AS Media blog on Social Realism

1. Social Realism
By Grace Johansson

2. Realism or ‘realisms’The critical
consensus
about realism
is that it
follows an
internal logic
throughout
the entirety
of the film.
Social and structural
change spurred the
impulse towards
realism, as well as the
move from the
country to the city by
workers.
• The problems
with the phrase
social realism is
that it is used to
describe a wide
variety of texts and
is a very general
term. Also, the
phrase is often
used with no or
different
understanding of
what social realism
actually means.Realism became a way of expressing emotion and
became a way for the public to represent themselves.
Carroll suggests that Realism
should only be used with a
prefix attached because all
realisms are produced at
specific historical points.

3. Realism and the Cinema
• André Bazin argued that realism should allow
people to find their own realities within film
and that depth of shot and longer takes would
help them to do this. For Bazin realism is only
possible through deception and that there is
not one but several realisms.
• Branston and Stafford argue that for a film to
be realist rather than just realistic, two things
must be present: the filmmaker must intend to
capture the experience of an actual event
accurately, and, the filmmaker must have a
specific message to deliver about society using
realistic conventions to express this message.
By the end of the
nineteenth century
many forms of media
had adopted realistic
aesthetics through
formal and stylistic
approaches and devices.
Photography and film
developed and brought
a lot more opportunities
for the public.
Photography
brought a
new way of
capturing
day to day
life and
showing real
life.
The common thought
shared throughout all
types of media was the
quest to show truth or
reality.
The problem with truth
was that in cinema it
was opposed by theatre,
photography and prose.
Kracauer believed that film was
unique in the fact that it was
able to represent daily life and it
should do so with as little
embellishing as possible,
Kracauer’s theory is similar to
Zola’s theory of Naturalism as
they both talk about film being
natural and not unrealistic.
Gerhadie believed that the
goal of naturalism was to
represent real life in film
using the things that are
seen in real life.
All of these approaches try to show the truth
through the conventions that have become
known in realism. For example Hollywood
films, although they can be realistic in setting
and sometimes costume, they are not classed
as realist texts because they can be farfetched.

4. Defining Social Realism
Social realism is difficult to define because it is
politically and historically subject to change and
unpredictable. Also, society changes and evolves
which means social realism changes
and evolves too. The term has been created in a
number of ways and social realism films differ from
normal films in many ways and to
different degrees, social realism texts are usually
independent and low budget.
Realist texts are linked to
those from the past by the
fact that they expose the
artifice in what has
previously passed for reality
by creating a more realistic
view of normal life.
Lowenstein sees social realism as being bound up with
moments of social crisis.
Raymond Williams believes there are four criteria for defining realist
texts, they are not connected to religion or spiritual matters, secondly
realist texts are grounded in terms of setting, character and social
issues, also, realist texts include groups previously not represented
and issues not previously mentioned. Lastly, a lot of the time realist
texts are influenced by the political view of the artist.
Samantha Lay says that a
key feature of realist texts is
that character and place are
linked in order to explore
aspects of contemporary
life in similar ways to
Naturalism.
Hallam and Marshment
explain the characteristic
by saying that it aims to
show the effects of
environmental factors on
character development.