A Critical Reading of Siegfried Kracauer's Film Theory Print

As one of the realist film theorists Siegfried Kracauer was born contemporary to the advent of cinema and his life was set againstcaincided with cinematic developments. In his Theory of Film (1960) he tried to offer a systematic film theory in order to define the new born medium and thereafter، using structural and teleological distinctive، and to distinguish it from other artistic genres. This article is a critical introduction to Kracauer''s Theory of Film and is organized under chapter headings different from those available in the book itself. The chapter headings and divisions applied in this article are carried out following the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. This article would discuss the structure of cinema، namely its basic components (visual elements، time and space، set design، acting، and sound)، the relations of these components (editing، story and script، and the dominant orders in documentary and experimental cinema) and its social purposes، as depicted in Kracauer''s Theory of Film. Thereafter، there would be concise discussion about the most important critiques on Kracauer only to finally focus on Richard Corliss''s 1970 article in which all the key critical views on Kracauer film theory are gathered and presented.