New Realism after the 1980s

New Realism after the 1980s

Works by Young Auteurs

Table of Contents

1) Schema and Formula in Art

2) Schema and Formula in Cinema

3) Realism after the 1980s

4) Filmmakers of New Realism

Schema and Formula

• Our perception of reality surrounding us or represented in the film is organized by our knowledge and our previous experience of it.

• The artist’s (filmmaker’s) perception (how reality looks like) is, too, based on the same mechanism.

Schema and Formula

• (Such knowledge or experience is variously named but) some art historians prefer to call it:

SCHEMA OR FORMULA

Schema and Formula

‘The trained drawer acquire a mass of schemata by which he can produce a schema of an animal, a flower or a house quickly upon paper. This serves as a support for the representation of his memory images and he gradually modifies the schema until it corresponds with that which he would express. Many drawers who are deficient in schemata … cannot draw from the object.’ F.C. Ayer

Schema and Formula

• A countless number of primers, books and dictionaries teach both amateurs and professionals HOW TO DRAW (schemata of) trees, birds, sailing boats, aeroplanes, horses, hands, feet, and eyes.

• These volumes work on the same principle we would expect from schema and formula.

Schema and Formula

‘Remember that wherever a branch divides, the stem grows correspondingly thinner, so that, if you draw a circle round the crown of the tree, the sections of every twig must add up to the thickness of the trunk.’ Leonardo Da Vinci

Schema and Formula in Cinema

• Filmmaker’s previous visual experience, knowledge and training determines his/her way of creating realist images.

• Spectator’s previous visual experience and knowledge influence his/her visual judgement of whether filmic images look realistic or not.


• The introduction of VIDEO CAMERA• Even lighter than a light-weight hand-held

camera and can record longer with improved visual quality

→ transformation of film styles • Inexpensive and convenient; wide ownership• → change in visual perception


• Video images began to dominate the TV screen and become more frequently seen in cinema since the 1980s

• as TV news and TV documentaries

• Amateur video images are seen at home

• Home video


• Such video images and filming styles come to be associated with film realism

because

• We KNOW reality - actual people, events and happenings - should look like those images.


• Reality has come to look like the video images we look on TV (Not video images look like reality).

• An image constructed by video camera becomes a schema for how reality should look like.

• ‘…modernity has changed events into imagery.’ Fredric Jameson


• Documentary footage for television news and documentaries

• e.g. BBC coverage of the war in Bosnia

• People’s Century (1999)


• Michael Winterbottom’s Welcome to Sarajevo (1997)

• Juddering handheld camera; low-resolution pixelated images

Realism after the 1980s1980s Video camera (light, small, mobile, long-take but resolution and durability are drawbacks)1990s Digital video camera (light, small, mobile, long-take, after-filming manipulation becomes possible)

For truth effects: filmmakers since the 1980s use the imagesrecorded by video cameras, following the schemadeveloped by that time. Especially when they want to give their films a realist edge.

Realism after the 1980s

Schemata when realistic images are created:

LOOSER COMPOSITION, ABRUPT rather than

fluid CAMERA MOVEMENTS, INCOMPLETE

LIGHTING OF OBJECTS, JAGGED JAMP

CUTS


• Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives (1992)

• Entirely shot with handheld cameras by Carlo di Palma

• Photographer for Antonioni and Bertolucci

• CLIP

http://en.sevenload.com/videos/6Uv4ARy-HUSBANDS-AND-WIVES


Sandrine Veysset’s Will It Snow for Christmas (1996)

Wim Wender’s Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Michael Winterbottom (1961 - )

• Has produced a strikingly varied body of works

• Some films managed extremely realistic representation of the world we live in.


• Butterfly Kiss (1994)• Spiky road movie with a lesbian serial killer and a s

hop assistant at a roadside petrol station• Visually realistic representations of the dreary geogr

aphy of Northern England - motorway tarmac, cafés, petrol station, and hotel.


• In this World (2002)

• The journey taken by two Afghan boys from a refugee camp in Pakistan to London

New Auteurs in Film Realism• The film was shot on

digital video camera.• Winterbottom and th

e writer Tony Grisoni retraced the journey that two young asylum seekers made from the refugee camp in Peshawar through Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey to Europe .

New Auteurs in Film Realism• Winterbottom and his

crew went back to Peshawar, found people who appeared in the film and improvised the dialogues as the filming progressed.

New Auteurs in Film Realism• Jean-Pierre Dardenne

(1951 - ) and Luc Dardenne (1954)

• Makers of documentary films since the 1970s

• Their Rosetta won the Palm d’Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival

• Creators of extremely naturalistic films about lower class lives in Belgium.

New Auteurs in Film Realism• Le Fils (2002)• Olivier, a carpenter, empl

oys a young man as an apprentice. Oliver discovers the young man was involved in the death of his own son but the latter is now aware of it.

• Quasi documentary images

• Carpentry is observed unstinting attentions to its details

New Auteurs in Film Realism• Dogme 95• A collective of film directors founded in Co

penhagen in spring 1995• Publication of a slightly tongue in cheek

manifesto and VOW OF CHASTITY• A slightly parodic rescue mission - to save

cinema from bourgeoisification• Collectivism, not individualism• Avant-garde, not conformistm • Filmmaking policy in the age of democracy

New Auteurs in Film Realism• VOW OF CHASTITY

1) Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.)

2) The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.)

New Auteurs in Film Realism• 3) The camera must hand-held. Any mo

vement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take place where the film takes place.)

• 4) The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera.)

New Auteurs in Film Realism5) Optical work and filters are forbidden.

6) The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)

7) Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)

8) Genre movies are not acceptable.

9) The film format must be Academy 35 mm.

10) The director must not be credited.


• Dogme #1

• Festen (Celebration, 1998)

• Directed by Thomas Vinterberg


• Dogme #2

• Idioten (The Idiots, 1998)

• Lars von Trier


• Dogme #3

• Mifune Sidste Sang (Mifune, 1999)

• Søren Kragh-Jacobsen


• Dogme #4

• The King Is Alive (2000)

• Directed by Kristian Levring

New Auteurs in Film Realism• Dogme #5 • Lovers (France, 199

9)• Jean-Marc Barr• Dogme #6 • Julien Donkey Boy (U

SA, 1999)• Dogme #7• Interview (South Kor

ea, 1999)


• Dogme #8 Fuckland (Argentina, 2000)• Dogme #9 Babylon (Sweden, 2001) • Dogme #10 Chetzemoka’s Curse (USA,

2001)• Dogme # 11 Diapason (Italy, 2001)• Dogme #12 Italiensk For Begyndere (Italia

n for Beginners, 2000)

Documents

New Realism after the 1980s