Lukácsian film theory and cinema: A study of Georg Lukács' writing on film 1913–1971

By Ian Aitken

Lukácsian film theory and cinema explores Georg Lukács’ writings on film. The Hungarian Marxist critic Georg Lukács is primarily known as a literary theorist, but he also wrote extensively on the cinema. These writings have remained little known in the English-speaking world because the great majority of them have never actually been translated into English – until now. Aitken has gathered together the most important essays and the translations appear here, often for the first time.

This book thus makes a decisive contribution to understandings of Lukács within the field of film studies, and, in doing so, also challenges many existing preconceptions concerning his theoretical position. For example, whilst Lukács’ literary theory is well known for its repudiation of naturalism, in his writings on film Lukács appears to advance a theory and practice of film that can best be described as naturalist.

Lukácsian film theory and cinema is divided into two parts. In part one, Lukács’ writings on film are explored, and placed within relevant historical and intellectual contexts, whilst part two consists of the essays themselves.

This book will be of considerable interest to scholars and students working within the fields of film studies, literary studies, intellectual history, media and cultural studies. It is also intended to be the final volume in a trilogy of works on cinematic realism, which includes the author’s earlier European film theory and cinema (2001), and Realist film theory and cinema (2006).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Jun 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781526162649

Ian Aitken

Ian Aitken is Associate Professor in Film Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, and Senior Research Fellow in Film Studies at De Monfort University

Book preview

Preface

This book, on Lukács, is the third in what has now become a trilogy of books on cinematic realism. Initially, however, only two such books were planned. The first: European Film Theory and Cinema: A Critical Introduction, attempted to position realist film theory and cinema against the general context of European film theory and cinema, and, therefore, encompassed areas such as formalism, structuralism, and post-structuralism; as well as the work of Grierson, Bazin, Kracauer, Lukács, and various forms of realist cinema. This study provided the foundation for the second book: Realist Film Theory and Cinema: The Nineteenth-Century Lukácsian and Intuitionist Realist Traditions, a book I had been working on, in one form or another, for the previous fifteen years. Realist Film Theory and Cinema focuses entirely on the realist tradition, and explores both the origins of cinematic realism in nineteenth-century realism, and the film theories of Kracauer, Bazin, Grierson, and Lukács.

It was while working on European Film Theory and Cinema that I came to the realisation that Lukács’ writings on the cinema had not been satisfactorily addressed within English-language film studies, and that awareness grew stronger as I worked on the two chapters on Lukács in Realist Film Theory and Cinema: chapters which relied mainly on Lukács’ writings on literature, rather than film. The problem was that, with the exception of one piece, none of Lukács’ writings on film had been translated into English. In addition, these writings were also widely dispersed, and gaining access to them was easier said than done. As a consequence, these writings were not very well known. The one piece which had been translated was the remarkable ‘Thoughts Towards an Aesthetic of the Cinema’, which first appeared in 1911. But even this essay – one of the overlooked gems in the history of film theory – was not translated well enough until relatively recently. These factors led to the decision to research and write this present book,which is divided into two parts. In the first part of the book I attempt to interpret Lukács’ writings on the cinema, develop a reconstructed model of Lukácsian film theory, and then apply that to an analysis of Luchino Visconti’s 1963 film The Leopard; an analysis which leads on from, and can be related back to, my earlier analysis of Visconti’s other Risorgimento film: Senso, in Realist Film Theory and Cinema. The second part of the book contains the translations of Lukács’ writings on film.

In his excellent translation of Lukács’ 1968 condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, The Process of Democratization, Norman Levine tells us that his co-translator, Susanne Bernhardt, carried out the initial translation of the text, while he then brought his own expertise to bear on the subject, and, in the process, went on to ‘refine’ the primary translation (Levine and Bernhardt (trans.), 1991: ix). I do not know exactly what Levine means by the term ‘refine’ here, but I think I can guess, because the process he describes is very similar to that which I employed when working on the translations in Lukácsian Film Theory and Cinema. The primary translations of the various texts by Lukács in this book were mainly carried out by Juergen Reichert, a professional academic translator with a background in German political philosophy. Juergen did an excellent job, and I wish to take this opportunity to express my thanks for his invaluable contribution. His input saved me a considerable amount of time.

