The Art of the Moving Picture - Softcover

Lindsay, Vachel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0871402041 ISBN 13: 9780871402042

Publisher: Liveright, 1970

Synopsis

"This is a joyous and wonderful performance," said Francis Hackett, when he reviewed this book in the New Republic of December 25, 1915, "a bold and brilliant theory, really bold and really brilliant, and takes first place as an inspiration of the greatest popular aesthetic phenomenon in the world."

The Art of the Moving Picture is astonishing, as a work of analysis and vision. Over fifty years ago Lindsay saw the hunger that still obsesses the film enthusiast. Sculpture-in-motion, painting-in-motion, architecture-in-motion are nuggets out of which he refines subtle perceptions.

Lindsay sees, in 1915, the revolution in human perception involved in the very existence of film. There is a clear prediction of McLuhan in "Edison is the new Gutenberg. He has invented the new printing." Lindsay sees, in 1915, the quintessence of the auteur theory of film criticism, formulated some forty years later: "An artistic photoplay . . . is not a factory-made staple article, but the product of the creative force of one soul, the flowering of a spirit that has the habit of perpetually renewing itself."

This book is a considerable marvel. Lindsay had a clear sense that a profound change was taking place, not only in cultural history but in all human histories―the external and also the most secret. And, poet and evangelist that he was, he saw some fundamental ways to understand and use the change. Francis Hackett concluded his review in 1915: "He has initiated photoplay criticism. That is a big thing to have done, and he has done it, to use his own style, with Action, Intimacy, and Friendliness, and Splendor."

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"In the field of film aesthetics, it is the first important American work, still important--The Art of the Moving Picture is astonishing."
--Stanley Kauffmann
Written in 1915, The Art of the Moving Picture by poet Vachel Lindsay is the first book to treat movies as art. Lindsay writes a brilliant analysis of the early silent films (including several now lost films). He is extraordinarily prescient about the future of moviemaking--particularly about the business, the prominence of technology, and the emergence of the director as the author of the film.

About the Author:

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay was an American poet. He is considered a founder of modern singing poetry, as he referred to it, in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted. A selection of his poems include: "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight", "An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie", "A Rhyme About an Electrical Advertising Sign", "A Sense of Humor", "Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan", "The Dandelion", "Drying Their Wings", "Euclid", "Factory Windows are Always Broken", "The Flower-Fed Buffaloes", "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" — the American Classical Composer Charles Ives would write music to this poem (with a couple of additional text alterations) shortly after its publication, "In Praise of Johnny Appleseed", "The Kallyope Yell" "The Leaden-Eyed", "Love and Law", "The Mouse That Gnawed the Oak Tree Down", "The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmith's Son" "On the Garden Wall", "The Prairie Battlements" “The Golden Book of Springfield, "Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread", "The Congo: A Study of the Negro Race", "The Eagle That is Forgotten", "The Firemen's Ball", "The Rose of Midnight", "This Section is a Christmas Tree", "To Gloriana", "What Semiramis Said", "What the Ghost of the Gambler Said", "Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket", "Written for a Musician". (Wikipedia)

About this edition

• Publisher: Liveright
• Publication date: 1970
• ISBN 10: 0871402041
• ISBN 13: 9780871402042
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 354