The Miracle of Realism Andre Bazin and the Cosmology of Film

Critic and theorist Andre Bazin (1918-1958) has long enjoyed canonical status in film studies. As his unpublished and published work has become more accessible to scholars, and as new digital technologies call into question established notions of what cinema is, a new generation of film theorists has delved into Bazin's writings on cinema and technology. However, one critical aspect of Bazin's thinking has received little attention in this recent renaissance: his unorthodox Catholicism. The Miracle of Realism fills in this gap. Exploring the philosophical content and the theological underpinnings of Bazin's contribution to film and media theory, Vinzenz Hediger sheds new light on Bazin's ontological analysis of the photographic image and explores the implications of Bazin's cosmology of film for our understanding of contemporary media culture.