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Andre bazin ontology of the photographic image

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André Bazin was one of the most influential French film critics and theorists, essential in developing film criticism and theory. Bazin was born in Angers, France, in 1918 and firmly supported realism in Cinema, believing that the role of Cinema was to show the truth. He was one of the most influential figures in post-Second World War film studies and was one of the founders of Cahiers du Cinéma in 1951. Bazin's work has been influential across generations.

Bazin's approach to film stemmed from his belief that Cinema could achieve what other art forms could not: a direct link to reality. He was known to have said that he would rather have mise-en-scène than montage, meaning that he preferred to keep time and space intact and let the audience make sense of the scenes presented to them. This philosophy found proponents in directors like Orson Welles and Jean Renoir, whose films aligned with Bazin's focus on objectivity and depth.

Diagnosed with leukemia in 1954, Bazin died at the age of 40 in 1958. Despite his short life, he left behind several essays, most of which are co

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  • born: 18/Apr/1918
  • died: 11/Nov/1958

Biography

André Bazin was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist.

Bazin started to write about film in 1943 and was a co-founder of the film magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 1951, along with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Lo Duca. Bazin was a major force in post-World War II film studies and criticism. In addition to editing Cahiers until his death, a four-volume collection of his writings was published posthumously from 1958 to 1962 and titled Qu'est-ce que le cinéma? (What is Cinema?). A selection from this collection was translated into English and published in two volumes in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They became mainstays of film courses in the English-speaking world, but were never updated or revised.

Bazin believed that a film should represent a director's personal vision, rooted in the spiritual beliefs known as personalism. These ideas would have a pivotal importance on the development of the auteur theory, the manifesto for which was François Truffaut's 1954 Cahiers article "A Certain Tenden

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André Bazin
by
Dudley Andrew
  • LAST REVIEWED: 14 March 2024
  • LAST MODIFIED: 25 September 2018
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0006

  • Andrew, Dudley. “André Bazin.” In The Major Film Theories: An Introduction. By J. Dudley Andrew, 134–178. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.

    In this early textbook laying out film theory as a field, the chapter on Bazin positions him on the side of “realist theories” and in opposition to the “formative tradition.” He is differentiated from Kracauer through his views of cinema’s raw material (tracings of reality), its way of manipulating that material, and its purposes.

  • Andrew, Dudley. “André Bazin’s ‘Evolution.’” In Defining Cinema. Edited by Peter Lehman, 73–96. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997.

    The first half of this eighteen-page article lays out the logic underlying Bazin’s scattered writings. The second half examines the fate of those ideas in the debates that are part of film studies. Bazin’s refusal to “essentialize” cinema keeps his theory open to new developments

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