The Photoplay

Before treating film as an art, Hugo Münsterberg traces the devices that made moving pictures possible. Optical toys, revolving disks and Muybridge's photographs of a horse supply the opening examples. From these experiments he turns to the spectator's mind, examining depth, movement, attention, memory, imagination and emotion. The Photoplay connects the machinery of early cinema with the mental activity involved in watching a screen.

The discussion also compares film with the stage. Münsterberg describes how a change of scenery can express a character's feelings, imagining a violinist whose shifting emotions appear through spring landscapes, autumn leaves and stormy seas. His concern is how pictures communicate experiences that cannot be heard or directly seen. Readers interested in film aesthetics will find a sustained account of what cinema can do with setting and visual movement, alongside an early attempt to explain its distinct artistic means.