Overview
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Realism and formalism are two different approaches to how a filmmaker decides to present the world on screen. Realist filmmakers try to capture life as close to how it actually looks and feels as possible, keeping the camera unobtrusive and the style simple so that the audience stays focused on what is happening rather than how it is being shown. The idea is to make the filmmaking itself feel invisible, almost like you are just watching real life play out in front of you. Formalist filmmakers take the opposite approach and are not trying to hide their craft at all. They deliberately manipulate the image through stylized lighting, unusual camera angles, exaggerated color, and other techniques to express something more subjective or emotionally driven than what reality on its own would show. Where a realist might use natural lighting and a straightforward eye level shot, a formalist might distort the image entirely to reflect a character’s inner state or push a deeper psychological point. Most films actually land somewhere between the two, pulling from both styles depending on what a particular scene is trying to do.
Deep focus photography is a technique where objects at multiple distances from the camera, whether up close, mid range, or far in the background, are all in sharp focus at the same time. It requires a wide angle lens to pull off and essentially gives the viewer a layered image with a lot going on across different planes of the frame all at once. A filmmaker might use deep focus when they want the audience to take in the full environment of a scene rather than being pointed toward one specific thing. It also gives the director a lot of control over where the viewer’s eye naturally travels within the frame, since nothing is blurred out or hidden. It adds a sense of depth and complexity to a shot that a standard lens just cannot replicate. I generally prefer shots with a shallow depth of field or blurred background although, I can see where a filmmaker may choose to or need to use a deep focus shot to get everything in the same frame.