The cinema as a graphic art : on a theory of representation in the cinema (1959)

CREATIVE PROBLEMS OF THE ART OF THE CAMERA-MAN icial, sugary beauty, such is the content of photogenics in bourgeois cinema practice. It is more qualitatively refined and formalistic in the European cinema, q the work of Delluc, for instance, and more banal, vulgar and naive in the standard ' cinema production of America. In Soviet conditions creative work founded on such methods would undoubtedly be injurious and reactionary, for it would not only fail to organise he spectator, but would socially disorientate him, replacing the ideological content >y purely aesthetic, superficially * artistic ' moulds. The German theorist of the cinema, Rudolf Arnheim, devotes a whole :hapter to " The psychology of the Mass-Produced Film " in his book Film.1 ie says : Nearly all the stories of these films follow — unconsciously or otherwise — a definite rend ; not that they are preaching ; on the contrary, the dangerous thing about this trend s that nothing is formulated theoretically, nothing is exacted ; but the standpoint from vhich the things of this world are regarded, the choice of narrative and its implicit moral, ire unilateral. . . . The mass-produced film titillates what is bad and stupid in man, t ensures that dissatisfaction shall not burst into revolutionary action, but shall fade away n dreams of a better world. It serves up in a sugar coating what really needs combating. j . . It is only necessary to pick out one or two of these films and to analyse them, and t will be seen at once how much secret poison there is in such apparently harmless enterainments. Where did the theory of photogenics arise ? Its introduction to cinematography has to be attributed to Louis Delluc, who regarded as photogenic features hat possessed character first and foremost. But this opinion admits the possibility of there being absolutely non-photogenic features as well as photogenic mes. And what is an absolutely non-photogenic face ? It is one void of any characteristic peculiarities whatever : in other words, it is a pure idealistic abstraction, void of all qualities, and consequently quite unimaginable. The idea evoked in our minds by the superficial aspect of any object arises joy no means as the result of an immediate visual impression, but, as Plekhanov Pointed out : Sensations evoked by a certain combination of colours or of objects, even among primitive peoples, are associated with very complex ideas, and at any rate many such jbrms and combinations seem beautiful only thanks to such associations.2 The impression evoked in our minds by the sight of a motor-car acquires a certain direction not only because we see a smoothly polished surface, the gleaming iiietal parts and the plastic form of the body, but also because with our view of :he car is associated the idea of speed of movement, and we value a car from the aspect of its service for this purpose. Any attempt to arrive at a valuation of the expressiveness of such material from the standpoint of bourgeois ' a priori ' or I formalistic ' aesthetics invariably leads to serious errors, of which we see many examples in the history of the development of technical forms. In the period of the birth of machine industry the machine, as we have already pointed out, was regarded as doubly unaesthetic. The first locomotives were provided with relief ornamentation in pseudo-classical style, giving them a superficial approximation to the ornamental finish of coaches. The chimneys were *iven the form of Corinthian columns, and the wheels were adorned with garlands. The unpleasant impression caused by the total absence of justification for such 1 Film, translated from the German by L. V. Sieveking and Ian F. D. Morrow, Faber & Faber, 1933 — Ed. 2 Plekhanov : Letters without Address. — N. 175