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Slide 2 Film Studies Introduction Slide 3 Table of Contents 1. What is Realism and what is Formalism? 2. The Lumire Brothers Workers Leaving the Factory and George Mlis A Trip to the Moon 3. Realism vs. Formalism 4. Problems of Realism and Formalism Slide 4 What is Realism? Dictionary definition (a) a style of painting and sculpture that seeks to represent the familiar or typical in real life, rather than an idealized, formalized, or romantic interpretation of it Collins English Dictionary (b) the style of art and literature in which everything is shown or described as it really is in life. Longman American Dictionary Slide 5 What is Realism? (c) in the arts, the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life. Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation of outward appearances. Encyclopaedia Britannica Slide 6 What is Realism? Subject and material (content) -- the familiar or typical in our daily life Slide 7 What is Realism? Slide 8 (b) The way in which such a subject and material is represented (method) - non-idealized, non- formalized, un-romantic, and unembellished rendition of outward appearance as faithfully as possible. -- MIMESIS (Gk. the imitative representation of nature and human behaviour) The representation of the familiar or typical in mimetic manners in literature and visual arts. Slide 9 Boxer of Quirinal, Bronze copy of a Hellenistic Greek sculpture Slide 10 Details Slide 11 Old Greek Woman (C 400 BC) Slide 12 Caravaggio, Cardsharps (c 1594-5) Slide 13 Caravaggio, Fortune-Teller (c 1598-9) Slide 14 Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (c 1664-5) Slide 15 Johannes Vermeer, Woman Reading a Letter Slide 16 Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, Back to the Market (1739) Slide 17 Gustav Courbet, Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet (1854) Slide 18 William Bliss Barkers Fallen Monarchs (1859) Slide 19 Albert Charpins Woman with Lambs (1920) Slide 20 What is Realism? Definition in film studies A style of filmmaking that attempts to represent the look of objective reality as its commonly perceived. Slide 21 What is Formalism? Dictionary definition scrupulous or excessive adherence to outward form at the expense of inner reality Slide 22 Jackson Pollock, No. 5 (1948) Slide 23 Joseph Albers, Homage to Square (1965) Slide 24 Piet Mondrian, Composition No. 10 (1939-42) Slide 25 What is Formalism? Definition in film studies A style of filmmaking in which aesthetic forms take precedence over the subject matter as content. Time and space as ordinarily perceived are often distorted. For Formalism, film is an art because its properties are exploited to express filmmakers own vision Slide 26 Lumires Films Workers Leaving the Factory (1895) Actualits (actualities) - Recording an everyday event with a stationary camera placed at eye level without any editing Lumiere Brothers Sortie de lusine Lumier a LyonSortie de lusine Lumier a Lyon Slide 27 Lumires Films Arrival of a Train at the Ciotat station (1985) - filmed records of the arrival of a train http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk Slide 28 Lumires Films Auguste and Louis Lumire Representation of the look of reality as it is commonly perceived Slide 29 Georges Mlis Films A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la lune: 1902) A fantasy about a rocket journey to the moon Slide 30 Georges Mlis Films Georges Mlis A stage magician at Theatre Robert-Houdin turned filmmaker. The first innovator in filmmaking. The inventor of seminal film tricks Slide 31 Melis Formalism Visual cinematic tricks Jump cut - a scene is cut in the middle of action Double exposure - two images are superimposed on the same piece of film Multiple images - the screen divided into several separate images Priority given to the display of aesthetic forms and visual effects over the representation faithful to reality. Expression of the filmmakers own vision disregarding what it may be in reality. Slide 32 Realism and Formalism Film realism - the Lumire tendencies Recording reality without changing it Film formalism - the Mlis tendencies Recreating reality or presenting a new, different reality Slide 33 Lumire-Melies Chart (Realism) (Formalism) LUMIERE MELIES The Blair Witch Project Spiderman Full Monty The Gold Rush Documentary Fantasy Slide 34 Realism / Lumire Tendencies The Blair Witch Project (1999) - a low-budget horror film made as if amateur documentary footage were pieced together. Three students who is making a documentary film on a legend locally known as Blair Witch go missing. Slide 35 Realism / Lumire Tendencies The viewer is told that they were never found but one year later their camera and films were discovered. The viewer watch the discovered footage. The Blair Witch Project Part 1Part 1 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6nkns_the-blair-witch-project- the-movie-p_shortfilmshttp://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6nkns_the-blair-witch-project- the-movie-p_shortfilms Slide 36 Problems of Film Realism Film as representation of reality What is filmed is not reality itself but its image A person who appears on the screen is not herself but her image. An object who can be seen on the screen is not itself but its image. Slide 37 Problems of Film Realism Ren Magrittes painting of Ceci nest pas une pipe (This is not a pipe) The picture is not the pine itself, though it is life- like, but its image. Slide 38 Problems of Film Realism A film re-presents objects and people Or re-traces (an event); re-calls (an event); re- produce (reality), re-enact (an event/reality); re- fer to (an event / reality), re-build (reality); re- construct (reality): re-stage (reality / an event) Film is realization in second-time around; thus actions are suffixed with -re; spatially and temporally different from what it shows. Slide 39 Problems of Film Formalism Even fantasy is constructed on our perception of reality. It is impossible to create a world totally detached from reality. Slide 40 Problems of Film Formalism Even a creature from Mars have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two arms, fingers, and two legs. Slide 41 Coexistence and Interaction Realism and formalism coexist and interact Every film is constructed by a dialectic process of film realism and film formalism: of mimicking and changing reality Slide 42 Blade Runner Ridley Scotts SF film, Blade Runner was inspired by futuristic or postmodern city- scape of Osaka Slide 43 Blade Runner Slide 44 McLuhan and Annie Hall Real Marshall Mcluhan appears in Woody Allens Annie Hall In the film, he is only the image of Mcluhan and not himself