Influential Theorists: Andre Bazin – The Myth of Total Cinema

This article continues my examination of Andre Bazin’s What Is Cinema?

The Myth of Total Cinema

Bazin asserted in ‘Ontology of the Photographic Image’ that, at its purest and most organic, photography and cinema is realist in aesthetic. The innate motivation behind cinema, and therefore also the best style, is realism. Bazin attempts to add to this position by examining the history and emergence of the technology of cinema. Bazin asserts that cinema was not borne from the advances of technology and economy in the late 19^th century but from that innate desire to reproduce the world around us in perfect detail. Bazin explains that ‘the basic technical discoveries [are] fortunate accidents… essentially second in importance to the preconceived ideas of the inventors’.(1.) What Bazin is arguing is that the inventors of photography and cinema were not just satisfied with producing technology for sale – though he does concede that some were primarily concerned with this – but were, at the heart of it, striving for the replication and reproduction of the “real” world. The production of technology was derived from that ‘innate’ drive for reproduction of the real, rather than, as G. Sadoul asserted, the desire for realism derived from the production of technology. Bazin explains ‘The cinema is an idealistic phenomenon. The concept men had of it existed so to speak fully armed in their minds’.(2.) Bazin may be correct that before certain technologies are invented there seems to be some idealistic notion embedded in the mind. Bazin goes on to explain that:

Any account of the cinema that was drawn from technical invention that made it possible would be a poor one indeed. On the contrary, an approximate and complicated visualization of an idea invariably precedes the industrial discovery which alone can open the way to its practical use.(3.)

Bazin is arguing that a conception, an understanding of cinema, cannot, or should not, be drawn from the economic and technological development of photography. A correct understanding of cinema, according to Bazin, is to be found in the idea that preceded the industry. As I noted in the article concerning ‘The Ontology of The Photographic Image’, Bazin feels that the innate idea – which preceded the actual technology of photography – was the desire to reproduce reality as it is perceived. Bazin is reaffirming why he asserts that realism is cinema.

Bazin reiterates this point when he states:

The guiding myth, then, inspiring the invention of cinema, is the accomplishment of that which dominated in a more or less vague fashion all the techniques of the mechanical reproduction of reality in the nineteenth century, from photography to phonograph, namely an integral realism, a recreation of the world in its own image, an image unburdened by the freedom of interpretation of the artist or the irreversibility of time.(4.)

The myth or guiding impulse of realism, and cinema, is, to Bazin, the reproduction of the world unburdened, uncoloured, by an artist’s interpretation or subjectivity. Realism is the attempt or aim of objectivity – enabled by mechanical reproduction of reality. The realist ideal is the unburdening of subjectivity and a release from the ravages and restrictions of time. Bazin continues ‘The real primitives of the cinema, existing only in the imaginations of a few men of the nineteenth century, are in complete imitation of nature’.(5.) Bazin is again stating that cinema is founded by, established by, those “primitives” who dreamed of cinema as a complete replication of nature. Bazin also indicates a central assumption; namely that those primitives who strive for realism are, in Bazin’s position, ‘in complete imitation of nature’.(6.) Bazin believes the desire for realism is the natural, organic beginning and end point of cinema. In the last paragraph Bazin makes an interesting point, explaining ‘the myth of Icarus had to wait on the internal combustion engine before descending from the platonic heavens. But it had dwelt in the soul of everyman since he first thought about birds’.(7.) Bazin believes that the myth of total cinema – realism – was held in everymans’ heart long before the technology was invented.

Bazin’s position in this short rhetorical article is interesting and fresh, however he confuses the technical development of cinema and the development of cinema as an art form. Cinema is as much a tool of fantasy and dreams than the reproduction of nature or “reality”. Forerunners of the technical side may have desired the replication of the image’s – senses – we perceive but as soon as those developments were made artistically driven minds found the technology to be a perfect tool in the aid of their imagination; their dreams and ideas are as natural as those of the realists. Bazin may be correct that an innate, essential desire of humankind is the replication and production of a cinema which perfectly imitates reality, however this is not the only drive. Nor is it sufficient evidence in establishing that realism as the ontological truth; the ultimate and correct starting and ending point in cinema’s history. Bazin has raised several interesting points yet he has failed to establish realism as the correct aesthetic of cinema. Bazin also fails to explain why an innate drive of cinema produces the best, most complete cinema. It may be that the drive for realism is a natural one, but this does not indicate why it is the most advantageous aesthetic.

