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9096 results in Communications, Signal Processing and Information Theory

Page 106 of 455

  • 4 - The Invention of the Cinématographe

  • Benoît Turquety
  • Book:
    Inventing Cinema
    Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    21 November 2020
    Print publication:
    17 October 2019, pp 151-208

  • Summary

    Abstract

    When the Lumière Cinématographe was invented, was cinema invented too? And was the Cinématographe a true invention, or only an innovation within an ensemble of machines already established by 1895? These are certainly among the most debated questions in the historiography of cinema, and in its technological historiography in particular. They reappeared on a regular basis, in particular at the time of ‘anniversaries’ of the invention (1925, 1935, etc.), before being revived for other reasons by the transformation to digital encoding. This chapter reconsiders the Cinématographe's status within the history of film technology, questioning whether it is an invention and where its newness may be situated. From its cams to the evolutions of its shutter, from its crank to its reversibility, from its relations with amateur photography to its relations with Marey's chronophotography, the famous Lumière machine is reconsidered within its cultural, scientif ic, and technological contexts.

    Keywords: Cinématographe, Louis Lumière, Thomas Edison, film technology, film camera, film historiography.

    The Cinématographe and the Question of Invention

    When the Lumière Cinématographe was invented, was cinema invented too? And was the Cinématographe a true invention, or only an innovation within an ensemble of machines already well in place by 1895? These are certainly among the most debated questions in the historiography of cinema, and in its technological historiography in particular. They reappeared on a regular basis, in particular at the time of ‘anniversaries’ of the invention (1925, 1935, etc.), before being revived for other reasons by the transformation to digital encoding.

    An initial response to these questions has been proposed, for example, by André Gaudreault in his article ‘On Some Limitations of the Definition of the Dispositive “Cinema”‘: it points out the indisputable difference between the cultural phenomenon cinema and the Cinématographe (Illus. 26), which is, ‘basically and quite simply […] only […] a machine to shoot views – extraordinary and brilliantly designed, to be sure, but a machine all the same.’ When cinema was invented is essentially a poor question, a false problem: ‘Who invented cinema? Answer: the cinema cannot be invented (there is no patent to be registered): it becomes established, gradually and collectively’.

Page 106 of 455