An Exploration of John Berger’s The Look of Things

In this article I will explore John Berger’s The Look of Things, and identify the formal attributes that shape his argument. I will identify the context – historical, political, social, and personal – that attributed to the texts formation, with the purpose of understanding the aim of the text. In this article I will first explore the ideas, arguments that Berger is presenting. I will then open out the context behind the text. Within this I will highlight the difference between Berger’s aims and the aims of the Abstract-Expressionist movement. I will also pay close attention to the theories behind the text, paying close attention to Berger’s defence of realism.

John Berger argues strongly in The Look of Things that drawing is essential to the construction of the artist and art; not just through the physical act of drawing, but also through the spiritual, emotional journey. Berger explains that drawing is a discovery of oneself; he sees this as an essential act required if you are to call yourself an artist. Berger also argues that the constructive nature of drawing, one that doesn’t necessary lead to a painting, is essential for art so that it mirrors society realistically, and that this enables the spectator to gain an understanding of the artist. Berger is therefore arguing for a realism that reflects the individual through representation of common emotions, actions and objects, the antithesis of the then popular and individualistic American Abstract-Expressionist movement.

John Berger’s first statement in The Looks of Things is that ‘For the artist drawing is discovery’ [1955: 165] Here he outlines his position that through drawing, and we can suppose basic artistic technique, the artist begins a journey, which he feels essential in the process of art. Berger explains that the process of drawing ensures that the artist dissects the properties of the object he wishes to capture [1955]. This could be the physical attribute of the subject, the redness of an apple, or something deeper. So drawing is therefore like a doctor examining a patient, running several diagnostic checks before bringing judgement. If we suppose that the subject the artist is examining is the human form, then the artist, through the act of drawing, is forced to dissect the properties of ‘being human’.  Berger explains this position when he is describing the process of shaping the first outlines of a sketch. He believes that:

‘You find confirmation or denial in the object itself or in your memory of it. Each confirmation or denial brings you closer to the object, until finally you are, as it were, inside it’ [Berger: 1955:165]

And once inside your sketch of the human form you are forced through your selection of shades and lines into understanding the essence of humanity. Berger believes that this process is important as it forms ‘an autobiographical record of one’s discovery’ [1955:166] which is significant because the ‘drawing is essentially a private work’ [Berger: 1955:166] the antithesis of the finished canvas. So Berger is arguing that drawing is essentially a dialectical process. The drawing is the private discovery of the subject, and the act of painting the communication, or externalising of the discovery, which produces the presented work. This journey is essential to the artist as the process of discovery builds the frame of a finished piece, like the scaffolding prepares the building site for the construction of a house. Berger explains that a ‘spectator… in front of painting or statue tends to identify himself with the subject… in front of a drawing he identifies himself with the artist’ [1955:166] He is arguing that the process of drawing is important as it ensures the spectator can relate to the artist directly, the drawing and its autobiographical element ensures the spectator can look beyond the subject to see the motivations and emotions that the artist has felt along their journey.

This argument is a cornerstone in Berger’s defence of realism as an art form, but also a cornerstone in his attack against the contemporary Abstract-Expressionist movement. The Abstract-Expressionist movement was immensely popular in critical circles as it stood for individualistic freedom; the paintings were typically freed from structure and subject. The artist Jackson Pollock was famed for placing grand canvases on his studio floor and expressing his emotions and moods upon the canvas through splashes of paint.

Pollock explains ‘On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it… and literally be in the painting.’ [Cited in Harrison and Wood: 1947:571] This technique can be seen as the antithesis of the journey or discovery that Burger argues for. Pollock places himself literally in the painting, so that the painting becomes him. Berger’s method could be seen as the opposite; Berger argues for a slow evaluation of emotion and experience; built layer upon layer. Pollock prefers to paint first, and as he remarks ‘get acquainted’ [Cited in Harrison and Wood: 1947:571] later. Berger’s drawings are meticulous studies, constant restructurings of an image on paper. Pollock’s painting technique comes from the unconscious, a direct and unstructured attempt at portraying the emotion that is felt at the time of painting.

