FILM AND REALITY FILM AS ART Engl 332

FILM AND REALITY: FILM AS ART Engl 332 N. Langah

IS FILM ART? 1 s t view: Film cannot be art because it does nothing more than reproduce reality. The process is mechanical like photography in which light rays reflect the object are captured by the system of lenses and are then directed to a sensitive plate where they produce chemical changes. Photography and film thus become mechanical reproductions and have therefore no connection with art. 2 n d view: Film is like painting as it relates to artist’s eye, nervous system, hand painting

VISUAL REALITY OF FILMING AN OBJECT To understand the position of a cube placed on a table, how human eye (and the lens) see it depends on your positions in relation to the cube. If we want to photograph a cube, its not enough to bring it within the range of the camera. It Is rather a question of your position relative to the object. However, three surfaces of the cube and their relation to one another shows enough to make sense of what the object is.

FROM THIS EXAMPLE WE DEDUCT THAT: Camera is not just an automatic recording machine Even in its simplest photographic reproduction of a simple object, a feeling for its nature is required which is beyond any mechanical operation Film therefore becomes a kind of artistic photography which captures only those aspects that best show the characteristics of a particular objects selected deliberately for achieving special effects

THREE DIMENSIONAL IMPRESSION The distance between the two eyes make two slightly different images The fusion of these two images creates three-dimensional impression The effect of the film is neither two dimensional nor three dimensional, but something in between

THREE DIMENSIONAL IMPRESSION When three dimensional image is lost, constancy of form (size and shape) disappear: Example: How do two men of different heights look the same when the camera captures them in a film? If the camera is places on a table top, why does the front edge appear broader than the back? Such images produced through film are not just due to the reduction of three dimensionality but also due to the ‘unreal effect’ created within the film. The sizes and shapers do not appear on the screen in their true proportions.

SOURCES FROM COURSE PACK Rufolf Arnheim, From ‘Film as Art’ Film and Reality, pages 322 -331 Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Production’ pages. 791 -811