Rudolf Arnheim's Formalist Film Theory
Summary
TLDRThis video lecture explores Rudolph Arnheim's formalism and the concept of cinematic perception, emphasizing Gestalt psychology's role in understanding film. It contrasts formalism, which sees film as transforming reality, with realism, which views film as reproducing reality. Key points include the idea that perception organizes sensory input into forms, and the concept of 'partial illusion' in cinema, where films simultaneously present both realistic and formal qualities. Examples from early cinema, experimental films, and sequences from Chaplin and Carax illustrate these theories. The lecture concludes with a preview of applying these ideas to Jacques Tati's 'Playtime.'
Takeaways
- 🎬 Rudolph Arnheim's work is deeply influenced by Gestalt psychology, which emphasizes the perception of wholes rather than individual parts.
- 🔍 Gestalt psychology is characterized by the idea that perception organizes sensory input into simple, regular, and balanced forms, which Arnheim applies to both art and film.
- 🎥 Arnheim challenges the notion that film is merely a mechanical reproduction of reality, suggesting that it is a form of organized perception.
- 🎨 Formalism in film theory is contrasted with realism, with formalists focusing on how film transforms reality rather than merely reproducing it.
- 🌐 Arnheim argues that cinema achieves artistic heights when it moves away from photographic reproduction towards a more abstract, animated form.
- 🌈 The concept of 'partial illusion' is central to Arnheim's theory, highlighting that film is both a representation and a formal object.
- 🚂 Arnheim uses examples like the train scene from the Lumière brothers to illustrate how film can be seen as both a representation and an abstract moving image.
- 📸 Camera movement is discussed as a way to create a 'two-fold effect' in film, where the positioning of the camera can change the viewer's perception of the scene.
- 🎭 Arnheim sees 'two-fold effects' in film as emblematic of the medium's ability to present multiple interpretations and challenge the viewer's perception.
- 🤹♂️ The script explores how experimental filmmakers like Ken Jacobs can use techniques to reveal the 'partial illusion' inherent in cinematic images.
- 🏙️ The script concludes by suggesting that even in non-experimental films, elements like camera movement and composition can create a sense of 'partial illusion' and formal interest.
Q & A
Who was Rudolf Arnheim?
-Rudolf Arnheim was a Gestalt psychologist known for his work on perception and his contributions to film theory.
What is Gestalt psychology?
-Gestalt psychology is a field of perceptual psychology that emphasizes the idea that we perceive wholes rather than parts. It emerged in the early 20th century.
How does Gestalt psychology relate to Arnheim's theory of cinema?
-Arnheim applied Gestalt principles to his film theory, emphasizing that we perceive films as organized wholes rather than as mere mechanical reproductions of reality.
What does Arnheim mean by 'cinematic perception'?
-Cinematic perception, according to Arnheim, refers to the unique way we perceive films, which involves organizing sensory raw material into forms of simplicity, regularity, and balance.
What is formalism in film theory?
-Formalism in film theory is the view that film transforms reality rather than merely reproducing it. Formalists focus on the artistic and formal qualities of film.
How does formalism differ from realism in film theory?
-Realism in film theory focuses on film's capacity to reproduce physical reality, while formalism emphasizes film's ability to transform and stylize reality.
What does Arnheim mean by 'partial illusion' in film?
-Partial illusion refers to the idea that film provides an illusion of reality that is not complete. It maintains its nature as a flat, bounded image while still presenting a lifelike scene.
What is an example of a 'twofold effect' in film according to Arnheim?
-A twofold effect occurs when a film scene produces a double perception, such as a visual gag in a Charlie Chaplin film where a scene appears to show one thing but reveals something else.
Why does Arnheim believe camera movement can create partial illusions?
-Arnheim believes camera movement creates partial illusions because it provides a sense of motion and depth that is not fully analogous to human movement, highlighting the film's formal properties.
What does Arnheim suggest about the properties of filmic recording?
-Arnheim suggests that filmic recording, with its flatness, boundaries, and lack of color (in his time), does not fully reproduce reality but instead offers a stylized and organized perception.
Outlines
🎬 Introduction to Rudolph Arnheim and Cinematic Perception
This paragraph introduces the topic of the video lecture, focusing on Rudolph Arnheim's perspective on cinematic perception and formalism. Arnheim, a gestalt psychologist, believed that perception involves seeing wholes rather than parts. The paragraph discusses the principles of gestalt psychology, such as the idea that our perception is organized according to principles of simplicity, regularity, and balance. It also contrasts formalism with realism in film theory, highlighting Arnheim's view that film is an art form that transforms reality rather than merely reproducing it.
