Early Film Theory - Balázs

1924

“A good film does not have ‘content’ as such. It is ‘kernel and shell in one’. It no more has content than does a painting, a piece of music or indeed – a facial expression. Film is a surface art and in it whatever is inside is outside. Nevertheless – and this is its fundamental difference from painting – it is a temporal art of movement and organic continuity, which in turn produce a convincing psychology or a false one, a clear or a confused meaning. This psychology and this meaning, however, are not a ‘deeper meaning’, residing in some ‘idea’ or other; they dwell entirely on the surface, as phenomena accessible to sensory perception.” (P.19)

“The fact is that one word has to have come to an end before another one can begin. But a facial expression need not have been completed before another one starts to infiltrate it and gradually displace it entirely. In the legato of visual continuity past and future expressions merge into one another and display not just the individual states of the soul but also the mysterious process of development itself. This narrative of the feelings enables film to give us something unique.” (P.34)

Balázs, Béla. Page 19, 18, 33, 34, Béla Balázs Early Film Theory: Visible Man and the Spirit of Film. Edited by Erica Carter. Translated by Rodney Livingstone, Berghahn Books, 2010.