Reading Bazin’s “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” it’s apparent that he’s talking about Deren’s controlled accident. On page 313, he says “The objective nature of photography confers on it a quality of credibility absent from all other picture-making.” Of course, Deren says as much with the line on page 151, “the reality of a tree confers its truth upon the events we cause to transpire beneath it.”

Of course, Bazin also finds photography “objective.” As we’ve discussed in class, I think many of us would say “hardly so!” Kuleshov, certainly, would likely have a field day tearing into this argument, and I’m sure Bazin would have plenty to say to him, as well!

I don’t think I really have much of a point here (aside from vaguely agreeing as far as his argument relates to the controlled accident), but I had to write some thoughts out somewhere.