This unstructured, unconscious approach to painting is the exact style Berger is arguing against. He feels that Art is in the mirroring of society. Berger explains that no one line is unconnected in his drawing, in the same way that no one person is removed from his society or culture. This Humanist argument is a rallying call for a style of painting that reflects the society that the individual is born within. Berger explains that ‘A line, an area of tone, is not really important because it records what you have seen, but because of what it will lead you on to see’ [1995:165] here he reveals his understanding of a realism he wishes to communicate fitting within the Marxist-Humanist tradition. A realism that doesn’t just, as the Marxist critic Terry Eagleton explains, ‘photographically reproduce the surface… of society without penetrating to their significant essences’ [2002:28] but a realism that reflects the complex metaphysical side of human nature and human society.  This secondary vein could be easily disposed of by describing it as light rhetoric placed within a text written for the London left paper The New Statesman. But this would be too much of a reduction, and a reduction that doesn’t explain Berger’s position against the Abstract-Expressionist movement nor does this position adequately shed light upon the last few statements Berger makes in The Look of Things.

Berger’s last few thoughts are upon the nature of realism, directly the sketch he has just drawn. ‘I looked at my drawing to see what had been distorted’ [1955:170] here he seems to commenting upon the illusionary nature of any art. After he has checked over his work, touching shades, and lines he sees the ‘drawing and the actual man coincide’ [Berger: 1955:171] Berger is tutoring the reader in the way which they can create that realism he has called for, he is arguing for an art that goes beyond the look of things.

The Look of Things is a text that shows John Berger’s tutorial instinct, his argument is not aggressive, as it holds a constant vein of instruction. It is in essence a reminder of a skill that shouldn’t be lost, the skill of drawing. The Skill of drawing is argued strongly for in metaphysical terms. The regular use of metaphor ensures the reader maps out Berger’s discovery in their own mind. Experiencing his journey, learning the lessons he had learnt simultaneously. Regardless of this ambition, Berger in The Look of Things is quite reductive, even the most subject-free painting can still reflect contemporary culture and  its concerns perfectly – painting is not only a mirror; art is not just a mirror held beside the society that produces it. Art, all fine art, not only mirrors the society, but also defines the way we conceptualise it; the way we see the world. A painting of fragmented and distorted figures can not mirror our physical attributes, but it can mirror our Ego, our state of mind and conceptualise the way we understand those forces. Berger’s argument is formally sound – the process of drawing brings you closer to the subject, and the drawing brings the spectator closer to the artist. But a realist painting solely relies upon reflecting the world it is surrounded by, and although the paintings may induce a metaphysical experience from a spectator, it does not challenge the perceptions of the spectator and society in general. Berger’s reliance upon realism to reflect contemporary society fails to adequately challenge systems that control our perceptions, and in that way Berger’s plea for realism is flawed.

1. Currently we are struggling to locate an exact bibliographic reference for the paper this article is looking for however, John Berger’s paper can also be found in John Berger, The Look of Things, (London: Viking Press, 1972).

A Study of Gustave Courbet’s “Realism”

Gustave Courbet’s work can partly be seen as a Realist as he attempts, in his paintings, to represent the reality of life and the reality of social situations in a direct and un-glorified way.In this paper I will show how aspects of Courbet’s paintings are Realist by analysing his paintings, and in doing so present the way that Courbet conforms to the generic conventions of Realism but also how he may in-fact be termed more accurately as Socially Realist

