Andre Bazin Reading_Andrew_Bowling

Somewhere about page 12, Bazin, got into realism and pseudo-realism. He prepares an argument that photography is what finally satisfies our insatiable need for realism and liberates painting from having to do so. I've heard this argument before and in some ways, it does seem true. But may I offer a thought that both mediums play more off the exploitation of realism, or our perception of it. For instance, advertising photography had a trend shortly after color became mainstream in the industry for "hyper-realism". Each photograph took realism to a hyperbolic state.

Flavorings of Walter Benjamin are also present. The statement on pg. 13 about the originality of a photograph relying on the objective nature of the lens, hints at the thoughts Benjamin had regarding an original works aura as it is reproduced. I do not feel that originality in photography is served by the objective nature of the lens because the originality is actually in the composition as the photographer chooses it, in addition to, how the photographer develops their film with the objective camera. It would be like saying the originality of digging a hole relies on the shovel when clearly there is a man operating the shovel and he has the choice to use it in a manner of his choosing. Either way you'll have a hole, but it will not be identical to another because the subject is temporal, just how photographs capture the temporal moments of life.

Which takes me back to the beginning of Bazin's essay, where he speaks of how the medium of art has been a way for man to preserve himself throughout time in lieu of death. He continues to state how traditional art forms are preserving life with a representation of it, but these days we are freed from that practice. He states now it is used to create an ideal version of the real. I do see how now, with the way which most of the world treats image making, primarily photography, that the practice has become flippant and at times, seeking the ideal. But in the early days of photography, the goal was not the ideal, but the preservation of someone's image for posterity in order to grant them importance because they have an image of themselves which may survive time.

His statement on pg 15 that cinema is an image of duration, and a mummificaiton of change is still valid even in the digital age. With video sites like Youtube have a cap on the duration of its videos at one time, the subjective choice of what to "mummify" was on the user's mind as they prepared to make a video. Sam Taylor Wood in her artwork, A Little Death, takes Bazin's idea inside out by "mummifying" an image of duration wherein a rabbit decomposes thereby keeping the temporal decay of the flesh stowed away in time. http://www.ubu.com/film/tw_death.html

Overall, he has some valid points. Clearly writing before the digital wash of all things having a camera, but still interesting in the way he forms his opinions and which ones still apply.