Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
The history of canon formation is a history of changing
attitudes toward what is valuable in cinema. Early film
theorists and historians who sought to establish cinema as
a legitimate and unique art form had a vested interest in
crowning the medium’s masterpieces. Rudolph Arnheim
and other theorists of the silent era argued that the most
accomplished films moved beyond the recording capabilities of the medium, utilizing those tools specific to
cinema, such as editing and cinematography, to represent
the diegetic world in a stylized fashion. The drive to
distinguish cinema from other art forms by emphasizing
its transformative properties encouraged writers to
describe film history as a journey toward artistic maturity
marked by the development of expressive narrative and
stylistic techniques. For example, in The Film Till Now
(1930), the most influential of the early English-language
film histories, Paul Rotha (1907–1984) identifies the
1920s as the height of film artistry, particularly championing the work of Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977),
D. W. Griffith (1875–1948), Abel Gance (1889–1981),
Jean Epstein (1897–1953), F. W. Murnau (1888–
1931), G. W. Pabst (1885–1967), and the Soviet montage school. Rotha’s appendix of 114 ‘‘outstanding’’ films served as a reference point for the orthodox film canon
until after World War II.
Along with the writing of early film theorists and
historians, the blossoming of international film culture
during the 1920s played a particularly important role in
the formation of the film canon, advancing the identification, promotion, exhibition, and preservation of those
titles that were considered to expand the boundaries of
the medium. Within national film industries, studio
publicity and trade publications trumpeted directors
according to the new methods in their work, offering
critics and audiences overt cues to their significance. Art
theaters and cine´clubs in Paris, New York, London,
Berlin, Amsterdam, and other major cities provided specialized venues for film screenings, nurturing the tastes of
individuals who were key to the creation of archives, such
as the Cine´matheque Franc¸aise, the Museum of Modern
Art’s Film Library, and the Belgian Cine´matheque.
Simultaneously, film journals sprouted across Europe
and the United States, featuring ongoing discussions of
films by acclaimed directors.
As access to film titles was limited during the first
half of the twentieth century, the critical opinions of
those who programmed cine´clubs and purchased films
for archives exerted a powerful influence on canon formation. Historians, critics, and teachers relied on repertory exhibition, film archives, and circulating libraries for
research, restricting their ability to ‘‘discover’’ previously
unrecognized work. While tens of thousands of movies
were lost to history, titles such as The Great Train
Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903), The Birth of a Nation
(Griffith, 1915), Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Robert Wiene, 1920), Der Letzte
Mann (The Last Laugh, Murnau, 1924), and Bronenosts
Potyomkin (Battleship Potemkin, Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
were more likely to be screened and written about once
anointed as films of significance, thus perpetuating their
status as masterpieces.