André Bazin was a renowned and influential Frenchfilm critic and film theorist. Bazin started to write about film in 1943 and was a co-founder of the renowned film magazineCahiers du cinéma in 1951, along with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. He is notable for arguing that realism is the most important function of cinema. His call for objective reality, deep focus, and lack of montage are linked to his belief that the interpretation of a film or scene should be left to the spectator. This placed him in opposition to film theory of the 1920s and 1930s, which emphasized how the cinema could manipulate reality.
Life
Bazin was born in Angers, France, in 1918. He met future film and television producer Janine while working at Labour and Culture, a militant organization associated with the French Communist party during WWII and eventually they both married in 1949 with a son named Florent afterwards. He died in 1958, age 40, of leukemia.
Film criticism
Bazin started to write about film in 1943 and was a co-founder of the renowned film magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 1951, along with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. Bazin was a major force in post-World War II film studies and criticism. He edited Cahiers until his death, and a four-volume collection of his writings was published posthumously, covering the years 1958 to 1962 and titled Qu'est-ce que le cinéma?. 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. In 2009, the Canadian publisher Caboose, taking advantage of more favourable Canadian copyright laws, compiled fresh translations of some of the key essays from the collection in a single-volume edition. With annotations by translator Timothy Barnard, this became the only corrected and annotated edition of these writings in any language. In 2018 this volume was replaced by a more extensive collection of Bazin's texts translated by Barnard, André Bazin: Selected Writings 1943-1958. The long-held standard view of Bazin's critical system is that he argued for films that depicted what he saw as "objective reality". He advocated the use of deep focus, wide shots and the "shot-in-depth", and preferred what he referred to as "true continuity" through mise-en-scène over experiments in editing and visual effects. This placed him in opposition to film theory of the 1920s and 1930s, which emphasized how the cinema could manipulate reality. The concentration on objective reality, deep focus, and lack of montage are linked to Bazin's belief that the interpretation of a film or scene should be left to the spectator. He watched film as personally as he expected the director to undertake it. His personal friendships with many directors he wrote about also furthered his analysis of their work. He became a central figure not only in film critique, but in bringing about certain collaborations, as well. Bazin also preferred long takes to montage editing. He believed that less was more, and that narrative was key to great film. Bazin, who was influenced by personalism, believed that a film should represent a director's personal vision. This idea had a pivotal importance in the development of the auteur theory, the manifesto for which François Truffaut's article, "A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema", was published by his mentor Bazin in Cahiers in 1954. Bazin also championed directors like Howard Hawks, William Wyler and John Ford.
François Truffaut dedicated The 400 Blows to Bazin, who died one day after shooting commenced on the film.
Richard Linklater's film Waking Life features a discussion between filmmaker Caveh Zahedi and poet David Jewell regarding some of Bazin's film theories. There is an emphasis on Bazin's Christianity and the belief that every shot is a representation of God manifested in creation.
In English
Bazin, André.. André Bazin: Selected Writings 1943-1958 Montreal: caboose,
