The development of poetic realism
Poetic realism was an important development in French cinema that took place in the 1930s. Rather than led by a vanguard of young thinkers, sharing ideas and writing manifestos in coffee shops and bars like the French New Wave, poetic realism grew naturally and simultaneously, more of a cinematic evolution than a ground-breaking movement. Because of this, it can be a difficult filmic development to reduce to a set of tropes. Much of poetic realist cinema would seem to modern audiences to be neither experimental or stylized, nor particularly ‘realist’. This tension between poeticism and realism, and the different ways that films addressed this synthesis, makes the movement particularly elusive. The following guide will explain the historical context, key features, influences and stylistic legacy of poetic realism.
1927 witnessed the first ‘talkie’ – a film with a recorded, synchronized soundtrack that saw characters speak without the use of intertitles. With the end of the silent era came more script-driven films with a surge of theatrical adaptations. These adaptations – known pejoratively as ‘canned theatre’ - were frowned upon by avant-gardists and film purists alike for their perceived frivolous nature and escapist subject matter. The rise of cinematic comedies and musicals, despite their commercial popularity, provoked concern that the cinematic image had become secondary to sound rather than supplemented by it. Along with the tendency towards sound-dominated cinema, productions saw the rise of new celebrity; performance now seemed more important than it had been in the silent era, with the talent of actors in full view.
As the 1930s progressed, however, this flamboyant popular cinema was accompanied by a new filmic practice. It quickly became clear that the birth of sound cinema also offered new possibilities to more accurately and smoothly represent “real-life”. In silent film the action was constantly interrupted by intertitles and the performances and storytelling more exaggerated to accommodate the lack of spoken exposition. With sound cinema, the flow and performances could be more naturalistic. But the reality that poetic realism sought to depict was fraught with political turmoil and economic crisis. By 1932, the great depression had hit France and conflicts between the left and right were bubbling. As Rémi Fournier Lanzoni accounts in French Cinema,
