Is Film Art? Part II

Is film art? We've now discussed a little bit about what makes film unique (acting, the use of space in relation to viewed objects and in relation to the audience), but there are two areas of formalism that I'd like to touch on before we put this matter to rest, the psychological miracle of the mind's eye and the montage. Maybe we should start with the psychological reaction that takes place when viewing a film.

This miracle occurs in the brain. It is what led Munsterberg to say that the raw material of the photoplay (cinema) is not camera, lens, nor celluloid, but is the mind. Two distinct things have to occur in order to actually perceive a moving image. One, the retention of visual stimuli. This is the brain holding on to the last image it sees for a split second longer (nearly 1/50th of a second) than the image is presented. This is the same thing that occurs during a strobe light or when we close our eyes, the image remains just a tiny bit longer. Why or how this exactly occurs, is still somewhat of a mystery.

The next is called the phi-phenomenon. This is the brain's ability to sense movement in disjointed stimuli. It will combine different images and transform them into what is perceived as a single movement. This is similar to how we see a row of blinking Christmas lights and see a movement down the line. Does that make sense? When the spectator views the slightly different images in quick succession, the mind combines them into a single moving image. This is a profound trick of the mind unique to cinema. (A rudimentary form of this is the flip book)

So what application does this have in relation to reading cinema?
Does this make film unique enough to be called art?
Is more needed to distinguish film, that is to ask, beyond just a unique way of perceiving, does film need a unique way of communicating ideas? And what might this be?

Is Film Art?

Does film belong among the great art forms of painting, music,theatre, sculpture, dance, and photography? Formalist thinkers (those guys in the early days of cinema, 1890's to 1920's who were concerned with the actual mechanical and visual apparatus of film ie. celluloid, lens, montage) believed that film was like a canvas, on which  the Autuer created the image. They believed film was art if the apparatus could do something different, something no other art form could do. So, if film is art, what does it do differently than 1) theatre, 2) dance, 3) literature or 4) photography? And what was it that film "does" that art does or should do?

Please feel free to comment. I'd also like to hear some examples. Name a film that does something other art forms cannot, but be sure to name the thing it does and why.