Monday, February 22, 2016


Although I found Bazin’s article to be somewhat difficult to grasp, I found his overarching argument that editing is essential to film to be concrete. Bazin first discuses the changes to film language through 1920-1940 and notes that the two main trends were filmmakers who put their faith in the image versus those who put their faith in reality. He then explains that by “image” he means everything that can be depicted and added to the screen, and furthermore, that there are two types: plasticity of the image and the resources of editing. Bazin makes the argument that editing has strong effects on the psychological effect and overall viewing experience and interpretation of a film. Bazin first focuses on parallel editing, accelerated editing, and montage of attractions. These are defined as two showing simultaneous actions in separate spaces through series of shots of each, shorter and shorts shots, and reinforcement of meaning of an image by juxtaposing it with another image not necessarily associated with the meaning (defined respectively).  Moreover, Bazin defines non-expressionist cinema as cinema in which editing plays no role. Furthermore, Bazin also focuses on the role of technological advancements, as they contribute to the evolution of film language and the role of silent cinema, in order to prove the role of editing and its importance to film language.

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