alternate sense of reality. In distinguishing art from religion, he accepts Suzanne Langer’s view that art deals with illusion and appearance, imagining how the world could be, whereas religion claims to represent the world as it really is.36 But religion also imagines how the world might be, and as Geertz’s own theory indicates, religion links together what “is” and what “ought to be” in its ritual structure. Religion does not simply describe the world, and art does not simply provide imaginary illusions; both are involved in the complex relationship between the ideal and the real, in that both offer a worldview as well as an ethos. The way in which films—and religion—represent a version of “reality” has been a point of much debate that deserves further attention.
Film (and Religion) as Illusion or Reality
From the beginning of cinema in the late nineteenth century, it was already clear that film had a dual nature in its ability to “reproduce” reality but also to distort it. Louis Lumière made a series of short films, each less than forty seconds, which he first screened before audiences in 1895. These included Baby’s Breakfast and Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, which filmed ordinary scenes from life with no pretense at art, acting, or story. The Sprinkler Sprinkled did include a bit of comedic acting, as it showed a boy playing a trick on the gardener in order to spray him with a hose and the gardener chasing and spanking him in response. Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat is a more familiar example of a film said to have provoked some shock, as the train appears to be heading into the audience. Lumière’s popularity waned quickly as the novelty of his method wore off, as he was not very interested in story development or artistic details—but he had established the ability of the moving picture to film a “real” scene—or at least one that appeared to be real.
On the other hand, George Méliès made films that were clearly fantastic in both theme and appearance, such as A Trip to the Moon (1902), a thirteen-minute film that told the story of a rocket that flies to the moon and encounters “savages” there. This film had elaborate costumes, makeup, and sets as well as “special effects” such as making objects appear or disappear (by stopping the camera at key moments). Méliès also discovered multiple exposure and the superimposition of images. People enjoyed the obvious lack of realism in his films, as they were designed to entertain through the evocation of an imaginary world that no one could mistake for reality.37
A debate soon began among filmmakers and theorists as to whether films should seek simply to reproduce what lies before the camera or attempt to alter reality through the filmmaker’s artistry. The formalists, who dominated during the silent era, took the latter view. Theorists such as Sergei Eisenstein and V. I. Pudovkin defended the art of film against those who defamed it by arguing that the filmmaker made decisions about how to depict reality and did not simply set up a camera in front of an event. In particular, editing (or “montage”) provides the means whereby distinct images filmed at separate times can be joined together so as to appear connected. The filmmaker can manipulate images through editing so that the viewer will link the images in her mind, creating the sense of meaning desired by the filmmaker. In this way, the latter can create the desired emotional or intellectual response in the viewer, and so the filmmaker is a genuine artist.
When sound pictures were developed, many (including the formalist Rudolf Arnheim) thought that now the medium would become too “realistic” in its depiction of action and that it would lose the artistic, visual qualities that had dominated silent films. Realists such as André Bazin, however, celebrated the new use of sound and its ability to capture a better sense of reality on film. He argued that films should use less editing and more long shots that allow the viewer the freedom to see the scene as it is rather than as cut up by the filmmakers. He did not completely eschew editing, however, as he liked the “invisible” editing technique of popular Hollywood films that gave an appearance of reality without calling excessive attention to the technique. Siegfried Kracauer took realism further than Bazin in his rejection of the unrealistic details of Hollywood films; he favored the Italian neorealist films such as The Bicycle Thief (1948) that sought to depict ordinary people in ordinary situations.38
In spite of their differences, formalists and realists shared the notion that films are artistic insofar as they prompt viewers to reflect on reality in new ways. In this sense, neither school embraced the idea that films are primarily escapist entertainment. But even escapist films, we might note, give the viewer some sense of reality, albeit a reality that differs from her own. One escapes to the world of film in order to return better equipped to this world, and so even the “idealist” aspect of film serves a “realist” function. In addition, even the most “realistic” films do not simply reproduce reality, as they involve the filmmaker in the decision of what to film and how to film it. Even documentaries or films such as those of Lumière involve choices that are designed to elicit certain responses in the viewer—as indeed Italian neorealism also intended a certain effect on the audience through its attempt at verisimilitude. There is no pure realism possible in film, due to the fact that an artist is involved who processes reality through his or her own subjectivity. Likewise, no art form (including film) can be completely devoid of a relationship with reality, not even surrealism or abstract art, as these too represent the artist’s response to the reality in which one lives. Film is both realistic and artistic at the same time and so involves the elements both formalists and realists attributed to it.39
Debates have continued, however, as to whether this combination of realism and artistry is properly understood by the viewers. Ideological critics such as Colin McCabe have argued that the ostensible “realism” of film causes viewers to overlook the fact that it is a constructed work and so to take it as a representation of reality rather than an ideologically motivated artifact.40 The appearance of reality depicted in the film is actually a cover for its ideology, as what it presents is not reality but an illusion. Only films that discomfort or alienate the viewer—or that radically challenge the normal structure of narrative—can hope to make an effective attempt to bring reality to her. Other theorists have similarly claimed that film viewers cannot distinguish the illusion of film from reality. Jean-Louis Baudry has argued that film viewing is akin to dreaming in providing an experience of regression (psychoanalytically understood) in which the viewer finds the self to be reflected rather than an outside reality, as there is no distinction between reality and self in the primitive, infantile state. In Baudry’s view, viewers believe they are experiencing an outside reality even though they are merely having an experience of self; like the poor prisoners in Plato’s cave, film viewers see only shadows but take them for the real thing.41 Jean Baudrillard has gone even further than Baudry in asserting that reality does not exist anymore in postmodern society, as we have been entirely absorbed into the “hyperreality” created out of pop culture and media images that permit no perspective on a world outside themselves.42
Not all film theorists, however, have accepted these dire pronouncements. Tom Gunning has pointed out that the often-told anecdote about viewers screaming and running for the exit during the first showing of Lumière’s Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat is itself a “myth” without historical basis. Film theorists continue to tell this myth, he suggests, as it supports their own agenda, according to which audiences cannot tell a film from the real thing—even if we have become more sophisticated in our reactions. Gunning suggests that film viewers were never that naïve and are not so now. Rather, their delight at the illusion of the train’s motion was based in a reaction of astonishment at the ability of the apparatus to produce such an illusion—which was never mistaken for reality. At this time, in the early 1900s, as the new creations of technology provoked both fear and confidence, audiences reacted with both fascination and horror at the abilities of these technologies. Amusement parks began to feature roller coasters with simulated collisions that were averted at the last possible moment. Audiences sought new thrills even as they quickly tired of them and had to seek new experiences to shock and amaze them. The excess of special effects and horror-movie “shockers” today should show that we are still in quest for such experiences in film, not to mention the new fascination with virtual reality technology. In all this, however, Gunning contends that audiences
