Some Problems of Bazin's Phenomenological Image - 1

In “Ontology of The Photographic Image”, Bazin argues that the symbolic (spiritual expressiveness) and realist tendencies shaped the Western painting. However, Western painting mistook the pseudorealism of fooling the eye by introducing a perspectivist approach with true realism which would show the world both in its essence and in its concreteness.

The originality of photograph lies in its essential objectiveness: there is no intentional agent intervening in the process of the duplication of reality. In this sense, the absence of a narrator, of a “mind” makes photography what it is. Bazin talks about two art movements towards the end of the essay and of course finds both of them inferior to photography. One is impressionist realism (which adds movement as something essential to human experience and perception) and the other is surrealism. Now it is evident that Bazin favors realism. He even calls the paintings of surrealists as “monstrosities”. Ironically, it is surrealists who turn to the technology of photography as a tool in their works:

The surrealist does not consider his aesthetic purpose and the mechanical effect of the image on our imaginations as things apart. For him, the logical distinction between what is imaginary and what is real tends to disappear. Every image is to be seen as an object and every object as an image.*

I will be focusing on this passage and argue that this distinction between imaginary and real may be as nonexistent as surrealists think. But first, I will talk about Bazin’s realism a bit.

Now after giving his dialectical history of cinema by pointing out the privileged position of editing and deep focus, Bazin gives three kinds of realism that cinema provides us. One is the ontological realism. This one is fairly straightforward and the least problematic. Realism is itself an ontological claim and it is an intuitive and established philosophical position. The other two realisms, namely dramatic and psychological realism are a bit different since they introduce relations between the subject and the object and therefore these two are, to an extent, epistemological claims. In other words, by including the subjective experience of reality, Bazin argues that what we perceive in the photographic image is reality itself. As such, this is an epistemological claim and Bazin is a phenomenologist in this sense. For phenomenology, reality is not something independent of experience but it is also not subjective since by focusing on the conscious perception of reality, phenomenology is able to give an objective ground for the consciousness in which this world we experience resides in / emerges for us.

Bazin argues that the image must be something that is open to several meanings when he talks about montage as ruling out ambiguity. The use of depth of focus in Citizen Kane is important because the uncertainty of meaning is built into the image itself. And if we combine this with his argument that depth of focus provides us with psychological realism, his phenomenologist position becomes more apparent.  

Bazin’s use of phenomenology only serves as a tool for him to include the dimensions of history and experience into the study of cinema. However, he is privileging the deep focus cinematography as the image which better reflects the phenomenological reality. Therefore he also privileges photography as the most important event in the history of plastic art. While this is itself questionable, I will be focusing on his conception of image as the privileged representation of reality.


*This seems to me exactly what Bazin wants when he focuses on realism this much. Isn't photographic image's superiority a result of its ability to bridge this gap between the mechanical effects of the image on the mind (a real perception of reality) and the intentional effects of the artist on the image?