Lukács can, at times, be an exceedingly impenetrable and opaque writer, and sometimes it can be very difficult indeed to understand exactly what he is trying to say, or argue. This problem is also compounded by a frequently employed tendency to resort to a phalanx of often arcane Hegelian and other concepts; and by an equally perplexing tendency to use the same term to mean a range of different things. Juergen approached these problems with great perseverance for the cause in hand. However, I soon realised that I would have to use the primary translations mainly as a guide, and foundation; and that I would have to go back, again, to the German and Italian originals myself, and read them through, word for word, retranslating as I went. This turned into an intensely empirical, time-intensive and protracted affair, as I tried to untangle some of the very multifaceted and intricate conceptualisations in The Specificity of the Aesthetic and other works. In addition to the difficulties involved in understanding and then translating the various conceptual configurations which Lukács deploys, the philosopher’s writing style also posed some formidable challenges for the process of translation. Towards the end of his career Lukács often liked to write in a rather loosely structured way, and sometimes displayed a fondness for using exceedingly long sentences, and paragraphs, divided up by a considerable number of commas, semi-colons, colons, brackets, etc. Some paragraphs could, quite frequently, be two or more pages long!

Faced with this, I came to the conclusion that I would have to alter the structure of Lukács’ prose from time to time, in order to make it more intellectually coherent in the English translation. However, I also attempted to keep such alterations to a necessary minimum. Throughout, the objective was to keep the translations as close as possible to the language and grammatical structures in the original texts, and this was possible because of the presence of the critical commentaries which make up the first half of this book, which analyse and explain the content of the translated pieces. Of course, a balance had to be struck here between any literality of translation and the need to render sense and meaning in the translated materials. However, the objective was to steer that balance firmly in the direction of the former. That objective proved to be – comparatively – straightforwardly achievable in respect of both Lukács’ early German piece: ‘Thoughts Towards an Aesthetic of the Cinema’; and the late writings in Italian, which mainly appeared in the leftist Italian film journal Cinema Nuovo. However, that balance proved more challenging to attain in the section on film from The Specificity of the Aesthetic, largely because of the substantial number of highly abstract concepts which Lukács employs here, but also because of his sprawling writing style. Again, here, the intention was to bring the translated language and linguistic structures as close as possible to the original. However, at certain points, it also became necessary to depart from this practice, in order to render the translations fully meaningful. This proved necessary at times, even though Chapter 3 of this book analyses this section of The Specificity of the Aesthetic in depth. Nevertheless, I believe that the balance struck here, one which still aims towards a high degree of literality, was successfully achieved. I also believe that these translations of Lukács’ writings on film will play an important role in stimulating further academic research into Lukács’ ideas on film. However, the translations constitute only one division of this book, and, in the other, I attempt to analyse these writings, and then develop a reconstructed model of Lukácsian cinematic realism. The model of film theory and cinema which The model of film theory and cinema which emerges from this exercise is, in many important respects, quite different from those which previously have been derived from an analysis of Lukács’ writings on literature; and this, in turn, means both that these earlier models will now have to be reassessed, and that Lukács must now be viewed in a new light.

This book has taken five years and more to write, and has proved to be an exigent, though also rewarding project. Throughout this period of time, I have received support from various quarters, and I would now like to take this opportunity to thank those who helped me bring the book to fruition. Juergen Reichert’s important contribution has already been mentioned. Michael Ingham, of Lingnan University in Hong Kong, was a source of encouragement, and also participated in the translation process, helping greatly. The remarkably efficient Hong Kong Baptist University inter-library loan service was always helpful; and Baptist University also provided me with some funding for this project, for which I am grateful. I would also like to thank the conveners of various conferences who allowed me to speak about Lukács in the interim, including Deane Williams of Monash University, Gina Marchetti of Hong Kong University, and Rob Stone and Owen Evans of the University of Swansea. Finally, I would also like to thank both my wife, Linda, who gave me much support over these last five years, and other family members, friends and colleagues who rendered the same.

Part I

An analysis of Lukács’ writings on film

1

The early aesthetic and ‘Thoughts Towards an Aesthetic of the Cinema’/‘Gedanken zu einer Ästhetic des Kino’

The early aesthetic

The early aesthetic of Georg Lukács, particularly as set out in his Soul and Form/Die Seele und die Formen (1910) and The Theory of the Novel/Die Theorie des Romans (1916), has already been well explored in a number of studies. Given this, what follows here will not attempt to duplicate such work, in either depth of analysis or breadth of coverage, but will aim, instead, to provide a more conditional delineation of the early aesthetic, as prelude to a more substantive analysis of Lukács’ first engagement with film theory in his ‘Thoughts Towards an Aesthetic of the Cinema/Gedanken zu einer Ästhetic des Kino’ (1911/1913) (hereafter referred to as ‘Thoughts’). That prelude must also commence by way of an introduction to the two foremost contexts which influenced the early aesthetic: those of ‘romantic anti-capitalist German sociology’, and the prevailing intellectual climate within then contemporary Hungary. These contexts determined the ‘tragic vision’ which underscored all Lukács’ writings of the 1908–1916 period, and which also shaped his understanding of the cinema (Goldmann, 1967: 169).

