DOI issue:
Zwrot kinematograficzny w praktyce i teorii sztuki / The Cinematic Turn in Art Practice and Theory
DOI article:Dalle Vacche, Angela: André Bazin's film theory: art, science, religion
Citation link:https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/artium_quaestiones2020/0206
200 Angela Dalle Vacche
enologica! refers to the unfolding of a perceptual, subjective process based
on change, displacement, and discovery in regard to one's own relations with
others. Thus, objectification within neorealism means to bypass selfish sub-
jectivity and to be able to evaluate human behavior in society from a relational
and egalitarian stance.
In comparison to other formulaic realisms perpetuating so-called déjà vu
(already seen) or a quantitative naturalism based on correct details* * 23, Italian
neorealism proposes the jamais vu (never seen) of a perceptual displacement,
namely the objectification of human behavior onto a self-critical and anti-an-
thropocentric moral choice. By centrifugally expanding our range of emotions
and insights, the cinema can generate alternative perceptions of Otherness.
Precisely because it concerns optical perception and ethical values, cinema
can develop new ways of seeing inside of us. While this transformation is sub-
jective and personal, a new attitude can make a difference in society as small
as it may be. Nothing changes as far as the physical appearance of someone
or something in the actual world. It is the inner relationship between Self and
Other that acquires an unprecedented dimension.
Bazin's perceptual or phenomenological epiphany should not be confused
with the concept of de-familiarization from Russian formalism. According
to Russian formalism, the dominant point of view in a literary text can shift
from a human being to an animal. Thus, in a page written by Tolstoy and dis-
cussed by Viktor Shklovsky the reader can see the world nearby through the
eyes of a horse. With Bazin, the point is not making the world look strange,
but to develop an inner way of seeing differently The latter may displace the
human being from the center of a trite mental universe,24 by opening this very
same person to a new way of projecting himself or herself in the world through
reciprocal transformation.
RELIGION
After art and science, the most important dimension of Bazin's film the-
ory is religion. Neither an animist like Jean Epstein nor a pantheist like Jean
Renoir, Bazin was no spiritualist. With Bazin, theology becomes political, be-
cause it focuses on the stories we tell ourselves about our nature as humans
ism: André Bazin and the Aesthetics of Sound Film," in Philosophical Problems of Classical
Film Theory. Princeton 1988, pp. 94-171.
23 Kracauer, Theory of Film...
24 On Leo Tolstoy's "Story of a Horse" (1863-1886), see V Shklovskij, "Art as Tech-
nique," in: Literary Theory: An Anthology, Maiden 2017, pp. 8-14.
enologica! refers to the unfolding of a perceptual, subjective process based
on change, displacement, and discovery in regard to one's own relations with
others. Thus, objectification within neorealism means to bypass selfish sub-
jectivity and to be able to evaluate human behavior in society from a relational
and egalitarian stance.
In comparison to other formulaic realisms perpetuating so-called déjà vu
(already seen) or a quantitative naturalism based on correct details* * 23, Italian
neorealism proposes the jamais vu (never seen) of a perceptual displacement,
namely the objectification of human behavior onto a self-critical and anti-an-
thropocentric moral choice. By centrifugally expanding our range of emotions
and insights, the cinema can generate alternative perceptions of Otherness.
Precisely because it concerns optical perception and ethical values, cinema
can develop new ways of seeing inside of us. While this transformation is sub-
jective and personal, a new attitude can make a difference in society as small
as it may be. Nothing changes as far as the physical appearance of someone
or something in the actual world. It is the inner relationship between Self and
Other that acquires an unprecedented dimension.
Bazin's perceptual or phenomenological epiphany should not be confused
with the concept of de-familiarization from Russian formalism. According
to Russian formalism, the dominant point of view in a literary text can shift
from a human being to an animal. Thus, in a page written by Tolstoy and dis-
cussed by Viktor Shklovsky the reader can see the world nearby through the
eyes of a horse. With Bazin, the point is not making the world look strange,
but to develop an inner way of seeing differently The latter may displace the
human being from the center of a trite mental universe,24 by opening this very
same person to a new way of projecting himself or herself in the world through
reciprocal transformation.
RELIGION
After art and science, the most important dimension of Bazin's film the-
ory is religion. Neither an animist like Jean Epstein nor a pantheist like Jean
Renoir, Bazin was no spiritualist. With Bazin, theology becomes political, be-
cause it focuses on the stories we tell ourselves about our nature as humans
ism: André Bazin and the Aesthetics of Sound Film," in Philosophical Problems of Classical
Film Theory. Princeton 1988, pp. 94-171.
23 Kracauer, Theory of Film...
24 On Leo Tolstoy's "Story of a Horse" (1863-1886), see V Shklovskij, "Art as Tech-
nique," in: Literary Theory: An Anthology, Maiden 2017, pp. 8-14.