Impressionism (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The impressionistic film is an aesthetic concept in the art of film , which is primarily with French films is associated 1920s. Directors such as Germaine Dulac , Louis Delluc , Jean Epstein , Abel Gance , Marcel L'Herbier and Dimitri Kirsanoff referred in these works to the impressionist painting of the 19th century and to the music of impressionism . The term was established by film historians such as Henri Langlois and Georges Sadoul .

aims

Based on the impressionist models, the directors tried to break away from causal narrative logic and conventional forms of representation from reality in their works. Instead, they staged their subjects as a complex wealth of individual impressions. The cinema as a representation mechanism of an objectively describable world took a back seat, the film became an independent expression of subjective states of mind beyond the physical reality of things. The Impressionist film paved the way to the abstraction of Cinéma Pur .

method

The preferred forms and objects of Impressionist film were found in the great outdoors , as with the painterly models : wafts of mist and cloud formations, the play of raindrops and water surfaces, light reflections and shadow images. This natural aesthetic was dynamized by the means of the film. Fast montages and abrupt changes in settings , the use of time lapse , soft focus , double exposure , deliberately used blurring and extremely mobile camera work were the preferred stylistic devices . Directors such as Alberto Cavalcanti ( Rien que les heures , 1926) and Abel Gance ( Das Rad , 1923) transferred this dynamic expression to the world of experience of modern urban life and staged big city realities such as rail traffic as a confusing, rapid change of individual sensory impressions. Dramaturgical means such as a non-linear narrative style and the insertion of acausal, rather associative-looking memory fragments also resulted in the representation of protagonists, who mostly appeared psychologically unstable and overly sensitive.

literature

  • Oliver Fahle : Beyond the picture. The poetics of French film in the twenties. Bender-Verlag, Mainz 2000.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horst Fritz : Impressionist film in: Thomas Koebner (Hrsg.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Films. 2nd edition, 2007. Philipp Reclam jun. GmbH & Co, Stuttgart, pp. 316f.