REALISM AND THE CINEMA

R12.DD

in South Africa

Williams
and Kegan Paul in

with the British Film Institute

Represented
by MacMillan South Africa

Approx.
by Keyan G Tomaselli

Edited by Christopher
Published
by Routledge
association
1980
Price:
Reviewed
As with most books on the cinema published by the British Film Institute,
Realism and the Cinema is basically a reference work.
A welcome addition,
are detailed notes, bibliography and
not usually found in BFI publications,
an index.
from the BFI, it crusades rather
than explains,
long extracts (both early and recent) of various
juxtaposing
writers
in a (successful)
attempt to highlight similarities and contradic-
tions, but its weakness
is that it does little to tie up the relationships
develop a coherent argument.
ment:

or
The author excuses this approach in his state-

Like a number of other offerings

It is concerned with juxtaposing
(p.3)

The commentary
is meant to help in this process. but the reader should
be warned that its approach is primarily conceptual rather than contex-
tual.
ideas rather than giving thorough
context in which the ideas were pro-
accounts of the specific historical
duced.
Perhaps though, this orientation
The author argues
that many important writings are not readily accessible to Anglo-Saxon
for they exist in the pages of small circulation journals. often in languages
other than English. or in books that are out of print.
The writings of over
twenty-six
film makers and theorists are grouped under four main
"Descriptions of the work of a real-
chapter headings:
"Forms and Ideologies" and "Aesthetics and
ist film-maker,
Technology".
The problem and consideration
capable,

of realism, according to the author, is ines-

is the book's strength.

"Realist positions",

for it inevitably

Robert Flaherty",

prominent

readers

(p.l)

arises once we have accepted, even as a hypothesis, that the world
exists, either as an objective fact for people to look at, or as a set
of possibilities
their labour, or as the product of their imagination, or, most plausibly,
as a combination

which they construct through their intelligence and
of all three.

Film, then, is one form of expression which exists alongside this world.
The first half of the book is an anthology of principal realist positions,
while the latter section offers arguments against realism.
parent opposition
mutually
notion circumscribed
In the introduction
nology and film language in documenting

deals briefly with the constraints of film tech-
"real truth" rather than "mere appea-

Despite this ap-
shows that the two approaches are

both are committed to the idea of 'Truth' - a

by ideology.
Williams

the editor successfully

interdep~ndent:

51

but all too brief discussion, Williams

fervour, approximates
film making.

Observation

(p.22).

fervour of the hungry workers.

Surprisingly,

list for further reading.

is a system of reproduction
••. and class-determined

in more detail in Part IV.)
concern between realism and narrative

This displacement
"itself carried out in the name of realism" (p.2l).