Realism, or Realist paintings can be described concisely as art that has at its main concern the representation of fact or reality and rejection of paintings that are regarded as visionary or romantic [Honour, H and Fleming, J. 2001].  The word Real means not artificial or illusory, so Realism, or a Realist painter would be a person who attempts, in their art, to present which is genuine and authentic. In a historical context this meant that a Realist would be reacting against Iconic art, Ideal or Romantic art. Realism therefore can be regarded as a representation of the real, the current and the happening (the contemporary); and in turn as a reaction against the illusionary, the unreal and the iconic [Gombrich: 1972]. Courbet said that ‘painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things’ he went onto say ‘an object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of [realist] panting’ [Cited in Cavendish N.D: 619] and here we can tap into the manifesto of Realist painting. So what would the generic definition of Realist paintings be? We would look for a naturalistic representation of the subject in hand, the human body in its unformatted reality for example. We would also look for the unromantic representation of contemporary life, the un-idealisation of subject matter and the loss, or reaction against the symbolistic.

The first of Courbet’s paintings I wish to look at is his early work The Hammock (1844). The Hammock is a painting that owes a lot to the paintings that Courbet would have seen at the Louvre, and to the Neo-Classicists that were prevalent at the time [Cavendish: 1985: 611].  The unimposing tones and lines that mark the painting present the scene to be classical and pastoral. The painting doesn’t fit within the conventions of Realism, yet it does show Courbet’s progression. Courbet subverts the ideal nature of the classical model by giving her an ungraceful double chin; though not Realist the painting shows a hint of what Courbet was to continue with.

In 1849 Courbet painted The Stonebreakers, this shocked the Salon with its harsh, direct look at the life of peasant life. Courbet employed ‘coarse paints, often mixed with sand’ [Cavendish: 1985: 618] and used Bitumen instead of more traditional black paints. This created a rough, dark and intense canvas that was the antithesis of the smooth, finished paintings preferred by the Salon. Here we find Courbet at his most blunt, not only with his use of paint but also with the subject matter. The stonebreakers have ragged clothes, patched together, the total opposite of the accepted pastoral image of the peasant that the Salon demanded. Here we are presented with a representation of concrete and real things, an un-romantic vision of contemporary life of France in the 1800’s. The toil of the stonebreakers is presented without romanticising their work either, they are not seen to be building anything in particular and the lack of visible goal only reinforces their pointless and futile activity. Courbet said that ‘in this job, you begin like the one and end like the other.’ [Cited in Cavendish: 1985: 618] from this attitude it can be inferred that The Stonebreakers was a work that was meant to shock the Salon, and indeed the French Middle class by portraying the realities of contemporary life and the reality of social inequality within France.

Courbet continued his look at contemporary life with the Burial At Ornans (1849-1850). The painting is on a grand scale, approximately 124” x 263” a size normally left to historic or religious paintings. Courbet included real people from the town of Ornans. This caused an upset within the Paris Salon community not only with its grand nature but with its direct representation of the working class of Ornans. Courbet continued his tradition of painting what he knew, or saw with the Burial at Ornans, this paintings contains Courbet’s family, friends, local dignitaries and country people all in traditional catholic dress and again, like with The Stonebreakers, Courbet by committing this normal and contemporary scene to paint challenges the ideals of the Salon and French Middle classes. The outcry was that Courbet’s Burial at Ornans  glorified vulgarity [Cavendish: 1985]. We can see Burial at Ornans is a reaction directly against the sensibilities and formalities of Neo-classicism and Romantic art. Instead of using lofty, historical or religious matter he uses the plain, bleak realities of contemporary town life, he presents the townsfolk in a dark un-pastoral way and shows the wrinkles on the mourners’ faces. Courbet’s influence could be seen as ranging from the Dutch portrait painters of the seventeenth century to Caravaggio. Burial at Ornans is very much within the normal conventions of the Realist painting, though he does hint at the symbolic. To the right of the grave opening and bellow the two villagers dressed in Jacobin attire from the revolution of 1793, is a faintly painted skull. This could represent the failure of the revolution in 1793 or even the failure of the 1848 revolutions around Europe. A further inclusion of the symbolic is the appearance of Courbet’s grandfather Jean-Antoine Oudor on the far left. The painting is commonly seen as the burial of his grandfather, if true, then how could Courbet be truly representing what he saw. This inclusion of the imaginary continues to appear in his work and hints that Courbet’s work maybe more Naturalistic in style, then extremely realist.

