Andrew Sarris' Thought With Regard to Andre Bazin's Battle Cry Among the Critics for a Time - Essay Sample

Introduction

Andre Bazin, a French film critic, lived and worked in the first half of the 20th century and had his career and ideologies being greatly influenced by existentialism, which was a key philosophy in the 20th century. In particular, Bazin's theories are centered on existentialism, which is an empirical philosophy, which is primarily rooted in the daily existence. According to Bazin, this particularly focuses on questioning the existence of human beings as well as the position of man in the world. Besides, owing to his existentialist background, Bazin was greatly interested in realis and centered his school of thought on realism, as a movement that attempts to understand the world around human beings. This being said, the core intent of this essay is elaborate Andrew Sarris' thought with regard to Andre Bazin's battle cry among the critics for a time.

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To begin with, in one of his renowned works, Andrew Sarris, talks about William Wyler, whose credits extend officially from 1926 to 1970. According to Sarris, a keen study of William Wyler's film directing style substantiates the apparent differences for almost all his films with regard to his use of camera and in the quality of the photography. Besides, with reference to the theories by Bazin, or rather his cinematic beliefs, the works of the two film directors, Andrew Sarris and William Wyler, can be analyzed and each given the credits that are due. For instance, according to Bazin, cinema is an idealistic phenomenon that is only consequently technical. More specifically, Bazin, who was a humanist, held a high belief that the idea precedes the invention and hence is superior to the technical means that may be possibly used to achieve it. In a similar regard, Bazin considered cinema, an inherently realistic subject owing to its mechanical mediation of the camera.

Like Bazin, Sarris critiques about Wyler are said to be true. In particular, directors such as Sarris contended that critics during this period had always had a weakness for old antithesis, which was generally expressed in ringing catchphrases. An excellent example was Roger Leenhardt's and Sarris' famous phrase, "Down with Ford, long live Wyler!" Particularly, this sentiment not considered as an unfortunate one. However, it is overly unnecessary and uncalled for, to denigrate the works of one great director so as to elevate or even to make relevant, the works of another.

During the 20th century, a time when renowned directors such as Wyler and Bazin, were dominant in the film industry, Wyler pointed out that depth imagery in the film gave the directors the authority to minimize editing. Therefore, instead of cutting from action to the reaction that is both seen at the same time, Wyler contends that this particular ideology gave the film viewers more liberty with regard to where to look, a rationale that Andre Bazin seized upon, as a crucial part of his theory and aesthetic of realism. This, with reference to Bazin's work, means that just as in the real world, certain films compel their viewers to choose what it is that they would like to pay attention to (Cardullo, 2017).

With reference to William Wyler's works, Sarris points out that through his directed film, "The Little Foxes, (1941)" Wyler exemplified what was deemed as the most famous shots in the American cinema. In this particular film, Wyler skilfully came up with ways that could make the deep shots of the film to comment upon the plot. This, in essence, is in line with Bazin's idea and belief of the ability of cinema to record and to capture the event in time. This, according to Bazin, makes an imprint of the duration of the object, hence elevating it above photography. Besides, with reference to Wyler's The Little Foxes, the action of the film offered Regina's daughter, commonly referred to as Zan, a choice of being tough and vicious just like her mother or gentle and tolerant like her father. However, there are also points that Zan has paralleled her alcoholic and ineffectual aunt, Birdie. Therefore, based on this contextual base, in theatre production, these parallels would have been ideally created using various staging strategies. However, Wyler chooses to make use of one specific strategy that is mirrored in a single scene. Particularly, in the film, when Regina and her brothers come together to plot their scheme, Birdie is evidently relegated to a chair that is not close to where the discussion is taking place at. This can be interpreted based on Bazin's theories and belief in the sense that, despite the fact that the potential for human intervention is always present, like Wyler did, according to Bazin's theories, the filmmaker is indebted to the complexity of reality to avoid the overwrought formalist mediation and to refrain from the false subjective manipulation.

Andrew Sarris, on the other hand, through his works, he is considered as one of the most influential directors and among the great perceptive observers of the American version of auteurism, who were strongly impacted by Andre Bazin's theories and cinematic thoughts. Sarris centered his work on what he referred to as the auteur theory, which was not primarily a theory of cinema but rather a heuristic approach to criticism. During Sarris's period, a majority of the people who wrote about the history of film as an art accepted a notion of technical progress. With reference to this view, filmmakers became of great significance through their contribution towards the development of the medium (Sarris, 1998). Thus, drawing from this contextual base, even Andre Bazin is said to accept the premises of step-by-step artistic progress. Also, Sarris's work can be analyzed with reference to Bazin's theory, owing to the fact that Bazin, through his cinematic thought, exemplified that sound cinema was not a dead end. Instead, new artistic possibilities were exploited both in the 1930s and the 1940s. In particular, there were some alternatives to the editing-based techniques, specifically the long take, deep-focus cinematography, deep-space staging, and the extended camera movement, among others. However, according to Bazin, these were techniques that were most fully on display in the works of renowned directors such as Wyler, Welles, Renoir, and certain Neo-realists.

Conclusion

Drawing from his book, "You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet," it is evident that the ideologies of Bazin deeply influenced Sarris. However, unlike other director's Sarris did not believe in the ideology of the conception of film history as an accumulated technical evolution. Instead, according to Sarris, film history should be deemed as an inverted pyramid that opens outwards to accommodate the unpredictable diversity as well as the range of specific directors.

References

Cardullo, R. J. (2017). Stars and Goddesses. Andre Bazin, the Critic as Thinker, 59-77. doi:10.1007/978-94-6300-878-5_3

Sarris, A. (1998). "You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet": The American Talking Film: History and Memory 1927-1949. Oxford University Press, USA.