Abstract

ESQUEDA VERANO, Lourdes. Cinema as a Delayed Mirror: The Concept of Transfer in André Bazin and Stanley Cavell. Palabra Clave [online]. 2019, vol.22, n.3, e2234. ISSN 0122-8285.  https://doi.org/10.5294/pacla.2019.22.3.4.

This article revives André Bazin’s vision to suggest its relevance at the time of dealing with the ever-changing nature of cinema, specifically with new cinematographic forms. Bazin’s theory is based -in an apparently paradoxical way- on the identity between the actual model and its photographic image, a complex premise that would be elaborated decades later by the American philosopher Stanley Cavell. This paper states first the meaning of this identity. In order to delimit the scope and repercussions of this ontological identity in the perception of a cinematographic image, the concept is approached in relation to those of similarity and causality. Then, its scope is explained from the concept of transfer. To arrive at a thorough understanding of this process, the way in which it is expressed in both theorists’ works is analyzed. One of the main conclusions is that realism is not something to be conferred by the subject on the photographic image, but its property by virtue of the transfer of reality from the object to the image. This shows how the film viewer, in front of the screen, carries out a process analogous to that of everyday perception: recognizing a reality depicted on the screen.

Keywords : Cinema; realism; theory; photography; transfer; André Bazin; Stanley Cavell.

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