CONTENTS Introduction 3 The Subject 3 The Method 6 I. THE FORMATIVE TRADITION 11 1. HUGO MUNSTERBERG 14 Matter and Means 15 Form and Function 20 2. RUDOLF ARNHEIM 27 Material 28 The Creative Use of the Medium 31 Film Form 33 The Purpose of Film 35 3. SERGEI EISENSTEIN 42 The Raw Material of Film 45 Cinematic Means : Creation Through Montage 51 Film Form 57 The Art Machine 60 Organic Analogy 64 The Final Purpose of Film 68 Rhetoric 68 4. BELA BALAZS AND THE TRADITION OF FORMALISM 76 A Summary of Formative Film Theory 76 Russian Formalism 79 Bela Baldzs 84 The Raw Material of Film Art 86 The Creative Potential of Film Technique 88 Cinematic Shape or Form 93 Cinematic Functions 97 II. REALIST FILM THEORY 104 5. SIEGFRIED KRACAUER 106 Matter and Means 107 Compositional Forms 114 The Purpose of Cinema 125 Rebuttals 129 6. ANDRE BAZIN 134 The Raw Material 137 Cinematic Means and Form 141 Bazin versus Traditional Theory 141 The Plastics of the Image 146 The Resources of Montage 155 The Use and Misuses of Montage : Cinematic Purposes 164 The Function of Cinema 170 III. CONTEMPORARY FRENCH FILM THEORY 179 7. JEAN MITRY 185 The Raw Material 188 Creative Potential in Film 192 The Form and Purpose of Cinema 205 5. CHRISTIAN METZ AND THE SEM1OLOGY OF THE CINEMA 212 The Raw Material 216 Of Semiology 216 Of Film 217 The Means of Signification in Cinema 219 Film Is Not a True Language 219 Nevertheless Film Is Like a Language 223 1. Code/Message 224 2. System/Text 227 The Forms and Possibilities of Film 230 Semiology and the Purposes of Film 236 9. THE CHALLENGE OF PHENOMENOLOGY : AMEDEE AYFRE AND HENRI AGEL 242 NOTES 255 BIBLIOGRAPHY 261 INDEX 273