Formalism and Realism

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• Understanding Realism and Formalism in Film Essay

  ...Louis Gianneti in his text Understanding Movies- Eleventh Edition, realism and formalism are general terms. These terms can be applied to portions of or scenes in a movie. They can show the tendency of the movie to lean toward one style over the other, but rarely can be applied to an entire movie. Both realism and formalism use reality as a foundation, but differ in how the reality is emphasized or shaped. The style of realism typically captures events as they happen, similar to how a person would view the events in real life. The portrayal should be depicted with a minimum of distortion. Realism attempts to preserve the idea that the world of film is unaltered, as if viewing the world through a window. A documentary film is an example of extreme realism. The style of formalism shows scenes as they can be imagined. They’re deliberately stylized and / or distorted using methods such as slow motion or adding colors into scenes. For example, in Shcindler’s List, a scene is shot in black and white except for a little girls red jacket. The viewer is forced to watch this little girl because we assume that she is important since she is the only color in a washed out scene. Formalism depicts scenes in a way that a person can not see with the eye in real life. Avant garde films are an example of extreme formalism. In the...

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• Essay about Formalism

  ...FORMALISM (also known as NEW CRITICISM) A Basic Approach to Reading and Understanding Literature Formalist theory has dominated the American literary scene for most of the twentieth century, and it has retained its great influence in many academic quarters. Its practitioners advocate methodical and systematic readings of texts. The major premises of New Criticism include: "art for art's sake," "content = form," and "texts exist in and for themselves." These premises lead to the development of reading strategies that isolate and objectify the overt structures of texts as well as authorial techniques and language usage. With these isolated and objective readings, New Criticism aims to classify, categorize, and catalog works according to their formal attributes. Along the way, New Criticism wants to pull out and discuss any universal truths that literary works might hold concerning the human condition. These truths are considered by New Critics to be static, enduring, and applicable to all humanity. Leading new critics include I.A. Richards, Cleanth Brooks, Northrop Frye, John Crowe Ransom, T.S. Eliot, and Roman Jacobsen. These thinkers consider literature to be a language game in which communication becomes semi-transparent. They reject Impressionism, moral tones, and philological studies, and believe that written works should work mostly on the intellect. The rise of New Criticism coincides with that of modern literature, probably because of...

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• Realism Essay

  ...Realism, like the word real, can be defined as the belief in reality. A view that there is a form of ultimate truth even. ‘I argue that the most plausible version of realism is the correspondence theory of truth’ (Realism and the correspondence theory of truth, preface.) It is being able to comprehend and deal with a certain situation while at the same time accepting it. Realism finds its origins somewhere in the late nineteenth century dating from around 1830-1870. It was introduced in France after the 1848 revolution. With regards to Politics as a subject, it is the belief in Politics as a political power instead of a scenario with principles. Realism comes in many forms, for example, scientific realism is the belief that all truth can be found in the subject of science and the laws of Physics, a lot of people would disagree with this however. What about Moral Realism? That is, People believing that separated from culture there is an ethical and moral truth. Liberalism on the other hand is derived from the latin word liberalis meaning free. It is favouring reform for social progress rather than by revolution. It is having a free way of thinking in both aspects of life, the public and the private. Liberalism also dates back to the 18th century, the age of ‘enlightenment’ as it was known as back then. Like Realism, there are also many forms of Liberalism...

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• Realism Essay

  ...REALISM Realism as a philosophy flourished in the 18th and 19th century and was revived after the Second World War. E.H Carr, George Kennan, Thompson, Schumann and Morgenthau were its leading exponents. Morgenthau is generally recognized as its main proponent. He was the first one to develop a realist model and the central focus of realism, according to him was power. His theory was developed in the form of six principles of political realism. Following are those six principles: 1. Politics governed by objective laws based on Human nature: Morgenthau contended that the laws which govern the human nature are consistent and eternal. Such laws are impervious to human preferences and as such cannot be refuted and challenged. Man is the mixture of good and bad, selfishness and altruism; he fights and he loves; he murders and sacrifices himself for others. And above all his is a story of war and peace. ” Consequently, the aim should be to ascertain facts and interpret them through our reason.” This means that it is possible to develop a theory that reflects the laws governing human nature which would assist us in differentiating between truth and opinion which would further help us “put ourselves in the position of a statesman” and predict what he should rationally do. They can be collected as facts from the history through empirical and logical devices. However, this collection and the conclusion we must be...

