A Few Types of Realism

When I think about realism in the context of cinema, a couple of key things come to mind:

Bleakness, or the lack of a miracle turnaround for a happy ending; an objective, observational camera style, and characters as everyday and mundane as possible. 

I, along, with plenty of others, have fallen into the cynical mindset that implies something that is real life, or realistic,  is ordinary, objective, and sparsely populated with heartwarming, happy endings. This is not to say life is terrible and bleak, of course. It's the sparsity of magnificent events that makes them so special. If life were consistently inhabited by comeback victories, unlikely survival stories, and inexplicable, seemingly supernatural events, then these events would lose their aura. So essentially, realism represents the ordinary side of like, the one we're accustomed to seeing every day.

Typical Realism

Ozu's Tokyo Story encapsulates this idea of realism, in all of my favorite (not to say that I enjoyed watching it) ways.  The story, and it's nearly a lack thereof, is painstakingly mundane, and just as painstakingly unforgiving. An elderly couple travel to Tokyo to visit their workaholic, neglectful children. Their children spend little time with them on the disappointing trip, and to top things off, the mother becomes deathly ill on the train ride home, and dies shortly afterwards. The children come briefly in memorial, and return to their lives. No revelations, no coming to terms, no growth or change.

The camera is stationary for almost the entire film, giving it a voyeuristic feel, an objective peek into the life of this disrupted family. Cuts are jarring, and seemingly arbitrary, but keep the candid nature of what's on screen solidly intact. Extensive dialogue is often used as a substitute for visuals, allowing characters to explain their stories rather than the camera on its own. 

Not Typical Realism

What's strange about this kind of realism however, ii it's inaccessibility. Realism flicks aren't typically known for commercial success, as they're jarring, require patience and attention, and are more often than not tragic. If it's harder to immerse oneself into a film, there becomes a lack of a reality in general, and the viewer is left with light and sound. This void of a reality can be encountered in works which we don't typically consider realism, works with classical Hollywood continuity.

Classical Hollywood continuity is designed to accommodate the eye. Movies with this structure are typically easier to watch than ones without. Cuts are smooth, flowing, filled with rules and reasoning. We have establishing shots, that lead into mediums, and then over the shoulder exchanges- logical ordering that appeals to the eye. And while the content of the movie may be something about gangsters trolling for treasure chests in the Amazon, the camera work and editing allow viewers to easily immerse themselves into what is happening on screen.

So. Which is more realistic:

A film with a candid nature but void of an penetrable reality, or a film with an outlandish nature, but accessible alternate reality?