Andre Bazin: The Realist v.s The Expressive

Andre Bazin was a French film critic and theorist who was active from 1951 to his death in 1958. He wrote in the popular magazine ‘Cahiers du Cinema’ which he founded in 1951. He believed that the filmmaker should strive for objectivity and refrain from manipulating the audience in any way, rather, allowing them to come to their own conclusions and experience the film in a personal and subjective way. “It adds nothing to the reality, it does not deform it, it forces it to reveal its structural depth, to bring out its pre-existing relations”. He believed that it was possible to show the essence of reality by simply showing it through film without altering or manipulating it into fiction, etc.

However, he did not believe in realist films as in observational documentary that only documented events without any intervention, but rather for the film to select what it is showing. “Every form of aesthetic must necessarily choose between what is worth preserving and what should be discarded, and what should not even be considered”. He said that the entity and whole of the film should be preserved, so that the audience can understand it. He knew that film could not show the essence of reality by simply being as realistic or authentic as possible, instead deciding which parts of reality to show and emphasising the belief that the end result image should be whole and that the fact of reality should be the basis for creating this whole image of reality, which we know as realism in film.

Bazin, essentially, looked for essence in real events and facts and believed that that should be captured and conveyed through film to create a whole picture of reality in realism film. He knew that all films lied somewhere on the spectrum between complete realism and total expressionism, but believed that films should strive for objectivity in presenting an important facet of reality for the audience to view and interpret in a subjective, personal way. Since Bazin was opposed to the use of manipulating the audiences interpretation, this extended to the use of editing, such as Soviet Montage, which was a popular filmmaking technique in Russia at the time of his writing. However, he was not completely opposed to the use of editing.

“Bazin is not against editing which forms the basis of film structure, that is cutting necessary to join unconnected scenes/sequences, but is against optical illusions (superimpositions, dissolves, process shots), needless pedestrian editing within a single scene, and expressive editing that adds meaning through the juxtaposition rather than content of each image. Bazin employs a simple aesthetic criteria for deciding when to edit: anytime two or more objects/subjects are necessary to the construction of meaning in a scene, depth of field is preferable over editing.”

As observational documentary filmmakers attempt to do, Bazin argued for directors who made themselves “invisible” and depicted “objective reality”. He advocated the use of deep focus, which allows for a large depth of field in a shot, making all aspects of the frame completely visible to the audience and letting them focus their attention on what they want, so the director avoids manipulating the audiences. This method can be seen most famously in Citizen Kane(Orson Wells, 1941). He also believed in wide shots so that the audience could look at what they wanted to, such as in The High Sign(Buster Keaton, 1921). This conflicted with the theory of societ montage that had emerged at the the time of his writings, which he disagreed with as it distorted objective reality and it could be used to manipulate viewers.

He had conflicting ideas of the director involving a unique and certain style onto their film, but also allowing the audience to interpret the film in their own way without having meaning forced onto them. He believed that filmmakers should engage themselves with the production process personally because “it is the director that brings the film to life and uses the film to express their thoughts and feelings about the subject matter as well as a worldview as an auteur. An auteur cash use lighting, camerawork, staging and editing to add to their vision.” Bazin argued that the director was the author of the film through their personality and preference.

“This is why depth of field is not just a stock in trade of the cameraman like the use of a series of filters or of such-and-such a style of lighting, it is a capital gain in the field of direction—a dialectical step forward in the history of film language.”

“In addition to affecting the structure of film language, it also affects the relationships of the minds of the spectators to the image, and in consequence it influences the interpretation of the spectacle.”

Bazin claimed that depth of focus brought the film closer to a depiction of complete reality, which would in turn bring the viewer closer to the film, interpreting it in a personal way without the filmmakers influence, but also seeing a film that reflected the directors own interpretation of reality without attempting to inflict it on their audience.