http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Et7UQh1tg

The Innovators

I found Bazin's view on the cinema & photography very interesting & enlightening. Never had I thought about the cinema in such detail he had so I enjoyed viewing it in a new light as an art form to reveal life. What he "looked for was kind of spiritual disposition towards reality".
I admire the way he was so faithfully loyal to his cinema motives & beliefs while mixing it with his religion. The author even said he was viewed as a soul like a monk or saint having true widsom and faith. He was very against montage which I found be very odd & random but his reasoning was actually somewhat logical and made sense since it truly isn't realistic nor would we ever see something like that in real life with a flash of images. I like how he predicted having a films studies class in college, that has proved to be true & here we are now reading about him in a college class. I love his idea of the "mummy complex" because I use photography as a means to capture moments in my memories & to be able to reminisce on those times. Lots of realistic movies can still be seen today in our latest movies; however at the same time, many fantasy surreal movies are being made & are more popular than ever before. Cinema has come a long way & has definitely become more realistic over the years with our surround sound, HD, 3D, and special effects, but they've been so successful in creating such reality in the fantasy worlds & surreal movies that people flock to them since it they are something we would never experience otherwise & the movie successfully takes us to a whole new world. I had never heard of Andre Bazin before reading this article but he seems to be a vital part of cinema and its' progression of becoming a reality. He truly had an earnest belief in realistic vocation of film, even after people mocked him & protested against his ideas too.

The Innovators

Bazin's view of photography/motion picture versus paintings was the most interesting part of the article for me. Bazin describes photography/motion picture's relationship with reality as a special obligation . I felt that Bazin said this with an heir of arrogance that expressed film's superiority in relating to reality. In my photography class we learned about how at first photography was used to imitate painting, smearing vasoline over the lenses to make photos look painterly. I think there is value in the manipulation and composition of film that can deny reality. I think there are elements in painting that document emotional aspects of reality better than film. Also, I don't like the way Bazin classifies film first as documentation of our reality, and then as art. Its like he second handedly just decided to put it in that category. Personally i think it's possible for the art to develop as the documentation occurs through an intentionality of shooting.

Divining the Real

I really enjoyed Bazin's view on cinema and his way of seeing it as stopping time in an image. His faith in religion tied into his view as shown in his observation that there are, "Those directors who put their faith in the image and those who put their faith in reality."
His idea that cinema and photography are trying to be as close to reality as possible can be seen to this day. So many movies use high technology to produce the best realistic effects and films. But sometimes I feel they can go overboard with the effects and the result is a pretty movie with a horrible script. While Bazin's prediction that cinema's 'art of reality' would be at its "final level" in 2000 may have come true, I personally think it came true only visually. However, he also said that, "If cinema ever could succeed in becoming the exact double of reality, it would also fail." Cinema is never supposed to be perfect but through cinema's search for a perfect reality, it becomes a "mission is to reveal life."
That mission is similar to what we do as an artist and I can suddenly relate to Bazin and his ideas.

The Innovators 1950-1960: Divining the real

I found this article to be very interesting, mostly because I liked reading about the way Bazin mistrusted and questioned everything. I definitely enjoyed the way he challenged photography, claiming that "it is first of all a sensory datum and only later perhaps a work of art". I also enjoyed the idea of cinema never succeeding at becoming an exact double of reality. His criticism of montage made me almost laugh at the ridiculousness when he said it supported propagandist messages, but at the same made me stop to think that there may be some truth behind that statement, especially when you think of the way film tries to render the real. I also thought that it was interesting that Bazin predicted cinema in 2000 would be free of the artificial, since some of the most popular movies and shows on tv are done with computers, such as Transformers. Nonetheless, I can understand why his opinions were attacked by some intellectuals and revered by others. I definitely respect his faith in his own opinion, however, and I liked the way his ideas challenged my way of thinking.

The Innovators 1950-1960: Diving The Real

Bazin definitely put forth some interesting ideas about photography and cinema. I found his "mummy complex" (an innate human need to halt the ceaseless flow of time by embalming it in an image) to be such a beautiful truth, an eloquent take on the "capturing a moment" colloquialism.
I appreciate his view that the photograph is a product of mechanical reproduction, and as a result it is first and foremost a document rather than a work of art. The comparison of this to the hand-crafted work of a painting has always been a concept I've dealt with since high school, because I was always more of a hand-crafting kind of artist. It was comforting to see the idea expressed elsewhere. But rather than making the photograph have less depth in content than a painting, Bazin's idea gives the photograph another dimension - an inescapable connection with reality.
Bazin's prediction that cinema would merge with reality was deemed "wrong" by the author of the article, but in some ways he was correct. Although the film industry produces many escapist films, such as cheesy rom coms and dramas with ridiculous plotlines and unrealistic endings, the sheer technology advances over time have been able to make the experience of watching a movie incredibly realistic; with HD quality images and the sudden explosion of 3D, movies are becoming practically interactive. The advancement in CGI technology allows for mythical creatures to come alive and entire cities to deteriorate; and although from a logical standpoint those things seem impossible, when you're completely engaged in a movie.. its suddenly believable. In addition, many independent films today border on documentary style and are intensely analogous to real life, for example, "Rachel Getting Married".

Andre Brazin

The article presented some interesting thought I would like to possibly explore, such as how film/photography can preserve a person from the endless flow of time. The subject can never actually go back or relive that specific moment, they can only move forward, yet that moment can be replayed for eternity. So, essentially that person can revisit their past from an outsider perspective and witness themselves captured forever in that moment.
Also, the idea that film can never be entirely real, it must "surrender a measure of reality." How the viewer of the end product will never actually witness the real thing, the entire package, how reality is essentially lost once its lived the first time, much like the dinosaur sponges that never go back to their original size after they are used. This actually contradicts the first idea how viewing your past self will never entirely be true.
Lastly, I found it extremely interesting that Brazin predicted that by 2000, humans would have almost prefected "the art of reality", while fantasy films such as avatar, toy story 3, lord of the rings and inception are among the highest grossing films ever.

i also really enjoyed the line "life spilling over the border of the frame"