The promise of cinema
Subtitle: German film theory, 1907--1933
By: edited by Anton Kaes, Nicholas Baer, and Michael Cowan
Series: Weimar and now -- German Cultural Criticism -- 49; Weimar and now -- 49.
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 682
ISBN-13: 9780520219083; 9780520219076
Subjects: Motion pictures; Film criticism; History
Description: "Rich in implications for our present era of media change, The Promise of Cinema offers a compelling new vision of film theory. The volume conceives of "theory" not as a fixed body of canonical texts, but as a dynamic set of reflections on the very idea of cinema and the possibilities once associated with it. Unearthing more than 275 early-twentieth-century German texts, this ground-breaking documentation leads readers into a world that was striving to assimilate modernitys most powerful new medium. We encounter lesser-known essays by Béla Balázs, Walter Benjamin, and Siegfried Kracauer alongside interventions from the realms of aesthetics, education, industry, politics, science, and technology. The book also features programmatic writings from the Weimar avant-garde and from directors such as Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau. Nearly all documents appear in English for the first time; each is meticulously introduced and annotated. The most comprehensive collection of German writings on film published to date, The Promise of Cinema is an essential resource for students and scholars of film and media, critical theory, and European culture and history."--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 613-638) and index.
Table of contents: title: Section one. Transformations of experience. The new sensorium ; The world in motion ; The time machine ; The magic of the body ; Spectatorship and sites of exhibition ; An art for the times; title: Section two: Film culture and politics. Moral panic and reform ; Image wars ; The specter of Hollywood ; Cinephilia and the cult of stars ; The mobilization of the masses ; Chiffres of modernity; title: Section three: Configurations of a medium. The expressionist turn ; Avant-garde and industry ; The aesthetics of silent film ; Film as knowledge and persuasion ; Sound waves ; Technology and the future of the past.