is "the function of a certain form of social

rances" (p.6).
He is highly
(This is developed
critical of the lack of theoretical
claiming that little is known of how films cast in narrative form work (p.l).
Dismissing semiotic activity in this area as "narrow" and "pre-judged",
Wil-
liams argues against a comparison with the nineteenth century realist or
naturalist novel.
More useful would be a comparison with the flexibility of
the narrative tradition as a whole (p.8).
George Bluestone's
book, The Novel into Film, is not on Williams'
Following this fascinating
launches
into a detailed examination of "realist positions" juxtaposing
the writings
Whereas Grierson argues that "Docu-
of John Grierson and Sergei Eisenstein.
mentary would photograph the living scene and the living story" (p.l?), Eisen-
to fix
stein is more sophisticated:
"Photography
real events and elements of actuality",
but "The final order (through editing)
... is determined by the social processes
tendency"
of the director.
of reality, determined by ideology, is,
observes Williams,
Real-
ism, according to Eisenstein
Where Grierson wants to see 'real man' on the screen, Eisenstein
structure".
is more interested in 'real man' as spectator
Dziga Vertov, described
as a formalist documentarist,
argues that the cinema as fiction is a narcotic
which has dissipated the revolutionary
Script
and acting, he avers, "falls outside the real purpose of the cinecamera, which
Vertov's Kino-Eye, although under-
is to explore living phenomena"
(p.24).
written by an emotive revolutionary
to some aspects of
current descriptions
of everyday
of ethnographic
activities was the keynote for Vertov.
"(Cinema)
Representing
the Italian neorea1ists,
there must be no gap between life
must tell reality as if it were a story;
and what is on the screen." (p.29).
is "the arti-
naturally moves Williams onto
stic form of truth" (p.32).
of the theories of Andre Bazin where the aesthetic of the
a consideration
film maker is one which integrates reality into the film and where realistic
material
"means of expression"
Williams comments that Bazin's further theore-
tical development
is limited by his argument that meaning is always "there,
waiting to be revealed;
Vertov or Grierson, does tolerate, and in some cases welcomes actors, though
limiting their function to the enhancing of narrative-dramatic
(p.53).
"great universal laws" where realism aims to be a system.
"attempt to construct a visual, representational
culture they inherit" (Williams, p.69).
a system which constructs
V F Perkins, on the other hand, developing
Rohmer's notion of formal con-
straints argues that film is a truthful illusion which involves spectators
in the process:
the internal truth of
varying sets of conventions",
Having out1 ined these differing approaches to "Truth", Will iams identifies
the contradiction.
On the one hand are the 'pure', more naive versions of
realism represented by Grierson, Zavattini,
Rossellini,
etc who deny con-
ventions or pretend that they do not exist.
On the other are Eisenstein,
Vertov, Bazin, Rohmer and Perkins who are aware of questions of style.
liams then goes on to explore the conventional
lism(s) and its/their operation(s).
are developed more explicitly

Both he and Bazin
is more complex, seeking
itself out of the search mediated through montage.

Bazin, unlike
structures
Bazin's theories, refers to
culture within the wider

Wil-
constraints which define rea-
The ideas hinted at by the above writers

(provided by reality) permits the artist to discover realistic

"Realism is defined as coherence;

comments Williams

(p.79).

Cesare Zavattini
For Rossellini

is quoted:

neorea1ism

(p.36).

it cannot be constructed"

(p.53).

This definition

Rohmer, partially reconceptua1iSing

Eisenstein

in subsequent chapters.

52

'

useful.

with only a "slight narrative".

however, was the acknowledgement

positions
"the r.ature of the artistic material itself" over imitations

purely v1sual" perception of things.
Flaherty's films follow distinct story patterns:
Kracauer

In.P~rt II on F)~he~t~, \V~lliams s~ates that his style implies a kind of my-
non-S1gn1f1ed
s~1c1sm,.a
Yet as Wil-
llams p01nts out, Flaherty's editor, Von Dongen, takes many of her cues from
th~ work of E1senstein.
Grierson says with too much of a "tendency towards narration'"
complaining
In Part III, "Forms anu Ideologies", Williams looks at anti-realist
which emphasize
of l~fe (p.115).
Assessing the contributions of Lef and Novy Lef by the
Russ1an Left Front of the Arts between 1923 and 1928, Williams quotes articles
Victor Shklovsky, Ossip Brik, Yuri Tynyanov and a number of
by S M Tretyakov,
others whose new artistic forms parallelled the construction of new forms of
life under socialism.
Sometimes the debate was confused, both the notion of
realism and art as an instrument of cognition being rejected.
Common to all
positions,
and politically
Moving onto Berthold Brecht's contribution
to film discussion, Williams points
out that he took the traditional marxist view that cinema "is a drug, a per-
manent seduction of the working class away from their own true interests"
(p.163).
in France stimulated an up-
Despite Brecht's view, the May 1968 disturbances
accounts of film. This trend was further nourished in
surge of neo-Marxist
the late )960s and early 1970s by the ideas of Louis Althusser.
Williams
The relation-
cites Jean-Paul
ship betwe~n film and politics, argues Fargier, is mediat~d by ideology:
"When bourgeois
idealists baldly assert that the cinema has 'nothing to
do with' politics, we immediately feel tempted to assert the exact oppo-
that the cinema is always political, because in the class struggle
site:
nothing is irrelevant. nothing can be put in PARENTHESES"
all films
Grounded in Althusser's
film constructs its own object and trans-
to the audience (p.186).

