Georg Lukács' late aesthetic and film theory: a study of the chapter entitled ‘Film’ in Lukács' The Specificity of the Aesthetic (1963)

Abstract

It is widely known that Georg Lukács was a literary theorist. It is less well known – in the English-speaking world – that he was a film theorist. The reason for this lack of anglophone attentiveness is that Lukács' writings on film were not published in English. His early article ‘Thoughts Towards an Aesthetic of the Cinema’ (1913) has now appeared in English at least five times. However, the long chapter entitled ‘Film’ in his The Specificity of the Aesthetic has only recently appeared in English. This paper will explore the chapter on film in the Aesthetic, and will also make reference to both Lukács' 1913 piece and his early works on literary theory.

Keywords:

• Lukács
• realism
• Marxism
• German philosophy
• naturalism
• aesthetics

Notes

1. At this point it is necessary to address the issue of why reflection is a central concept within the Aesthetic. At one level, it is, as argued, because Lukács intends to hold to a dialectical-materialist refutation of idealism. However, reflection also has a central place within the Aesthetic because it is a Leninist concept. During the 1950s and 1960s Lukács was a leading figure in the ‘Leninist opposition’ to Stalinism: the ‘greatest personality’ behind ‘oppositional reform Marxism … who formulated the … renaissance of Marxism’ (Fehér and Heller, quoted in Levine, in Levine and Bernhardt 1991, 4–5). However, for Lukács, that formulation was based on holding up Leninism as an alternative to Stalinism. Even Lukács' most loyal disciples in Budapest eventually came to feel that his loyalty towards Leninism was ‘a fatal flaw’ (Heller, quoted in Levine, in Levine and Bernhardt 1991, 5). However, Lukács believed that Leninism was the only available alternative (‘bourgeois’ Western socialist ideas being, of course, beyond the pale); and, because of this, he constantly reaffirmed his Leninism throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Leninism was crucial to Lukács, and this is largely why he felt bound to place a Leninist concept, that of ‘reflection’, at the heart of his Aesthetic.

2. Because of word limitations, a chapter entitled ‘A Lukácsian Analysis of Il gattopardo (1965)’ was omitted from my Lukácsian Film Theory and Cinema (Aitken 2012). This chapter will now appear in the journal Moderna in late 2013.