Romantic anti-capitalism

Lukács’ early aesthetic was influenced by a conception of modernity inherited from thinkers such as Max Weber, Wilhelm Dilthey, Georg Simmel, Ferdinand Töennies, Edmund Husserl, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, and the neo-Kantian revival which influenced many thinkers in central Europe around the turn of the century. This tradition of ‘romantic anti-capitalist’ thought was the most influential ‘Weltanschauungen in European culture since the end of the eighteenth-century’, and the ‘dominant world-view in German as well as Central European intellectual life’ when Lukács came to write both Soul and Form and ‘Thoughts’ (Löwy, in Marcus and Tarr (eds), 1989: 189). At the hub of this conception of modernity was a conviction that the rulers of the modern world had turned against the essence of what it was to be human in order to advance forms of social relationships founded on the requirements of technical, ‘instrumental rationality’. Weber’s key conceptions of ‘instrumental rationality’ and ‘disenchantment’ will already be familiar to many readers, though perhaps fewer will be aware that such concepts should also be related to a more general context of ‘German neo-romantic sociology’ (Löwy, in Marcus and Tarr (eds), 1989: 193) associated with the Weberian-dominated ‘Southwestern German School’ of philosophy and sociology based at Heidelberg and Freiburg Universities. Lukács was strongly influenced by this neo-romantic ‘anti-capitalist’ school of thought, and was also a student of Weber at Heidelberg University between 1912 and 1915 (Goldmann, 1972: 129).

In addition to Weber, one other proponent of ‘neo-romantic’ sociological thought who influenced the formation of Lukács’ ideas at the time, particularly in Soul and Form, was Georg Simmel; and it was chiefly from Simmel that Lukács was to derive one of the mainstay concepts of his entire intellectual system: that of ‘objectification’ (Vergegenständlichung) (Arato, 1971: 129). ‘Objectification’ refers to the process whereby man fashions objects for the purpose of personal ‘self-cultivation’ (Arato, 1971: 130). According to Simmel, such creation is an innately human propensity, inherently advantageous to consciousness, which enables man to shape material reality in the image of consciousness, and make such ‘objectifications’ of consciousness enduringly concrete. Objectification is, therefore, an indispensable constituent within the growth of human consciousness, an anchor to which consciousness can append itself, enabling human thought to achieve a permanent material domicile within the unending stream of subjective becoming which constitutes the Lebenswelt, or ‘life-world’. In addition to such generally routine residence, however, objectification also enables consciousness to form one of the two elemental dimensions of authentic human culture, that of ‘objectified culture’; and, in this sense, ‘the world of objectification is culture and culture is the development of the human essence beyond its natural state’ (Arato, 1971: 129).

The conception of objectified culture advanced here by Simmel appears to be a relatively sanguine one up to this point, given that it is based upon the premise that consciousness and the creation of ‘objects’ co-exist within an affiliation essentially advantageous to consciousness. However, it is important to understand that Simmel’s conception delineates an ideal, rather than real state of affairs, and is premised on the notion that, at some long past undisclosed elemental juncture in the development of human consciousness and society, a close and redeeming identity existed between objectification and consciousness: between the ‘cultivation of things’ and the ‘cultivation of ourselves’ (Arato, 1971: 129). However, Simmel goes on to argue that such an identity was bound to decay, because objectification, as a materiality distinct from consciousness, inevitably takes on forms of autonomy progressively more divergent from the authentic needs of consciousness. At one level, the opposition expressed here between human consciousness and materiality can be associated with a more general flourishing of the existential disposition within Europe after the turn of the century; a disposition which regarded object-making as existentially perilous for consciousness, because such object-making constituted a ‘category of existence’ which could not be entirely ‘controlled or predicted’ by consciousness (Márkus, in Heller (ed.), 1983: 8). Lukács was influenced by this postulation of an existential dichotomy between the ‘soul’ and the ‘world’ (Kadarkay, 1991: 59), and by the tragic vision which underlies such a dichotomy. However, he was also influenced by the notion that, because this dichotomy was once, according to Simmel, prefigured by an authentic identity between these two terms, the possibility remained open that such correspondence may be reconstituted in the future, within new acts of objectified and ‘non-objectified’ (see later in this chapter) culture.

