REDISCOVERING ARNHEIM
New ideas for the research

Dimitri Liebsch
Oglethorpe University, Atlanta (USA) | Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany)

THE LONG ENDING OF THE SILENT MOVIE
Paper presented at the 23rd annual conference of the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences, Salzburg, 20th-24th July, 2004. [The extended German version, “Das lange Ende des Stummfilms,” is published in C. G. Allesch - O. Neumeier (eds.), Rudolf Arnheim oder die Kunst der Wahrnehmung, Wien: WUV Universitätsverlag, 2004: 69-85].

In the literature on Rudolf Arnheim’s inspiring work on film, four connected aspects have most often been mentioned: aesthetics, art, form, and the silent movie. One might come up with the following slightly exaggerated formula: within a formalist aesthetic, Arnheim devoted himself to the silent movie as an art genre. Regarding Arnheim’s most extensive work on film, that is, Film als Kunst, written in 1932, these four aspects are very productive. However, Arnheim did continue studying film after being turned out of Nazi Germany. Until the early 1940s he worked on film intensely and continued to do so sporadically up to 1999. And in these later texts you will find four complementary aspects, namely an inquiry into media theory and sociology, the documentary dimension of film, realism, and sound film. In the first (longer) part of this paper I want to concentrate on the four aspects put forth in Film als Kunst, and in the second (shorter) part I will connect these with the four mentioned complementary ones, which unfortunately have been so often overlooked and slighted in the criticism on Arnheim’s film theory.

Rainer Schönhammer
Burg Giebichenstein Hochschule für Kunst und Design Halle - Saale (Germany)



HUMAN ‘SENSE OF SPACE’, MOVING IMAGES AND ARCHITECTURE
Paper presented at the International Symposium Aesthetics and Architectural Composition, Dresden, 2004.

The paper discusses possibilities and restrictions of the representation of built space in film and virtual reality. The presenter’s approach combines phenomenological analysis, reference to traditional theories of aesthetic experience and more recent neurocognitive insights.


ARNHEIM ON THE PERCEPTION OF MOVING IMAGES
Paper presented at the 23rd annual conference of the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences, Salzburg, 20th-24th July, 2004. [Abbreviated English version of the original German chapter entitled “Mit Arnheim Kino” in C. Allesch - 0. Neumeier (eds.), Rudolf Arnheim oder die Kunst der Wahrnehmung, Wien: WUV Universitätsverlag, 2004: 87-96].

The paper focuses on an element of Arnheim’s theory that is still relevant: the perception of moving images. Arnheim stressed that the movement of objects (not least: the moving human body) – besides being expressive – is essential for the viewer’s impression of three-dimensional space. As for the movement of the camera, Arnheim explained why it tends to produce disorientation and dizziness (which may sometimes be an intended effect). These insights contradict the still widespread mystification of camera movements as the core of the movie experience.

Ian Verstegen
Art historian - Philadelphia, NJ (USA)

A FORMALIST REBORN
in «Film-Philosophy», Electronic Salon 3, 46, 1999.

As is often the case with first-time translations, this is the cause of a major reassessment of Arnheim, who has become a caricature of his former self. In surveys of film theory Arnheim is routinely included with the founders of film theory, in a manoeuvre that effectively cuts him off from the strands that blossom into contemporary concerns. Arnheim is denigrated as a *formalist* or an *aesthete* that cannot engage film with the real world. The volume at hand does not directly address these concerns, obviously, but through the attention to three issues that figure prominently in its pages one can gain a major insight into the real Arnheim. These issues relate to Arnheim's vision of the nature of criticism, his notorious pronouncements on the sound film, and his little-known dealings with censorship in Nazi Germany.