Film theory. Rehabilitation of physical reality

This book is the first complete publication of the classic monograph by Siegfried Kracauer (1889–1966) in Russian. In his large-scale work, the German sociologist of popular culture conducts a comprehensive study of black and white cinema through the prism of... philosophy and media aesthetics. Immediately after its publication in 1960, the publication was criticized for being "old-fashioned". Kracauer does not pay attention to contemporary trends - hand-drawn films and color - analyzing only “black and white cinema, originating from photography,” in order to study in detail the most important aspects of the essence of cinema. For the author, the camera is a tool capable of capturing physical reality, and he views cinema as a means of representing the transitory material life, focusing on what it can offer to our perception of the world. This approach makes Krakauer's work a timeless book and allows the author to turn from its pages to the present moment at every stage of the development of art.