#André Bazin

[aschenblumen]

Como la muerte, el amor se vive y no se representa –no sin razón se llama la pequeña muerte, o al menos no se representa sin violar si naturaleza–. Esta violación se llama obscenidad. La representación de la muerte real es también una obscenidad no ya moral, como en el amor, sino metafísica. No se muere dos veces.

—André Bazin, «Muerte todas partes» en ¿Qué es el cine? Traducción de José Luis López Muñoz.

[davidhudson]

André Bazin, April 18, 1918 – November 11, 1958.

[schizografia]

In una psicanalisi delle arti plastiche la pratica dell’imbalsamazione potrebbe essere ritenuta come un fatto fondamentale della loro genesi. All’origine della pittura e della scultura, ci sarebbe così “il complesso” della mummia.

André Bazin

[arturhours]

Le Mépris (1963), Les Carabiniers (1963), Masculin Féminin (1966) Weekend (1967)

Dir. Jean-Luc Godard

[m757575msw]

"If the origins of an art reveal something of its nature, then one may legitimately consider the silent and the sound film as stages of a technical development that little by little made a reality out of the original "myth." It is understandable from this point of view that it would be absurd to take the silent film as a state of primal perfection which has gradually been forsaken by the realism of sound and color. The primacy of the image is both historically and technically accidental. The nostalgia that some still feel for the silent screen does not go far enough back into the childhood of the seventh art. 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. Every new development added to the cinema must, paradoxilcally, take it nearer and nearer to its origins. In short, cinema has not yet been invented!" André Bazin, What Is Cinema (1967)

[rwpohl]

[semnebune]

„Ce este cinematograful?” de André Bazin (vol.2)

„Ce este cinematograful?” de André Bazin (vol.2)

UNTAC PRESS, editura Universității Naționale de Artă Teatrală și Cinematografică „I.L. Caragiale” din București, și Editura Polirom lansează la ediția din acest an a Târgului de Carte Gaudeamus un text fundamental pentru estetica filmului: volumul al doilea al proiectului Ce este cinematograful? de André Bazin. Evenimentul va avea loc la standul Editurii Polirom: duminică, 11 decembrie, de la ora…

[catsofyore]

Renowned film critic André Bazin with cat friend, 1950. Source.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

“Why is dialogue so emotionally exaggerated in Japanese film?” one reddit user asked.

The response HarryMcFann gave is an incredible primer to understanding Japanese performance style and the media influenced by it (I’m looking at you, BLs and Kdramas).

“Not claiming to be an expert or have a definitive answer here, but these are my two cents based off of what I know about Japan and Japanese film. This is a very general overview. It’s important to note that culture is complex and full of nuances, but this should give a general understanding as to why Japanese films are somewhat exaggerated.

As u/scytheavatar pointed out, Japanese film is influenced by Japanese theater, but that doesn't fully answer your question. For example, you may ask about Western theater as it relates to Western films, and so on (Western theater is exagerated, but films today aren’t). So let’s look at Japanese theater.

The three main forms of Japanese theater are Kabuki, Noh, and Bunraku, and each of these forms influenced Japanese films in different ways. Now what is important to note here is that back in the early years of cinema, those in France and the rest of the West saw film as a new form of photography, while the Japanese viewed film as a new form of theater. Just think about that for a second, and what the implications are. Back in the late 19th and early 20th century the big thing about photography was it’s ability to capture realism, and that realism was a huge concern for many Western filmmakers. The famous French film critic, André Bazin, wrote extensively about how he believed the essence of cinema is its ability to reproduce reality (there were, of course, Western filmmakers who rejected this notion, such as the Soviet formalists and German expressionists, but going into that would require a lot more words). In Japan this was not the case, and from its inception, the Japanese rejected the Western idea of cinematic “realism.”

How did this manifest itself in early Japanese cinema? One thing the Japanese directly took from theater was the presence of a narrator. Japanese silent films were always accompanied by someone called a Benshi (fun fact, Kurosawa’s brother was a benshi), who would narrate the film. Japanese silent films would then have few intertitles, because the benshi would be there to explain the plot, and so on. What’s more, audiences would often attend a film based off of which benshi was performing. The benshi where local celebrities in many ways, and they would try to one-up one another. So naturally, to give a good show, the benshi would have to exaggerate in order to give more life to the performance (these guys would voice characters and play all the different roles). Directors would make their films knowing that there was going to a benshi present. So popular was the benshi, that much of the resistance to transitioning into talking films was from those lamenting the loss of the benshi narrators. Japan actually finally made the transition into talking films much later than the rest of the world.

