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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 7 page paper explores the thinking of film critics Andre Bazin and Rudolf Arnheim, and argues that while they do not agree, they may not be as far apart as many people think. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
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7 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVflmthr.rtf
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University in Montreal; he received his PhD in Film Studies from the University of Warwick in the UK, and writes extensively on film. Totaro provides an introduction to Bazin and
Arnheim, calling the former a realist and the latter a formalist, but noting that they "begin their theories from the same starting point. Both theorists begin with the contention that
cinema reproduces reality mechanically" (Totaro). Arnheim wants to prove that film is art, while Bazin seeks to prove that film is reality (Totaro). Bazin even goes so far as to
add to the reality of film by elevating it to a "spiritual/moral/ethical level," while Arnheim refutes this idea "by saying that regardless of the process, even on the most elementary
level the recording of an object/subject is answerable to many factors" (Totaro). There is a certain illogic in both arguments, since film can never be art in the sense
the Arnheim thinks of it (equating it with fine painting), nor can it be reality: film in its most basic sense is a strip of celluloid running in front of
a light source at X number of frames per second. It is the least real thing its possible to imagine. Unless the film is simply the record captured by a
filmmaker who sets up a camera somewhere and lets it run, then even a documentary is not truly reality; a feature film is even less real. Its a series of
scripted events enacted by people skilled at creating characters, who are helped in their endeavor by writers who put words in their mouths, costumers who dress them, technicians who light
them and record sound, and so on. To equate the highly artificial process of making a film with reality itself is on a par with nailing Jell-O to a tree:
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