Between Formalism and Realism: The Case of Cinema

“The theoretical and methodological opposition between realism and formalism tends to imply and integrate a whole array of dualistic tensions: the sensible versus the intelligible, the immanent versus the transcendent, the immediate versus the mediated, experience versus meaning, essence versus appearance (or existence versus essence), the particular versus the universal, and so on. By inviting the general alignment of all these dichotomous pairs, the theoretical opposition between realism and formalism ultimately proposes a common polarity. However, it quickly becomes clear that such a reduction is not viable.”…