Poduska on Bazin's Ontology

Death and Asymptotes: The Ontological Theory of Bazin [10.1.03]
By Greg Poduska

André Bazin. That name probably means nothing to you unless you have taken a film theory course. In that case, the name will never escape you. Bazin is cofounder of the influential film journal Cahiers du cinéma and considered by many to be the father of film criticism. His writings have laid the foundation of many film theories and treatises, and so it was inevitable that the Carleton College Media Studies Senior Seminar would meet and grapple with his philosophy.

We took a close look at two Bazin essays. Both are relatively short works, but they have become an important basis for theory and criticism for the last half century. In "The Ontology of the Photographic Image," Bazin starts his essay by essentially saying that representational art exists due to the irrational human desire to cheat death. Beginning with Egyptian mummies, then small terra cotta statues, and finally painting and photography, Bazin connects these media through the idea that they all serve as permanent markers. All of these representations are an effort by humans to create something that will still be around after they have died. But how does this give us any insight into the essence of cinema?

Bazin uses this outline of the evolution of art as a reference through which to judge the celluloid image. Specifically, Bazin tries to arrive at the ontology of photography by comparison with its closest relative: painting. He finds the main difference between painting and photography in the unmediated depiction of reality that photography offers. The essence of photography centers on its seemingly total objectivity and authority, which stems from the fact that there is no human intervention in the creation of the image. Painting requires the involvement of a human hand, whereas photography uses an impartial, mechanical apparatus. These assumptions have led people to sharply criticize Bazin throughout the years, and our class was no different. Several people voiced the opinion that photography is indeed subjective, that camera placement, lighting, and other variables controlled by the photographer give a subjective perspective. The rebuttal to this argument is that Bazin isn?t writing about what the aesthetics of photography itself are; instead, he is taking a phenomenological approach wherein the perceptions of the viewer are given the most weight. Bazin can be read as saying that the psychology of the viewer confers an element of objectivity to the photograph that often is missing in paintings. The ontology of photography and cinema is one of realism, because that is what sets it apart from other art media.

So how does cinema fit into this paradigm? Since photography, and by extension, cinema, is best at giving an unaltered depiction of reality, the celluloid image gives human beings their best chance yet at capturing and storing life itself. Cinema can take this feature one step farther because it has the added element of duration, which gives film an objectivity in time. These features are what define cinema apart from the other plastic arts.

The second Bazin essay we covered was "The Myth of Total Cinema." Bazin uses this essay as a declaration of what the perfect film aesthetic is, based upon his ontological ideas. Since the ontology of cinema is one of reality, then total or perfect cinema would be one in which you couldn't tell the difference between cinema and reality. We are far from this point, obviously, but technological advances have helped bridge the gap. Bazin illustrates the huge gap between cinema in theory and cinema in practice by using the analogy of the asymptote, a mathematical idea wherein if you think of reality itself as a line or threshold, the line of cinema in practice can get closer and closer to this limit of perfection, but ultimately the two will never meet. It seems as though total cinema will never exist in practice.

Then an interesting question arose in our class. Having just dealt with Eisenstein and the formalist filmmakers of the 20s, we knew that montage is an integral part of cinema, but in Bazin's total cinema, would there be a place for montage? An interesting idea that arose was even though montage seemingly has no place in reality, you could think of the quick, darting movements our eyes make as mini-edits, and so the way we perceive our world is, in fact, through montage. But our general conclusion was that the formalists subscribe to a different ontological argument than Bazin based on montage instead of reality, and it becomes difficult to combine the two into a single über-theory.

Now that we have a grasp, albeit somewhat tenuous, on Bazin's ideas, the true test is being able to apply them to the multitude of films we will watch in the future. Although Bazin's ideas don't seem to be readily adaptable, there is a trend toward using his models as a foundation in forging a film theory applicable to digital film. Thus our time spent grappling with Bazin's ideas will be put to good use as we confront issues in film theory in the future.

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Comments

[kenneth ragpala]

hey there!! i'm kenneth ragpala, an ab english student from central minadanao university, here in the philippines. presently, i'm writing a thesis about analyzing war movies using bazin's theory, particulalrly cinematic realism. i'm pretty much a newbie to the works of bazin and to the notion of cinematic realism itself. can u suggest any probable questions i might use to further define the aim of my study???