Vigo's Poetic Realism



The movie we watched in class L'Atalante by Jean Vigo introduced the concept of poetic realism within film.  In an article by the website Film Forever, the writer explains how Vigo executed this idea.  Overall, he mixed realist and surrealist aspects in the film to create the transition into poetic realism of the 1930s.

In the beginning of the movie, a couple is getting married and the audience sees the raw emotions of the bride as she must leave the village she grew up in.  While presenting the audience with a realistic situation, the special effects of the following scene create a surrealist viewpoint.  For example, when she walks along the steam boat, she appears ghostlike, floating in the steam melancholically. The author of the article also writes that within the film, the actors begin acting naturalistically, meaning they do not appear to just be reading from a script. The author also writes that the theme of working class or luckless heroes experiencing fate led this film in the direction of poetic realism. Overall, the contrast between a gritty situation and dreamlike effects or acting create poetic realism within this film.

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