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Realism in Popular Cinema

Realism in Popular Cinema. Real-ization of True Stories. Table of Contents. 1) Realism and Popular Film Genres 2) Film Real-ization. Realism and Popular Film Genres. Realist filming strategies used in various cinematic genres.

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Realism in Popular Cinema

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  1. Realism in Popular Cinema Real-ization of True Stories

  2. Table of Contents 1) Realism and Popular Film Genres 2) Film Real-ization

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. Realism and Popular Film Genres • Revisionist Westerns • Sam Pekinpah’s Patt Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) • Graphic reality • Arthur Penn’s Missouri Breaks(1976) • All (cowboy/ sheriff) mannerisms are stripped off.

  6. Realism and Popular Film Genres • Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves (1990) • Better understanding of Indians, the Sioux tribe, and diatribe against the white self-righteousness. • Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992) • Retired ‘killer’ fails to reform himself. Blurring the lines between heroism and villainy, and good and evil.

  7. 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

  8. 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.

  9. Film Real-lization • Spectacular real-ization in James Cameron’s 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

  10. 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.

  11. Film Real-ization • Fred Zinneman’s 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. Film Real-ization • Timely and topical real-ization in Alan J. Pakura’s All the President’s Men (1976) • The most meticulous reenacting of the Watergate investigation by the two Washington post journalists.

  15. Film Real-ization • Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodword in Washington Post Office and Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the set

  16. 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.’

  17. Film Realization • Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) • The film recreates the investigation instigated by the officially discredited New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison.

  18. Film Real-ization • A range of realist forms of depiction • News footage and photographs culled from newspaper and TV reports • Recreated gritty documentary atmosphere

  19. 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.

  20. 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

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