The next Painting I wish to look at, and the final piece, is The Painter’s Studio: A Real Allegory Summing up Seven Years of My Artistic and Moral Life (1855).  This is Courbet’s largest and grandest of all of his paintings but it is also his least Realist and most symbolic. The painting centres around Courbet painting in the middle in his studio, surrounded by figures on his left and right. The figures on the left represent all of the people Courbet said ‘lived on death’ [Cited in Cavendish: 1985: 627]. The figures on the right are said to represent those who support him or agree with his ideas.  The figures on the left are said to include all the supporters of Napoleon III and the French Emperor as well.  Napoleon III is portrayed as the Poacher; Courbet portrayed him as such as he thought that Napoleon III had taken possession of the presidency purposely as a route to imperial power. Several revolutionary groups of Europe are portrayed as well on the left side, the Hungarian freedom fighters as the farm labourer, the Italian freedom fighter Garibaldi as the huntsman and the Russian socialists as the Labourer; all groups that Courbet felt were supported by Napoleon III or were in opposition to his beliefs. Here we can evidently see that Courbet is relying heavily on the symbolic, he is not producing the matter of fact, the real; Courbet is using the allusionary and the symbolistic. This painting isn’t realist at all, it doesn’t rely solely on the ‘real’ as its influence; it is more of a visual manifesto for Courbet’s opinions and political beliefs. As with the hinted at symbolism in The Burial At Ornans Courbet had used the allusionary and illusionary to portray a deeper and more profound point.

Courbet set out to portray the real and the existing. Courbet achieved both these aims at times; the early work of The Stonebreakers achieved a perfect balance of both contemporary life and social message. He achieved the wish of portraying the unpolished truth of contemporary life without relying on the symbolic. As I have shown he soon moved away from this, this could be that he found it constraining to solely rely on the ‘Real’ and included symbolic messages in an attempt to explore and expose the inequalities of the world he saw around him. So as Courbet continued to paint he moved away from a strict Realism to a Naturalistic Realism; Naturalistic as he painted that which he experienced and saw around him and his paintings were confined to contemporary settings. So to conclude; Courbet’s work can’t be termed as fully Realist, although he relied on the contemporary and the real, Courbet still ended up using the visionary and the illusionary and in turn that makes him Socially Realist. Therefore Courbet portrays contemporary life in a Socially Realist manner, i.e. contemporary setting, naturalistic colours, forms and dress, and in turn his artwork is not confined by the exclusion of the visionary. So Courbet’s work can be seen as Realist in the manner that he presents contemporary political/social life in a real way, rather than Realist in the sense that he presents everything as it exists without the symbolic or illusionary.

Vittorio De Sica’s Ladri di Biciclette (1948)