It is also important to understand that “realism” is a relative term (cue some 15-year-old calling me pretentious). Yes, Western theater is also exaggerated and not particularly realistic, but traditional Western theater really doesn’t compare to Japanese theater. In fact, the famous German playwright, Bertolt Brecht, based many of his ideas of modernism in theater on traditional Japanese theater. This is why Ozu is seen as the most “traditional” of Japanese filmmakers while also being viewed as an early “modernist.” (It’s all really confusing and requires a bunch of quotation marks). Anyway, the Japanese don’t really have the 4th wall in theater the same way we do here in the West. In Japanese theater, audience interaction is huge, and stagehands (albeit often wearing black) walk freely on stage and move props and scenery around the actors, and so on. The key difference here between Japanese theater and Western theater is that while the West try to disguise and mask the artifice of the stage, the Japanese embraced it. A quick example of the way a Japanese actor performs in theater would be the Mie. The Mie is a powerful and emotional pose struck by an actor, who then freezes for a moment. This pose is more for the audience than the drama of the play, and often times reveals important information about that character. This idea of the artificiality of the performance in theater can also be seen in Japanese film.

Finally, it is worth noting how the Japanese view nature vs how the West does. In the West, we look at the natural as being something untouched by people. Interestingly, this isn’t really the case in Japan. In Japan there’s a belief that something only becomes “natural” when it has been in some way shaped by a person. Weird, right? To quote Donald Richie:

“To most Japanese, the Western idea of “realism,” particularly in its naturalistic phase, was something truly new. All early Japanese dramatic forms had assumed the necessity of a structure created through mediation. The same was true of Japanese culture in general: the wilderness was natural only after it had been shaped and presented in a palpable form, as in the Japanese garden, or flowers were considered living (ikebana) only after having been cut and arranged for viewing. Life was thus dramatically lifelike only after having been explained and commented on. Art and entertainment alike were presentational, that is they rendered a particular reality by way of an authoritative voice (be it the noh chorus or the benshi). This approach stood in marked contrast to the representational style of the West in which one assumed the reality of what was being shown.”

I want to make it clear that not all Japanese films are like this. If you watch films by a director like Hirokazu Koreeda, you will not see the same sort of exaggeration.”

[come2coffin]

iwtv 2.02 ‘do you know what it means to be loved by death’ / andré bazin ‘ontology of the photographic image’

[thinkingimages]

'I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you.’ Alkazi Foundation

Hari Katragadda, in collaboration with writer and artist Shweta Upadhyay, won the prestigious Alkazi Grant for their ingeniously intense photobook titled 'I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you.’ Hari said the project was inspired by the opening scene in Jean Luc- Godard’s Le Mépris (1963) and the Billie Holiday song, I’ll Be Seeing You (1944).

"The cinema substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires."

André Bazin, French film critic

This famous quote shines brightly on-screen in the opening sequence of Le Mépris. The idea of desire is the thematic crux of Hari and Shweta’s photo book. Hari conceived the idea and translated it into this photo series through the expressions of the protagonist, his partner Shweta. The series is a tribute to the ephemeral moments filled with memories of loves lost and a yearning for the reawakening of love. It attempts to capture ways of seeing and perceiving one’s lover, desire, the lack thereof, and the heartache that follows a search for the elusive other...

[davidhudson]

André Bazin, April 18, 1918 – November 11, 1958.

[world-cinema-research]

The 400 Blows/Les Cuatre Cents Coups (1959)

By Cris Nyne

The directorial debut of pioneering French filmmaker, François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, left a lasting imprint on the timeline of international cinema. To know Truffaut’s history before becoming director makes the film even more of a remarkable achievement. His life began as a troubled youth, engaging in petty crimes and was well on his way to a path of self-destruction. It was in his late teenage years when recognized film critic André Bazin would take Truffaut under his wing and give him a job as critic for the film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. During this time, Truffaut would become recognized as a brutal critic of French films. His infamy stretched to Festival de Cannes, where he would be denied accreditation in 1958. The following year in 1959, Truffaut would get his revenge by being crowned Best Director for The 400 Blows at Cannes. This all by the age of 27. Truffaut would continue to turn the film industry on its head and help pave the way for what today is known as French New Wave.

