Andre Bazin Characteristics

4. Film theory is important to the practice of filmmaking because it allows us to understand the medium. Film is not just a form of entertainment. It has evolved into its own language, and the best way to learn this language is through film theories and concepts. Just like any art form, film changes over time, and studying the causes and effects’ of these shifts gives filmmakers insight into their own craft. Additionally, film theory exposes individuals to others’ ideas about what film is and what it represents. This exchange of ideas can influence how a filmmaker approaches film in the future. The concept I thought was the most interesting and potentially useful in relation to my ideas about cinema was adaptation. Since the beginnings of film,

In an odd, and somewhat disturbing way, Ondaatje also demonstrates that violence can be a source of creativity. Billy is portrayed as an artist figure whose greatest moments of perception, clarity and insight occur in the light of violence or violent associations. Michael Ondaatje challenges the reader to look at violence in a new way. Though he does not advocate it, he is appreciative of its intensity and artistic potential; as such, he includes violence in his own artistic vision.

After WW1 the Great Depression had a very late impact on the major film companies in France, when it did, it unfortunately caused several film studios to go bankrupt, then in the late 1920’s to 1930’s many small film companies and groups emerged giving birth to the tendency called poetic realism. Because the large companies who made films with a focus on making money were gone the filmmakers and artists were able to concern themselves with the art of film, they often took poetic innovations that we can associate with impressionism or surrealism and combined them to create a more realistic style of narrative filmmaking. Therefore these films stylistic techniques have been influenced by the political and economical historical contexts that took place in France that has enhanced these films aesthetic. The growth of political awareness had then reflected in the films of this time, thus the enormous historical impact that effected France’s films and industry. The question can be asked, how did these social, political and economic issues of France at the time come thought the arts and cinema and start a very impactful thread of films.

Astruc, along with Andre Bazin and the other reviewers of the Cahiers du Cinema developed these principles into what is known as the politique des auteurs. These critics wanted great film to be considered as an art form worthy of the attention given to great literature, music or art. The emphasis behind the politique des auteurs was to oppose the “established French film criticism with its support for a ‘quality’ cinema of serious social themes” (Cook and Bernink, 240). Though it also stressed that a director could transcend the industrial nature of filmmaking to stamp a unique vision and world view on their films and so deserve consideration comparable to an artist of the classical forms. This is highlighted by Jean-Luc Godard’s boast that “having it acknowledged that a film by Hitchcock, for example, is as important as a book by Aragon. Film authors, thanks to us, have finally entered the history of art” (Godard, 147). Godard was one of the critics who were known as the ‘young Turks’ which also included Francois Truffaut. A certain tendency of the French Cinema (1954) was the article that for many confirmed auteurism as a theory and gave the Cahiers a sense of direction that it was lacking.

Theme: Through all the boys on the island, Golding suggests the loss of innocence can be the gaining of violence.

The major film theorists of the early 20th Century primarily focused on demonstrating film, a widely popular and novelty entertainment, as an art. These early theorists fell into two respective categories: the formative and the realists. The former focused on the formic elements like

Early forms of creative filmmaking such as German Expressionism and Soviet montage theory are considered to have a rich definitive film history. These films are remembered as having distinguishable techniques, emphasis on images, rhythmic montage, heavy editing, shadows and mise-en-scene. By examining film history, complications with film archiving, theoretical perspectives and Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail. This essay will determine whether the most frequently viewed mode of filmmaking, Hollywood cinema, can be considered as having a definitive film history. Although there is a trend in films produced in 1917-1960, Blackmail being one example of a film with classic Hollywood Cinema elements. I disagree that Hollywood Cinema has a definitive

From 1924 to 1930, Soviet Russia experienced transformations that not only shaped the nation’s political perspective, but also cultivated a name for itself within the arts. War in combination with the demand for social justice and change encouraged people toward creative expression. Dziga Vertov was one of the prominent figures in Russia during this time. He was a documentarian that focused on depicting the highest form of reality in film. Vertov believed the only way to convey the highest form of reality and creativity in film was to never include a predetermined story, prearranged props, or actors.

A notable rejection of Bazin’s arguments, including his critical structure, the objective reality of the filmic image, and deep focus photography comes from Jean Mitry. Mitry challenged Bazin’s argument that cinema is classified by what it reveals of reality, not what it adds to it. He opposed the idea that because the camera shows a specific reality, this reality is represented in a neutral image. He held the argument that a camera reveals a ‘camera-perception’, irrespective of the cameraman’s decisions, instead of revealing reality a restructured reality is revealed which could be described as “a new appearance correlated to the world of

French New Wave was a cinematic movement that was active between the late 1950’s and the late 1960’s though the origins go back to german occupied France from the early 1940’s. Following the liberation of 1944, France saw the end of restrictions of media imposed by german occupation and the cinema became more popular than ever, with a stockpile of banned American films starting to flow in and France ramping up film production once again. Despite this by the early 1950’s it became more popular opinion by both critics and audiences that had become, for a lack of a better word, stale, getting bogged down in an endless cycle of “ generic historical reconstructions and uninspired literary adaptations… French Cinema was said to be in desperate need of a new direction ” (Neupert, 17). During this time the film magazine, Cahiers du Cinema, was founded. Some of its young writers, such as

Moreover, although the screenplay had been devalued since its legitimate arrival in the early 1900s, it is clear that its craft and continued development proved to be a crucial part of the formation of film’s eventual perception as an artful and classical

This reversal was caused in part by the development of cinema itself, which increasingly resembled reality with the introduction of sound, deep-focus photography, and Italian neorealist aesthetics—a progression that André Bazin called the myth of total cinema. Siegfried Kracauer, a critic of authoritarian aesthetics, argued that cinema should focus on the unpredictable, unplanned events of everyday existence. André Bazin preferred films that use depth of field and long takes to emphasize mise-en-scène, preserving the spatiotemporal integrity of the scene and empowering the spectator to scan the image for

Throughout the history of cinema, a never-ending evolution in technological progression – paired with filmmakers’ resourcefulness and ingenuity – allowed for the development of style and encouraged a more involved craft, thus giving individual films a specific personality which therefore eased the process of discerning which piece of cinema was created by which filmmaker. Because of the progress made in film technology, especially early on, certain aspects of filmmaking that once were inconceivable (camera movement, Foley, CGI) are often employed in the films that audiences view today. Although, while the evolution of technology may be linear, it cannot be assumed that quality of film follows the same trend. Instead, a filmmaker’s skill

In the year 1954, Francois Truffaut wrote that French cinema was suffering from a “tradition of quality,” referring to the fact that films were not implementing one’s artistic integrity, but instead being made specifically for festivals (Staples). Traffaut wanted something to be done to fix this, and soon he created the auteur theory. Auteur Theory is the theory that the auteur, French for author, is the person that brings a film to life and uses the film to express their thoughts and feelings about the subject matter. The theory is that the auteur of a film would be a film’s director. The director can use sound, lighting, camerawork, mise-en-scene and editing to create their vision. They are the author of their work. The film Traffaut created

Film Noir as a genre is set in a specific period of time. It is also a genre that is considered to be related to a specific society - that of America from 1940-1958. Film Noir as a genre is a term that French critic Nino Frank coined to describe the new “film movement” emerging from Hollywood in the 1940’s, which appeared to be black and white, crime and detective films. But these two prominent characteristics do not form the genre alone. Stylistic film features such as mood, style and tone are very eminent in Film Noir however it was not always considered as a film genre, but this is what makes the film genre so distinctive. Film Noir was a “new movement” or cycle of films as it consisted of expressionistic lighting techniques such as low