Dugue on Balazs' Film Theory

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Bela Balazs’ Film Theory
By Danielle Dugue

On January 18 we got the opportunity to discuss and analyze one of the most intriguing film theorists within the course, Bela Balazs. We began our conversation by looking at some of Balazs’ theoretical essays in regards to cinema and his fascination with the camera as a vehicle used to reveal the soul in humans. Balazs arrives at this idea primarily through his discussion of the close-up. He argues that it is through this stylistic technique that we are able to reveal human subjectivity in film. Close-ups reveal the most hidden areas of our life and allow us as viewers to notice those minute details that we typically overlook. Balazs asserts that it is through the technique of the close-up that we “discover the soul of things.” His theory is centered in this notion of capturing the true nature, that “optical unconscious”--to use Walter Benjamin’s words--of something or someone through film technique. This is in fact the essence of much of his argument. He asserts, “This most subjective and individual of human manifestations is rendered objective in the close up.”

Based on his essays, we know that Balazs is extremely anthrocentric as well as anthropomorphic, meaning that he is very human oriented and is interested in cinema reflecting the very inner being and emotions of people. He argues that subjectivity in people and in inanimate things can be revealed through the close-up.

To truly come to grips with Balazs infatuation with the power of the close up, we took the time to view some clips from Dreyer’s silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). The film seems devoid of the kind of mise en scene frequently found in expressionistic films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It is essentially a film whose narrative is driven through various close-ups of faces, allowing the spectator to sympathize with the agony and passion of the protagonist, Joan of Arc. This is accomplished simply through the character’s vivid facial expression, proving that it is through the close up that the inner emotion and turmoil of humans are revealed.

Balazs credits the film, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, as a pure example of expressionism, but argues that the film mimics the theatrical tradition through its use of elaborate objects, costumes, and set designs to reveal the emotional and subjective reality of the film. The film works well in capturing the psychology of the characters, but makes little use of the vast possibilities of the camera.  He prefers films that deviate from the theatrical tradition and make use of the camera and landscapes in order to create expressionistic and subjective realities, such as Nosferatu.

Balazs places a lot of faith in the power of cinematography, arguing that films should be more properly expressed through the use of the camera rather than an elaborate mise en scene. It is through the various camera techniques like the close-up and different camera angles that an expressionistic film and its physiognomy are produced cinematically. 

Lastly, we were given the opportunity to see Balazs’ theory applied at its very best in our screening of a scene from Microcosmos, which can be described as a dramatic love scene between two snails. Through the power of the close-up, the snails were humanized in the anthropomorphic gaze of the camera. As viewers we were drawn into the intimate encounter between these two creatures in unimaginable ways. We were surprised at how much we could identify with these snails, as if they are an extension of our own subjectivity. Just as Balazs argues, through the anthropomorphizing gaze of the camera, we are able to recognize ourselves as well as dimensions of nature we might have missed with our naked eyes.