🌟 The Concept of Gestalt Psychology in Film
This paragraph delves deeper into the influence of gestalt psychology on Arnheim's film theory. It explains how gestalt psychology emphasizes the perception of wholes, using optical illusions to illustrate this point. The paragraph also discusses how Arnheim applies gestalt principles to film, arguing that film should be seen as an organized form rather than a mechanical reproduction of reality. The concept of 'partial illusion' is introduced, suggesting that film provides a limited, yet meaningful, representation of reality.
🎥 Formalism and the Distinctiveness of Cinema
The third paragraph explores the concept of formalism in relation to cinema, contrasting it with realism. It discusses how formalists view film as a medium that transforms reality, while realists see film as a means of reproducing reality. The paragraph also touches on the historical context of early cinema, comparing the approaches of the Lumière brothers with those of Georges Méliès. Arnheim's view is presented as advocating for a middle ground, where film is seen as a unique art form that is both a representation and a formal object.
🚂 The Dynamics of Film Form and Partial Illusion
This paragraph examines the dynamics of film form, particularly in the context of camera movement and the perception of movement on screen. Arnheim's analysis of a train scene from an early film is used to illustrate how film can create a sense of movement and form that is distinct from the actual movement of objects. The concept of 'partial illusion' is further explored, showing how film can be both an image and a representation of action, emphasizing the dual nature of cinematic perception.
🎬 Two-Fold Effects and Gestalt Perception in Film
The final paragraph discusses the concept of 'two-fold effects' in film, which are moments where film presents multiple interpretations or perceptions simultaneously. This idea is linked to gestalt psychology's concept of multi-stability, where an image can be seen in multiple ways. Examples from Charlie Chaplin's films are used to demonstrate how the positioning of the camera and the editing of scenes can create these effects, highlighting the artistic potential of film to surprise and engage the viewer.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Cinematic Perception
💡Formalism
💡Gestalt Psychology
💡Perception
💡Partial Illusion
💡Two-Fold Effects
💡Aspect Perception
💡Realism
💡Necker Cube
💡Camera Movement
💡Animation
Highlights
Introduction to Rudolph Arnheim and his formalism in the context of cinematic perception.
Exploration of the concept of cinematic perception as defined by Arnheim and the role of Gestalt psychology.
Discussion on the Gestalt psychology mantra that we perceive wholes, not parts, illustrated through optical illusions.
Arnheim's view that perception is organized according to principles of simplicity, regularity, and balance.
The distinction between film as a mechanical reproduction of reality and film as a form of art.
Arnheim's argument that film reaches the heights of art when it frees itself from photographic reproduction.
The concept of partial illusion in film, emphasizing the film's flatness and limited perceptual richness.
Analysis of how film properties like flatness and rectangular boundaries contribute to its distinct form.
Introduction of the term 'formalism' in film theory and its contrast with realism.
Examples of film theorists and movements associated with formalism and realism, such as Italian neorealism and Soviet montage.
Arnheim's perspective on cinema's distinction from human perception and its unique artistic qualities.
The idea that film is a 'partial illusion' and its implications for understanding cinematic images.
Arnheim's analysis of the famous train arriving at the station film, highlighting the dynamic power of forward movement.
Discussion on the role of camera movement in creating a sense of natural movement versus the abstract quality of film images.
The concept of 'two-fold effects' in film, where a scene can be interpreted in multiple ways.
Examples from Charlie Chaplin's films illustrating the use of camera positioning to create two-fold effects.
The connection between two-fold effects and Gestalt psychology's concept of multi-stability.
Application of these concepts to Jacques Tati's film 'Play Time' in the next video lecture.
