Analytical Essay Chew Hansel Chew Asst. Prof. Brian Bergen-Aurand HL 3001: Film Theory 1 November 2014 The Realism of André Bazin: A Question of Ontology and Aesthetics in Cinema In “The Ontology of the Photographic Image”, André Bazin identifies the psychological impetus of the plastic arts as being rooted fundamentally in an existential and psychological desire to preserve life and transcend its mortal finitude by creating representations. This primitive appetite for illusion is essentially a desire that seeks fulfilment by striving towards a mimetic or realist telos in the plastic arts, one which is also formulated by Bazin in “The Myth of Total Cinema”. The ontology of the photographic image, by virtue of being mechanical, thus presents man with the “furthermost evolution to date of plastic realism” (“Ontology” 10) to satisfy this desire. However, if the raison d’être of cinema is merely to satisfy a psychological need for realism – in the sense of it being “the duplication of the world outside” (“O” 11) – then Bazin’s ontological thesis would seem to jeopardise its aesthetic merit. By considering Bazin’s ontological argument for cinema, one may assess how its status as art is at odds with the realism of its ontology. It is perhaps pertinent to begin by defining realism, in the sense that Bazin employs the term in his essays. The relation between reality and the plastic arts is described as having a “resemblance complex” (“O” 13) since the plastic arts are concerned with “the creation of an ideal world in the likeness of the real” (“O” 10). The ascription of synonyms like “duplication”, “imitation”, “reproduction”, and “copy” to this visual resemblance in Bazin’s writing suggests that his conception of realism is of the plastic 1