Even before the turn of the century, movies began to develop in two major directions: the realistic and the formalistic. Realism and formalism are merely general, rather than absolute, terms. When used to suggest a tendency toward either polarity, such labels can be helpful, but in the end they are just labels. Few films are exclusively formalist in style, and fewer yet are completely realist. There is also an important difference between realism and reality, although this distinction is often ...

Even before the turn of the century, movies began to develop in two major directions: the realistic and the formalistic. Realism and formalism are merely general, rather than absolute, terms. When used to suggest a tendency toward either polarity, such labels can be helpful, but in the end they are just labels. Few films are exclusively formalist in style, and fewer yet are completely realist. There is also an important difference between realism and reality, although this distinction is often forgotten. Realism is a particular type, whereas physical reality is the source of all the raw materials of film, both realistic and formalistic. Virtually, all movie directors go to the photographable world for their subject matter, but what they do with this material- how they shape and manipulate it- determines their stylistic emphasis.

Generally speaking, realistic films attempt to reproduce the surface of concrete reality with a minimum of distortion. In photographing objects and events, the Filmmaker tries to suggest the copiousness of life itself. Both realist and formalist film directors must select (and hence emphasize) certain details from the chaotic sprawl of reality. But the element of selectivity in realistic films is less obvious. Realists, in short, to preserve the illusion that their film world is unmanipulated, an objective mirror the actual world. Formalists, on the other hand, make no such pretense. They deliberately stylize and distort their raw materials so that only the very naive would mistake a manipulated image of an object or event for the real thing. We rarely notice the style in a realistic movie; the artist tends to be self-effacing. The filmmakers are more concerned with what is being shown than how it is manipulated. The camera is used conservatively. It is essentially a recording mechanism that produces the surface of tangible objects with as little commentary as possible. A high premium is placed on simplicity, spontaneity, and directness. It is not to suggest that these movies lack artistry, however, for at its best the realistic cinema specializes in art that conceals art.

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