Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966) was a German intellectual who wrote extensively on modern culture and everyday life. From 1924 to 1933 he was cultural editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung. He emigrated to the United States in 1941. He is the author of From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of German Film (Princeton), The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays and History: The Last Things Before the Last.

"Kracauer's profound theoretical investigation revealed film as the form that best captured the new modes of experience that characterize modernity. Miriam Hansen's brilliant introduction chronicles the work's genesis and transformation through Kracauer's conversations with Adorno and Benjamin, his flight from the Nazis, and his uneasy assimilation into the Cold-War United States."—Tom Gunning, University of Chicago

• IntroductionPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1Photography32Basic Concepts273The Establishment of Physical Existence414Inherent Affinities605History and Fantasy776Remarks on the Actor937Dialogue and Sound1028Music1339The Spectator15710Experimental film17511The Film of Fact19312The Theatrical Story21513Interlude: Film and Novel23214The Found Story and the Episode24515Matters of Content26216Film in Our Time285Notes313Bibliography339Index351