Difference between revisions of "JCM312/Bazinian Realism (Discussion)"

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#'''Group 4:''' Bazin claims Renoir is "the only director who consistently, attempted in his films up to ''La Règle du Jeu'' (''Rules of the Game'') to rise above facile editing effects and seize the secret of a cinematic style which was capable of expressing everything without fragmenting the world, of revealing the hidden meaning of human beings and their environment without destroying their natural unity" (48). Do you agree that Renoir's style does not "fragment the world"? Why or why not?
 
#'''Group 4:''' Bazin claims Renoir is "the only director who consistently, attempted in his films up to ''La Règle du Jeu'' (''Rules of the Game'') to rise above facile editing effects and seize the secret of a cinematic style which was capable of expressing everything without fragmenting the world, of revealing the hidden meaning of human beings and their environment without destroying their natural unity" (48). Do you agree that Renoir's style does not "fragment the world"? Why or why not?
#*Note the camera movement in the "Dance Macabre" segment of ''Rules of the Game'': http://www.tcf.ua.edu/EO/DV/RulesOfTheGame_MasqueradeJW6.php
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#*Note the camera movement in the "Dance Macabre" segment of ''Rules of the Game'': http://www.tcf.ua.edu/EO/DV/RulesOfTheGame_Masquerade.php
 
#**http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/RulesOfTheGame/Rules_13.jpg
 
#**http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/RulesOfTheGame/Rules_13.jpg
  

Revision as of 01:10, 26 September 2014

"The Evolution of Film Language"

  1. Group 1: Bazin sees "two broad and opposing trends in the cinema between 1920 and 1940: those directors who put their faith in the image and those who put their faith in reality." What does Bazin mean by faith in reality? To which early, 1890s filmmakers might we trace this tendency?
  2. Group 2: Bazin sees "two broad and opposing trends in the cinema between 1920 and 1940: those directors who put their faith in the image and those who put their faith in reality." Bazin says the "faith in image" directors can be "traced back to two factors." What are they? How does a Russian film movement exemplify one of these factors?
  3. Group 3: Bazin contends that "analytic" or "dramatic" editing (i.e., "shooting script") was "strongly challenged by the technique of composition in depth used by Orson Welles and William Wyler." What is composition in depth? What are some examples from Welles's, Wyler's and/or Renoir's work? How does composition in depth "demand a more active mental attitude" and "bring ambiguity back into the structure of the image"?
  4. Group 4: Bazin claims Renoir is "the only director who consistently, attempted in his films up to La Règle du Jeu (Rules of the Game) to rise above facile editing effects and seize the secret of a cinematic style which was capable of expressing everything without fragmenting the world, of revealing the hidden meaning of human beings and their environment without destroying their natural unity" (48). Do you agree that Renoir's style does not "fragment the world"? Why or why not?

"The Era of the Popular Front."

  1. All Groups: Bazin maintains that the camera movement when Batala is murdered at the end of The Crime of M. Lange (see images online) "is the pure spatial expression of the entire mise-en-scene". What do you think Bazin means by this? How is he using the term "mise-en-scene" (is it the same as in Television?)?
  2. All Groups: What error does Bazin make in describing the shot he diagrams?

Bazin CrimeDiagram.jpg

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Bibliography

  • Bazin, André. "The Evolution of Film Language." In The New Wave, pp. 24-51. Edited and translated by Peter Graham. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968.
  • Bazin, André. "The Era of the Popular Front." In Jean Renoir, pp. 36-52. Edited and with an introduction by Francois Truffaut. Translated by W. W. Halsey II and William H. Simon. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1973.