El cine como acceso al mundo. Teoría del realismo cinematográfico de André Bazin

Resumen

The realist film theory that André Bazin proposed during the 1950’s is being revitalized in the recent years. Bazin understands films as “the art of the real” (Bazin, “La strada”, Esprit, May, 1955). The essential link between film and reality was practically abandoned after Bazin's death during constructivism and postconstructivism. Paradoxically, it was from the irruption of photorealistic Computer Generated Images that film realism found its second life in the field of film studies. My research focuses on the sistematization of the Bazinian film realism. I propose a reading of Bazin’s theory in three levels of realism. Each one of them points out how film and reality are linked. These levels are present and intercact with each other in the almost 2.600 film essays and reviews published by Bazin during his life. In my first chapter I distinguish between three distinctive features of the ontology of the photographic image. (1) The photographic image is a footprint of reality that certifies the (past) existence of the profilmic. (2) The objectivity of the camera guarantees that the photographic image is a registered image and not a created one. (3) The image of reality is transfered to the celluloid. As a result of these three peculiarities of the photographic process the individual is able to acknowledge reality through film. In this sense, film is, not only a representation but a re-presentation of reality. This process gives place to the material realism of film. In the second chapter I follow the distinction made by Bazin between those directors whom believe in reality and those who believe in the image. In this chapter I explain why the defense of determinated auteurs and films by Bazin answer not so much to personal preferences, but to a tendency towards modernism in society and in its cultural manifestation through filmic language. I distinguish between two dimensions of filmic language given by Bazin: plastic and montage. In these two main dimensions of languaje I offer a jerarquization of tools to show which ones help to achieve realism and why. The use of the tools of language results in a stilistic realism. The most original contribution to the understanding of Bazin’s theory in this research is included in the third chapter, where I explore the bazininan concept of fond (essence) in films. This third level of realism goes beyond the materiality or use of concrete tools of representation and has to do with how the human condition is depicted through film. Due to the philosophical orientation of Bazin, his main concerns about the person in cinema are: subjectivity, comunity and trascendence. The realism of this third level is of an aesthetic kind. Key Words: André Bazin, Film Theory, Realism, Aesthetics, Ontology, Languaje