Experiment in the film (1949)

EDITOR'S FOREWORD The aim of this book is quite simply to gather together the views of a number of people, prominent either in the field of film-making or film-criticism or in both, on the contribution of their country to the experimental development of the film. The medium of the cinema has become highly flexible during its first half-century of existence: the time is now ripe to take stock of what has so far been achieved. Each writer was left free to choose between making a more general study of film-making in his country from an experimental point of view, or, where the consistent production of unusual films had taken place, making a specific study of that form of cinema which has come to be termed the avant-garde in compliment to France where the most notable school of advanced experiment in the film took place between 1925 and 1932. Consequently Jacques Brunius and Lewis Jacobs have chosen to confine themselves entirely to this branch of film art. Experiment in Germany, Russia and Britain occurred more consistently in films belonging to the main stream of production. In the case of Germany we have, however, been able to supplement Ernst Iros's essay with a short note on the German avant-garde by one of its most notable practitioners, Hans Richter, who is now working in America. We have also thought it necessary to add some points on the contribution of the film to science, and a short essay on this subject is contributed by John Maddison, who has made a special study of this branch of film-making from an international point of view. My own essay is an attempt, by way of introduction, to show something of how the film has matured and expanded as a medium of expression in the hands of a few outstanding artists, whose instinctive feeling for the nature of the new art led them to discover and use some of its great technical powers. 5