What is Cinematic Realism? 1/3: André Bazin
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2024
- The Indiegogo campaign for my short documentary: www.indiegogo.com/projects/tr...
The documentary's trailer: • Trasformare il Tempo /...
All the music in the video is downloaded from www.bensong.com
WORKS CITED:
André Bazin. “The Ontology of the Photographic Image”
and “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema”
in What is Cinema? Volume 1, trans. by Hugh Gray
. University of California Press, 1967: pp. 9-16; 23-40
------. “Umberto D: A Great Work”
in What is Cinema? Volume 2, trans. by Hugh Gray.
University of California Press, 1971: pp. 79-82
LIST OF FILM CLIPS USED:
letterboxd.com/fr_qr/list/wha...
0:00 Introduction
2:29 Ontology
8:33 Aesthetics
16:32 Conclusion - Фільми й анімація
Excellent video. I especially like linking up Bazin’s descriptions of scenes with the scenes themselves, as it’s often true that people haven’t seen or don’t really remember something he’s using as a paradigmatic example of what he means by “realism.” It’s hard to grasp what he’s really talking about without that.
My take on Bazin is complicated by the fact that I think his overall philosophy is basically right - cinema, broadly speaking, if it is to be and remain an ethical art form true to its potential, must acknowledge respectfully the sovereignty of reality over the artist’s will - while I also think his examples can be confusing and contradictory, and thus can seem somehow both restrictive and arbitrary, weakening the punch of the principles he’s advocating.
I prefer to read Bazin as a philosopher of cinema providing an account of its proper ends and means, and thus its proper motivating spirit (respect for reality, respect for the personhood of the audience members) - whoever called him the Aristotle of cinema was completely right. His general points about techniques that are prone to authoritarian and manipulative uses vs. contrary techniques that act like blocks against the artist’s narcissistic urge to dictate rather than explore are very well taken, but still can come off as not clearly defined because of the presence of his own intuitive judgment in preferring one example of “realism” to another.
Overall, I think he’s guided by a solid insight into aesthetics, namely that one intuits whether the artist is respectful and honest or hubristic and manipulative, and then tries to understand how these differences manifest in formal techniques and mise-en-scene. The problem comes when one tries, as Bazin sometimes does, to read the spirit backwards from the techniques, instead of taking the whole as one’s primary datum. Bazin and Gestalt theory were a match made in heaven that never happened on earth, sadly.
So, one can easily draw a bad inference about a forest from looking at one or a few specimens. At the same time, holistic intuition - sensing the “spirit” of a work - is both absolutely necessary and prone to subjective bias. Nonetheless, this discussion can’t get off the ground without it, and I think Bazin often overemphasized the extent to which a realist spirit could be read off from “specimens in the forest,” so to speak. In a realist vein, we grasp the “spirit” of people in the same way, intuiting a certain honesty or wildness or whatever based on looks, gestures, behavior, hearsay, etc. - trying as best as possible to judge based on the whole person, not just particular scenes or instances. I suppose Bazin knew that proceeding by examples was the only way he could make his point empirically and thus convincingly to eyes looking for scientific solidity, but that’s still only part of the picture.
Beautifully written and presented. Really enjoyed this video. ^_^
Thanks alot for the resourceful video. I am studying here in the National Cinema Institute in Egypt. I have an exam tomorrow and you have been very helpful to me. Keep up the great work.
Very interesting video dude, keep it up!
Good video essay. Nice presentation.
Great work, keep it up!
Thank u to this short studying
YES, we are doing a similar project, tracking the history of realism in cinema from Actualities to now. Keep up the good work. Realism is a neglected area in my eyes.
Amazing, can’t wait to see it! Are you also looking at academic discourse or focusing more on film movements?
@@frankfilmic we're focusing more on it's evolution and path through movements and as a genre of sorts. Not as academic as your work.
@@THEDONTTELLSHOW I see, then the two videos are quite complementary, since I’m not really gonna focus on the filmmakers’ perspective :)
@@frankfilmic Hey up mate, hope you are well. Was just wondering if you'd be interested in contributing to this doc idea?
ua-cam.com/video/xIOPLSWBaNE/v-deo.html
Great choice of image from _This Sporting Life_ at 09:36. It references a metaphor Bazin uses in another essay, "An Aesthetic of Reality" (from the second volume of What is Cinema?). Describing the fragmented and elliptical nature of Rossellini's narratives, Bazin says that as we watch the "mind has to leap from one event to the other as one leaps from stone to stone in crossing a river" (35).