Blog post 2

     The readings for class were quite fascinating due to the dual perspectives that were provided. On the one hand, we have Andre Bazin, the father of the french new wave movement of the late 50's and early 60's, explaining how cinema can be utilized as a sort of valid documentation of truth (this is more than likely due to the rising popularity of the cinema-verité at the time), but on the other hand, we've got Dziga Vertov, a Russian film director and theorist who, along with his fellow Soviet theoreticians like Eisenstein and Kuleshov, were setting the concepts that would eventually shape what we consider modern cinema today, explaining how it can do the exact opposite: deceiving the eye; carrying the torch that Méliès brothers started that established cinema as a sort of giant illusion.

    So who was right? Well, they both were. Both of these elements were carried on throughout the late 20th century and are still utilized in modern cinema today. From the 60's onward, the documentary blossomed, synthesizing the newsreel and feature film to give us something completely different: an entertaining feature length film that was exposing us to the truth and realities of society. Naturally, Kelshov's "illusionist" approach has, to a certain extent, defined narrative features: the idea of seeing actors playing characters who don't even exist, but we still feel for them. And then, from a technical there's still the illusion: shooting in different locations etc. Modern advancements such as the green screen have helped this even more. And of course, one could also argue that the two merge when considering the concept of the mockumentary.