On Realism and Cinema

Does life imitate art or does art imitate life? Such inquiry cuts into the very core of realism and art, in this case cinema. It challenges the ontological foundation of art and how imagination intersects with reality in the production of art as well as the implications of it. In our film theory class, we dealt mostly with the various aspects of realism, or portraying reality in cinema. It is an interesting topic as it pushes us to think not only about the impress of reality that cinema can hold but also how the spectators consume reality and realistic essences in cinema. After browsing through the readings and watching the movie Jurassic Park, persistent questions emerge: do I see reality projected on the screen when I watch or perhaps I want something that merely resembles reality but not quite because I seek elopement in the darkness of the movie house? What is reality and how do we view it? Perhaps films are neither exact reality nor pure imaginations – perhaps it IS a part of reality – not a separate clout, not a mirror, but a part of the world where we live.

                For Bazin, the indexical status of cinema accounts for its realism; like a photographic image, the objectivity of cinema comes from its ability to project the mechanical trace of the referent it represents. As such, the image is inherently linked to that which it seeks to project. It is necessarily divorced from time and space but is nevertheless oriented towards the reality in front of the apparatus when the filming took place and can be controlled and rearranged by the makers of it. Kracauer, in the same manner, views cinema as an extension of photography and therefore achieves its being in the process of becoming. The general thrust hence was the achievement of reality and capture what was objectively “there”. Their theories form a significant foundation in understanding realism in films but technological development thereafter transformed the manner by which narratives, whether reality or fiction, are being presented in movies.

                The advent of digital age and the utilization of various tools for visual effects raise questions on the traditional paradigm of cinema as photographic image as such additions are regarded as having no indexical value of any kind – they seem to undermine the realism that cinema ought to achieve. Is this claim true? I am not a film specialist, I do not pretend to be one – but as a student and as a movie aficionado, I would argue that it is necessary to look at the intentions of the filmmakers and the expectations of the spectators when evaluating the implications of digital visual effects.  How much dosages of reality do the spectators expect? Whether they need reality or fantasy, digital effects used properly and effectively, give the spectators what they anticipate. What do filmmakers want to achieve in their films? Whether they intend to illuminate reality or provide a magical world that will extend the spectators’ critical thinking, digital effects, from my purview, enhance the capacity of films to project realism – if not, at least it aids filmmakers to achieve what they aimed to achieve in their firsts in the first place.

                The film Jurassic Park exudes exactly what digital effects can do – it demonstrated a sense of drama, excitement, and clarity in ways unseen before. Spielberg brought realistic images of dinosaurs that were tantalizing and enthralling giving the audience a new experience. No one has ever seen a live dinosaur, what is left as a trace of its existence are fossils and bones that does little to entice once senses. But the visual effects equipped the film with the means to represent objects embedded with logical realism though referentially fictitious. At the end of the day, films are inevitably a segment of reality.