ABSTRACT
Film theory began to take shape over the first half of the twentieth century as an informal practice among individual writers, filmmakers, and enthusiasts dedicated to the new medium and its distinctive features. Few of the theorists considered throughout this chapter wrote monographs devoted exclusively to film, and if they did, they often remained untranslated or otherwise unavailable to English-speaking readers until much later. By contrast, then, much of early film theory was written in a piecemeal, ad hoc fashion as an extension of new forms of criticism, ongoing debates, and artist manifestos. The efforts of early theorists were often tied to the emergence of film connoisseurship and, by extension, the grassroots clubs, networks, and film-focused publications that were springing up in cosmopolitan hubs across the globe. Like Vachel Lindsay, Hugo Mnsterberg's account helps to identify the basic formal techniques that were integral in developing film's stylistic conventions and expressive capacity.