 1. Andre Bazin ‘The Myth of Total Cinema’, in Andre Bazin, Hugh Gray (trans), What Is Cinema?, Vol. 1, London: University of California Press Ltd, (1967), pp. 17-22. p. 17.

2. Andre Bazin ‘The Myth of Total Cinema’, p. 17.

3. Andre Bazin ‘The Myth of Total Cinema’, p. 18.

4. Andre Bazin ‘The Myth of Total Cinema’, p. 21.

5. Andre Bazin ‘The Myth of Total Cinema’, p. 21.

6. Andre Bazin ‘The Myth of Total Cinema’, p. 21.

7. Andre Bazin ‘The Myth of Total Cinema’, p. 22.

The Ideology of Realism: Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni’s Cinema/Ideology/Criticism

In my previous article about Andre Bazin I explored his claims that the ontology of the photograph and film – ontology being the essential essence – is its ability to represent life as it appears. According to Bazin, film is inclined to, and again best when, realist in aesthetic. In a series of articles I will examine Bazin’s position on film however I came across an excerpt of Jean-Luc Comolli and Jean Paul Narboni’s Cinema/Ideology/Criticism (an online copy of which can be found here) which I felt was interesting as it came from the opposite position. In this article I will explore their claims that the aesthetic of realism is a reliance on the status quo and an aesthetic implicitly reliant on ideological cultural dominants.

In the examination of Comolli and Narboni’s paper it is important to note that they are Structuralist in outlook, in contrast to Bazin who was a staunch Humanist, and they therefore perceive the realist aesthetic differently. This is immediately evidenced when Comolli and Narboni explain that film is partly a ‘product, manufactured within a given system of economic relations, and involving labour [Money] to produce… a commodity, possessing exchange value… governed by the laws if the market’ as well as ‘an ideological product of the system, which in [the Western world] means capitalism’.(1.) Film is made to be sold. Film is an art that is also primarily a source of income and export: film is explicitly a commercial product. However film, according to Comolli and Narboni, is also implicitly the product of the ideology that dominates the field, or place, it was constructed in. A film-maker, according to Comolli and Narboni, cannot change the economic circumstance, or system they find themselves in [if they could would it be the film business anymore anyway?]. One may ‘deflect it, but not negate it or seriously upset its structure’.(2.) An example of this “deflection” may be found in the music industry where the Arctic Monkeys, and several other bands, initially gave away free CDs and allowed their music to be downloaded for free. They originally refracted the “rules” or logic of the music industry however they didn’t change the system itself as after a period of time, and a rise in popularity, they returned to the normal procedure of selling music. For Comolli and Narboni film ‘is determined by the ideology which produced it’.(3.)

As I explained in my article ‘Influential Theorists: Andre Bazin – The Ontology Of The Photographic Image’ Bazin believed that film provides a reproduction of reality and although Comolli and Narboni may permit that film does reproduce reality when they say ‘this is what a camera and film stock are’ they hold a diametrically opposed view of what “reality” really is.(4.) Comolli and Narboni explain that ‘the tool and techniques of film-making are a part of [the] “reality” themselves… [Reality] is nothing but an expression of the prevailing ideology’.(5.) The realist aesthetic does not reproduce “the way things are”; it is in fact, at most an explicit and at least an implicit, a reproduction of the dominant way of seeing. Comolli and Narboni explain their position when they state ‘what the camera in fact registers is the vague, unformulated, untheorized, unthought-out world of the dominant world’.(6.) To use a similar image that Bazin utilized, film does not blow-away the “dust” of regular perceptions and conceptions but rather relies upon and reproduces that “dust” which has settled upon our way of seeing things. The realist aesthetic reproduces the way we experience the world, and the way we experience the world is defined by cultural dominants: and one major cultural dominant, of which Comolli and Narboni are particularly concerned with, is ego-centred capitalism.(7.) In Comolli and Narboni’s words:

When we set out to make a film, from the very first shot, we are encumbered by the necessity of reproducing things not as they really are but as they appear when refracted through the [dominant] ideology. (8.)

