Realist Film Theory and Cinema

Ian Aitken is Associate Professor in Film Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, and Senior Research Fellow in Film Studies at De Monfort University

• AcknowledgmentsDedicationIntroduction 1. From the `true style’ to the art form of the bourgeoisie: The origins, characteristics and theoretical foundation of the nineteenth century French realist and naturalist tradition2. La Bête humaine, the evolution of French cinematic realism and naturalism 1902-1938, and the influence of the nineteenth century tradition3.`The adequate presentation of the complete human personality’, Lukács, the intensive totality and the nineteenth century realist tradition4. From the historical cinema of democratic humanism to the film Novelle: Lukácsian cinematic realism in Danton (1990), and Senso (1954)5. `And what about the spiritual life itself’, distraction, modernity and redemption: The intuitionist realist tradition in the work of John Grierson, André Bazin and Siegfried Kracauer 6. Transcendental illusion and scope for realism: Cinematic realism, philosophical realism and film theory ConclusionsBibliography