Offscreen Notes
Rudolf Arnheim
Psychologist and art critic Rudolf Arnheim passed away on June 14 at the age of 102. Arnheim wrote eloquently about the aesthetics of visual arts from the standpoint of perception and cognition. His contribution to film theory and aesthetics included the seminal Film as Art, first written in German in 1932 and translated to English in 1933. Arnheim’s book was the first important contribution to film theory since Hugo Munsterberg’s The Photoplay: A Psychological Study in 1912 and stands as a pillar of the formalist approach to film theory (along with the writings of Munsterberg, Béla Balázs, and the Russian theorists Kuleshov, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Vertov). For an interesting account go to David Bordwell’s blog and read his tribute to Arnheim.