In Ladri di Biciclette, Vittorio De Sica uses the realistic style in his cast, scenery and themes to depict the real-life struggle of his characters. De Sica highlights the disparity of class, in the pizzeria scene, using visual cues. Unlike the more wealthy diners, Antonio and Bruno do not have a table cloth or cutlery at their table emphasising their lack of materialistic possessions and position in poverty. The waiter assumes that they would want half a cup of wine instead of a whole cup, further reinforcing the low class system they are defined and restricted by. By cutting between shots, Bruno is directly juxtaposed with another young boy who is clearly of a higher class. The camera moves from Bruno as central on the screen, to the other young boy as central on screen. This presents a direct comparison. However, it is their backgrounds that differ largely and identify them undeniably in opposing class systems. Bruno is situated at a blank wooden table  with little surrounding him. The other boy, however, is surrounded by food  and well dressed people. There are clear differences in clothing, food, social surrounding, possessions and general quality of life. This visual contrast shows, on a realistic level, how class disparity is evident in all areas of life; on a social, political and domestic level. De Sica uses the changing relationship between Antonio and his son to parallel the changes in Italy’s political structure at that time. The “disintegration of trust”² between Antonio and Bruno parallels the breakdown of political structure. At the beginning of the film, paternal love is evident, but, as the film develops, Antonio takes his aggression and frustration out on his son. Visually, also, the two characters become more distanced on screen with wide street shots emphasising the space between them. Their inability to break out of the class system also emphasises Antonio’s desperation and struggle to survive. As his desperation deepens and his hope wanes, Antonio is forced further and further from civilization and resorts to violence and theft of his own. In this way the use of a bicycle, as opposed to another vehicle, is highly symbolic in representing the cyclic pattern of events.

The representation of institutions, in Ladri di Biciclette, is significant in showing the changing social conditions and lack of stability and support in Italy at that time. Antonio turns to many different institutions – the church, the police etc. – in an attempt to find his bicycle, his attempts, however, are in vain. This merely emphasises further the failure of social institutions and reinforces disparity in the class system.  Godfrey Cheshire states that “neorealism served as a chastening, disillusioning rejection of Fascism and fantasy”³, however, Ladri di Biciclette serves as much more than that. It does signify the rejection of fascism and fantasy, but, through the eyes of its sufferers. As a result, the force of the films message is found in its realism – a message of desperation and, thus, essentiality for change and cultural renewal.

¹ Ladri di biciclette. Dir. Vittorio De Sica. Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche, 1948

² Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History an Introduction, (USA: McGraw-Hill Inc, 1994)

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.

Influential Theorists: Andre Bazin – The Ontology Of The Photographic Image

 

Andre Bazin is undoubtedly a famous figure in film criticism and film theory. Bazin was a co-founder of the influential film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, a mentor and friend of Francois Truffaut and firm supporter of realism. A large collection of Bazin’s writings were complied and published posthumously and entitled What Is Cinema?. In a series of articles I will explore Bazin’s essays. The first article will be:

 

The Ontology of the Photographic Image¹

If the plastic arts were put under psychoanalysis, the practice of embalming the dead might turn out to be a fundamental factor in their creation. The process might reveal that at the origin of painting and sculpture there lies a mummy complex. The religion of ancient Egypt, aimed against death, saw survival as depending on the continued existence of the corporeal body. Thus, by providing a defence against the passage of time it satisfied a basic psychological need in man, for death is but the victory of time. To preserve, artificially, his bodily appearance is to snatch it from the flow of time, to stow it away neatly, so to speak, in the hold of life. It was natural, therefore, to keep up appearances in the face of the reality of death by preserving flesh and bone.²

What Bazin is arguing here is that at the heart of the plastic arts – painting and sculpture – is a need to make immortal the mortal; to turn the image of our flesh into clay, steel and paint is to transform ourselves and preserve our being beyond its physical existence. Bazin is not, as some critics have argued, asserting that all art is solely defined by an attempt at immortalising the mortal. But that one of the defining characteristics, or innate motivations, in the production of art and artefacts, be it the mummification of Pharaohs, portraits of Kings and Emperors, is the ‘preservation of life by a representation of life’.³Bazin’s position is that the plastic arts, and I would also assert Bazin’s personal opinion in what makes art attractive, attempts to ‘have the last word in the argument with death by means of the form that endures’.⁴

It should be noted that Bazin died at the age of forty and death stalked him continuously throughout his life. Bazin’s attraction to realism, and an idea of art as a production of the eternal, seems inherently linked to his psychological and physiological state. The attempt to cheat or outlast death through the preservation of one’s image and world seems very close to Bazin. As Bazin explains ‘the image helps us to remember the subject and to preserve him from a second spiritual death’.⁵Just like F. Kafka’s fiction, which is infused with fears of and struggles with consumption, Bazin’s conception of the psychology of the plastic arts seems to be his own.⁶ That said the foundation of much art is linked to attempts at ensuring an ever-lasting legacy. From statues, palaces, portraits to tombs influential men have commissioned and produced art to represent themselves and the world they live in.

