Essay On Film Realism And Formalism

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Film Making Styles: Realism vs. Formalism All successful filmmakers seek to create an image that will stay with the viewer even after the movie is over. The responsibility of the director is to tell the audience what they should be seeing and how they should be seeing it. Thus being understood, there are different styles of film making. Deciding what type of film being made depends on what type of response the director’s trying to gain from the viewer. What type of film making styles do film directors’ prefer to use? There is three styles of film making: realism, classicism, and formalism; formalism also being known as expressionist. Generally, the two main used styles are: realism style or the reality based film and formalism the fantasy …show more content…

Editing when using the formalism style is mandatory, to create another reality and for combining two or more realities into one film. The director uses editing in this way to force the viewer to understand they are only watching a movie, and not witnessing reality. According to the article “Formalism vs. Realism,” “Plot elements will be symbolic and sets will look like sets, with a clear indication the scene is self contained, not part of a larger scene.” The book “Understanding Movies” describes formalism as “…fantasy films that emphasized purely imagined events” (Giannetti 02). The first formalism film “A Trip to the Moon” in 1902 was created by the founder of the formalism style George Melies, a French magician whose intent was to create magic in the movies. Animated movies are easily recognized as being formalism, since animation is a series of drawings, and not actual people--they are cartoon characters. Nevertheless, animation is entirely based on the director’s imagination and artistic vision; even if the animated characters have been blended together with a cast of real life Hollywood actors to play some of the main roles in the film. The use of the formalism in this way is apparent in the 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” by Robert Zemeckis a formalistic styled

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