Transcripts
hi folks and welcome to the video lecture on rudolph arnheim and his formalism um and the
notion of cinematic perception um so the things we're going to be talking about are what do we
mean by cinematic perception for arnheim and what do we mean by formalism first let's like fixate on
this word perception um rudolph arnheim was known as a gestalt psychologist gestalt psychology was a
field of perceptual psychology that emerged around the early 20th centuries and rudolf arnheim was
a devotee of this particular school of thought but even more so in arnhem's writing of on film
you can see the influence of gestalt psychology so what do we mean by gestalt psychology well there's
a mantra of gestalt psychology which is that we perceive holes and not parts uh what does that
look like um if you've ever seen um diagrams like this one especially images like this or images
like this those kinds of diagrams were circulated widely by gestalt psychologists we think of them
as optical illusions but they more so for the gestalt psychologists illustrate certain
perceptual principles of how we perceive the world in holes and not parts so if you look at this
image for a moment and for some of you maybe most of you there will be a moment when you stop seeing
it as an abstract collection of dots and you'll start to see a form emerge that kind of experience
of emergence is a version of gestalt perception or here the fact that we can see
two distinct holes within one uh particular image right the vase and the two faces or with necker
cube we can see it as i'm jutting out this way um or or jutting out that way um is an example
of seeing holes gestalt means form or whole so take a look at the rest of these and some of them
will actually come into play in rudolph arnheim's theory of cinema so you can also have a bit of fun
with gestalt psychology i want to say that uh the reason that we can easily see two faces in one
singular face these are both composite images of famous actors with within famous movies is
result of gestalt psychology they may seem like unfamiliar faces to you but if you stare at them
long enough it's likely the case that a face that you recognize will kind of pop out as a whole and
you can't unsee it that kind of phenomenon is a gestalt phenomenon so where do we see this in
arnhem's writing i want to take an important quote from arnheim's writing that's not in our reading
but that really kind of captures the essence of how gestalt thinking and arnheim's film
theory come together he writes even the most elementary processes of vision do not produce
mechanical recordings of the outer world but organize the sensory raw material according
to principles of simplicity regularity and balance this discovery of the gestalt school
fitted the notion that the work of art too is not simply an imitation but a translation
of observed characteristics into the forms of a given medium the operative word here is organize
right he's making a claim um that art doesn't simply transform perception but perception is
already itself something that is organized right arnhem is saying we already add forms um to what
we see in the world we don't merely see a kind of stream of chaotic data we see forms shapes holes
so that's kind of the perception aspect what's this formalism term that i'm introducing if you
remember from our discussion last week i brought it up with respect to the way
some of us were talking about our theories about film and i noticed that some of us in the class
were already um film theoretical formalists what do i mean by being a formalist um well
it's a kind of useful but sometimes reductive binary way of thinking about two strains of
film theory on the left we have formalism on the right we have realism the realist thinkers
are those who basically are interested in the in film's capacity to reproduce reality or you might
call it physical or material reality the thinkers most readily associated with that are andre bazan
and siegfried krakauer and a handful of others um on the other side we have film theorists who are
obsessed with the idea that film doesn't reproduce reality but that it transforms reality so take
this quote from arnheim as kind of the beginning idea that spawns these two camps of thought this
is how arnheim begins our reading he says there are still many educated people who stoutly deny
the possibility that film might be art they say in effect quote film cannot be art for it does
nothing but reproduce reality mechanically in many ways this idea that film reproduces
reality is the starting point for both both sides are at least in some aspects of their
theory world we'll acknowledge this what makes you a formless or a realist is how you respond to that
the arnheims will say if it reproduces reality let's think about the ways that
it's say maybe doesn't reproduce reality or rather instruct filmmakers to stray away from
the reproduction of reality for your bazaans and your crack hours the idea is to say if that's
what it does naturally let's let's think about aesthetic conventions that harness that power
um so we can also think about formalism and realism in terms of not just filmmakers or
rather theorists but kinds of films right the italian neorealists would be as you might guess
placed under the realist camp on the other hand you might have soviet montage or something
like battleship potemkin often associated with formalism we might also think about
early cinema as very quickly giving rise to two caps of realism and formalism if we allow
ourselves to stretch that definition um a bit further right we have lumiere with the realists
and we have george melies with the formless simply because the lumieres we generally think
of as tapping into the film's or the camera's natural proclivity for capturing material reality
or melies who's obsessed with camera tricks and special effects that deny that natural ability
so let's go back to those two basic questions from last time what is cinema and what does it do
what makes cinema distinct from the other arts what we might think of arnheim as doing is taking
the second question and expanding it and saying it's not just about what makes him a medicine
