Classic Hollywood, a period that helped to define cinematic grammar, sought to help the audience forget that they were watching a movie. Cinematic techniques were only supposed to serve the narrative, not draw attention to themselves, and certainly not to the director's “brushstrokes.” This approach to filmmaking, of course, stands in stark contrast to the Soviet school of montage, which said that the essence of cinema was to “crash” one image with another, and only then, when you have noticeably manipulated the form, do you achieve the level of “art.” Such “formalism” conflicts with attempted “realism.” In the case of the latter, André Bazin thought editing should be limited and preferred reliance on mise en scène (composition of the shot) as the primary cinematic tool for capturing the real world. This definition of realism fostered what is called the “invisible style” of filmmaking which was meant to hide the “brushstroke,” and achieve a verisimilitude. Editing was to be masked by techniques such as cutting on motion. Staging-in-depth, which allowed for action and reaction in a single shot, and therefore, presumably more closely resembled reality, allowed individuals to choose what to view. “Wyler particularly likes to build his mise en scène on the tension created in a shot by the coexistence of two actions of unequal significance.” This is the essence of William Wyler's style, which this chapter argues is not the signature of a mere journeyman technician.

Bazin states that “the realism of the cinema follows directly from its photographic nature,” and that “artificiality … is totally incompatible with the realism which is the essence of cinema.” Bazin says of Wyler that he “tried to find aesthetic equivalents for psychological and social truth in the mise en scène.” In so acknowledging, Bazin believes that Wyler “deprives himself … of certain technical means … [and] tends … [toward] neutrality. This mise en scène seems to define itself through its absence.” Bazin praises this “absence” as the realistic benefit of the Wyler style. “The depth of field of Wyler is … the perfect neutrality and transparency of style, which must not interpose any filter, any refractive index, between the … [audience’s] mind and the story.”