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    Amrutha Pro

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    Film has unique properties that distinguish it from other art forms like novels, plays, paintings and sculptures. It tells stories through both visual and nonverbal elements, unlike novels and plays which rely more on words. Film theory began as soon as films emerged in the late 19th century, as inventors, artists and intellectuals debated what defines cinema - whether it was movement, single images or storing time. Early theorists like Vachel Lindsay and Hugo Munsterberg wrote some of the first analyses of film as a new medium in the early 20th century. Film theory became more institutionalized after World War II in places like France and the English-speaking world. German language film theory also made important contributions initially but lost prominence after World

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    Amrutha Pro

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    Film has unique properties that distinguish it from other art forms like novels, plays, paintings and sculptures. It tells stories through both visual and nonverbal elements, unlike novels and plays which rely more on words. Film theory began as soon as films emerged in the late 19th century, as inventors, artists and intellectuals debated what defines cinema - whether it was movement, single images or storing time. Early theorists like Vachel Lindsay and Hugo Munsterberg wrote some of the first analyses of film as a new medium in the early 20th century. Film theory became more institutionalized after World War II in places like France and the English-speaking world. German language film theory also made important contributions initially but lost prominence after World

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    psychoanalysis in film

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    Film has unique properties that distinguish it from other art forms like novels, plays, paintings and sculptures. It tells stories through both visual and nonverbal elements, unlike novels and plays which rely more on words. Film theory began as soon as films emerged in the late 19th century, as inventors, artists and intellectuals debated what defines cinema - whether it was movement, single images or storing time. Early theorists like Vachel Lindsay and Hugo Munsterberg wrote some of the first analyses of film as a new medium in the early 20th century. Film theory became more institutionalized after World War II in places like France and the English-speaking world. German language film theory also made important contributions initially but lost prominence after World

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    127 views2 pages

    Amrutha Pro

    Uploaded by

    amrutha
    Film has unique properties that distinguish it from other art forms like novels, plays, paintings and sculptures. It tells stories through both visual and nonverbal elements, unlike novels and plays which rely more on words. Film theory began as soon as films emerged in the late 19th century, as inventors, artists and intellectuals debated what defines cinema - whether it was movement, single images or storing time. Early theorists like Vachel Lindsay and Hugo Munsterberg wrote some of the first analyses of film as a new medium in the early 20th century. Film theory became more institutionalized after World War II in places like France and the English-speaking world. German language film theory also made important contributions initially but lost prominence after World

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    INTRODUCTION

    Film has properties that set apart from sculpture, paintings and novels and plays.
    It is also a story telling medium that shares that many elements with the story and the
    novel. Film has more even common with the stage play.Unlike the novel, short story or
    play film is not handy to study; it cannot be easily frozen upon the printed page. The
    novel and short story are easy to study because they are written to be read. The play is
    slightly difficult to study because it is written to be performed. Plays are printed and rely
    heavily upon spoken word. This cannot be said of screenplay, for a film greatly depends
    upon visual and nonverbal elements that are not easily expressed in writing.

    Film theory is almost as old as the medium itself. The cinema developed at the
    end of the nineteenth century from advances in photography, mechanics, optics, and the
    scientific production of serialized images but also has its roots in centuries of popular
    entertainment, ranging from magic lantern shows to large-scale panoramas, dioramas,
    and optical toys. From the very beginning, inventors, manufacturers, artists, intellectuals,
    educators, and scientists asked themselves questions about the essence of cinema: Was it
    movement or was it interval? Was it single image or series? Was it capturing place or was
    it storing time? Besides its relationship to other forms of visualization and representation,
    the question was: Was it science or was it art? And if the latter, did it elevate and educate,
    or distract and corrupt? Discussions centered not just on the specificity of cinema, but
    also on its ontological, epistemological, and anthropological relevance, and here the
    answers ranged from derogatory to skeptical. The first attempts to engage with film as a
    new medium took place in the early twentieth century, and two writers whose work can
    lay claim to the title of “the first film theory” are Vachel Lindsay (a poet) and Hugo
    Munsterberg (a psychologist). Film theory reached an initial peak in the 1920s, but it did
    not become institutionalized in the English-speaking world and in France until after
    World War II, and not on a broader scale until the 1970s. Other countries followed suit,
    but the debt to France and the head start of English language theorization has been a
    considerable advantage, ensuring that Anglo-American film theory – often showing
    strong ‘Continental’ (i.e. French) influences – has been dominant since the 1980s. It is to
    this transnational community of ideas that the present volume addresses itself and seeks
    to contribute.

    Initially, German language film theory played a significant role, as the names of
    Béla Balázs, Rudolf Arnheim, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and Bertolt Brecht
    indicate, yet after National-Socialism and World War II it lost its preeminent position in
    this international debate. The same could be said of Russian-language theory before and
    after Stalinism. Thus, the severity of certain historical breaks and political ruptures
    highlights two of the problems for a history of film theory based on geography and
    language. Moreover, a classification following national criteria would not only
    marginalize important positions elsewhere (Italy, the Czech Republic, Latin America, and
    Japan, to mention a few) and jettison the contribution of translation and migration, but it
    would also impose an external (national) coherence that hardly ever corresponds to the
    inner logic of theoretical positions, which are more often than not transnational in scope
    and universalist in intention.

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