Simmel’s existential conception of the opposition between consciousness and materiality influenced much of Lukács writings of the 1908–16 period, but so also did Simmel’s related and more socially founded belief that the dichotomy between consciousness and objectification was augmented immeasurably by the dissonant impact of capitalist modernity. According to Simmel, as the division of labour and resultant ‘specialisation’ and fragmentation of human activity escalated out of control within modernity, man had fewer opportunities to express himself through the creation of objects which embodied the totality of his vision and needs (Arato, 1971: 130). Instead, the ceaseless flow of objects which began to appear now expressed only a fragment of that vision and those needs, and, as a consequence, both man and his objectifications become increasingly fragmented, while man also became progressively more ‘alienated’ (entfremdet) from both the world of his own objectifications, and his own essence (Arato, 1971: 130).

This equation between objectification and fragmentation was important for the young Lukács, and in his later History and Class Consciousness/ Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (1923), evolved into the key concept of ‘reification’ (Verdinglichung), which was initially derived, via Simmel, from Volume 3 of Marx’s Das Kapital (Aitken, 2006: 68). However, while concepts such as reification clearly imply the actual existence of a fragmented, alienated, and inauthentic human condition, they also entail the potential existence of its converse: a condition founded in a more authentic form of human essence. In Soul and Form, Lukács refers to this as the dimension of the ‘Soul’, while, in the late aesthetic, he would come to refer to it as that of ‘intrinsic being’, or Ansichsein (Lukács, 1981: 477). At this stage in the development of his ideas, therefore, Lukács was committed to the notion both that the prevailing state of the human condition within modernity was profoundly inauthentic, and that authentic human essence could be conceived of as existing in a definite and absolute sense, beyond historical contingency.

The Hungarian context

In addition to the influence of neo-Kantian and existentialist thought, Lukács’ conception of modernity was also influenced by the more indigenous experience of Hungarian culture and society, and particularly by the idea that Eastern Europe might provide the foundation for the growth of a lustrous ‘new European culture’ which might emerge from the pandemonium of modernity (Kadarkay, 1991: 64). The influence on Lukács of thinkers such as Simmel and Weber had led him to draw a distinction between the ‘excessively rationalised spirit of western capitalism’ and an Eastern European culture still more closely correlated to older and more intuitively vital forms of human community (Löwy, in Marcus and Tarr (eds), 1989: 190). In comparison to the hazards posed by modern ‘western civilisation’, which was portrayed as ‘culture-destructive’ and ‘non-culture’ (Löwy, in Marcus and Tarr (eds), 1989: 192), Lukács hoped for a ‘breakthrough towards a new epoch of world history’ in Eastern Europe, through a re-emergence of the ‘organic Gemeinschaft’ (organic community) which characterised Homeric Greece and the Christian middle ages (Löwy, in Marcus and Tarr (eds), 1989: 191). Nevertheless, despite this anticipation that a new phenomenon might flower in the East, Lukács also believed that the inherent backwardness and bourgeois-conservatism of Hungarian culture and society would probably ultimately resist such dispensation (Kadarkay, 1991: 64); and this scepticism concerning the possibility of rebuilding an organic Gemeinschaft last found in the Christian middle ages was also reinforced by the rapid expansion of capitalist industrialisation in Germany from the 1870s onwards (Holzman, 1985: 10–11). By the time that he came to write both Soul and Form and ‘Thoughts’, therefore, Lukács was becoming increasingly conscious of the fact that the fast-expanding frontiers of mechanised ‘western civilisation’ were not so far away from the gates of Budapest (Löwy, in Marcus and Tarr (eds), 1989: 193), and this led him to the auspicious conclusion that, far from the likelihood of a utopian Gemeinschaft materialising in the East, an over-arching ‘crisis of culture’ (Márkus, in Heller (ed.), 1983: 4), instigated by the growing reach of the ‘mechanised factory’ of modernity, was quickly spreading across Central and Eastern Europe (Arato, 1974: 115).

