Inventing Cinema

Benoît Turquety is a professor in the film department at the University of Lausanne and director of the SNF research project on Bolex and amateur cinema. He is a founding member of the Material Archival Studies Network, and a member of the Dispositives research group, of the Network for Experimental Media Archaeology, and the Technology and the Humanities project.

• Introduction The Problems of Digital Cinema, Part One The Why and How of Machines A FEW DEFINITIONS Technique/Technology Machines/Dispositifs MACHINES, IMAGES, MOVEMENT The Machines of Filippo Brunelleschi Machines and Movement, Machines and Images The Machine and the Non-verbal THE PERFORMANCE AND THE DEVICE: MACHINES-ARCHIVES MACHINES/SYSTEMS AN EXAMPLE: THE PRINCIPLE AND MACHINES - THE CAMERA OBSCURA Part Two Invention, Innovation, History INNOVATION IN CINEMA AND THE FILM SPECTATOR INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES INVENTION AND THE SHAPE OF HISTORY INNOVATIONS AND INVENTIONS IN CINEMA Viewfinders and Those Viewed (The Camera Operator's Body 1: The Eye) Editing FOR AN EPISTEMOLOGY OF MACHINES An Example: An Invention and its Epistemological Conditions, Wheatstone's Stereoscope Part Three The Invention of the Problem THE IDEA AND THE QUESTION OF ORIGINS: ANDRÉ BAZIN AS HISTORIOGRAPHER THE IDEA AND THE QUESTION OF ORIGINS: AFTER PHOTOGRAPHY THE INVENTION AND EVOLUTION OF PROBLEMS: SIMONDON WITH BACHELARD A LOUIS DUCOS DU HAURON PATENT (1864) CHARLES CROS AND 'SCENES IN MOTION' (1867) THE 'CINEMA' PROBLEM Part Four The Invention of the Cinématographe THE CINÉMATOGRAPHE AND THE QUESTION OF INVENTION THE SITE OF THE INVENTION THE EDISON SYSTEM AND THE QUESTION OF CELLULOID REVERSIBILITY, INSTANTANEOUSNESS AND PHOTOGRAM: THE QUESTION OF THE ADJUSTABLE SHUTTER A CONCRETE MACHINE OTHER ASPECTS OF THE CINÉMATOGRAPHE The Crank (The Operator's Body Part Two: The Hand) The Lens Part Five 'Natural Colour Kinematography', a New Cinema Invention: Kinemacolor, Technical Network and Commercial Policies A TECHNOLOGY OF KINEMACOLOR THE CINEMA ACCORDING TO CHARLES URBAN TECHNICS AND THE COMMERCIAL Compatibility and Specialisation Constraints or Coherence Part Six and Epilogue From the Trembling of Film to the Stability of the Digital TOWARDS A TECHNOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE DIGITAL, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX.

"Inventing Cinema is meticulously researched, with particular success in focusing on important but neglected aspects of visual technologies." - Stephen Herbert, Journal of Film Preservation, 102, April 2020 "Turquety’s study of the invention of the cinema superbly unpacks the overwhelming impact of the "birth of the cinema" on academia, aesthetics, and both high and popular culture. It is a must-read for all in the fields of history of cinema, technology, and media." - Annie van den Oever (University of Groningen) "Benoît Turquety’s book on the invention of the cinema manages to provide an overview of the way cinema came into the world that is precise in its historical detail and deep in its theoretical considerations. This is the finest single work on the invention of cinema I have yet read." - Tom Gunning (University of Chicago)