from the other arts like in like theater of course that's a big part of his argument
but he takes it a bit further and he says what makes cinema distinct from human perception
so we can think about arnheim's project as starting with this problem that we mentioned
a minute ago film cannot be art because it does nothing but reproduce reality mechanically and
he kind of places it along a spectrum if this is the starting issue what kinds of um films might we
make um in order to avoid the problem well in one part of his book arnheim will state the kind of
most uh absolute formalist claim which is that cinema will be able to reach the heights of other
arts only when it frees itself from photographic reproduction and becomes a pure work of man and
an animated cartoon or painting so you can actually see this idea of formalism in its
most extreme form with something like avant-garde non-representational animation which was indeed
proliferating in the 1920s when arnheim was writing the essays that comprise the book film as
art but for the most part arnheim's writing is not a detailed analysis of abstract animation
is actually looking at cinematographic recording at in its place in film and he'll look at this
kind of middle position he'll say film does not quite reproduce reality mechanically
and i'm not only saying that film should avoid recording altogether by turning to animation he
wants to say something like this in the middle by the absence of colors of three-dimensional depth
by being sharply limited by the margins on the screen film is most satisfactorily denuded of
its realism in other words he's saying that if we pay attention to the properties of filmic
recording not just the capacities of storytelling and editing but even more basically the fact that
the image is flat that it has firm rectangular boundaries that especially in the 1920s when
he's writing it lacks color it also lacks sound um you can see that film is not in fact a pure
reproduction of reality because of all the ways in which it doesn't approximate
our perceptual richness when we encounter the world and this very idea is going to be linked
up to a um a recurring concept throughout arnhem's writing in the excerpt that i asked you to look at
and that concept is called partial illusion so he writes a little bit above and a little bit below
this particular passage thus film provides a partial illusion it is always at one and the
same time a flat picture postcard and the scene of a living action so one way to make sense
of arnheim is to think about all the ways he wants to insist that film despite having a perceptual
richness that's analogous to our visual perception of material reality is still nevertheless
a picture an image it is flat and it can be thought of as a purely formal
kind of object so what do we mean by formal object well you can see that displayed
in a number of passages in fact he does a lot of kind of mini close readings of scenes from
films and this one he does a kind of abstract reading of um what sounds like uh the famous
uh train arriving at the station film and you can see what he means by form
when you take a look at this passage this is what he says he says everyone has seen a railway
engine rushing on the scene in a film it seems to be coming straight at the audience the effect
is most vivid because the dynamic power of the forward rushing movement is enhanced by another
source of dynamics that has no inherent connection with the object itself that is with the locomotive
but depends on the position of the spectator or in other words the camera the nearer the engine comes
the larger it appears the dark mass on screen spreads in every direction at a tremendous pace
and the actual objective movement of the engine is strengthened by this dilation so what is he
doing here well in some sense he's telling us to look at an ordinary scene something like this
this famous you know first film from the lumiere brothers the train arrives at the station and he
asks us to suspend our judgment that it is merely equivalent with what it represents that is a train
moving close to the camera and one way we can think about this is if we
start to take away the details that make it a very strong compelling representation of a train
and start to think of it as an abstract um moving image of of masses of of particles or of of lines
and shapes right thinking that thinking of it in terms of forms he's really interested in this idea
that you can think about this as a swelling of an object rather quickly right it's almost as if
arnhem thinks about film as if every film is an experimental film right devoid of representation
he wants us to see that every film does indeed have those formal imaged qualities but sometimes
we forget about them because we think of content first and form second so what's the kind of way we
can think about this idea of partial illusion well one example is camera movement there's a
section of the reading in which he talks about the phenomenon of the moving camera
and he talks about the way that it appears to our senses in some sense a natural understanding of
camera movement is that it approximates human movement right when i move through the world
the world seems to rush by but for the most part i see it as myself moving and the world is static
he thinks that that is in fact not always the case so let's take a look at this passage he
says certain parallels which are sometimes drawn between the functioning of the human eye and the
camera for instance the comparison between the mobility of the eyes and that of the camera
are false um once again think about the kind of the the large claim being made here it's an
intuitive claim that when a camera moves through the world it's analogous to our eyes moving to
the world he says that's false if the camera was rotated while the picture was being shot
very much so like in this well-known experimental film by chantal ackerman called lashambra
the bookcase table window and door will proceed across the screen when the picture is projected it
is they which are moving in other words he wants to say that while when i look at this particular