In his work of the 1910–16 period Lukács argues that two diametrically opposed forms of reaction are imaginable in the face of this cultural crisis, and the context of ‘spiritual homelessness’ generated by it (Kadarkay, 1991: 64). These are the alternatives of ‘surrender … [or] … struggle … the two poles of the possibilities of life’ (Radnoti, 1973: 157). Here, ‘surrender’ implies either a passive, everyday acceptance of the ‘unbearablness of the given empirical existence’ (Radnoti, 1973: 160) or a retreat into what Lukács refers to as religion-oriented ‘contemplative mysticism’ (Radnoti, 1973: 157). Both these forms of capitulation are rejected by Lukács on the grounds that they imply a negation of the vital human imperative to attain ‘selfhood’, an imperative which can only be realised through a form of ‘struggle’ which is ‘militantly’, rather than ‘contemplatively’ mystical; and which is also vigorously ‘Luciferian’ in its quest for perfection (Radnoti, 1973: 157). In the face of the ‘unbearableness of the given empirical existence’ (Radnoti, 1973: 160) the individual must direct an obdurate ‘Luciferian spite’ at the given (Radnoti, 1973: 157), attempt to ‘perfect … himself in himself and by his own power’, and strive to banish ‘every half-measure out of the world’, and from his own activities (Lukács, 1971: 90).

Lukács’ appropriation of the Luciferian absolute here is significant in signalling the enormity of the mission which he sets before the philosophically ‘militant’ individual, and also illuminates the unconditional character of the oppositional tenor which he adopted at this time. The Lucifer of Christian mythology reacted absolutely against the entire celestial design in order to realise his subversive dream of immortal self-hood, and Lukács calls upon the individual human agent to adopt an equally categorical and seditious determination to abjure given empirical existence, in order to realise her/his own mortal self-hood. This accent on the individual’s uncompromising ‘struggle’ to reject concession and ‘half-measures’ in order to seek out unqualified forms of experience emphasises the extent to which Lukács’ early work, and Soul and Form in particular, is concerned with unconditional conceptions of self-hood; while also indicating the degree to which the early work can be associated with the over-arching preoccupation with the Absolute which was characteristic of classical German idealist philosophy (Goldmann, 1967: 168).

In Soul and Form, the struggle to achieve absolute self-hood takes the ‘form’ of the modes of individual repudiation which Lukács describes in essays on Sören Kierkegaard and Jena romanticism. As its position within the title of Soul and Form suggests, the term ‘form’ has considerable significance for Lukács, and refers to a modality which links action in the world to the ultimate end of the realisation of the soul. As such, form is more than just an activity, it is a ‘metaphysical principle’ which relates essence to life and seeks to establish order in relation to the characteristics of the soul (Meunier, 1987: 167). The personal ‘forms of … refusal or evasion’ (Goldmann, 1967: 171) which Lukács explores in Kierkegaard’s ‘desire to see the absolute in life, without any petty compromise’ (Lukács, 1974: 32), and Novalis’s ‘stubborn’ emphasis on the ‘exclusive importance of the ultimate goals’ (Lukács, 1974: 51); are classed by Lukács as ‘non-objectified’ forms because they do not possess materiality. However, when such forms take on materiality within the work of art they become ‘objectified’, turning the art-object into an authentic, material ‘form’. In both cases, be they non-objectified or objectified, ‘forms’ stand for a recognition of the essential needs of the ‘soul’; and, in addition to the non-objectified forms of refusal which Lukács explores in Soul and Form in the essays on Kierkegaard, Theodor Storm and Novalis, objectified forms are also addressed, as in the work of Stefan George, Charles-Louis Philippe, and Richard Beer-Hofmann.

However, it has been argued by some commentators that, while Soul and Form is primarily concerned with a study of the various rebellious ‘forms of refusal or evasion’ of ordinary life, The Theory of the Novel both continues this preoccupation, but also attempts to go beyond such activist oppositionalism in order to explore forms in which the dissonance of life is organised into a more meaningful totality (Goldmann, 1967: 172). However, any categorical distinction between Lukács’ two books, based on the supposition that one is more constructive than the other, would be misleading, and it is more accurate to suggest that, despite the apparent difference in orientation between Soul and Form and The Theory of the Novel, both books are marked by the same continual, uneasy shifting of position between a pessimistic acceptance of the impossibility of hope in ‘the age of absolute sinfulness’, and a more optimistic tone which also characterises Lukács’ work during this period (Lukács, 1971: 153).

