The point is for you to forget you're watching a movie, and get caught up in the story. What do the characters want?
Here's a clip from Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller Psycho to illustrate what I mean. The goal of a classicist is to tell a story in the best way possible.
They want you to get caught up in the characters and their problems, to feel what they feel, but not be distracted by the filmmaking techniques.
How did the visual images confuse you? Playing around with formalist elements in an uncommitted or unconfident manner could lead to a complete bust. Or the stylistic madness of Pacino in Dick Tracy. Realism first surfaced as a movement within the written and visual arts in the late 19th century in response to the overly romantic literature and art of the time.
The point is not necessarily to try to associate the images and sounds to our lives and what we know, but rather to show these situations through a different lens than our own.
Then you can take into consideration Michael Bay who does ridiculous stunts and explosions making the audience aware its a film, and these things going on can only be made in film.
Essentially, Bazin thought films should be shot in a way that would make audiences feel as if they were actually there observing the events.
Once again youre able to see a realism film use formalism aspects. The films often deal with social issues. Here are some examples.