Portraying Children in Cinema: The Aspects of a Film Director’s Work
Doctoral student: Giedrė Beinoriūtė
Supervisors: Prof. Audrius Stonys, Prof. Dr. Aušra Martišiūtė-Linartienė
Department: Cinema and Television
Intended duration: 2014–2018
Abstract
Giedrė Beinoriūtė
The research part of the artistic doctorate project “Portraying children in cinema: the aspects of a film director’s work” analyses the specific nature of depicting children in film from the perspective of a director’s work. The paper explores contemporary Lithuanian documentaries and feature films created during the Independence period (1990-2017) in which children appear. The main resources of the research are films themselves, their reception and semi-structured interviews with the film directors.
An overview of the contemporary Lithuanian context of films that feature children focuses on the issues of a child’s image in film and the reception of films with children. An analysis of films by documentary creators A. Stonys, O. Buraja, I. Kurklietytė and fiction film directors M. Ivaškevičius, Š. Bartas, A. Juzėnas looks at the characteristics of a directors’ work with children and the versatile and unique working methods that they use. Specific films are analysed from the point of view of ethical, aesthetic and directorial choices which result from the presence of a child in the frame.
The project also systematises and communicates the author’s personal experience from films with children. It touches upon the challenges when it comes to depicting a speaking child in the documentary “Pokalbiai rimtomis temomis” (Eng. “Conversations on Serious Subjects”) and working with children in the violence and abuse scenes in the feature film “Kvėpavimas į marmurą” (Eng. “Breathing into Marble”).
The creative part of the artistic project is the feature film “Kvėpavimas į marmurą” (Eng. “Breathing into Marble”) based on a novel of the same title by Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė. It is a story of a young woman named Izabelė and her family. A young family adopts a six-year-old boy, who is unable to put down roots in his new family and kills his sick stepbrother. Children aged 6, 7, 11 and 12 star in the film.
Keywords: film, children, film directing, children’s acting, documentaries, feature films.