In both Soul and Form and The Theory of the Novel Lukács was influenced by Simmel’s belief that works of art are able to transcend the general process of cultural alienation through a committed engagement with the category of totality, an engagement which establishes a relationship between artist and the art work akin to that of a ‘whole subject recreating, rediscovering and repossessing himself in a whole object’ (Arato, 1971: 130). However, and on the other hand, in both Soul and Form and The Theory of the Novel, the idea that the forms allow the soul to create a work which constitutes a unity: ‘self-contained and complete in itself ’, often occurs in interchange with the perhaps less hopeful notion that the forms cannot create meaningful unity, but can only ever amount to various individuated instances of resistance, refusal or evasion of the pseudo-totalities of ordinary reality (Márkus, 1983: 11). The Theory of the Novel addresses the first of these two possibilities more directly than does Soul and Form, as the chapters on ‘Integrated Civilisations’ and ‘Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Apprenticeship’ clearly attest, and it is precisely for this reason that The Theory of the Novel has been interpreted as being more ‘optimistic’ than Soul and Form. However, and in contradiction to this thesis, it should be remembered that The Theory of the Novel actually concludes with both a muscular repudiation of the constructive aspects of Tolstoy’s War and Peace and an enthusiastic celebration of Dostoyevsky’s attempt to achieve an evasive ‘remote[ness] from any struggle against what actually exists’ (Lukács, 1971: 152).

The contexts of romantic anti-capitalism and the Hungarian background referred to in preceding sections of this chapter, together with the dialectic between pessimism and hope in Lukács’ writings, inform the body of work produced by Lukács between 1908 and 1916, and which makes up the ‘early aesthetic’. This body of work consists of the essays written between 1908 and 1910, which were eventually published as Soul and Form in 1910; A History of the Development of Modern Drama, which was written between 1907 and 1909 and published in 1911; ‘Thoughts Towards an Aesthetic of the Cinema’, which was originally published in 1911; and The Theory of the Novel, which was written between 1914 and 1915, and first published in 1916. The remainder of this chapter will now explore the key themes and concepts evident within this body of work, before finally turning to an analysis of ‘Thoughts Towards an Aesthetic of the Cinema’.

Key themes and concepts

The key themes and concepts evident in the early aesthetic include those of ‘life’, ‘real life’, ‘lived life’, ‘empirical/ordinary life’, ‘soul’, ‘soul reality’, ‘culture’, ‘being’, ‘becoming’, ‘essence’, the ‘great moments’, ‘form’, ‘the forms’, ‘the great forms’, ‘totality’, ‘fate’, ‘fragmentation/specialisation’, and ‘destiny’. These concepts are often defined in an imprecise way in Lukács’ writings, and are therefore open to a range of readings. However, one clear demarcation that can be made here is between those concepts which refer to the abridged condition which human experience is faced with within modernity (as in ‘life’, ‘lived-life’, ‘empirical/ordinary life’, ‘fragmentation/specialisation, ‘the forms’), and those which refer to a more utopian condition of experience (as in ‘soul’, ‘culture’, ‘real life’, ‘essence’, ‘the great moments’, ‘totality’, ‘fate’, the ‘great forms’, and ‘destiny’). In addition to these two groupings of concepts, a third category evident within the early aesthetic also embraces notions which refer to more non-aligned aspects of lived experience, and includes concepts such as ‘being’, ‘becoming’, and also ‘form’. As with Lukács’ early aesthetic in general, these three categories of concepts have also been explored exhaustively in a range of fine and helpful critical studies, and this chapter will not attempt to recapitulate such work. Instead, an attempt will be made now to reconstruct Lukács’ intellectual system in outline only, and the various concepts referred to above will be integrated into such a reconstruction.

The starting point for any restitution of Lukács’ early aesthetic must be his pivotal conception of ‘soul’. ‘Soul’ means something like ‘ideal human essence’, or ‘authentic being’; that which is, and always actually has been, fundamentally representative of humanity (Kadarkay, 1991: 68). Crucially, such essence is defined ‘a-temporally’ by Lukács, who, following Dilthey, regards essential, though currently subjugated human nature, as basically immutable (Goldmann, 1967: 167). In addition to such immutability, Lukács also defines soul in terms of a ‘structure’ of qualities, rather than as a singular entity (Goldmann, 1972: 129). So, for example, the soul is made up of intrinsically benign components such as ‘idealism’, ‘love’, ‘eros’, ‘intellect’, ‘creativity’, ‘freedom’, ‘wholeness’ and ‘truth’ (Márkus, in Heller (ed.), 1983: 8); a constitution which, amongst other respects, makes clear the extent to which Lukács’ utopian conception of soul is derived from Hegel’s conception of the Absolute as a transcendental domain in which the principle of freedom is embodied and fostered (Aitken, 2006: 71). The notion of the soul as immutable a-temporal ‘significant structure’ also suggests the influence of both Kant and phenomenology: influences which reached the young Lukács through his association with the neo-Kantian school at Heidelberg University, and the phenomenologically inclined school at Freiburg University (Goldmann, 1972: 129). The principal impact of these influences was to further reinforce the absolute conception of the soul which Lukács had initially derived from Hegel and Dilthey, providing that conception with an ‘essentially non-genetic’ and ahistorical point of reference (Goldmann, 1972: 130).

