The Meanings and the Developments Of

8/12/2019 The Meanings and the Developments Of

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The meanings and the developments of 'realism' in relation to European or world cinema.

Theories

Realism is a form of art in which the subject is presented in a straightforward manner with

without following any artistic rules. As a movement it appeared in the France of 18th centuries

as a reaction for Romanticism. In the cinematic movement it appeared in the 40 after the

WWII. The most notable form of realism is the Italian Neorealism emerged after the fall of

Mussolinis dictatorship.

In the cinema industry, the Realism movement did not had a positive response being highly

criticized. The critics saw in Realism an effect on dominant ideological socialization (Ian Aitken,

p. 162), and so the movement didnt received its appreciation until these days.

Even though there were many theorists who tried to explain the need and the usefulness of the

Realism only three of them succeeded in this venture, creating the theoretical basis for the

movement. In 1920, John Grierson was one of the major realist theoretician. He believed that

the film industry should play a social role in society by providing a communication base

between the state and its people.

His work was influenced by more than one philosophical currents. The first was the American

mass society theory, who states that a small group of elite people should control the life

conditions of the many. Grierson argued Lippmannselitist ideas, who stated that the

democracy is flawed, by attesting that democracy may apply if the masses are correctly

informed. Another influence made upon Griersons theories about Realism was the Idealism

movement. Even though he argued the totalitarian point of view from the current he agreedwith the aesthetic positions provided by idealism. Influenced by Kants ideas of beauty that lies

in perception of complex unities and harmonies (Ian Aitken, p. 165), he alleged that the role of

art itself and particularly cinema is to present the spectator such harmonies. Hegels notion of

Zeitgeist (the spirit of time) also influenced Grierson in terms of defining the concept of real

arguing that the film should be as real as it can be. From this concept he reasoned that to

obtain that quality the film shouldnt be made in a studio but made using the natural dcor.

All these influences helped Grierson construct his own theory about realism which consisted of

three principal elements: (1) a concern with the content and expressive richness of the actuality

image; (2) an emphasis on the interpretative potential of editing; and (3) the need to representthe social inter-relationships (Aitken, p. 167).

There is another critic that is worth mentioning when we discuss the theoretical base of realism

and that is Siegfried Kracauer. He was influenced by Max Webers theories about societys

instrumental rationality who argued the disenchanted existence, meaning that the religious

or metaphysical concepts from the Enlightenment Era were replaced by more practical sets of

values. Using Webers philosophy Kracauer established an aesthetical theory about film which


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he believed it has to fulfil two principles. The first was that of representing the fragmentation

and abstraction characteristic of the modern condition and the second was that of

transcending that abstraction, and redeeming reality trough the empirical attributes of the

film. He believed that the modern society has lost its ability to experience the world as it is

providing all sorts of entertainment such as military parades and sporting competitions, which

he named them ornamental. This have molded a new form of representation, a functionalbut empty form of ritual and an aesthetic reflex in where the experience is more conceptual

than a representation of reality.

The third most influent theoretician of realism was Andr Bazin. Just like Kracauer, Bazin

thought that the film might help the individual by redeeming the world for him. Both influenced

by the late eighteenth century philosophy but Bazin created his theory under the effect of

Christianism, Bergsons and Sartres theories.

Out of these, phenomenology created the most important foundation for the Bazins film

theory. He assumed the idea that the world must be analyzed to the point where certain

patterns show themselves in the light so everything willappear clearly. Besides this he also

adopted Bergsons concept of creative evolution. Bergson opposing to the Darwinist theories in

which creatures are under the direct influence of natural selection, he came with the concept

of lan vital (vital spirit) in which species evolve by becoming more and more complex by a

series of morphological transformations they remained related the whole.

Another influence came from existentialism and even more from Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre

believed the modern human lacks the inner fulfilment, which Bazin found more realistic than

Bergsons lan vital, which inspire humans into action. Another existentialistic idea that Bazin

adopted was that the humans are defined by their actions, free choice and a pilgrimage for

meaning and helped him create the films role in effecting spectatorial activity.

During his period in which he studied to become a teacher, Andr Bazin was associated with the

Esprit journal which was founded by Jesuit Emmanuel Mounier. Even though it was considered

to be associated with the personalist movement, Mounier didnt supported the nihilistic

aspects of it. All this helped Bazin elaborate ideas of utopic and mythical perspective which he

used to create his theory about realism. This theory will contain ideas will condemn the over-

expressive overuse in the formalist montage and instead will advocate that cinema should

contain substantial empirical information about the world, (would be) discursively

indeterminate, and (would) encourage the spectator to gaze long and hard at the diegetic

world before him or her.

Opposing the current movement in the cinema industry where everything tried to provide a

different type of reality for its audience, these three theorists believed that film can provide a

potential for the humans to effect changes and attain self-realization. They thought it was

important to not alter the reality in any way so that the humankind can find the nourishing

grounds to evolve to a higher state.


