Béla Balázs: a Gestalt theory of film

Abstract

Discussing the major concepts on which Balázs’s film theory is built, the article explores the poetic Gestalt and symbolic meaning of film, the interplay of close-up, montage and conjecture. Following the development of the theory from Visible Man (1924) to The Spirit of Film (1930), the article argues for the possibility of a semiotic understanding of Balázs’s phenomenological approach. In the beginning, Balázs was attracted by the spiritual dimension of the new art. He expected a new visual culture to emerge from the silent movie. Consequently, Balázs had to reconsider his theory when sound came in and enriched the medium’s capacity to convey information. Another reason to alter his conception was Balázs’s struggle with Eisenstein. A closer look at this struggle reveals that Balázs had his own theory of linkage and was not willing to accept the Soviet idea of montage as a making up of mind. In favour of associations provoked deliberately he thought the viewer should bridge the gap between observation and imagination that is essential in cinema. In the end, Balázs imlicitly derives at a diagrammatic understanding of the moving image and its conjectural reception. This understanding – together with Balázs’s concern for cinema’s affective potential – inspired film theory after his death, especially in France.