 

Bazin explains that painting, attempting the production of realism, encountered a problem in combining both the representation of the ‘spiritual’ real or emotionally real and the representation of the physical real.⁷Bazin notes that painting can successfully represent the emotionally real but that the reproduction of the physical real will always lean towards ‘illusion’.⁸This ‘illusion’, I believe, to Bazin meant the inability, of painting, to truly represent the outward appearances of things; a painting of a cart doesn’t really refer to a cart but rather refers to the painters painting of a cart. The cart refers back to the painter and his paint. And to Bazin not only was this a flaw of painting, in its attempt at reproducing reality, but also the main reason photography and film is so successful in the reproduction of reality. Bazin explains ‘Photography and the cinema on the other hand are discoveries that satisfy, once and for all and in its very essence, our obsession with realism. No matter how skilful the painter, his work was always in fee to an inescapable subjectivity. The fact that a human hand intervened cast a shadow of doubt over the image’ is unavoidable. Film, in contrast allowed, for the first time, allowed the image of the world to be:

 

formed automatically, without the creative intervention of man. The personality of the photographer enters into the proceedings only in his selection of the object to be photographed and by way of the purpose he has in mind. Although the final result may reflect something of his personality, this does not play the same role as is played by that of his painter. All the arts are based on the presence of man, only photography derives an advantage from his absence. Photography affects us like a phenomenon in nature, like a flower or a snowflake whose vegetable or earthly origins are an inseparable part of their beauty.⁹

The painter is unable, due to his medium, to escape the appearance of his touch. Photography, according to Bazin, evaporates the human touch: photography removes the artist’s fingerprint evident in the medium of painting and sculpture. Bazin also believes that, because of the technical and scientific method of photography, the aesthetic experience derived is much more in-line with personal perception. Photography and cinema replicates the physically real without the barrier that one encounters when admiring a painting or sculpture. It should be noted however that Bazin invests far too much faith in the technical process of developing film as an objective and not subjective process. The production of film is open to that very same human touch Bazin felt paintings contained. With the birth of photography came the birth of photo modification and editing and films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari show this trend with certain scenes being coloured differently. And with digital film it is hard to really locate an image that hasn’t been altered somewhat for aesthetic reasons. I think Bazin, even if he accepted that film is often modified, would argue that the best cinema would attempt to capture reality as it is. However this position will be further explored in Bazin’s other essays and other articles concerning them.

 

Bazin may have argued, however, that the counter-position – that photography is not objective – incorrectly translates his proper position. Bazin uses the French word objectif, which means the lens of a camera, and overtly, in the French text, plays on this meaning. Bazin may therefore be arguing that by the objective nature of photography he means that the physical appearance of brush marks, the fingerprint of the human touch, are not apparent in film and therefore photography, unlike painting or sculpture, reproduces “reality” without direct reference to an artist or photographer. Bazin therefore may not mean objective as not-subjective but rather “through an object”. Photography removes the appearance of the touch of humanity rather than the touch of humanity.

 

To Bazin the process of photography ‘confers on [an object] a quality of credibility’.¹⁰Bazin explains that we ‘accept as real the existence of the object reproduced, actually re-presented, set before us, that is to say, in time and space’.¹¹Bazin is arguing that photography and cinema communicates an items existence to us and we believe it. A point is often made here that Bazin seems to believe in the naïve position that “the camera never lies”. However I believe that this point is too harsh. Bazin uses the word ‘confers’ which indicates Bazin’s position to be that the sense of real is attached or attributed to the image – this is not the same as saying “the camera never lies”. Bazin is arguing that the reproduction of reality, through the camera, is imbued with an advantage because, unlike a painting or sculpture, a photograph is not an ‘ersatz’.¹²Painting, or sculpture, is a replacement for an object, a photograph the reproduction. And Bazin believes that this reproduction is treated, commonly, as if it is the object.