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European Realism

Should you understand a concept you must first try to seek its background. And this is what we

should do if we want to fully understand the concept of realism in cinema. At the beginning we

saw that realism is a straight forward form of art, this means that for to obtain a realist work,

the artist will depict people from all social classes in situations that emerge from everyday life,sometimes emphasizing on the ugly or sordid aspects of it. And in contrast to expressionism,

realsim asks the actor, often the man in the street rather than the professional actor, to be

rather than to act or pretend to be; it prefers an open, natural setting to an expressionistic

mise-en-scne that imposes meaning on action.(Braudy; Cohen, p.143)

France

When the 20th century arrived with the invention of the moving picture camera, one of the first

motion picture ever made was titled Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory by the French film

pioneers, the Lumiere brothers. This film was one of the first realistic films ever made because

its subject matter was exactly what the title stated. This was in direct contradistinction to

another French film of the period Trip to the Moon which was an overt fantasy and one of the

first science fiction films ever made. Since its inception, the world of cinema has descended

from these two progenitor film approaches: (1) realistic films that try to show the world as it

actually is, (2) and fiction/fantasy films that try to present the artists imaginative view of the

world in an entertaining manner.

Cinema Verite, literally film truth, was a style of film making developed by French film directors

in the 1960s. Their production techniques did not depend on star quality actors, sets, props,

casts of thousands, special effects and big budgets which was the trend in Hollywood films then

as now. The cinema verite directors used non-actors, small hand- held cameras, and actual

homes and surroundings as their location for a film. One of their production techniques was to

tape record actual conversations, interviews and statements of opinion make by real people.Then they would find pictures to illustrate the actual sound recordings. The final production

was put together in the editing room (which is also true of fiction/fantasy films). Cinema verite

was characterized by the use of real people (not actors) in unrehearsed situations. Filming was

done with unobtrusive cameras so the subjects of the film would forget the presence of the

camera and just be themselves. The filmmakers goal was to show life as it really is using the film

as his artistic medium. Sets and props were never used and everything was shot on location,

often with a small, portable camera. The camera could be taken into peoples homes,

automobiles, and other places where the heavy, bulky feature film cameras could not easily go.

ItalyNeorealist films as a whole raised social awareness due to the wartime development of part

fiction, part documentary style films. The combination of reality with the imaginary attracted

people to the cinema who longed for both an escape from their own lives and an explicit outlet

of the troubles that they faced at home. In his book Italian Neorealist Cinema: An Aesthetic

Approach, Christopher Wagstaff admits that one can evaluate neorealist films for the accuracy

of their representation of contemporary historical reality, or the ethical and political goals to

which they aspire, but also urges viewers to consider these films as aesthetic artifacts in and of


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themselves. Thus, Italian Neorealism serves the dual purpose of accurately portraying the

hardships faced by the working classes in urban Italy, while simultaneously working to create a

cinema that has a easily understood plot and overall aesthetic pleasure for the audience.

Neorealism as a result does not strictly adhere to how things actually were in Italy after WWII,

but serves as the director's interpretations of how things were.

De Sica's famous example of an Italian Neorealist film is, Ladri di Biciclette,1948 (in English)The

Bicycle Thieves.This film serves as a prime example of Italian Neorealist cinema due to its use

of real people rather than professionally trained actors, on location sets, dismal protrayal of

everyday life, and its focus on the struggles of a single working class family and can be

considered one of 2-3 foundational films of the entire movement.

Bicycle Thieves depicts the story of a father and son's fascinating relationship. The story

revolves around a poor man named Antonio Ricci who after being unemployed for two years

gains a job. Of course he is ecstatic about becoming employed, yet he needs a bike as this is

primary for his job of putting up posters. So he pawns some essential possessions in return for

the bike, hoping to pay back for them with the job. Alas, on his first day his bike gets stolen;

from here on the film follows the Antonio and his son's search for the bike.

Bazin considered The Bicycle Thieves one of the most representative films to the realism

movement. The almost dull event, the theft of a bicycle, made Bazin approve it because of its

commonplace rather than extraordinary incident, and it provides a focused image on the

everyday life within we experience psychological existence.

What impressed Bazin most about Ladri di biciclette, however, was the way in which the film

illuminated the social context of post-war Italy without imposing any particular thesis about

that context upon the spectator. Bazin fully accepted that Ladri di biciclette contained a core

point of view, and defined it as follows: in the 186 European Film Theory and Cinema world

where this workman lives the poor must steal from each other in order to survive.(Aitken,p.186).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicycle_Thiefhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicycle_Thiefhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicycle_Thiefhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicycle_Thiefhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicycle_Thiefhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bicycle_Thief

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The Meanings and the Developments Of