Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices

281 Pages·2018·34.22 MB·English

by  Catherine Russell

archiveology
A C A M E R A O B S C U R A B O O K
Catherine Russell
a r c h i v e o l o g y
W A LT E R B E N J A M I N
A N D
A R C H I V A L F I L M
P R A C T I C E S
Duke University Press Durham and London 2018
© 2018 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper ∞
Text designed by Mindy Basinger Hill
Cover designed by Matthew Tauch
Typeset in Minion Pro and Trade Gothic
by Westchester Publishing Ser vices
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Russell, Catherine, [date] author.
Title: Archiveology : Walter Benjamin and archival film practices /
Catherine Russell.
Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2018. | Series: A camera
obscura book | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2017039264 (print)
lccn 2017056105 (ebook)
isbn 9780822372004 (ebook)
isbn 9780822370451 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn 9780822370574 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: lcsh: Film archives. | Archives. | Motion picture film. |
Benjamin, Walter, 1892–1940.
Classification: lcc pn1993.4 (ebook) | lcc pn1993.4.r874 2018 (print) |
ddc 026.79143—d c23
lc rec ord available at https:// lccn. loc. gov/ 2017039264
Cover art: Still from Film Ist.4—M aterial (Gustav Deutsch, 1998).
FOR MARCO
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CONTENTS
Acknowle dgments
ix
Prologue
1
1 Introduction to Archiveology
11
2 Walter Benjamin and the Language
of the Moving Image Archive
35
3 The Cityscape in Pieces
55
4 Collecting Images
97
5 Phantasmagoria and Critical Cinephilia
141
6 Awakening from the Gendered Archive
184
Epilogue
219
Notes
225
Selected Filmography
245
Bibliography
247
Index
261
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ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
In 2008 I began teaching the course Archiveology: Archival Film
Practices in our newly founded PhD Program in Film and Moving Image
Studies at Concordia University. Since then I have continued to teach such a
course on a regular basis, and I am grateful to all the students who have con-
tributed in many small ways to my understanding of the topic and its potential
scope. Several students have been of par tic u lar help in the research that went
into this book, especially Papagena Robbins, Tess McClernon, Dominic Lep-
pla, and Kaia Scott. Thanks also to Joaquim Serpe for his invaluable assistance
in producing the illustrations, Jennifer de Freitas for excellent design advice,
and Melanie Honma for research assistance. Ken Wissoker, Elizabeth Ault, and
all the staff at Duke University Press have been wonderfully helpful throughout
the publication pro cess, and I would also like to thank the anonymous readers
and the Camera Obscura editorial board. I am fortunate to work with stellar
colleagues, who have helped create a supportive and stimulating research envi-
ronment in our department at Concordia. In par tic u lar, I would like to thank
Martin Lefebvre and the Arthemis research group that he led for many years,
not only for the funding support but for the collegial research environment.
Many thanks go also to Kay Dickinson for her generous help with chapter 6.
Funding support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Coun-
cil of Canada, the Fonds de Recherche Société et Culture Quebec, and Con-
cordia University was instrumental to the completion of this research. The
book includes excerpts from a number of articles that I have published over
the last few years. I would like to thank all the editors for their support and for
the opportunities they provided to develop my thinking about archiveology.
I would especially like to thank Paul Flaig, Erica Balsom, Jodi Brooks, Therese
Davis, André Habib, and Drake Stutesman.
In “remixing” a number of articles that have been previously published, I have
borrowed extracts, rewritten and revised parts of them, and combined argu-
ments and examples from diff er ent places. In their new context, t hese vari ous
articles are reor ga nized to suit the chapter breakdown of the book and have
been integrated with new writing. Unlike the media practices that the book is