In David Bordwell’s essay, “The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice”, we learn about a new style of film called art film. Art film is a style of film that emphasizes realism and ambiguity. They stylistically run smoothly and “drift” through the story.

In the essay, Bordwell mentions how Andre Bazin was one of the first people to become an art film critic and this makes sense. Art film’s random nature is close to what Andre Bazin sees as total cinema. Bazin defines total cinema as the point where cinema is indistinguishable from reality. The way Art Film is constructed is similar to this in a thematic sense. Although it may not feel like the viewer is fully immersed into the environment of the scene, the viewer feels as if they are living a life that can be similar to their own.

In a typical movie, the characters have clear traits and goals that are progressed throughout the film. In art cinema however, characters act in an erratic nature where their actions are unpredictable. The plot of these films are also very inconsistent. Bordwell explains that in some of these films, characters may simply “wander out and never reappear”. This I feel mirrors our own lives. Life in itself is unpredictable. We can’t predict the actions of others and we meet people that we build a connection with and then just never see them again.

When considering the spatial and temporal relations in art films, Bordwell explains that the realism encompasses a numerous amount of possibilities, ranging from “documentary factuality” to “intense psychological subjectivity”. Because of this, Bordwell explains that we are able to reason that when there are deviations from the typical spatial and temporal relations, we can justify it with a method of demonstrating the unpredictable reality of life and the reality of subjectivity when evaluating characters. This draws a connection to evaluating people in real life.

What deviates art film from total cinema though is its aspect of authorial expression. With the goal of making an art film, the directors are free from using the expected norms and typical elements in film and use their own form of expression. The authors are able to use their signature technical touches and obsessively illustrate the motifs they want to display. These unrealistic but extremely creative and intelligent features add to the film in a thematic sense but begin the deviance from the realism.

The combination of both realism and authorial expression seems to be difficult to unify but art film does it with the use of ambiguity. When the film deviates from the classical norm with gaps and problems, the viewer is likely left confused. Bordwell explains that these gaps or problems are placed as either a expression of realism in that this “thing” happened because that’s the way life goes or it is authorial commentary meaning that these gaps are made up for interpretation. In every gap, one of these elements is displayed and it is up to the viewer to evaluate this ambiguity.

Now I ask, what do you think? Is art film so far from total cinema?