Fargier as an example of this new directio~.

but some can also be theoretical.

that cinema could be socially

(p.17)).

of theory, a theoretical

deals with the relationship

of this process of construction

between aesthetics and technology.

Wil-
from the ideas of Jean Epstein expressed in the
of information about lenses, lighting and
by those of Renoir and Rossellini through to docu-
Joining the discussion
semiotic analysis of "the sequence shot" and the

Fargier offers a paradigm for a fi1m "useful to the proletariat":
are ideological,
definition
mits a consciousness
This kind of film criticizes or even attempts to destroy the impression of
reality.
~
liams traces this discussion
1930s, Patrick Ogle's correlation
film stocks, supplemented
mentarist Allan King's "structured fiction" (p.218).
is Gianfranco
Bettetini's
abandonment
of cutting.
A discussior. of cinema verite by Jean~Louis Comolli shows how fiction and
documentary
life by reproducing
it, film and life produce each other, 'reciprocally'.
The book ends with a conversation
published in Cahiers du Cinema between
Rohmer, Como)1i, Bonitzer, Daney and Narboni.
lems raised in the text are dealt with and as W11',ams concludes:
remarkable
at all"
If nothing else, Williams' book highlights

of the issues a~d pro~-
What l~
is that the interlocuters agree about noth1ng

each other where, instead of film trying to copy

the confusion of stances, gaps in

about the discussion

interpenetrate

(p.244).

~n~

53

This concern

book places more emphasis

First, it offers local theorists

with which to launch into the study of South African
film, two styles only recently
Second, Williams'
within film theory than is usually
for the study of South African

the history of cinema theory and points to the debate which continues
revolve around the concept of realism.
is of relevance
South African filmic experience.
background
and ethnographic
criticism.
tradictions
which offer yet another
implications
ser and other neo-Marxist
analyses.
making fraternity
university
society.
It is fortunate
to film theory that Realism and the Cinema
for otherwise

look at the major theorists.
are only now beginning
Third, this in turn must move such considerations
graduates)

itself as more and more film makers

subjected
the case with text books

to
to the
a rich
documentary
to serious academic
on the study of con-
This has
film where the ideas of Althus-
film
into the film
in apartheid

to permeate
(and particularly

is co-published
in South African

it would not be available

conventional
theorists

their role and function

to radical approaches

readers responsive

for South African

begin to question

by MacMillan,

bookstores.

and Stephen Heath

here offer a series of approaches

of the technical

of that relation

Apparatus,
of cinema and, following

including

that is at stake in the notion

towards an under-
and the social which constitutes
to the
psycho-
the meta-

as 'it does both an attention
in recent,
and effects of meaning
mechanism.

developments
and positions

film theory, a stress on the need to examine

and constructions

in the various aspects of the technical
as a unity in the book which clearly

Approx.

APPARATUS

of cinema,

by MacMillan
R40.75

It is the recognition

OTHER BOOKS RECEIVED
THE CINEMATIC
Edited by Teresa de Lauretis
Published
Price:
The essays assembled
standing of the relation
cinema.
of the Cinematic
actual machinery
analytically-based
psychology
and subjectively
involved
The essays come together
organization
initial questions
consideration
redefining
question
Specific topics treated within
and ideology in cinema
(Douglas Gomery);
motion as aspects of the apparatus
and Susan Lederman,
the cinematic
by feminist critiques

- of technology

apparatus

the notion of the cinematic
of cinema as a particular

concerning

the technology

apparatus
institution

of cinema,

it as it goes the ways in which those initial queations

- the

might be understood.

reflects
the book moves

in these terms:
of relations

from

in its
into

and meanings,

(Peter Wollen,

colour (Dudley Andrew).
Kristin Thompson,

from the perspective

(Teresa de Lauretis,

this overall movement
animation

Stephen Heath, Peter Gidal).

(Joseph and Barbara Anderson,
Maureen

Jean-Louis

Comolli,

teChnology
include:
and the perception
Bill jjichols
Turim);

of

of the radical questions

posed

Jacqueline

Rose).

sound (Mary Doane,

S4