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• Formalism and Realism in the Movie Hero Essay

  ...of China and becoming the first Emperor. He had been the target of assassins throughout the other states. Among them none inspired as much fear as the three legendary assassins, Broken Sword, Flying Snow and Sky. To anyone who defeated the three assassins, the King of Qin promised great power, mountains of gold and a private audience with the King himself. Following this Nameless came to the palace bearing the legendary weapons of the slain assassins, sitting in the palace, and told his extraordinary tale. Journal question: How does the colour cinematography of Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) contribute to formalism? “In art theory, formalism is the concept that a work’s artistic value is entirely determined by its form—the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content.” . In Hero, Zhang Yimou combines cinematography with mise en scène to bring his own vision of the story, particularly with the use of certain colours. There are a total of five colours in this movie which choosed to express different versions or point of views ; black, white, red, blue, and green. Zhang Yimou uses the four colours, Red, Green, Blue and White, to tie in four different segments of the story. On the other hand, each of them also contains a different story The King of Qin’s palace is black, enlivened only...

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• Realism Essay

  ...The News: Realism, Narrative and Form ________________________________________ The questions of Realism, bias and representation take us back to the material we looked at in the first two weeks of the course. As I have tried to stress, when we look at the issue of "realism" and the "representation of reality" in the media we have to be aware of the fact that the media always presents a "mediated" version of that reality, on its own terms. Sociological, political, cultural and ideological influences determine the way in which the media presents (or constructs) reality to us, as does the all-important influence of financial and economic factors. Also, in terms of the forms and conventions of media texts themselves, media texts re-package "reality", presenting events in terms of "stories", with a structure ("beginning., middle and end"), with characters and from a particular point of view. This takes us back to the work we looked at in the second week of the course, on Narrative. If we look at the News we can see that various political, social and cultural factors do impinge on the version of "reality" which the News presents to us. British News may well deal with international affairs, but its main focus is likely to be British in focus, as opposed to the News presented by CNN or the American TV news programmes. Furthermore, the News organisations (BBC, ITN, Sky News etc.), are bound by British legal and political...

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• Realism Essay

  ...Chase Christy Mrs. Hale ENG III-5 21 October 2012 Final Copy In reading “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” one can obtain a better understanding of the characteristics of American Realism, such as the untold truth, grim negative points, and expression through dialogue. Ambrose Bierce, through the use of his short story, illustrates that events can happen in American society day in and day out regardless of perception. American Realism erupted during the 1865-1910 time period, the era following the civil war. Ambrose Bierce, the author of the short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, is a realist author who was prior a Union officer.(Painter) Through this life changing experience Ambrose Bierce had near death experiences and one can assume that he is somewhat attached to death in the way he begins and ends his stories (Lutz). During the important realism literary time period many authors elaborated on what “Realism” is and how it affected the lives of many as opposed to few. "Realism sets itself at work to consider characters and events which are apparently the most ordinary and uninteresting, in order to extract from these their full value and true meaning (Geroge). The concept of realism is one’s daily experiences that happen occur day in and day out regardless of perception (Realism, In Philosophy). From the eventful, to the uneventful happenings throughout...

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• Realism Essay

  ...Literature 6 April 2015 Realism, Naturalism, Modernism In literature, the term naturalism is used to describe a type literature that tries to apply scientific approaches of detachment and objectivity to its study living creatures and human beings. Unlike realism which attempts to focus on literal technique, naturalism entails philosophical position for naturalistic authors since human beings are ‘human beasts’—characters that can be analyzed through their interactions with their environments. This literal analysis will explore the theme of naturalism/ realism as exemplified in the three stories and three poems. The three short stories that will be analyzed includes: The living is easy by Dorothy West, Blueprint for Negro writing by Richard Wright and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Moreover, it will explore three poems namely; we real cool, the lovers of the poor and Malcolm X. Realism is the representation of something on stage as they appear in real life situation. In the narrative, A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry uses the classical narrative realism style to develop the plot of the narrative. The entire narrative is centered on many characters. The main protagonist in the narrative are Mama, Beneatha, Walter lee, Ruth and Travias. When the narrative is presented, its plot is usually changed and interrupted and the main conflicts are resolved at the end of the narrative. The...

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