Film as Art by Rudolf Arnheim

Author:Rudolf Arnheim [Arnheim, Rudolf]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Performing Arts, Film, General
ISBN: 9780520000353
Google: 65RhkpZ0W4YC
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 1957-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

3 The Content of the Film

the mind through the body

The raw material that the film can use for its representations consists entirely of material objects and physical happenings. But mental processes may be expressed by means of these. There are, above all, the play of the human face and the gestures of the body and limbs—by means of them human thought and feeling are expressed in the most direct and familiar way. These are, however, not the only means of making inner happenings externally visible, and perhaps not even the best and most effective.

Since most people are not in the habit of observing their fellow men in everyday life to see how far their gestures are vivid and significant, it seldom occurs to them how unnatural and exaggerated are those of most film actors. The “natural acting” of everyday life is curious. It is most ambiguous and indeterminate, enigmatic and individual. Many people are sparing of it, and its use is monotonous, being confined to a very few muscles. A man’s facial expression often does not seem to the average beholder in the least indicative of his mental state. Some people look as if they were laughing when they are crying, and some peo- ples smiles are very acid. And, above all, much everyday expression fails to convey a well-defined meaning; it is not striking, one does not know how to interpret it, it may mean resignation or doubt or stupidity or reserve. The face is contorted and full of wrinkles, but the whole effect is not quite harmonious, it does not convey a homogeneous message. Much facial expression’s comprehensibile only because it is a part of a situation, because the conversation and various other indications reveal what the man is feeling. It is only in this way that the untidy play of lines in his face is understood as meaning embarrassment or greed or pleasure.

The expression of animals and primitive peoples, though for reasons of our own upbringing difficult for us to understand, is intrinsically much more distinct. That it has degenerated to such an extent in civilized man is due to several causes. All our social customs tend to the impoverishment of external expression because it is considered improper in human intercourse to manifest personal desires and feelings unrestrainedly. If one observes a mother with her child, one notices her to systematically break the child of its natural gesture of face and limbs (“Don’t stare at the gentlenman like that!”—”Sit still!”) Again, modern man is not so direct in his thoughts and feelings as primitive man and the animals. The variety of his motives, the suppleness and flexibility of thought, the lightning rapidity of the clash of tiny impulses and repressions, all have their natural echo in the play of features and in gestures; and so has the fact that this variety of stirrings often is not integrated in a clearcut whole.

In a good work of art, however, everything must be clear—if anything indistinct is to be shown, it

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