Summarize and discuss the basic film theory of the German gestalt psychologist Rudolph Arnheim, who wrote about cinematic formalism in 1933

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Arnheim put forth an important theory of cinematic formalism in his book Film As Art, which is primarily concerned with the perception of experience.
2. His theory is based on the different modes of perception of the camera and the human eye.
3. Anticipating some of the theories of the communications specialist Marshall McLuhan, Arnheim insisted that the camera’s image of a bowl of fruit, for instance, is fundamentally different from our perception of the fruit bowl in actual life. Or, in McLuhan’s terms, the information we receive in each instance is determined by the form of its content.
4. Formalist theorists celebrate these differences, believing that what makes photography fall short of perfect reproduction is also what makes cinema an art, not just a species of xerography.