Briefly explain Andre Bazin’s realist editing aesthetic, and how it differs from montage theory

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Bazin’s realist aesthetic was based on his belief that cinema, unlike the traditional arts, produces images of reality automatically, with a minimum of human interference. This technological objectivity connects the moving image with the observable physical world.
2. Bazin maintained that montage was merely one of many techniques a director could use in making movies. Furthermore, he believed that in many cases editing could actually destroy the effectiveness of a scene.
3. Bazin believed that the distortions involved in using formalist techniques—especially thematic editing—often violate the complexities of reality. Montage superimposes a simplistic ideology over the infinite variability of actual life. Formalists tend to be too egocentric and manipulative, he felt. They are concerned with imposing their narrow view of reality, rather than allowing reality to exist in its awesome complexity
4. Bazin even viewed classical cutting as potentially corrupting. Classical cutting breaks down a unified scene into a certain number of closer shots that correspond implicitly to a mental process. But the technique encourages us to follow the shot sequence without our being conscious of its arbitrariness. For Bazin, the editor makes a choice for us that we would make for ourselves in real life. And without thinking, we accept his analysis because it conforms to the laws of paying attention.
5. One of Bazin’s favorite directors, the American William Wyler, reduced editing to a minimum in many of his films, substituting the use of deep-focus photography and lengthy takes. His restraint in cutting contributes enormously to the spectator’s reassurance and leaves to him or her the means to observe, to choose, and form an opinion, Bazin said of Wyler’s austere cutting style. This is the essence of Bazin’s realist editing aesthetic.