihilator from the album Never, Neverland.
• Phantasmagoria (album, Limbonic Art) is the 7th studio album by Norwegian symphonic black metal band Limbonic Art.
• Fantasmagoria (song) is a song by power metal band Emerald Sun from the album Regeneration.
• Phantasmagoria in Two (song) is a song by American artist Tim Buckley from the 1967 album Goodbye and Hello.

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Excerpt characterizing Phantasmagoria

Phantasmagoria in some sources is considered as something that does not exist in reality. In the dictionary of synonyms, similar to the word - ghost. In historical encyclopedic dictionary, according to Internet sources, the meaning of this concept is defined as something created by the imagination, in delirium. A more subtle approach to the translation of this word (Wikipedia) characterizes phantasmagoria as a unique theatrical genre. With the help of special lighting and mirrors, an action was played out on stage that resembled a picture of the animation of skeletons, ghosts and other really non-existent phenomena. The spectacle was a little creepy, bewitching in its own way and, undoubtedly, has its fans, now we would say fans. People had fun in a similar way in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In cinema, music, and cartoons, this term defines everything bizarre, strange, fantastic based on the vision of unreal ghostly visions and fantasies. If we turn to the interpretation of the concept of phantasmagoria in a collection of figurative words and allegories, then the direct formulation means the skill, the art of depicting vague, inexplicable pictures using images, mainly mirror images. Thus, one can imagine how a person learned to create mystical, strange and inexplicable plots from nonsense. real life. More precisely, to create something that many of us are wary of, something that many of us are afraid of, and something that stains our hearts. I learned to create something similar in such a way that in a certain sense this skill has been applied to many genres of past and contemporary art.

Yes, probably, there is nothing strange in this, because even our grandmothers, and we, at one time, with the help of the same mirrors, somehow became participants in the creation of mystical visions. I mean, fortune telling on mirrors. Even in her early youth, grandma told how she and her friends in pitch darkness, preferably in a non-residential building, with the help of mirrors and candles, evoked the image of their betrothed - a mummer. The desire to see her destiny, for one of the girls, ended tragically; she died of a heart attack or, as people say, from a broken heart. Why exactly this happened is impossible to say, however mental condition Each of the participants in that fortune-telling, according to the grandmother, was at the limit even before the tragedy. We also told fortunes about our princes, but we only decided to do it in the house when there were adults in the neighboring rooms.

Psychologists note certain dependence mentally ill people with certain pathologies, from similar phenomena. Someone obsessive states manifest themselves in fear of ghosts, demons that haunt them everywhere and constantly. They interfere with living in the house and even kill relatives. For others, mental disorders are based on a direct dependence on watching such films, from which, according to the patients themselves, they get pleasure, moral “satiation”, in other words, from all such horror, they get a “high”. I can’t judge how right it is to get involved in such fortune-telling, listen to strange music or hang out on the same Internet games, but I know one thing: people with a sick heart and a weak psyche should avoid such hobbies.

Whether ghosts and demons exist or not, humanity may someday find a way to scientifically confirm their existence. However, in real life, I personally would prefer not to encounter them. Enough worries and troubles with living people. You can believe in many unreal things and mystical phenomena, you can create them artificially and attract others to your works, you can enjoy and depend on such images. But passion for phantasmagoria, as art, should not be identified with reality, much less endanger your life and the lives of loved ones.