The Evolution of Film Language

Andrew Bazin's piece "The Evolution of Film Language" explains his perceived schism in the art of filmmaking that arose due to the advent of sound. I found it interesting that he viewed the silent cinema as a perfect art form, one that had a firm grasp on all possibilities offered by composition and editing. The arrival of sound as a key component of filmmaking added new dimension and countless opportunities to the already impressive power of cinema. Bazin outlines this power through his analysis of the psychological effect of editing, specifically the Kuleshov edit, which results in views subconsciously implying inferred meaning from the juxtaposition of two shots. The impact of editing, according to Bazin, is what allowed film to transcend its lowly "moving pictures" label and establish itself as a full-fledged language to be learned, analyzed, interpreted, and evaluated. Suspension of disbelief is usually strong enough to dissuade audiences from pondering the motives underlying all a film's "invisible" edits, yet these very edits are what structures a film into a coherent, digestible, text worthy of inspection, and as Bazin argues, a work of art deserving of praise. Bazin also introduces the important concept of decoupage, which is how the capturing of various mise en scenes are artfully stitched together to create a heightened sense of meaning that would have otherwise been unachievable.