This is not to say that "The Hangover" is art.

Rudolf Arnheim is presenting what seems to be a pretty reasonable thesis: film, just like any other more traditional medium such as sculpture or painting, can produce artistic results (8).

The argument he opposes states that film cannot be deemed to have artistic merit since it merely "reproduces reality mechanically" (8), as not having the artistic influence of the painter's hand upon the canvas or the writer's pen upon the page. In response to this, Arnheim establishes a simple and entirely foundational aspect of both vision and film: perspective. The angles at which an object is viewed, and what surfaces and characteristics are revealed in this, provide all of the information about an object and its nature. The filmmaker, who is in control over what aspects of objects are shown and revealed in film, is therefore heavily and deliberately influencing the audience's knowledge and view, more than any simply mechanical reproduction of reality could ever do (9-11).

From here comes a discussion of depth perception. Having only a rudimentary understanding of the workings of the eye and a camera lens, it seems correct. Though his point about stereoscopic film needs to be updated by James Cameron and the techies responsible for Avatar, Arnheim argues that the very process of filming and photographing changes the plane and shape of objects presented (13-14). Frankly, since I never took physics I can't really dispute any of this, but I think his argument here is a little weak: especially with the advent of 3-D technology, the changes in depth and object perception are pretty close to nil, and I don't know how different the process of a camera lens and the eye are to really warrant this.

In light of Technicolor, we'll go straight to Arnheim's position on lighting: it's necessary for you to see stuff (15). Really advanced theories here. I think that he misses a solid opportunity here and doesn't go into nearly enough detail. Though he makes the excellent point that lighting in a certain way can make objects appear radically different (16), this theme is well in line with his earlier point about perspective when he discusses the cube: the placement of lighting is deliberate and illuminates the aspects of whatever it is the lighting designer intends to emphasize.

In other exciting news, movies are confined to movie screens. That is to say, they do not mimic the spatial reality of, well, reality: Arnheim correctly points out that the field of vision of the eye is practically infinite, barring any disabilities in a particular individual (17). But films can depict this magnitude only in a very small area, and again a deliberate choice by the filmmaker influences this: the placement of the camera. The placement of the camera determines the size of objects relative to their surroundings that may be and often is different from the reality of that scene outside the film reel (19). Beyond this, where audience members sit influences what they take in; films are intended for a particular size, and the audience's distance from the scene will distort the size of objects (19-20).

In my favorite section title and discussion of one of the things I most take issue with in moves (how does Steve McQueen get to the borders of Switzerland in like two minutes on a motorcycle when the dudes in a plane can't seem to manage?), Arnheim introduces the "Absence of the Space-Time Continuum" (20). Not only do the boring bits in life get cut out of films (like skipping going down stairs, for instance), but films can portray time out-of-joint and jump around, making Steve McQueen's several hour motorcycle ride in The Great Escape" last but a brief moment. Or stories can be told out of order; 500 Days of Summer spoils the ending for you within the first few scenes. These jumps are not only convenient, but are demonstrative: in a scene I'm sure we're all familiar with, if Charlie Chaplin enters a pawnshop with his overcoat, and then exits in immediate film time without, we're pretty sure what's happened (23).

Finally, Arnheim points out that in film, there are no sensations visited upon the spectator other than visual ones. Why this is a qualification for film being art I am not sure, since you're not supposed to touch La Guernica or what have you, but in any case we are all thankful that while watching Cloverfield we didn't get to experience the shaky feeling of the camera running all over the city in poor focus. Generally, though, this lack of motion means that we have a frame of reference: if anything is moving, it is probably the things in the scene, rather than the camera. Motion isn't a necessary stimulus, just as it isn't necessary that we smell anything on the film either for it to be understood what is happening (34).

To note my personal opinion, I don't think that it's any kind of particular revelation in 2010 that film can be art. I may have hated The Departed but I still think that Martin Scorsese is probably an artist. But I don't think it's terribly easy to define exactly why that is, other than it might be a much more commonly held belief in an era where films have more gravitas than say, 75 years ago. But I think it might be a lot closer to some ephemeral input, rather than the technicalities of filming that make its representations of reality so different.

Rudolf Arnheim: Film as Art. "Film and Reality." pp. 9-34.