Der sichtbare Mensch, oder die Kultur des Films

Balázs's famous book on theory of films and cinema. Considered as the foundation of the so-called "film as a language" theory. It influenced the Russian filmmakers Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin too..

Béla Balázs (1884-1949) was a Hungarian-Jewish film critic and aesthete, also a writer and poet. He is known as the librettist of Béla Bartók's "Bluebeard's Castle" and the writer of the scenario for Bartók's ballet "The Wooden Prince".

The "Der sichtbare Mensch" was his first book about the theory of film and cinema, that followed "Der Geist des Films" (1926) and his involvement in filmmaking. He wrote the screenplay for G. W. Pabst's film of "Die Dreigroschenoper" (1931), and worked together with Leni Riefenstahl making the film "Das Blaue Licht" (1932). In the early 1930's Balázs was invited to Moscow to make a movie about the Hungarian Revolution in 1919. He stayed in the Soviet Union, taught film aesthetics at the Moscow's State Film Institute until 1945 when he returned to Hungary.

The cover was designed by Tibor Gergely (1900-1978) was a Hungarian born, American graphic artist. He designed several covers for "The New Yorker" and became well known for his illustrations of several children's books.

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