Student Film Academy

REALISM

Since the beginnings of cinema, filmmakers have explored ways to effectively create a sense of realism in their work. Leaving aside actual documentaries – remember, the very first films were simple filming of real life events – filmmakers have always sought ways to make audiences feel that they are sharing in the lives of the characters they are watching and create the feeling that the audience are immersed in the world of the film. While cinema exists primarily as an entertainment, effectively creating realism can make subject matter clearer and allow audiences a clearer feeling of what it’s like to live another’s life.

In chapter 3 we discussed formalism and how editing and camera can be used subjectively to let audiences experience film action as if it is happening to them. Realism aims for objectivity, to present life and experience in a way that feel natural. This style is more appropriate to stories that put across human struggle or to serve to let audiences gain a close understanding of what it was like to live through historical events.

Realism is often seen as opposite to formalism – film theory text books often place them at opposite end of a line. While formalism draws attention to the structure of a film, realism aims for the filmmaking to be invisible and to present events in a way that seems natural.

Formalism

Editing used for emotional effect.

Subjective camera shots.

Artful cinematography

Musical score to create emotion.

The conventional Hollywood style of continuity editing with glamourous movie stars, three-point lighting and elegant costume design is usually seen as being in the middle of these two approaches and is sometimes called Classicism.

Films made in a realist style often explore topics like poverty, the aftermath of war or the experience of refugees. Realism can be stark and shocking to an audience used to other styles, thus making it effective in portraying experiences to an audience unfamiliar with what it’s like to go through such situations. If cinema is indeed an ‘empathy machine’ (as noted by critic Roger Ebert when receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame), then realism is a vital mode in helping viewers to understand the experiences of others. 

Film theorist and critic André Bazin – a key figure in the French New Wave – wrote a lot about realism and any study of this topic should include some discussion of his ideas.

Some of the key periods in realism are discussed below: 

POETIC REALISM - France, 1930s-40s

Inspired by French literature written by the likes of Emile Zola, Poetic Realism told stories of poverty and fatalism. Several films from this movement feature in Sight & Sound’s 2012 Greatest Films of All Time poll, including L’Atalante (1934) by Jean Vigo (placed 12th) and Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion (1937, polled at no.73) and The Rules of the Game (1939, ranked 4th). 

Films from this movement were often filmed on studio sets and had some stylistic touches. Deep focus photography was often utilised, while panning and tracking shots were favoured, rather than edits. 

L’Atalante was Jean Vigo’s only feature film – he died of tuberculosis shortly after making the film, at the age of 29.
Luchino Visconti, later a significant filmmaker during Italian neorealism, worked as one of Renoir’s assistants, thus providing a direct link to the next significant movement in film realism.

ITALIAN NEOREALISM (1943-52)

Italy has always had a very strong filmmaking tradition and is the country that has won the most Best Foreign Language Film Oscars.

'White telephone' films had previously dominated Italian filmmaking. These films were often based on classic novels and celebrated lives of the wealthy (a white telephone being a symbol of wealth). The reality of World War II, in which Italy was defeated, gave food for thought and a new approach to themes and film language. Rather than looking at the lives of the wealthy, neorealism examined the suffering of ordinary people during and post-WWII.

Neorealism utilised real locations, though this made sound recording difficult, so dialogue was entirely looped in post-production (this remained an Italian cinema tradition until the 1980s). Smaller, lighter cameras made it possible to film in real locations, providing suitable settings for films dealing with the war. Under Mussolini, films were heavily censored, so filmmakers also had new freedom to explore topics they had been unable to before the war, including criticism of the state.

Three directors are most often noted as key to this movement. Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio de Sica (also known as an actor) and Luchino Visconti. They utilised location, employed non-professional actors and set their stories among the poor and working class, telling tales of poverty and injustice. Ossessione (Visconti, 1943) was the first film to be labelled ‘neorealism’. 

Rome, Open City (Rossellini, 1945) showed life under German occupation and dramatized real events. Made soon after the events it portrayed, it won the Grand Prize at 1946’s Cannes Film Festival and formed the first part of Rossellini’s neorealist trilogy. 

Paisan (Rossellini, 1946) blended newsreel footage with newly-filmed scenes and mixed actors with real people. This brought the real documentary style of newsreels into fiction cinema, blurring the lines between the two. 

The Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1946 – sometimes known by the less accurate title The Bicycle Thief) is perhaps the pinnacle of Italian neorealism and lends itself well to detailed study. Based on a novel, it features a man’s desperate search to recover his stolen bicycle – essential for his continued employment and his family’s survival.

As with most movements, neorealism soon faded as more lavish productions returned to the fore. However, this movement proved a huge influence on filmmakers like Satyajit Ray and Ken Loach. The fantasy end sequence of Miracle in Milan is echoed in the flying bicycles of Steven Spielberg’s E.T The Extra-Terrestrial. Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese has spoken many times of the movement’s influence on him, with Raging Bull (1980) perhaps the film that most bears the hallmarks of Italian neorealism. The spirit of American independent films, led by John Cassavetes up to the modern work of Kelly Reichardt and Debra Granik, can also be traced back to this hugely influential movement.

END GRAPHIC

Which techniques are effective in creating realism?

Lack of editing (long takes)

Real locations

No non-diegetic music score

Non-professional actors

Naturalistic lighting, muted colour palette

Theme of class struggle or stories of ordinary people

Use the visual language of the contemporary world

Unhappy endings

SYMBOLISM IN REALISM

Several films discussed here feature a bicycle as a key element of their story – The Bicycle Thieves, Beijing Bicycle (Italy) The Kid with a Bike (France) and Beijing Bicycle (China) Explore these films and any others you can think of, discuss the symbolism of the bicycle in telling stories of the working class.

VIDEO ESSAY

1. Which film techniques are effectively used to create realism in films from two different cultures and time periods? Also explain how the context of each film is explored on screen.

Rome, Open City / One Wonderful Sunday / In This World (Michael Winterbottom, 2002) / Blackboards / Fire at Sea / Capernaeum / Fish Tank