Realism in Popular Cinema

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Realism in Popular Cinema

• Real-ization of True Stories

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Table of Contents

• 1) Realism and Popular Film Genres
• 2) Film Real-ization

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Realism and Popular Film Genres

• Realist filming strategies used in various
  cinematic genres.
• Techniques and styles associated with film
  realism -- natural ingredients of certain genres
• Historical drama, biographical film, political
  thriller, e.g.

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Realism and Popular Film Genres

• Realist techniques and styles are also employed
  in other genres
• Melodrama, gangster film, and Western
• Especially when they are in need of renovation
  and rejuvenation.

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Realism and Popular Film Genres

• Revisionist Westerns
• Sam Pekinpahs Patt Garrett and Billy the Kid
  (1973)
• Graphic reality
• Arthur Penns Missouri Breaks (1976)
• All (cowboy/ sheriff) mannerisms are stripped off.

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Realism and Popular Film Genres

• Kevin Costners Dances with Wolves (1990)
• Better understanding of Indians, the Sioux tribe,
  and diatribe against the white self-righteousness.
  
• Clint Eastwoods Unforgiven (1992)
• Retired killer fails to reform himself.
  Blurring the lines between heroism and villainy,
  and good and evil.

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Realism and Popular Film Genres

• To regenerate the cultural status of the genre in
  their realistic treatment of the subject in their
  own way
• Pat Garrett and Missouri Breaks draw on realist
  techniques associated with European art cinema.
• Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven refer to the
  aspects of the historical past that the genre
  ignored

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Film Real-ization

• Real-ization of a true story, a past event, and a
  historical fact.
• Realist filming techniques and realist narrative
  techniques are the most often used for such
  real-ization films.
• Historical drama, bio-pic (biographical
  pictures), political thrillers
• REALITY AND TRUTH EFFECTS THAT THEY ACHIEVE VARY
  A GREAT DEAL from film to film.

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Film Real-lization

• Spectacular real-ization in James Camerons
  Titanic (1998)
• An authentic mise-en-scène based on
  contemporary and historical verisimilitude.
• The opening sequence of the film has the
  appearance of a glossy documentary until the
  flashback sequences begin

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Film Real-ization

• The story of this epic disaster is retold using
  the ostensibly true story of a (fictionalized)
  survivor.
• It is dissolved into a conventional narrative of
  disruption, heroic action and resolution.

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Film Real-ization

• Fred Zinnemans The Day of the Jackal (1973)
  turned a fictionalized historical event into a
  film.
• A British assassin hired to kill President
  Charles De Gaulle, a fiction by Frederick Forsyth
• Complete historical accuracy achieved in the
  film.

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Film Real-ization

• Totally convincing recreation of France in the
  1960s and the military parade of President
  Charles de Gaulle, combining actual newsreel and
  restaged images.
• Documentary-like observation of the assassin and
  the assassination attempt in grainy photography.

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Film Real-ization

• The film is adapted from Frederic Forsyth
  thriller fiction based on a thorough research on
  the political situation in France in the 1960s.
  The film managed to make a fiction look as if it
  were a historical event.

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Film Real-ization

• Timely and topical real-ization in Alan J.
  Pakuras All the Presidents Men (1976)
• The most meticulous reenacting of the Watergate
  investigation by the two Washington post
  journalists.

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Film Real-ization

• Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodword in Washington
  Post Office and Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman
  in the set

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Film Real-ization

• The film focuses not on the scandal itself but
  the two journalists, with many omissions. It
  touches only on a investigation part of the
  entire reality called Watergate scandal.

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Film Realization

• Oliver Stones JFK (1991)
• The film recreates the investigation instigated
  by the officially discredited New Orleans
  district attorney Jim Garrison.

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Film Real-ization

• A range of realist forms of depiction
• News footage and photographs culled from
  newspaper and TV reports
• Recreated gritty documentary atmosphere

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Film Real-ization

• Both real and recreated TV news and documentary
  footage shot on 16 mm, home movies shot on 8 mm.,
  models, diagrams, press photos, and reconstructed
  photos woven together.
• They are displayed in a courtroom.

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Film Real-ization

• Controversies
• Fictionalization rather than real-ization of
  history
• Distortion of the past
• Mixing of factual materials with re-enactment
  sequences
• Rapid editing style
• Aggressive delivering of messages
• ? MANIPULATION OF SPECTATORS