The Film Essay: A New Form Of Documentary Film (1940)

 

 

In this paper the german coined the term, explained its differences toward documentary film and also made comments about the possibilities that the cinematic approach could offer to reflective practices such as philosophy. He claimed that “a Descartes of today would already have shut himself up in his bedroom with a 16 mm camera and some film, and would be writing his philosophy on film: for his Discours de la Methode would today be of such a kind that only the cinema could express it satisfactorily”. Richter explains the role which should be played by fiction, making analogies with the arguments which feature the written form of the essay. He stresses that, to deal with themes which are not intelligible through the visible reality alone (such as explaining the stock exchange) “even that which is itself not visible must be made visible”. In favour of the staged scene or the montage as methods of working with the increasingly complex reality of our world.