By Aliaksandr Martyniuk
One of the key issues in comprehending cinema is its correlation with reality. We speak of comprehension, implying a possible relativistic and even ethical acceptance of existing concepts and stances. First, it should be noted that the ideological field of the struggle for reality in film remains as yet unoccupied. Therefore, the question of whether the avant-garde and revolutionary in cinema are doomed to remain an illusion, a fantasy, or a virtual reality remains open.
Filmic Reality In Cinema
The appeal to the physical goes back to the etymology of the word reality. Reality, from the Latin realis/res, means real, actually existing, having physical existence (not imaginary).
But before we examine this point, let us look back at how earlier films approached reality in cinema. For example, in the late-Soviet parody comedy-western A Man from the Boulevard des Capucines, the culturally barbarous cowboys cannot distinguish between projection and reality. They see the footage of the train’s arrival as the train itself, which comes at the audience from the saloon wall.
Most importantly, the protagonist, Mr. First, a projectionist and evangelist of the new art, is about to explain it to the backwoods audience. After that, reality in the town will be completely transformed. Now the cultured cowboys realize that the train on the screen is not a real train, and also that in real love—which is in their understanding merely carnal—there also exist sublime feelings. Accordingly, the cinematography becomes an ennobling reality. It is a metaphor for the historical path of the public from the reality of the cinema booth attractions to the time-image reality according to Gilles Deleuze.
Reality in cinema takes a different turn in Jean-Luc Godard’s “The Carabineers”.
The movie’s character, a village proletariat, takes the screen at face value. During the screening, he tries to physically penetrate the screen. Unlike the cowboys, he is disappointed with the projection. It is not enough for him. Projection may satisfy the feeble-minded bourgeois audience, but for him it loses out to reality, and he returns to his normal life. This approach would turn out to be characteristic of Godard’s subsequent work and life.
Thus, in these fragments we can see two largely opposite interpretations of the correlation between cinema and reality.
In Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo”, the two realities on either side of the screen coexist in parallel, each in its own looped world. These cycles are broken the moment they collide. Each reality begins to affect the other. The movie character escapes off the screen. In turn, the spectator ceases to be only an observer and intervenes in the film, thus creating a new narrative.
Basic Concepts
There are a number of basic conceptual positions involved. For example, cinema is an illusion of reality. And the illusion can be in the form of projection. Reality can also be reproduced by creating a copy of it. The latter raises a question about the relationship between the copy and the original in the context of art in the age of its technical reproduction. Finally, cinema produces reality, therefore it is itself a fully realized reality.
“For film studies, the key insight that can be derived from the writings of Slavoj Žižek is that reality cannot be separated from fantasy. Films do not occupy a domain of fantasy that can be straightforwardly distinguished from reality; films do not provide audiences with fantasy escapes from reality; films do not provide us with illusions of reality. Rather, if films are fantastic, then they are fantastic in the same way that reality itself is fantastic.” [1]
Since there is much discussion about replacing reality with illusion, the theory inevitably raises the question of virtual reality. According to the widespread definition, virtuality is a state or object that does not really exist, but can arise under certain circumstances. G. Deleuze considers virtuality in a different way, suggesting we think of actual and virtual as being interspersed in each other, i.e., virtual is real even without being actual.
Film Matters
In 1995, a group of filmmakers loudly proclaimed that cinema should not be an illusion. In its manifesto, the avant-garde cinematic movement Dogma 95 spoke out against illusion in cinema, putting forward a set of strict rules known as the “Vow of Chastity”. In general, cinema is characterized by an appeal to its own potency. Film matters. From here we can often see the origins of the reality-illusion binary.
Cinema was and still is an important branch of the ideological department of the dominant system. Lenin called cinema the most important of the arts, and the prize of the first Venice Film Festival was Coppa Mussolini. It would seem that after World War II, New Wave, the emerging film festival movement, created a critical sociopolitical agenda. This anticolonial agenda was supported by the USSR and the USA, as it fit well with their post-war colonial policies, which shared the legacy of the British and French colonial empires.
Today, the smooth path and support for films on migrant rights and tolerance is conditioned by the interests of the dominant system, which implicitly sanctions the agenda and thus the reality. We must always keep in mind that anti-immigrant politics is not directly linked to capitalism or the interests of capital. On the contrary, capital is interested in the free circulation of workers so that cheaper immigrant labor can force local workers to accept lower wages. Global capital is multiculturalist and tolerant.
In order not to play into the hands of evil with sincere and good intentions, we should be critical of what is allowed, what is supported, what is popular, etc. For example, gestures that promote reflexivity can be described as avant garde tributes of the Kill Kino movement, festivals of rejected films, Nefiltravanae Kino, etc. After all, reality can be what is sanctioned to be. Accordingly, illusion is that which is not sanctioned to be. For example, the reality of a dementia patient is not socially and legally adequate and legitimized, i.e., the reality of the patient is not the reality for the system. However, it remains valid for the patient. In the same way, alternatives in the history of cinema can remain a reality only for the marginalized or as an illusion for all.
According to Paolo Pasolini, the pseudo-revolution of ’68, although it pretended to be a “Marxist” revolution, was in reality just a self-criticism of the bourgeoisie, which took advantage of the youth to destroy the myths that prevented the bourgeoisie itself from continuing to dominate. In capitalism, a comfortable and thus debilitating counter (ghetto) is prepared for any alternative (marginal) reality in a total global hypermarket. This is done through commodification. This kraft place for hand-made products will be away a little closer to the mainstream of consumers. It happened, for instance, with the No Wave cinema movement, Slamdance, the phenomenon of Guerrilla filmmaking, and others. This is how reality is sanctioned through structuring, not only for the consumer stream or mass audience, but also for the servicing infrastructure: critics, education, investors, etc. And the present critical essay is written under the enormous and irresistible influence of this structure. Thus one has to sanction this reality despite one’s better judgment.
The utopia of “cinema is dead. again”. Instead of epilogue.
Cinema has gone out of fashion forever. There was a tectonic shift, caused by some rather minor events. For example, there was a viral challenge not to watch movies, not to make films, and not to write about cinema. Today there are weird challenges to watch the same movie dozens or even hundreds of times. There are people who do that. And they are proud of it. They’re admired and they get marks of approval on social media.
Film has simply become unfashionable. Fashion has outlived it. Playing with film is just not interesting anymore. Those who served it—directors, screenwriters, actors, producers, etc.—will suffer. But not for long. After all, very soon they will open a new page in their lives, perhaps a happier one.
Cinema is gone. It will live only on the pages of media archaeology.
Will people’s lives become worse and more boring?
What will it mean for your life?
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