Hugo Münsterberg and the Psychology of Cinema

Flashcards on Hugo Münsterberg and the Psychology of Cinema

Hugo Münsterberg

German-American psychologist (1863-1916) who wrote 'The Photoplay: A Psychological Study' (1916).

The Photoplay: A Psychological Study

Book written by Hugo Münsterberg in 1916 exploring the psychological aspects of cinema.

Outer developments of Cinema

Technological history.

Inner developments of Cinema

Society’s uses of the medium (information, education, entertainment).

Photoplay

Narrative medium - the essence of cinema according to Münsterberg.

Historical evolution of cinema

Visual tricks at first, then information and education, and finally became a medium of the human mind.

Gestalt psychology

Every experience involves relations between part and whole,

figure and ground

Role of the mind in perception (according to Gestalt psychology)

The mind organises its perceptual field

The mind is active, interprets stimuli, and creates meaningful wholes.

Münsterberg’s main claim about Cinema

Cinema is the art of the mind; it organises its material similarly to the way the human mind works.

1st level of mind/cinema organisation

Mind confers motion on stimuli

Cinema creates the illusion of movement.

2nd level of mind/cinema organisation

Mind: attention (sensation and motion)

Cinema: angle, composition, focal length, image size, lighting.

3rd level of mind/cinema organisation

Mind: memory and imagination;

Cinema: editing (dramatic direction and organisation).

4th level of mind/cinema organisation

Mind: emotions

Cinema: narrative

Neo-Kantianism

The field of Immanuel Kant's three critiques: of pure reason (theoretical reason), of practical reason (ethics), of judgement (value).

Phenomena (Kant)

things we can experience through our senses, limited by time, space, and cause-and-effect. Essentially, it's the physical world as we perceive it.

Noumena (Kant)

things that exist beyond our senses and can only be understood through reason, like logic, ethics, and beauty.

Disinterestedness (Kant)

A quality related to the beautiful; being interested in something for its own sake, not for its usefulness.

Münsterberg Disinterestedness

Cinema has aesthetic value because while watching a film we become ‘lost’ in the story and cut off from our engagements in the real world.

How film transforms reality

Film transforms reality into an object of imagination, reorganising time, space, and causality to produce emotions.

Münsterberg's view on film censorship

unnecesary, as film experience is entirely self-contained