Mummy Complex and Contemporary Approaches to Realism

The Mummy Complex

The mummy complex is the theory posited by Bazin in "Ontology of the Photographic Image" that art is made in order to master fear of death and passing of time. This is understand as the preservation of life by a representation of life. Bazin argued that film mummifies time and preserves it on celluloid. 

Consider the Eadweard Muybridge experiments that birthed the moving image as a permanent record mummified through celluloid. 

For example, it was Bazin's belief that if you were to photograph a landscape in the 1950s, and revisit the same photograph today, you would find an exact representation of the time and place through the photograph. Bazin stated that looking at a photograph displays mastery and control over time and space. He also believed that photography had the ability to create an objective depiction of reality. Photography also has potential to portray the body objectively

Contemporary Approaches to Realism

While some contemporary filmmakers practice and utilize techniques of Bazinian realism in their films to create a sense of realism, others create realism through an intentional use of perspective, specifically camera perspective, to portray a point of view "record" of events.

Still from Cloverfield, which used handheld cinematography and organic framing to place viewers into the perspective of the main characters. From the New York Times Links to an external site.

In the past decade or so, filmmakers have imitated home video formats to augment realism in their films. Found-footage works like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield have intentionally utilized camcorder cinematography to encourage the viewer to question the reality of what's on-screen. This created a public perception that images cannot be trusted for reality anymore, with contemporary theorists even questioning this format's impact on documentary filmmaking. 

Continue on to watch our film screening for the week.