Munsterberg ’s Theory: Mind as the Raw Material of Cinema , or, Cinema as the Art Of Mind-as a Perceptual Action

In 1916, Hugo Munsterberg, the first film theorist based on Kant's idealist philosophy, analyzes the art of the movie as a new phenomenon. Many analysts who studied his theory of film "Photoplay: A Psychological Study”, believed that Munsterberg considered "mind" as the material cause of cinema. The aim of this paper is to prove, as neorealist theoreticians, Munsterberg considers reality as the raw material of cinema, but since he based his theory on Kant's transcendental perception, and the belief in the imposition of complete unity into a visual object on the screen of the cinema through Conquering the external reality, and giving the inner constraint to the object on the basis of the antecedent structures of the mind, he recognizes the cinema as the "mental process", the art of "subjectivity". Contrary to the opinion of his exponents, however, Munsterberg does not consider the material cause of cinema to be "mind", because he considers cinema as the art of mind, focusing on the functions of cinema that corresponds to experimental experience and other mental actions. The research method in this paper is descriptive and analytical.