Film As Art

A theory of film

“More than half a century since its initial publication, this deceptively compact book remains among the most incisive analyses of the formal and perceptual dynamics of cinema. No one who cares about film can afford to remain ignorant of its insights and wisdom. As digital technology fundamentally alters motion pictures, the lessons of Film as Art commend themselves as excellent insurance against reinventing the wheel in the new media landscape and hailing it as progress.”—Edward Dimendberg author of Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity “After more than eight decades, Rudolph Arnheim's small book of film theory remains one of the essential works in defining film art, understanding film less as reproducing the world than as opening up new possibilities for formal play and unexpected imagery. Anyone serious about film, whether scholar, filmmaker or simply a lover of cinema, must take Arnheim seriously.”—Tom Gunning, author of The Films of Fritz Lang and D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film “An aesthetic theory based on the formal ‘limitations’ of the medium, Arnheim’s Film as Art always provokes students in an age of few limits and less formality, and they argue and engage this classic text with unparalleled passion. Written in the wake of sound’s transformation of the cinema, Arnheim’s essays are not only central to understanding a major historical moment in theoretical debates about what constitutes the ‘essence’ of film, but also are a must read for anyone seeking a lucid, detailed, and rigorous argument about how works of art emerge from expressive constraint as much as expressive freedom.”—Vivian Sobchack, author of Carnal Thoughts

By Amos Vogel. Foreword by Scott MacDonald.

Between the 1890s and the 1930s, movie going became an established feature of everyday life across America. Movies constituted an enormous visual data bank and changed the way artist and public alike interpreted images. This book explores modern painting as a response to, and an appropriation of, the aesthetic possibilities pried open by cinema from its invention until the outbreak of World War II, when both the art world and the film industry changed substantially. Artists were watching movies, filmmakers studied fine arts; the membrane between media was porous, allowing for fluid exchange. Each chapter focuses on a suite of films and paintings, broken down into facets and then reassembled to elucidate the distinctive art–film nexus at successive historic moments.

Artists’ Film offers a lucid, accessible account of artists’ unique contribution to the art of the moving image in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. International in scope and accessibly written by a renowned authority on the subject, Artists’ Film is an introductory guide to the exciting and expanding field of artists’ film and an alternative history of the moving image, chronicling artists’ ever-evolving fascination with filmmaking from the early twentieth century to now. From early pioneers to key artists of today, writer and curator David Curtis offers a vivid account of the many creators who have been inspired by the cinematic medium and who have felt compelled to interpret and respond to it in their own way. In doing so, Curtis discusses these artists’ widely differing achievements, aspirations, theories, and approaches. Featuring over four hundred international moving-image makers and drawing on examples from across the arts, including experimental film, video, installation, and multimedia, this generously illustrated account offers an incomparable introduction to this continually evolving art form. A perfect read for anyone with an interest in the intersection of contemporary art and film.

Fascinating documentation of one of the most important film societies in American history.

6. udg. Originaludgave fra 1977