Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [212]-226). / This thesis examines the ways in which certain contemporary fiction cinema posits its narratives as real. Looking at a broad overview of realist movements through the history of cinema, it draws out the codes and conventions which filmmakers have employed and suggests that realist cinema is typically characterised by its focus on creating a sense of presence and immediacy. It describes how a strand of selfreflexivity can be traced throughout the history of realist cinema and asserts that this tendency has become increasingly predominant in a more sceptical postmodern climate. The study focuses on the interplay between the cinematography and the setting (to create a sense of locatedness and contextual specificity) in Matthieu Kassovitz's La Haine (1995), on Lars Von Trier's quest for a "naked" film stripped of its cosmetic trappings, and his pursuit of the "genuine" moment within that (in The Idiots, 1998), on Mike Leigh's use of improvisation and byplay to encourage a sense of authenticity in performance in Secrets and Lies (1996), and on Richard Linklater's reworking of the romance genre for a postmodern audience in Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/8128 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Van der Vliet, Emma |
| Contributors | Marx, Lesley |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Humanities, Centre for Film and Media Studies |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral Thesis, Doctoral, PhD |
| Format | application/pdf |
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