Essay on "Formalism in Film"

Essay 5 pages (1501 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Formalism in Film

Formalism as a theory is not concerned with reality (Andrew 6). This is unlike the realism theory which concerns with reality as a result of real life experience (Braudy & Cohen 24-40). Formalism arose to respond to the Modern Crisis. It is a concept which the determination of the film is by its forms. This is the making of the film through purely visual aspects as well as its medium. Formalism usually takes a belief that the ability of a film to move away from reality is where its potential lies. Formalism has a strong believe that the ability of a film to create as well as portray reality is what that makes it art (Braudy & Cohen 24-40).

Formalist film directors do not have any desire of showing reality (Andrew 6). They intend to show their personal vision with regard to the world. They involve spiritual as well as psychological truths, which they represent through distortion and exaggeration of the images.

In most of the cinemas in Soviet, French, and Germany, formalism significantly arose within schools. Despite the fact that these countries had different technical emphases, they approached the process of film making as a reality detachment for the purpose of capturing and presenting what they believed was closer to a film representation of reality (Andrew 6).

Taking Soviet Kino-Eye, French Return to reason and Ballet Mecanique and Germany Nosferatu into consideration, it is a fact that there are various varieties of formalism. The Vertov's Kino-Eye movie is enforces the possibility of cinema taking time as well as space, and it usually brings something new. This film is always in the forming and reforming the system. In addition, it is always forward and reverse. The capacity of the film is to open up the practices of labor which remain hidden. This indicates that the film lacks to portray reality in realism. Instead, it shows formalism in the entire film. Just like many other films which do not reflect realism, Kino-eye lacks narrative.

Return to reason film title itself suggests that it is probably a conservative film where the creation of images is not by a film camera. There is a lot of exaggeration in the images which portrays that the film is not realistic. This shows formalism in the film. This film is significantly short, and it lacks any narrative, implying that there is disregarding of traditional representations ideas of the reality in realism. Instead, experimenting through an edition of images to create colliding images together is a method of evoking emotions. Images in this film get repeated occasionally, taking into consideration the consecutive shots of the paper structure of the film.

Just like in Return to Reason film, Ballet Mecanique presents a disarrayed series of interconnected strange images. This film also does not have any narrative and hence it undermines the ancient representation ideas of the reality in pragmatism (Braudy & Cohen 282-291). This film involves soundtrack and unorthodox as the images. This suggests that the auditory aspect of this film requires review during its presentation of reality along with the visual presentation of the film.

Nosferatu is a German Expressionist horror film although expressionism changed a bit later. The director of this film became a monster in charge of their own films. The film regards women as vampires as well as destroyers. With regard to Van Helsing, it is a fact that he is an idiotic scientist who points out bacteria. In this film, the women understand that the only way that they can save the civilization of their society is by offering up their sexuality.

Formalism in this film is evident as there is a magnificent explanation on a tragic quandary which civilization, as well as reality depends on repression together with our ability to rain in the dark forces (Braudy & Cohen 282-291). Formalism is on most cases dedicated to what is real. Taking this film into consideration, it is true that its horror nature does not portray possible real life experience. Through this, it is a fact that formalism does not escape realism, just as the way it justifies itself in this film.

Realism in films is evident if the films are trying to be natural and life like (Braudy & Cohen 282-291). In addition, it is also evident if the films are attempting to indicate that event, as well as situations happening in the film could have really happened in real life. This implies that realistic films always try to reproduce reality. Still realism in films tries to audience-centered, meaning that they always encourage the audience to try and come up with personal interpretation of their own with regard to what the films mean. These films try as much as possible to make the audience care and think about what is really happening in the film. These films always have interests in letting the audience decide what they mean by themselves.

Unlike formalism, realism in films aims at being simple in nature (Braudy & Cohen 24-40). In most cases, realistic films get shot on real location instead of studio set like most formalist films. Similarly, the editing styles of realistic films are also simple as the editors always keep it to a minimum without getting any help. Te shooting of this film often takes a long time before shooting another one. This is simply because Realistic film makers always want the audience to have enough time for the purpose of exploring the inherent meaning of the film.

With regards to the above films, it is true that generally they do not portray the aspect of realism. Instead, formalism dominates in all the four films. Lack of narratives in the films is one of the clear indications that the films lack realism. Their audio, as well as visual representations indicate that what happens in the film cannot happen in the real world situation. Unlike realistic films, formalist films tend to be artist-centered (Braudy & Cohen 282-291). The films above care more about the expression of the artists about the world than what the audiences actually think regarding the world. This makes the four films to lack realism (Braudy & Cohen 282-291).

From a diverse theoretical base, it is a fact that formalism usually covers various filmic practices as well as techniques (Braudy & Cohen 24-40). This is for the purpose of attempting to create reality out of the traits deemed cinematic by various theorists. Some of these theorists include Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Arnheim and Balazs. Both Eisenstein and Pudovkin pursue this idea through the use of editing in their film of montage. The purpose of this film is to invoke the social revolution conflict to the fore, while celebrating it.

The above films put into consideration of the methods of selecting surreal images for the purpose of creating cinematic rhythmic as well as visceral films, which invoke a reaction. In addition, they bring about a real cinematic reality (Braudy & Cohen 24-40). Despite the fact that the choices of these films to utilize their uniquely filmic traits usually set them apart from attempts of realism to interfere with the recorded reality by the camera, there is an obsession from classical theory to define reality in their own way (Braudy & Cohen 282-291).

Formalism in films involves artistic style as well as design of the film. In addition, they usually come directly from the imagination of the artist. Unlike realistic films, formalist films do not represent the reality, and whatever they represent may never happen in real life situations. Formalism in films is evidence when a film does not pay a lot of attention to design as well as implementation of the shot composition.

Formalism has a strong believe that the ability of a film to distort the reality is where its potential… READ MORE

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