 

There does seem to be some truth to Bazin’s position. People often accept cinematic worlds without question and often photos modified, or “photo-shopped”, are accepted as true and real until people are promoted to believe otherwise – Piers Morgan losing his job over now discredited Iraq photos is a distinct instance of this. This common, or regular, acceptance of photography and films’ realism is often targeted by “viral” marketing campaigns and I am reminded of a film – whose name I currently can’t remember – which circulated a simulated, but realistic looking, office fight in order to gain surprise and attract people unknowingly towards the film’s website. It is not that “the camera never lies” but rather that we often accept photographs and films’ visual representation to be unadulterated and true (even though we known it isn’t – a psychological state known as ambivalence).

 

Bazin goes on to argue that ‘the aesthetic qualities of photography are to be sought in its power to lay bare… realities.¹³Bazin comes to the conclusion that:

 

Only the impassive lens, stripping its object of all those ways of seeing it, those piled-up preconceptions, that spiritual dust and grime with which my eyes have covered it, is able to present it in all its virginal purity to my attention and consequently to my love.¹⁴

To Bazin photography makes us see the world anew. Realism strips bare those preconceptions which, to Bazin, we accumulate through the passage of time like dust settling on furniture. Therefore to Bazin photography and Cinema, in the realist style, is a gust of wind which blows away the dust that settles on our way of seeing. A problem with Bazin’s conclusion, that realism blows away our preconceptions, is that it moves from explanation to conclusion without exploration of the logical sequence which would indicate how realism would blow away our preconception. Bazin imbues the realist style, and photography, with magical qualities like the ones he noted in the Egyptian cultures motivation for mummification. However Bazin fails to establish the reason why and how the realist style blows away the dust of preconceptions and it seems rather, contradictory to Bazin’s intended position, that realism relies on preconceptions. Realism is not so much presenting ‘virginal purity’ but rather relying on regular conceptions and perceptions of reality – this reliance is in fact why one would argue realism is imbued with the power of truth. Realism encounters a problem as it seems to rely on “common-sense” perceptions – and those “common-sense” perceptions tend to be a naturalised ideological position.¹⁵In ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’ Bazin cannot support the conclusion he comes to however he does provide a groundwork for arguing that the film is a powerful medium with a technical process of production which allows it to represent an object rather than replace it – which painting and sculpture does – therefore ensuring a sense of verisimilitude to attached to the medium of film. Bazin does go on to argue for realism in further essays and I will cover these in the attempt to uncover his motivation for his assertion that realism is the optimum style of film.

 

 

1‘The ontology of the photographic image’ is an inquiry and assertion by Bazin on the differences between film, and painting/Sculpture. On a wider note Bazin’s ‘ontological’ approach is an inquiry into “what is”, “could be” – and most important to Bazin’s What is Cinema? – and “what should be” in cinema.

2Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’ in Andre Bazin, Hugh Gray (trans), What Is Cinema?, Vol. 1, London: University of California Press Ltd, (1967), pp. 9-16, p. 9.

3Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, p. 10.

4Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, p. 10.

5Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, p. 10.

6 It should be noted that, although it is evident that Kafka’s fiction is imbued with the personal fear of death and his physical state, there is great humor and joy even in the struggle and fear.

7Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, p. 11.

8Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, p. 12.

9Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, pp. 12-13.

10Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, p. 13.

11Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, pp. 13-14.

12Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, p. 14.

13Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, p. 15.

14Andre Bazin ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, p. 15.

15See Barthes’ Mythologies or Althussers’ Ideological-State Apparatus

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