Abstract

In 1926, Vsevolod Pudovkin solved the fundamental problem of film design. More exactly, he showed filmmakers how to select and order the parts of a movie to ensure that viewers can perceive coherently and with least effort the events that they encounter by means of it. He did so by unwittingly bringing Kant's transcendental constraint of apperceptive unity to bear upon it, confirming that respect for the constraints of the self-conscious perceptual integrity of observers is the primal precondition of authentic art. Pudovkin reaffirmed it so elegantly with respect to filmmaking that his precept proved to be of unparalleled usefulness to filmmakers, the working maxims of the art being refinements of it. His assimilation of Kant's insight might serve as exemplary for other artists working within other arts as well. [A summary account entitled "Pudovkin, Kant and the Principle of Perceptual Coherence" [1990] can be found elsewhere within this 'Collection']