image i may indeed read it as a camera panning in a kind of 360 degree fashion he wants to say that
there's also a sense in which the objects move leftward across a two-dimensional bounded image
in almost every case there is an element of twofoldness of twoness or rather a partial
illusion that's happening right um i might say that the partial illusion is at its smallest um in
forward camera movement because it's very hard to look at these instances without thinking about me
moving through the space depicted they have a very strong illusory quality um
but as a formal experimental filmmaker like ken jacobs will demonstrate there are ways
in which we can say unlock the picture-ness or the partial illusion that's always bound up in
cinematic images including that strongly illusory feeling of moving through the world ushered in by
a forward moving camera this is a film of ken jacobs called georgetown loop
in which he takes a early cinematic film a what's known as a phantom ride a conventional
form in which a camera was placed on the front of a locomotive and then he quickly
juxtaposes it with its mirror image and very soon what happens is that this no longer feels
like a forward moving camera it looks like a two-dimensional abstract a two-dimensional
abstraction looks like a rorschach inkblot in many ways or rather a moving rojak
inkblot and i think hornheim would be very pleased with this experimental film because
it seems to demonstrate that that partial illusion even though our habits of perception
suppress it we can kind of activate activate it through particular ways of making movies
i want to say that even in less experimental or not at all experimental examples you can see a
kind of partial illusion or maybe a twofoldness happening this is one of my favorite sequences
from movies it's a scene in leocarex's movie song in which the lead character runs across the screen
but just think about what arnheim might say about it as purely a kinetic moving composition
okay so imagine what rudolph arnheim would say if he was presented with this particular
sequence i think that he would it would demonstrate the fact that the effect
that's produced what we might call a kinetic effect that's produced in this in this sequence
a kind of rhythmic visual intensity is produced because not just the fact that the camera moves
but the way that it moves that is completely sideways and the fact that it is moving
rightward with respect to a flat um surface that is corrugated with alternating stripes of
black and gray and when we move across them they kind of vibrate and and give us this quality and
the quality is very much kind of flat it's kind of a picture postcard you might say
of a living action and it's both a representation of a man running through space but it's also much
more than that right its formal qualities are pronounced um over and against the simplicity
of its of its content um so how do we get from partial illusion to what arnheim will call later
in his uh in his writing two-fold effects well here's what i mean by two-fold effects he says
a two-fold effect can be produced by a clever position of the camera
if an artist's impression is to be achieved this double effect is necessary it must not only show
the subject in characteristic fashion but must at the same time satisfy the spectator sense of form
so he's saying a lot here first what i mean by two twofold effect is something like this there's a
couple moments where he reads moments in charlie chaplin's films this particular one is a gag
in which we first see a kind of rolling ship the camera is going back and forth to give us a sense
that the ship is extremely rocky and then we cut to chaplin looking as if he's likely vomiting over
the edge of the boat due to seasickness but very soon chaplin will reveal the fact that this is not
the case but he was trying to reel in a fish there's a twofoldness that is responsible for
the gag happening that we saw it as one thing with respect to what we saw before and then it
revealed that it was in fact another thing now arnheim is very obsessed with this kind of thing
why is he obsessed with it he seems to think that there's a particular artistic impression achieved
with two-fold effects like this partly because for arnheim they emblematize the idea that film
is always a partial illusion that it's always two things at once and also the fact that in each of
these cases the illusion is only produced with respect to where the camera is placed in space
in other words it matters absolutely that we shoot charlie chaplin precisely from this angle
otherwise the gag would not happen munzerberg might say that this is important as a way to
distinguish film from theater arnheim wants to say that there is a kind of greater importance to this
kind of possibility in the cinematic medium right the effect of surprise is achieved by making use
of the fact that the spectator will be looking at the situation from a certain definite position
right so this two-fold effect is a kind of aspect perception or multi-stability so another reason
that we might think arnhem gravitates towards these examples is because they're extremely
important in gestalt psychology they represent our proclivity for seeing the world in terms of
holes right in this case i see two things at once or rather back and forth a duck and a rabbit once
again here i see two different positionalities of the necker cube and here i see two faces and
i go back and forth between that between seeing that and a vase these things are ways of making
sense of how we see the world he's applying it to how we see film as distinct from how we see the
world and we already talked about this image in logite as having a kind of multi stability right
it can be seen both as our protagonist kind of flying backward after he's been shot but it also
looks as if it's the figure of of death hooded with his right hand extended into the air so
that's all we're going to have for this particular video lesson next time we're going to apply these
ideas of partial illusion aspect perception and cinematic seeing to jacques tati's play time
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