Bazin Quotes

Harold Bazin loves to talk ~ Anthony Doerr

Every image is to be seen as an object and every object as an image. ~ Andre Bazin

Photography can strip from the world that spiritual dust and grime with which our eyes have covered it. ~ Andre Bazin

The 'Western' is the only genre whose origins are almost identical with those of the cinema itself. ~ Andre Bazin

She shakes the little house, though she knows it will not give itself away. He went back for it. Carried it out. Died with it. What sort of a boy was he? She remembers how he sat and paged through that book of Etienne's. Birds, he said. Bird after bird after bird. She sees herself walk out of the smoking city, trailing a white pillowcase. Once she is out of his sight, he turns and lets himself back through Hubert Bazin's gate. The rampart a huge crumbling bulwark above him. The sea settling on the far side of the grate. She sees him solve the puzzle of the little house. Maybe he drops the diamond into the pool among the thousands of snails. Then he closes the puzzle box and locks the gate and trots away. Or he puts the stone back into the house. Or slips it into his pocket. From her memory, Dr. Geffard whispers: That something so small could be so beautiful. Worth so much. Only the strongest people can turn away from feelings like that. She twists the chimney ninety degrees. It turns as smoothly as if her father just built it. When she tries to slide off the first of the three wooden roof panels, she finds it stuck. But with the end of a pen, she manages to lever off the panels one two three. Something drops into her palm. An iron key. ~ Anthony Doerr

The role of cinema here is not that of a servant nor is it to betray the painting. Rather it is to provide it with a new form of existence. The film of a painting is an aesthetic symbiosis of screen and painting, as is the lichen of the algae and mushroom.
To be annoyed by this is as ridiculous as to condemn the opera on behalf of theater and music. ~ Andre Bazin

The preoccupation of Rossellini when dealing with the face of the child in Allemania Anno Zero is the exact opposite of that of Kuleshov with the close-up of Mozhukhin. Rossellini is concerned to preserve its mystery. ~ Andre Bazin

Reality is not art, but a realist art is one that can create an integral aesthetic of reality. ~ Andre Bazin

How has The Grand Illusion held up over the years? It is not enough to say that it has retained its power. Not only has the stature of the film remained undiminished by the passage of time (except in a few minor details), but the innovation, the audacity, and, for want of a better word, the modernity of the direction have acquired an even greater impact. ~ Andre Bazin

Italian cinema is assuredly the only one to salvage, from within the very period it depicts a revolutionary humanism. ~ Andre Bazin

Photography has freed the plastic arts from their obsession with likeness. ~ Andre Bazin

Not war but love is the reason for a million of miseries around the world I can see a sea full of broken hearts and my question is why? ~ Ernest Bazin

it was montage that gave birth to film as an art, setting it apart from mere animated photography, in short, creating a language. ~ Andre Bazin

The photographer proceeds, via the intermediary of the lens, to a point where he literally takes a luminous imprint, a cast ... [But] the cinema realizes the paradox of moulding itself on the time of the object and of taking the imprint of its duration as well. ~ Andre Bazin

All films are born free and equal. ~ Andre Bazin