Contenu du sommaire : Cinéma, le temps de l'histoire

Cinema and history: the historiographic record, Rémy Pithon. Historian's interest in film is not new. But not until the early 1970s did the topic "cinema and history" begin to be approached. Despite the difficulties of a research field that was new methodologically as well as instrumentally, a great deal of work has been done over the past 20 years. It fits into three basic categories : content studies focusing on openly propaganda or ideological works or semiological studies deliberately ignoring context in favor of the "film as object"; studies that attempt to unveil underlying but significant representation of the problems of a given period. After 25 years of research, the record is far from negative. In spite of failures and dead-ends, each school has produced high quality research that has stimulated debate and deepened hypotheses.

Cinematographic and historical narratives: the (sub)version of history, Barbara Abrash, Daniel Walkowitz. Barbara Abrash and Daniel Walkowitz trace their intellectual route as committed historians and filmmakers. Each of their four films marks a stage in their determination to recognize in filmed narratives the power to criticize and contest the academic historical narratives.

Historical time and time of the cinema, Christian Delage. The filmmaker reconstructs the past rather than reconstituting it, and thus meets the historian. The analysis of two major works by John Ford and Michael Cimino shows how the cinema historicizes a past event through the indirect agency of the narrative. In the fiction presented to the audience, the filmmaker, like the historian, faces representations inscribed in general history, while simultaneously modifying its meaning. American cinema carries on an almost ontological relation with duration and time; the question of its truthfulness presents the same methodological challenge as that driving contemporary historical research.

The place despite everything, Georges Didi-Huberman. In Shoah, Lanzmann did not want to make an "idealistic film" where major questions would be asked but a "geographer's, topographie" film, by forever returning to places of eternal destruction that, even destroyed after the war, "have not changed". For him, the Holocaust must in no case belong to memory, it must remain an inquiry into the present aspects of the camps. What do these camps impose to us? To which images do they refer? What good is it to go back to them? These are the filmmaker's questions who finds the right form to convey what cannot be said. By asking the survivors to return to the camps, Lanzmann has changed the course of cinema in its conscience and in its history.

Early American cinema and its production patterns, Charles Musser. A new reading of the birth and development of the early cinema's production patterns shows how long it took for hierarchies to be established between the various occupations and fonctions before the emergence of the producer. This relative flexibility of the division of labor in the cinema industry invalidates the often-made comparison with the standardized model of mass production.

Thinking differently about the history of cinema, Rick Altman. In its beginnings, American commercial cinema had no clear identity. It was poorly differentiated from other types of entertainment such as the circus and the theatre. By studying the crisis that swept the theatre industry in the first years of the 20th century, the slow constitution of the cinema as a specific genre can be traced. Through the struggles of the occupational categories dealing with this new medium, by following the transformation of the terminology designating this new phenomenon, i.e. through a crisis model another way of thinking about the history of cinema comes to light.

The time of the image, the time of sound, Emmanuel Croset. The history of the transition from silent to talking films cannot be presented as a sudden irruption. While it was indeed a revolution, it had been prepared for a long time and its real, multiple effects must be seen in the long term.

Local strategies and sectoral changes: the case of the movie studios, Pierre-Jean Benghozi, Bertrand Nicolas. From the example of the Victorine studios established in Nice from 1919 and by studying Serge Sandberg's archives, a strategic itinerary of a cinema studio is mapped out. It shows the essential weight of structural and strategic developments in the existence and survival of a studio.

The origins of the Pathé-Natan group and the American model, Gilles Willems. The development of movie companies in the United States during the 1920s follows a pattern of industrial and financial transformation based on concentration and expansion. By comparison, the French cinema industry lost its pre-war primacy, demonstrated by the difrïculties of the Charles Pathé group. But the French case was synonymous with modernization and mergers, as shown by Bernard Natan's ascent.

The Soviet studio model: the example of Lenfilm, Natacha Laurent. From the 1920s, the development of the Soviet cinema and the interest of the rulers characterize the existence of a Soviet studio model. The example of Lenfilm shows that the model is not stable: it manages to retain a certain margin of manoeuvre and of development.

The display of productivity : Jour de fête and the Americanization of French society, Vincent Guigueno. Jacques Tati's film, Jour de fête, describes in a burlesque style the introduction of American methods of work rationalization in the France of the Marshall Plan. With its peculiar methods, Jac- ques Tati's work accounts for a social phenomenon and a cultural break that neither expert reports nor productivity teams could really grasp.

Les copains du dimanche or the golden age of metalworkers, Tangui Perron. A propaganda film made for the CGT in 1956, the Copains du dimanche (Sunday buddies) anticipates and expresses the changes in the working class, particularly in the metal workers' category. A film of militants, it is not however a militant film, and remains, in spite of its commercial failure, a testimonial work.

Cinephilia or the invention of a culture, Antoine de Baecque, Thierry Frémaux. Cinephilia is a way of watching films, of commenting them and of circulating the discourse. It is also a way of considering the cinema in its context and as an historical topic. The history of cinephilia is thus part of the cultural history touching on the relations between mass and elite culture. When studying cinephilia, one analyzes both a practice as much as social representation. Writing a history of cinephilia means holding together, in one understanding, the film and the life organized around it. It implies anchoring the vision of the film in the diversity of its sources and its context. One lises from the field of the relations between history and the cinema to a genuine history of cinema.

The spectator's place, Christian-Marc Bosséno The analysis of the diffïculties encountered by studies of movie audiences in the US and in Europe shows that the myths and preconceived ideas concerning the cinema's "general public" are to be replaced by research capable of differentiating between socio-cultural categories and historicizing the concept of the spectator.

«Cinéastes de notre temps»: a televisual memory of cinema, Sophie Revillard. The series of programs entitled "Film-makers of our time" was produced and carried out between 1964 and 1972 by people drawn from the editorial staff of Les Cahiers du cinéma or connected with the magazine. It succeeded in promoting on French television the cinephiliac approach close to the Nouvelle Vague, that characterized the magazine and its time. It preferred the cinéma d'auteurs to the celebration of the star System and became for that reason a reference program that brought new life to "quality television".

Like writing history with lightning: historical truth/historical films, Robert A. Rosenstone. Historical films often leave historians perplexed. They denounce reconstitution that appeals to émotions more than to the mind and see in it a compétition harmful to their educational mission. The historical film has considerably influenced the public's understanding of the past. Historians nevertheless must therefore use this medium and reflect upon the relations between truth and veracity. Contemporary history can no longer neglect these historical films because the presence of historians on this terrain is a fundamental stake in the development of the culture of our time.