“If the New Wave marks the dividing point between classic and modern cinema (and many think it does), then Truffaut is likely the most beloved of modern directors -- the one whose films resonated with the deepest, richest love of moviemaking.” -Roger Ebert August 8, 1999

The 400 Blows is a semi-autobiographical tale that follows the young star Jean-Pierre Léaud as the mischievous Antoine Doinel. Antoine is humiliated by his teacher, skips school, steals, and smokes cigarettes while contemplating a better life A life away from his father’s failures and his mother’s affairs. Both parents find themselves exhausted of all options for their son (or the lack of attention they care to provide) and send him off to a school for troubled children. From the beginning of the film, his parents seem to have other priorities in filling the hole in their marriage, and Antoine is essentially a victim of having too much unsupervised time on his hands. By the end of the film, Antoine is contemplating his life outside of the observation center for delinquent youth. He makes a dash for it.

Source: Blu-ray.com

“The movie is full of actual incidents from Truffaut’s childhood, including his fabricating his mother’s death as an excuse for truancy. Few movies have been so personal.” -J.Hoberman, The New York Times September 21, 2022

The movie was well received by audiences and critics alike. He won Best Director at Cannes in 1959, as well as a nominee for the Palme d’Or, the highest prize awarded at Cannes. The French regional newspaper Nice-Matin claimed The 400 Blows to be “A Masterpiece”. The chemistry between Léaud and Truffaut was strong. They would go on to make three more feature films with Léaud revising his role as Antoine Doinel, Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970), and Love on the Run (1979). Currently, Rotten Tomatoes lists The 400 Blows with a rating of 94%.

Original Movie Release Poster

The film is in black and white and is shot in a very personal manner. There are lots of close-space encounters that make you feel as if you are squeezing into the room with them. The house that Antoine lives with his mother and father is very small. During one scene as Antoine is sleeping, his mother, Gilberte Doinel (played by Claire Maurier), comes home after a long night and cannot open the door all the way as it is stopped by the mattress that Antoine sleeps on. There are many fun street scenes shot from different angles- subterranean, street-level, and roof tops, that portray Antoine and his friends plotting and scheming around the streets of Paris. There are a few scenes that follow the main character along a stretch of blocks, and I found myself thinking about how smooth the camerawork was.

During its filming and release date, The 400 Blows took the idea of conventional filmmaking and shredded the blueprint. The director was only known as a stubborn critic and the main star of the film was completely unknown. The script was a unique story, one that, for the most part, Truffaut had lived and had made it through to tell the tale of a rebellious and delinquent child on a bad path. A child that by today’s standards would probably be diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder and prescribed medication. What was once an extremely unconventional approach to filmmaking has now become a standard in delivering a storyline. Truffaut’s confidence in leaping from critic to auteur has left a rippling effect that you can still see over 7 decades later.   

[busterkeatonsociety]

#TalkieTuesday Jacques Tati in a 1958 interview with André Bazin and Truffaut on inspiration, Buster Keaton.  He slightly misremembers the scene - thanks to @DannyDrinksWine on Twitter!

[thecryptkeeper]

The History of Video Art 

readings listed below:

A History of Video Art (2nd Edition) - Chris Meigh-Andrews

Television: Technology and Cultural Form - Raymond Williams

Video: The Distinctive Features Of The Medium - David Antin

Video: From Technology to Medium - Yvonne Spielmann

Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism - Rosalind Krauss

The Autobiography of Video: Outline for a Revisionist Account of Early Video Art - Ina Blom

Performance, Video, and the Rhetoric of Presence - Anne M. Wagner

The Evolution of Film Language - André Bazin

Image after Image: The Video Art of Bill Viola - Chris Keith

Video Haptics and Erotics - Laura U. Marks

The Temporalities of Video: Extendedness Revisited - Christine Ross

Video/Media Culture of the Late Twentieth Century - John G. Hanhardt and Maria Christina Villaseñor

Analog Circuit Palettes, Cathode Ray Canvases: Digital’s Analog, Experimental Past - Gregory Zinman

The Unifications of the Senses: Intermediality in Video Art-Music - Holly Rogers

The Modernist Event - Hayden White

Ken Jacobs: Digital Revelationist - Malcolm Turvey

Reverse Shot (Dialogues with Sky Hopinka, Tiffany Sia and Emma Wolukau-Waanambwa) - Emily Watlington

From Nostalgia to Anachrnoy: Omer Fast, Michael Robinson, and Home Video Appropriation - James Hansen

Gillian Wearing, Private I - Nancy Princenthal

Like Life (Review of Cao Fei) - Eleanor Heartney

John Smith: Everyday Disruptions - Mark Prince

Ulysses Jenkins: A Griot for the Electronic Age - Paul Von Blum

From Narcissism to the Dialogic: Identity in Art after the Internet - Melissa Gronlund

The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses - Laura U. Marks