DER FILM
WIRTSCHAFTLICH, GESELLSCHAFTLICH, KÜNSTLERISCH
Georg Schmidt, Werner Schmalenbach, Peter Bächlin
Hermann Eidenbenz [Designer]
Georg Schmidt, Werner Schmalenbach, Peter Bächlin, Hermann Eidenbenz [Designer]: DER FILM – WIRTSCHAFTLICH, GESELLSCHAFTLICH, KÜNSTLERISCH. Basel: Holbein Verlag, 1947. First edition. Text in German. Octavo. Photo illustrated wrappers attached to plain paper boards. [xvi] 124 pp. Black and white illustrations throughout. Elaborate graphic design throughout. Wrapper edges lightly worn. Mild foxing early and late. A very good copy.
8.5 x 12 [din a4] softcover book with 140 pages well illustrated with black and white halftones throughout. An examination of the history of cinema through 1945 via social, economic and artistic perspectives. Beautifully designed in the then emerging Swiss "New New Typography" by Hermann Eidenbenz and printed by Buchdruckerei Karl Werner, Basel.
The page size — din a4 — and the rigid assymetry of the cover and textblock were all features propagated by Jan Tschichold in "Die Neue Typographie." And nothing says Postwar Basel than the multi-column, grid-like structure that Eidenbenz uses to great effect.
Hermann Eidenbenz [1902 – 1993] was a Swiss type designer associated with the Haas type foundry, where he made Clarendon Roman (1952-1953, together with Edouard Hoffmann, after the 1845 English classic Clarendon; see also Clarendon BNo. 1 Stencil, 1965, URW), LA 39 Alphabet, and the shaded outline all caps face Graphique (1946). Eidenbenz designed numerous posters, logos, and Swiss and German bank notes. From 1932 until 1953, he and his brother Reinhold and Willy ran a graphics studio in Basel. From 1955 until 1967, he was art director at the Reemtsma company in Hamburg.
Author Georg Schmidt [1896 – 1965] was a Basel Museum curator and important promoter of modern art in Switzerland.
The programmatic nature of this volume is nicely summed up by the poetic lines at the finale:
The aim
Film production
As production for the profit of the producer (profit production)
Chains the film as an art
Film production
As production for the need of the active film-goer (need production)
Makes the film-goer the master of production
The producer the servant of the film-goer
Frees the film as an art!
Translation from the English edition published by the Falcon Press in 1948.