Preface and Foundations: Film as the Youngest Art; The Two Ways of Seeing

Apuntes

. lnto FILM GEORGE BLUESTONE UN.IVERSI'fY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Bfrkdey and Los Angeles 1961 ?0/ I 'l' 1\ I' ! r"' University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California Cambridge University Press London, England @ 1957, THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS, BALTIMORE 18, MARYLAND SECOND PRINTING, 1961 (FIRST PAPER-BOUND EDITION) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 57-8449 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 'fo My Father Preface NEXT TO TEL .EVISION 1 THE FlLM rS THE youngest of the arts. Certainly it is the youngest of the mature arrs. Having at last discovered its classics, its historical cycles, its piv- otal figures, and even its wan·ing schools of critics, the film in re- cent years has become more and more insistent on its claim to serious recognition. Now that television has become the upstart, the film aU at once seems mature and mellow, ready to accept re- spectability, adult consideration, and the right to look askance at the exuberance of youngsters. But because of the cinema's comparative youth, aesthetics has been tempted to treat it like a fledgling, measuring its capabilities by the standards of older, more tradi- tional arts. The film's persistent claim to a...