Realism is a reproduction, on the screen, of the ideological structures/world we encounter in “everyday” life. The realist aesthetic fails to comprehensively challenge or explore the structures of the dominant forces and world-view in society and art – which cannot challenge or explore sexist, racist or fascistic ideologies – is a blank critique and an utterly redundant social activity; art without the ability to challenge or explore social attitudes is not really art at all. According to Comolli and Narboni to stop film art from just becoming the “tool” of the dominant world-view ‘the film-maker’s first task is to show up the cinema’s so-called “depiction of reality”‘ and, if they are able to achieve that; the film-maker may be able to ‘sever’ or ‘disrupt’ the ‘connection between the cinema and its ideological function’.(9.)

To Comolli and Narboni just simply reproducing reality ensures one relies on the assumptions found in “everyday” life. They argue for the utilization of techniques which upset the viewers ability to accept the supposedly unadulterated reality of the world depicted. The use of jump-cuts in Jean-Luc Godard’s A Bout de Souffle (1960) could be argued to facilitate this sort of alienating technique. There are many films that are naturalistic or realist in aesthetic that, at least appear, to transverse and critique society and this is a definite critique of Comolli and Narboni’s position. A lack of examples and instances in film of the realist aesthetic is also another critique I would level against their article – however It should be understood that the article is intended as theory rather than “practice”. Rather than quickly explore the counter-arguments a critic who favours the realist aesthetic would raise I will leave that duty to Bazin, whose position I will continue to explore in the coming weeks and months.

 (1.) Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, in (Ed) J. Hollows, P. Hutchings, M. Jancovich, Film Studies Reader, London: Oxford Uni Press, (2000), pp. 197-200, p. 197.

(2.) Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, p. 197.

(3.) Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, p. 197.

(4.) Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, p. 197.

(5.) Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, p. 197.

(6.) Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, p. 197.

(7.) Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, p. 198.

(8.) Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, p. 198.

(9.) Jean-Luc Comolli & Jean Paul Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’, p. 198.

Shallow Focus and the Aura of Authenticity in Gamorra

Gamorra/Gamorrah(2008)

 

Gamorra the film selects several stories from investigative journalist Roberto Saviano’s best seller of the same name. All set in or around the Camorra’s (Mafia of Napoli and its surrounding towns) territories and business interests. Gamorra includes several interesting formal features in which the film communicates the violence, despair, and seemingly unavoidable fate of the central character’s struggle to survive in Europe’s most violent neighbourhoods. The technique of shallow focus is important in Gamorra in communicating this poisoned atmosphere.

 

Shallow focus is the cinematographic technique which shows one plane of field clearly while the deeper plane of field is blurred or out of focus. The shallow focus technique would show a face close up in perfect detail but the background or location out of focus. Deep focus, shallow focus’s antithesis, is the technique which shows an entire image in focus. In exposition shots we see the use of deep focus to clearly identify depth and position. Gamorra uses the shallow focus technique to foreground certain elements important in the communication of the toxic heritage that living in the Camorra dominated south entails.

 

The shallow focus technique is used to indicate, in part, the attempt in the characters to ignore and distance themselves from the violence they are surrounded by. This is indicated in a scene where a money-carrier walks suspicious and fearful of his well-being after he has a gun pointed at his head. As he walks away hastily the background moves out of focus, he attempts to block out the violence he just saw, yet a voice shouts out his name and follows him until he reluctantly stops and engages with the voice that has been stalking him. As he does the film returns to a deep focus. This indicates the futile attempt that is ignoring the context or situation the character’s find themselves in; one cannot step out of Camorra controlled life. The aesthetic of the shallow focus communicates a sense of a constant, ungraspable, unknowable violence which envelops and blurs clear and distinctive perception. The use of shallow focus reminds the viewer that the violent acts and characters are borne out of the poisonous toxic context. The sense of the unknowable and paranoid, added to by the style of death of Maria, also alludes to the actual feelings of the author of Gomorra who lives under protective custody; the truth comes with a terrible price.

