How Photography Freed Humans From Perspective

According to Andre Bazin, cinema is realism- the most realistic way of presenting and re-presenting the world through the transference reality onto photographs. To Bazin, the question of “What is cinema?” is an ontological one. This paper will answer the question of why cinema is realism and will also touch on the matter of the difference in style and aesthetic in realism.

Out of all art forms, cinema is the closest representation of reality versus other forms of art, such as paintings or sculpture. This distinction is different from that of the matter of a film’s style and aesthetic. All genres of cinema are considered realism. It doesn’t matter if it’s a post-continuity film, or a Classical Hollywood film, they’re all considered as realism.

To understand why Bazin says cinema is realism, we would have to trace back to the history of visual arts. Paintings and sculptures were originally developed to satisfy one of humans’ deepest psychological needs- “to defend against time” (Ontology 3). The way to accomplish that is to “save being through the appearance of being.” (Ontology 3) To illustrate his point, we shall use mummification as an example. Ancient Egyptians purpose of mummifying a deceased (the being) is so that their bodies will still be present in the afterlife, allowing them to continue living after they die. This is especially true for royals or a pharaoh. The body is washed, embalmed, dried and wrapped. A portrait mask covers the mummy’s head to allow the soul to recognize its body. Finally, the body is placed in a decorated coffin that resembles the deceased.

Photographs do exactly the same- to embalm time (Ontology 8). However, Bazin stresses the main difference between a photograph and a painting is the artist’s perspective. “Perspective was the original sin of Western painting.” (Ontology 6) Every painting is unique to each artist’s point-of-view, creating a monocular perspective that allowed the artist to craft the illusion they wanted on their canvas. Bazin says that the human need for illusion is purely for psychological reasons. On the other hand, photography satisfied our obsession with realism (Ontology 6).

When photography was invented, it freed the visual arts from their obsession with resemblance (Ontology 6). The production of a photograph is free of human agency, whereby alterations of an image is physically impossible (until the age of digital photography). Unlike painting, the artist can’t paint over an element that they aren’t satisfy with. If a person is seen unfolding their arms and placing them on their lap, the movement will transfer onto the image. “For the first time, an image of the outside world takes shape automatically, without creative human intervention.” (Ontology 7)

Now that we have established that cinema is realism, here comes a paradox. Bazin claims that cinema has always existed in its entirety (Myth 13) but has yet to be invented (Myth 17). Early inventors of cinema have always dreamt of technology that could replicate reality through photographs and capture life’s moments in the most pristine form. He says that “cinema is an idealist phenomenon.” (Myth 13) But at that time, technology had much catching up to do. Even at the rate that the production of cinema is going now, it will never be able to reach reality. If cinema is so perfectly aligned with reality, it would cease to exist, and just be reality. There wouldn’t be a constitutive gap that is necessary for us to look through, differentiating realism and reality.

If all film genres are realism, what makes them different from each other? Bazin says the answer to this lies in the matter of style and aesthetic. Bazin establishes the difference between pseudo realism and true realism (Ontology 6). Pseudo realism is a realism that’s “content with the illusion of form,” which does not invite the audience to understand what they’re exposed to is the act of lying. On the other hand, true realism is “the need to express the meaning of the world in its concrete aspects and in its essence.” He makes a comparison to directors who put their faith in image (pseudo realism) and directors who put their faith in reality (true realism) (Evolution 87).

Bazin associates with film styles such as the Italian Neo-Realism and Orson Welles. He claims that these films use the technique of depth-of-field to portray true realism (Evolution 100). Creating the film with deep focus shots is more realistic, just like how the human eyes sees (Evolution 101). It’s not lazy filming because the director doesn’t choose which subject or where to focus on. On the contrary, this technique invites the audience to actively think what is important in the shot, because everything is in focus. Additionally, this technique ties with long shots and lingering images to allow the audience to truly immerse themselves in the characters world.

For example, in Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948), the scene at the black market illustrates INR’s use of long takes and deep-focus shots. Antonio’s friend decides to tag along to help him find his bicycle at the black market. The camera pans from right to left, showing different stalls that sell different bicycle parts. Antonio’s friend instructs him and his son to split up so that they can find the parts faster individually, and the camera shows the characters searching for Antonio’s bicycle parts. The camera continues to roll, and the characters scan through each item at a stall. By this time, the audience knows the purpose of this scene is to find the bicycle parts at the market. But the scene also foreshadows another reality of the movie, that there are so many parts of bicycles, it is almost impossible to actually find Antonio’s original bicycle parts, and they would only be able to find them by chance or luck.

Comparatively, Soviet montage creates meaning in each scene through the arrangement of juxtaposed images, hinting events to the audience, but never actually present the events. Similarly Classical Hollywood cinema hides the lying from the audience through the application of invisible style.