Topic 1- Realism and antirealism in film

Kate Yvon

COM 126

Topic 1 Response

            

 

            When watching films, sometimes the viewer will become immersed in the film and will feel like they are a part of the story. Other times, the viewer will feel like the story is playing out in front of them like more a fantastical play. Sometimes as a viewer, we might not notice that the film makers are specifically calculating how the image will be perceived and how all the elements of film will come together for the final product. Some filmmakers and directors use different methods in order to convey the type of story they want to tell. They take many factors into account when producing what we see on film. 

            Cinematic language is important when making a movie. A way that directors might convey their message is by using form and content. The meaning of form is film makers will find a medium to use, which is form, and they will use it to display their message, which is the content. Another is they will sometimes try and stick to using verisimilitude which means keeping consistency throughout the film and keeping up with the form they’ve chosen and sticking to the rules they’ve made form themselves. Some movies will use parallel editing to show what is happening in a scene while another scene is going on, maybe in a different place. Parallel editing is when the viewer is being let in on what is going on that they might’ve otherwise not have seen because of location or situation, can also be called the “meanwhile”. Continuity editing is when the film also shows what is happening after, the “then”. These devices can aid in suspense or impact of the situation. Shot/reverse shot can be used to help with the suspense through the dialogue. Shot reverse shot is when in a discussion, or a scene with two separate parts, pans to each part of the shot or has 2 camera angles. One of one person and one on the other, which aids in the discussion element of scenes. 

            Film can usually be categorized into 3 main forms. They are realism, antirealism, and formalism (which is the later name for antirealism after it became more prevalent in the modernist era). Early films and documentaries are some of the first examples of these. The meaning of realism is the director wants to show something to the audience that could be feasible and could possibly happen in real life. Sometimes these are the films that can make you feel like you’re a part of it and because if it seems real it feels like it could happen to you. Antirealism film is the opposite, it is when a story seems fake and like it couldn’t really happen, but the director sometimes tries to make it feel like you are there or even watching it like a play. 

            Early films tried to use these techniques to display their content. An example of realism in film could be the films of the Lumiere Brother’s, specifically the films shown in the “Lumiere’s First Picture Shows” from 1898. The Lumiere brothers would film near their factory and would sometimes capture the more daily life of people and wouldn’t be as staged, although some later ones were staged versions of real-life daily occurrences. They filmed people walking, biking, and eating or talking at gatherings. Sometimes they would capture people in more staged settings, some examples being woman staged to fight, or people having a staged snowball fight. One that stood out to me, and was considered a series at the time, was a more staged clip of a man with a hose who was watering plants and another man comes up and steps on the hose cutting off the water flow and the man holding it looks closely and gets sprayed in the face and he tries to get him back. This was popular with the public because many people had never seen things like this on film including a clip of a train coming at the screen which initially scared the viewers and made them think it was truly coming at them. The popular hose film however, influenced a sequel of similar nature with the same results happening with a different situation.  The Lumiere brothers clear use of realism and display of real-life-type situations were well received and were some of the first examples of realism in film. 

            Antirealism was displayed in some of the films by Georges Melies. Specifically shown in “A Trip to The Moon”, from 1902. This film starts with presumed scientists and scholars discussing how to make the trip to the moon. The next scene shows them building and sending off the rocket with them inside. The popular image of the moon with the rocket in it’s eye is shown and then it goes on to show very exaggerated science fiction type landscapes and aliens with fantastical ideas of life on the moon. This film was one of the first demonstrations of fantasy and antirealism in film. It transports the viewer into another world and tries to make you feel as though you are experiencing the impossible and viewing it happen. The term antirealism has evolved over time, after the modernist era, to now be referred to sometimes as formalism due to its importance in construction of film. Modern examples of formalism could be that of Wes Anderson who creates richly compelling visual composition through the camera angles and scenery he uses. 

            Lastly, a good mix of both realism and antirealism, or formalism, is the film “The Gold Rush” from 1925 (revisited in 1942) of Charlie Chaplin. The film explores many different realistic ideas shown in an antirealist way and also some scenes that seem completely improbable such as a bear following him without him noticing, and in another scene where the house appears to be falling off the mountain and the characters struggling to balance it to escape but then the camera cuts to a rope holding the house anchored down, which is clearly impossible due to the sheer weight. This movie was a good example of both realism and antirealism in early film by using realistic and unrealistic themes in conjunction with each other. The film used many different things such as parallel editing and the form and content to keep the verisimilitude throughout the film and through the changing of realistic and unrealistic scenes. Filmmakers have used many different cinematic tools such as the ones in The Gold Rush to create the mood and set the tone of the movie for decades, and the first forms of film have proven to shape our modern appetite for film in using the two main forms of film and in their contrast of each other.