 

[[[SPOILER: At the end of the film as these boys are killed the Camorra boss commented that it was a waste of youth but it had to be done. The Camorra blunt and destroy youth and the very little of it that Italy has left are being chewed up and spat out. Gamorra seems to say that unless corruption is destroyed then every generation, in this region, will continue to have a large waste of youth.]]]

 

Gomorra has been linked to, and commented, to be in the Italian Neo-realist style [I have decided to create a full article concerning this statement however one element of the Neo-realist style is relevant enough here to merit bringing it up now; the use of non-actors in significant roles]. Andre Bazin commented concerning Italian Neo-realism ‘It is not the absence of professional actors that is, historically, the hallmark of social realism nor of the Italian film. Rather, it is specifically the rejection of the star concept and casual mixing of the professional’ and amateur. (1.) Bazin argues that this ensures the audience brings with it no pre-conceptions concerning character – the opposite to what Jean-Luc Godard did in Alphaville (1965); that is play with those pre-conceptions. Bazin explains ‘the result is… that extraordinary feeling of truth that one gets from [Italian Neo-realism]’. (2.) In Gomorra several significant, or rather nearly all, roles are played by amateurs and non-actors and this attributes to a sense of authenticity and realism. Skinny young men, fat overweight looking men litter the film; average-looking people, as opposed to the stylised look of Hollywood, imbues the aesthetic of Gamorra with an ‘atmosphere of authenticity’. (3.) This is added to outside of the film by the film’s official website which doesn’t list the actors beside pictures unlike Hollywood film where actor recognition is important.

 

Staying outside of the films’ digesis the aura of authenticity of Gomorra has been further added to by events outside of the film. One of the central messages of the film, and book, is the infectious dominating control the Camorra has in everyday life from the most basic domestic sphere to the world of industrial waste and fashion design. Recently Bernardino Terracciano, who plays a boss, has been ‘arrested on suspicion of extorting protection money and having ties to the Casalesi clan, part of the Camorra Mafia’. (4.) Two other actors, one a boss and the other a hitman in the film, have also been detained by the police. These facts add to the sense that the non-actors are just playing-out their day to day lives but in front of the camera just this once but it also rams home the central message of the film that you cannot escape the touch of the Camorra.

 

 

 

(1.) Andre Bazin ‘An Aesthetic of Reality: Neo-Realism’ in Andre Bazin, What is Cinema?, California: University of California Press, (1971), pp. 16-40 p. 23.

(2.) Andre Bazin ‘An Aesthetic of Reality: Neo-Realism’ p. 24.

(3.) Andre Bazin ‘An Aesthetic of Reality: Neo-Realism’ p. 24.

(4.) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/3186186/Italian-mafia-film-Gomorrah-heads-for-Oscars–as-cast-members-are-arrested.html

Concerning Genre

Here is a little introductory statement from Barry Keith Grant concerning genre:

Stated simply, genre movies are those commercial feature films which, through repetition and varitation, tell familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar situations. They also encourage expectations and experiences similar to those of similar films we have already seen. Genre movies have impressed the bulk of film practice, the iceberg of film history beneath the visible tip that in the past has commonly been understood as film art. They have been exceptionally significant as well in esrablisjing the popular sense of cinema as a cultural and economic institutions, particularly in the United States, where Hollywood studios early on adopted an industrial model based on mass production. Traditionally, Hollywood movies have been produced in a profit-motivated studio system which, as the result of sound business practice, had sought to guarantee acceptance at the box office by the exploitation and variation of commercially successful formulas. In this system, praised for the “genius” of its efficiency by Andre Bazin, genre movies are the Model T’s or the Colt revolvers with interchangeable parts.1

 

1. Barry Keith Grant (ed), Film Genre Reader II, Austin: University of Texas Press (1999), p. XV.