This body of influences also endows Lukács’ conception of soul with a distinctly metaphysical tenor, as though soul was some sort of supra-material force or imperative, or a kind of ‘life force’ of man (Márkus, in Heller (ed.), 1983: 7). Here, soul exists as an other-worldly abstract ideal in a Kantian noumenal, or Platonic sense. However, for Lukács, this metaphysical conception of soul also exists as a latent ideal located within the consciousness of each individual human being, and to which each individual human being may strive to approximate; and this, in turn, suggests that Lukács’ conception of soul comprises both a metaphysical and an existential dimension, and that the aforesaid existential dimension is located within the latent significant structure of categories potentially resident within the authentic singularity of the consciousness of each individual (Márkus, in Heller (ed.), 1983: 7). Soul, therefore, exists both as a Platonic ideal and as a latent simulacrum of that ideal within the consciousness of each person. However, soul cannot be equated merely with each singularity of consciousness existing within ‘empirical life’, and, in contrast, must be associated with the authentic element within each individual consciousness, an aspect which comes into being when individual consciousness is raised up to the same level as the soul (Goldmann, 1967: 173).

Although, in the early aesthetic, Lukács emphasises both the abstract ideal of soul, and the possibility of the manifestation of soul within the consciousness of the singular individual, these accentuations tend to be given different levels of prominence from work to work. Even given such variation, however, it is possible to argue that Soul and Form, in particular, tends to give clear prominence to the soul’s relationship to individual consciousness, and, consequently, when he also came to write ‘Thoughts Towards an Aesthetic of the Cinema’ in 1911, Lukács was already more committed to a broad-spectrum ‘philosophy of individualism’ than to any exhaustive exploration of ideal abstract categories (Márkus, in Heller (ed.), 1983: 7). This accent on individual consciousness, rather than on the abstract ideal, is also partly responsible for the ‘tragic vision’ evident within Soul and Form (Goldmann, 1967: 169), in that this emphasis led Lukács to stress the extent of the chasm which exists between individual experience and the ideal, and, also, the disheartening impossibility of realising the trans-individual set of values which constitutes absolute soul within the structures of ordinary life. Although, within the early aesthetic, pursuit of the soul may be a life ‘vocation’ (Márcus, in Heller (ed.), 1983: 8) for those who strive to rise above the ‘anarchy of light and dark’ which constitutes ‘real life’, full attainment of such a vocation is rarely possible (Lukács, 1974: 152–3).

In addition to this absolute and individuated conception of soul, Lukács’ early aesthetic also deploys a number of concepts which designate ways in which the authentic singularity of each individual consciousness may seek to rise above empirical life. These include the concepts of ‘culture’, ‘higher culture’, the ‘great objectivations’, ‘form’, ‘work’, ‘being’, and the ‘great moments’; and these concepts will now be outlined. The term ‘culture’ refers to projects which are chiefly concerned with the exploration of human essence. Such projects may be individual ‘non-objectified’ acts, or ‘objectified’ works of art, and are what Lukács refers to as ‘forms’. The corpus of great works of art, or the ‘great objectivations’, also constitute the realm of what Lukács calls the ‘higher culture’, which he distinguishes from the lower culture of ‘ordinary life’. The meaning of the term ‘work’ is closely associated with that of ‘form’, but refers more to the activity or process of resistance and creation which becomes embodied in the ‘meaningful structure[s]’ of objectified or non-objectified forms (Márkus, in Heller (ed.), 1983: 10–11).

Lukács also makes a crucial distinction between two different types of objectified/non-objectified culture, on the grounds that these represent different domains of the soul. It will be recalled that the soul is made up of an amalgam of categories, or tendencies. Some of these, such as ‘intellect’ and ‘idealism’, are highly intellectual or ethical in orientation, more ‘serious’ or rational in tenor, and concerned with the often uncompromising pursuit of essence. However, others, such as ‘eros’, are more connected to the idea of the human being as an instinctual physical entity, existing in a free manner within the world, and resisting the ‘mechanisation’ fostered by modernity. Other aspects or tendencies of the soul, such as a desire for ‘life’, ‘love’, ‘freedom’ and ‘creativity’, can be associated with either the intellectual/ethical or instinctual aspects of the soul. While Lukács abstains from drawing unambiguous dividing lines between these groupings, he does make a more general distinction between those aspects of the soul which are uncompromisingly committed to the pursuit of essence in objectified and non-objectified culture, and those which revel in a more instinctual, free creative appropriation of appearance. This distinction also becomes particularly significant when Lukács comes to write on the cinema, a medium which, he believes, awakens the eternal ‘child’ in the spectator, so that this child ‘becomes master of the spectator’s psyche’ (Lukács, 1913).

