Arnheim for Film and Media Studies

Description

Rudolf Arnheim (1904-2007) was a pioneering figure in film studies, best known for his landmark book on silent cinema Film as Art. He ultimately became more famous as a scholar in the fields of art and art history, largely abandoning his theoretical work on cinema. However, his later aesthetic theories on form, perception and emotion should play an important role in contemporary film and media studies. In this enlightening new volume in the AFI Film Readers series, an international group of leading scholars revisits Arnheim’s legacy for film and media studies. In fourteen essays, the contributors bring Arnheim’s later work on the visual arts to bear on film and media, while also reassessing the implications of his film theory to help refine our grasp of Film as Art and related texts. The contributors discuss a broad range topics including Arnheim’s film writings in relation to modernism, his antipathy to sound as well as color in film, the formation of his early ideas on film against the social and political backdrop of the day, the wider uses of his methodology, and the implications of his work for digital media. This is essential reading for any film and media student or scholar seeking to understand the meaning and contemporary impact of Arnheim’s foundational work in film theory and aesthetics. Book Cover Title Copyright contents illustrations foreword: rudolf arnheim in retrospect acknowledgements introduction one: rudolfarnheim: clarity, simplicity, balance two: arnheim and modernism three: rudolf arnheim’s early passage between social and aesthetic film criticism four: screening out sound: arnheim and cinema’s silence five: a gestalt approach to film analysis six: deft trajectories for the eye: bringing arnheim to vincente minnelli’s color design seven: perfecting the complete cinema: rudolf arnheim and the digital intermediate eight: art, accident, and the interpretation of the modern world nine: visual thinking of the avant-garde film ten: arnheim on radio: materialtheorie and beyond eleven: television from afar: arnheim’s understanding of media twelve: arnheim and comics thirteen: arnheim on style history fourteen: arnheim on the ontology of the photographic image bibliography contributors index