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New Realism after the 1980s

• Works by Young Auteurs

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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

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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 artists (filmmakers) creation (how reality
  looks like) is, too, based on the same mechanism.
  When he/she creates, he/she does so following
  his/her prior knowledge and previous experience.

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Schema and Formula

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

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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

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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. Manuals are
  collections of schemata and formulae.
• Teaching arts is teaching schemata and formulae.

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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

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Schema and Formula in Cinema

• Filmmakers previous visual experience, knowledge
  and training determines his/her way of creating
  realist images.
• Spectators previous visual experience and
  knowledge influence his/her visual judgement of
  whether filmic images look realistic or not.

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Schema and Formula in Cinema

• 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

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Schema and Formula in Cinema

• 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

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Schema and Formula in Cinema

• Such video images and filming styles come to be
  associated with film realism
• because
• We KNOW reality - actual people, events and
  happenings - through images created by (digital
  video camera).
• Our knowledge and experience reality should look
  like the one recorded on video camera.

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Schema and Formula in Cinema

• 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

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Schema and Formula in Cinema

• Documentary footage for television news and
  documentaries
• e.g. BBC coverage of the war in Bosnia
• Peoples Century (1999)

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Schema and Formula in Cinema

• Michael Winterbottoms Welcome to Sarajevo (1997)
• Juddering handheld camera low-resolution
  pixelated images

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Realism after the 1980s

• 1980s 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 reality effects
• filmmakers since the 1980s use the images
• recorded by video cameras, following the schema
• developed by that time.
• Especially when they want to give their films a
• realist edge.

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Realism after the 1980s

• Techniques derived from schemata for realistic
  images
• LOOSER COMPOSITION, ABRUPT rather than
• fluid CAMERA MOVEMENTS, INCOMPLETE
• LIGHTING OF OBJECTS, JAGGED JAMP
• CUTS

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Realism after the 1980s

• Woody Allens Husbands and Wives (1992)
• Entirely shot with handheld cameras by Carlo di
  Palma
• Photographer for Antonioni and Bertolucci
• CLIP

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Realism after the 1980s

• Sandrine Veyssets Will It Snow for Christmas
  (1996)
• Wim Wenders Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

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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.

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Butterfly Kiss (1994)
• Spiky road movie with a lesbian serial killer and
  a shop assistant at a roadside petrol station
• Visually realistic representations of the dreary
  geography of Northern England - motorway tarmac,
  cafés, petrol station, and hotel.

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• In this World (2002)
• The journey taken by two Afghan boys from a
  refugee camp in Pakistan to London

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• The film was shot on digital video camera.
• Winterbottom and the 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 .

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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.

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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 dOr at the 1999
  Cannes Film Festival
• Creators of extremely naturalistic films about
  lower class lives in Belgium.

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Le Fils (2002)
• Olivier, a carpenter, employs 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

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Dogme 95
• A collective of film directors founded in
  Copenhagen 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

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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.)

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• 3) The camera must hand-held. Any movement 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.)

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• 5) 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.

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Dogme 1
• Festen (Celebration, 1998)
• Directed by Thomas Vinterberg

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Dogme 2
• Idioten (The Idiots, 1998)
• Lars von Trier

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Dogme 3
• Mifune Sidste Sang (Mifune, 1999)
• Søren Kragh-Jacobsen

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Dogme 4
• The King Is Alive (2000)
• Directed by Kristian Levring

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Dogme 5
• Lovers (France, 1999)
• Jean-Marc Barr
• Dogme 6
• Julien Donkey Boy (USA, 1999)
• Dogme 7
• Interview (South Korea, 1999)

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New Auteurs in Film Realism

• Dogme 8 Fuckland (Argentina, 2000)
• Dogme 9 Babylon (Sweden, 2001)
• Dogme 10 Chetzemokas Curse (USA, 2001)
• Dogme 11 Diapason (Italy, 2001)
• Dogme 12 Italiensk For Begyndere (Italian for
  Beginners, 2000)