This distinction between these two dimensions of the soul is also elaborated further in the two most important essays in Soul and Form: ‘On the Nature and Form of the Essay’, and ‘The Metaphysics of Tragedy’. In ‘The Metaphysics of Tragedy’ Lukács proposes a distinction between everyday experience in a fallen world (‘empirical life’) and the experience of human essence which can be found within the classical Greek drama, within whose ‘forms’ the ‘self ’ becomes ‘soul’, because the questions raised in these dramas are always ‘the ultimate ones’ (Lukács, 1974: 155). Here, in ‘the eternally great model for all drama that seeks the soul of form – the Oedipus of Sophoclese’ (Lukács, 1974: 164), tragedy is seen as a process and form in which ‘essential, true nature [becomes] more and more manifest …[and in which all that exists is] the clear, harsh mountain air of ultimate questions and ultimate answers’ (Lukács, 1974: 155). The drama, then, is an exploration of ‘ultimate questions and answers’, in which the mundane detail, normally subsumed within the ‘anarchy of light and dark’ which constitutes ‘empirical life’ (Lukács, 1974: 153) is ‘aroused into life’ itself (Lukács, 1974: 156), that is, into ‘real life’ (Lukács, 1974: 153); and in which each detail of the narrative is always connected to essence, and to the ‘peak of existence’ (Lukács, 1974: 159).

This relationship of detail to essence in classical drama also leads Lukács to explore the ways in which such a relationship should ideally be formed, and this, in turn, leads him to develop his important notion of ‘being’, or Wesen. For Lukács, the key question for drama is how essence can be given form in such a way that ‘the sensual, immediate, the only real, the truly being thing’ becomes endowed with essence (Lukács, 1974: 156). This is what he means when he says that, in Oedipus Rex, all form, all detail, is intimately linked to soul, so that what we find here is the ‘soul of form’ (Lukács, 1974: 164). When such close rapport occurs in the drama, the detail, the ‘sensuous, immediate’, corresponds more closely to the ‘platonic idea’, and its ‘being’ becomes greater than its mere existence as a sensuous immediate existant (Lukács, 1974: 156). Real ‘being’, therefore, as Lukács requires this term to be understood, does not just stand for ‘being in the world’ in a naturalist or empirical sense, but a being in the world which is also connected to essence. ‘Being’ is, then, the unity of essence and appearance, of idea and thing, in which the manifestations of life connect up to ‘ultimate relationships’ (Lukács, 1974: 156). Lukács argues that there is a fundamental existential need for such unity to occur, and goes on to argue that there is also an equally fundamental need to cleave to the ‘faith’ that such unity is capable of occurring, because such faith transforms the ‘eternally un-provable possibility’ of such unity into a determination to bring unity into existence, and thus make it ‘into the a priori basis for the whole of [human] existence’ (Lukács, 1974: 156).

It is, therefore, apparent that Lukács’ theoretical system places great emphasis upon the sort of unity of ‘life’ with ‘ultimate relationships’ which he discusses in ‘The Metaphysics of Tragedy’. However, what Lukács says concerning how such unity may be forged also has particular significance for an understanding of his position on film. First, Lukács argues that the dominant culture of ordinary life seeks to institute continuity and stability, and minimise the impact of unforeseen change. Ordinary life is:

flat and sterile, an endless plain without any elevations; the logic of such a life is the logic of cheap security, of passive refusal before everything new, of dull repose in the lap of dry common sense. (Lukács, 1974: 155)

As previously argued, according to Lukács such ‘logic’ is also inimical to the needs of human essence because such essence requires an active ‘refusal’ of ordinary life. However, such a logic can be overcome when essence becomes connected to ordinary life, and to the ‘sensual immediate’, through unanticipated incidence; when ‘dull repose’ and ‘passive refusal’ of essence are disrupted by some unforeseen disturbance which acts as a catalyst for active refusal. Such disruption cannot really occur through the exercise of reason because ordinary life has