"What is Cinema?", André Bazin

André Bazin (1918-1958) was one of the most influential film critics and theorists. A co-founder of the renowned film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, his writings on the superiority of deep focus and long takes against the montage, have contributed to much discussion about cinema along the decades. Bazin defended cinema as an art of realism expressed through mise en scène, and that ambiguity should be led in an image by presenting reality as a whole, so that the spectator could interpret, by himself, a scene. For such reasons he acclaimed directors like Jean Renoir, Orson Welles and William Wyler. Most of his writings are collected in the four volumes of Qu'est-ce que le cinéma?. Some of these were translated to an english version, in two volumes, between 1967 and 1971 (What is Cinema?) that became a crucial reference in film courses.
Excerpts: 
"The truth of the matter is, that if you are looking for the precursor of Orson Welles, it is not Louis Lumiere or Zecca, but rather Jean Renoir. In his films, the search after composition in depth is, in effect, a partial replacement of montage by frequent panning shots and entrances. It is based on a respect for the continuity of dramatic space and, of course, of its duration."

"In short, montage by its very nature rules out ambiguity of expression. Kuleshov's experiment proves this per absurdum in giving on each occasion a precise meaning to the expression on a face, the ambiguity of which alone makes the three successively exclusive expressions possible. On the other hand, depth of focus reintroduced ambiguity into the structure of the image if not of necessity - Wyler's films are never ambiguous - at least as a possiblity. Hence it is no exaggeration to say that Citizen Kane is unthinkable shot in any other way, but in depth. The uncertainty in which we find ourselves as to the spiritual key or the interpretation we should put on the film is built into the very design of the image."

Link to Volume 1 in PDF:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aaS-LsZNONPGaqmE6WBQIMhrG9Uq-iXX/view?usp=sharing

Link to Volume 2 in PDF:

André Bazin

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