Abstract

This article is an attempt to rethink the terms on which we understand cinematic realism. Cinema's very success in recording reality problematises the notion of reality by which ?realism? has otherwise been oriented. This is because the world of the age of cinema is a plurality of worlds, with the times and places captured on film competing for credibility. It is not a question, epistemologically, of discovering the real world so much as, ethically, relearning the art of being embodied. Bazin and Mizoguchi are two figures from the middle of the twentieth century who confronted the open-ended challenge of cinematic realism and whose works provide the impetus for reflecting anew on what it means to exist bodily in an advanced technological society