Pudovkin's Precept [Summary]: Pudovkin, Kant and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception

In 1926, Vsevolod Pudovkin solved the fundamental problem of film design by showing filmmakers how to select and order the parts of a movie (its shots, scenes and sequences of them) to ensure that viewers can perceive coherently and with least effort the events that they encounter by means of it. He did so by unwittingly bringing Kant's transcendental constraint of apperceptive unity to bear upon it, confirming with unprecedented elegance and power that respect for the constraints of the self-conscious perceptual integrity of observers is the primal precondition of authentic art. Within this address, I summarise Pudovkin's achievement and its Kantian context, condensing the story told within Parts 1-3 of the lectures on 'Pudovkin's Precept' available within the Evan Wm. Cameron Collection.