Realism and the Audiovisual Media is a major and entirely original contribution to contemporary scholarship on realism. Once dismissed as representative of narrative closure and bourgeois ideology, realism has made a remarkable comeback in recent years as a predominant trend in world cinema and television productions, as well as a topical line of enquiry in audiovisual theory. This book provides the first organized and comprehensive assessment of these developments, making it an indispensable read for anyone interested in film and media studies.
The question of realism permeates audiovisual media at all levels. Thanks to their photographic basis and unique combination of movement and time, they relate directly to and present a close resemblance with the phenomenological world. Even when resulting from animation or computer-generated images and sound, they can produce a 'reality effect' able to cause physical and emotional impact. Many film schools and movements, as well as genres such as the documentary, resort to realism as style, through which they aspire to reveal concealed or unknown dimensions of reality. This book undertakes an in-depth investigation of these phenomena, querying their origins, relations, divergences and intersections from a variety of perspectives, drawing on world-renowned expertise in audiovisual theory and practice. Subjects covered include new developments in realist scholarship; new realisms in world cinema; realist schools and genres; sensation, the body and real sex in cinema; cinematic scale and the real; the production of reality and the ethics of representation in film and television. A wide range of case studies survey past and current tendencies in Korean, Italian, German, Russian, Mexican, Brazilian, American, Taiwanese, French, Japanese and British film and television.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
PART I: THEORIZING REALISM
World Cinema: Realism, Evidence, Presence; T.Elsaesser
Whither Realism? Bazin Reconsidered; L.Grist
On Brecht, Realism and the Media; M.Silberman
Melodrama as Realism in Italian Neorealism; L.Bayman
Scale and the Negotiation of 'Real' and 'Unreal' Space in the Cinema; M.A.Doane
PART II: WORLD CINEMA AND NEW REALISMS
Realism and Gus Van Sant's Elephant; A.Rogers
Observational Realism in Taiwan New Cinema; M-Y.T.Rawnsley
Realism and National Identity in Y Tu Mamá También: An Audience Perspective; A.De La Garza
A Journey through Time: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark and Theories of Mimesis; V.Strukov
PART III: THE REALISM OF THE MEDIUM
Realism, Real Sex and Experimental Cinema: Mediating Eroticism in Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye; B.Johnson
Breath Control: The Sound and Sight of Respiration as Hyper-Realist Corporeality in Breaking the Waves; D.Quinlivan
Ontology, Film and the Case of Eric Rohmer; J.Leigh
Up the Junction: Ken Loach and TV Realism; C.Mello
PART IV: DOCUMENTARY, TV AND THE ETHICS OF REPRESENTATION
Filmmaking as the Production of Reality – A Study of Hara and Kobayashi's Documentaries; L.Nagib
Character Construction in Brazilian Documentary Films: Modern Cinema, Classical Narrative and Micro-Realism; I.Xavier
The Difficulty with Documentary; J.M.Salles
Losing Grip on Reality – A Reflection on British Factual Television; D.Myers
Notes
Bibliography
Index
LÚCIA NAGIB is Centenary Professor of World Cinemas and Director of the Centre for World Cinemas at the University of Leeds, UK. She is the editor of The New Brazilian Cinema and the author of Werner Herzog: Film as Reality; Born of the Ashes: The Auteur and the Individual in Oshima's Films; Brazil on Screen: Cinema Novo, New Cinema, Utopia; and World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism (forthcoming).
CECÍLIA MELLO is FAPESP Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Film, Radio and Television, University of São Paulo, Brazil.
Description
Realism and the Audiovisual Media is a major and entirely original contribution to contemporary scholarship on realism. Once dismissed as representative of narrative closure and bourgeois ideology, realism has made a remarkable comeback in recent years as a predominant trend in world cinema and television productions, as well as a topical line of enquiry in audiovisual theory. This book provides the first organized and comprehensive assessment of these developments, making it an indispensable read for anyone interested in film and media studies.
The question of realism permeates audiovisual media at all levels. Thanks to their photographic basis and unique combination of movement and time, they relate directly to and present a close resemblance with the phenomenological world. Even when resulting from animation or computer-generated images and sound, they can produce a 'reality effect' able to cause physical and emotional impact. Many film schools and movements, as well as genres such as the documentary, resort to realism as style, through which they aspire to reveal concealed or unknown dimensions of reality. This book undertakes an in-depth investigation of these phenomena, querying their origins, relations, divergences and intersections from a variety of perspectives, drawing on world-renowned expertise in audiovisual theory and practice. Subjects covered include new developments in realist scholarship; new realisms in world cinema; realist schools and genres; sensation, the body and real sex in cinema; cinematic scale and the real; the production of reality and the ethics of representation in film and television. A wide range of case studies survey past and current tendencies in Korean, Italian, German, Russian, Mexican, Brazilian, American, Taiwanese, French, Japanese and British film and television.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
PART I: THEORIZING REALISM
World Cinema: Realism, Evidence, Presence; T.Elsaesser
Whither Realism? Bazin Reconsidered; L.Grist
On Brecht, Realism and the Media; M.Silberman
Melodrama as Realism in Italian Neorealism; L.Bayman
Scale and the Negotiation of 'Real' and 'Unreal' Space in the Cinema; M.A.Doane
PART II: WORLD CINEMA AND NEW REALISMS
Realism and Gus Van Sant's Elephant; A.Rogers
Observational Realism in Taiwan New Cinema; M-Y.T.Rawnsley
Realism and National Identity in Y Tu Mamá También: An Audience Perspective; A.De La Garza
A Journey through Time: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark and Theories of Mimesis; V.Strukov
PART III: THE REALISM OF THE MEDIUM
Realism, Real Sex and Experimental Cinema: Mediating Eroticism in Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye; B.Johnson
Breath Control: The Sound and Sight of Respiration as Hyper-Realist Corporeality in Breaking the Waves; D.Quinlivan
Ontology, Film and the Case of Eric Rohmer; J.Leigh
Up the Junction: Ken Loach and TV Realism; C.Mello
PART IV: DOCUMENTARY, TV AND THE ETHICS OF REPRESENTATION
Filmmaking as the Production of Reality – A Study of Hara and Kobayashi's Documentaries; L.Nagib
Character Construction in Brazilian Documentary Films: Modern Cinema, Classical Narrative and Micro-Realism; I.Xavier
The Difficulty with Documentary; J.M.Salles
Losing Grip on Reality – A Reflection on British Factual Television; D.Myers
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Authors
LÚCIA NAGIB is Centenary Professor of World Cinemas and Director of the Centre for World Cinemas at the University of Leeds, UK. She is the editor of The New Brazilian Cinema and the author of Werner Herzog: Film as Reality; Born of the Ashes: The Auteur and the Individual in Oshima's Films; Brazil on Screen: Cinema Novo, New Cinema, Utopia; and World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism (forthcoming).
CECÍLIA MELLO is FAPESP Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Film, Radio and Television, University of São Paulo, Brazil.
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