Thursday, November 03, 2016

Cinematic Reality: What is real? PART FOURTEEN


CONCLUSION: DIRECTORIAL INTENT--INFORMATION THEORY AND CINEMA

We started this series asking an important question of what determines reality in cinema?


Or better yet, how is the illusion of reality achieved?

Or better still, why are some techniques perceived as being more real than others?

In conclusion, we note that Italian neorealism is not the same as the realism of America's New Wave. Though both movements share common ground.

"The Bicycle Thieves" (1948) -- Italian Neorealism


"The French Connection" (1971)--American New Wave
Nor is Christopher Nolan's definition of realism the same as Michael Mann's; nor is Hitchcock's the same as Stanley Kubrick's.


Each director has developed his own approach to the question of realism; but his method and choices are mostly limited to those which the audience has been conditioned to find acceptable.  

If the audience does not interpret a technique as being "realistic," then the director's intention is lost in translation.  

Of course, it's often the case that the same technique is interpreted differently by different members of the audience.  

All of this is to say that one person's reality is another's fantasy.

Cinema is a medium of transmission, as much as it is a medium of entertainment.  It is the middle ground between directorial intent and audience expectation.

General Diagram of a Transmission Line

Transmission of information requires a common language; an agreed upon code that allows the ideas of the sender to be preserved upon retrieval by the receiver.

In cinema, this common language shared by the director (sender) and the audience (receiver) is continually being updated by the society in which both reside.