The Cinematic Apparatus

232 Pages·1980·23.05 MB·English

by  Teresa de Lauretis

THE CINEMATIC APPARATUS
Also by Teresa de Laurett"s
*A LICE DOESN'T: FEMINISM, SEMIOTICS, CINEMA
*FEMINIST STUDIES/CRITICAL STUDIES (editor)
LA SINTASSI DEL DESIDERIO: STRUTTURA E FORME
DEL ROMANZO SVEVIANO
*TECHNOLOGIES OF GENDER: ESSAYS IN THEORY,
FILM AND FICTION
Also by Stephen Heath
THE NOUVEAU ROMAN: A STUDY IN THE PRACTICE
OF WRITING
*THE SEXUAL FIX
VERTIGE DU DEPLACEMENT
*A lso published by Palgrave Macmillan
THE CINEMATIC
APPARATUS
Edited by
Teresa de Lauretis and Stephen Heath
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
© Macmillan and Teresa de Lauretis and Stephen Heath 1980
for the Center for Twentieth Century Studies,
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1980978-0-333-23647-5
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First edition 1980
Reprinted 1985, 1988
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Cinematic Apparatus (Conference), Milwaukee, 1978
The cinematic apparatus
1. Cinematography - History - Congresses
I. de Lauretis, Teresa
II. Heath, Stephen
778.5'3'0904 TR848
ISBN 978-1-349-16403-5 ISBN 978-1-349-16401-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16401-1
Contents
List of Plates Vll
Priface Vlll
I. The Cinematic Apparatus: Technology as Historical
and Cultural Form
Stephen Heath
2. Cinema and Technology: A Historical Overview
Peter Wollen 14
Discussion
Christian Metz, Inez Hedges, Aimee Rankin, Peter
Wollen 23
3. The Industrial Context of Film Technology:
Standardisation and Patents
Jeanne Thomas Allen
Discussion
Jean-Louis Comolli 37
4. Towards an Economic History of the Cinema: The
Coming of Sound to Hollywood
Douglas Gomery 38
5. Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing and
Mixing
Mary Ann Doane 47
Discussion
Jean-Louis Comolli, Peter Wollen, Douglas
Gomery 57
6. The Post-War Struggle for Colour
Dudley Andrew
v
Contents
Vl
7. Motion Perception in Motion Pictures
Joseph and Barbara Anderson
8. Flicker and Motion in Film
Bill Nichols and Susan J. Lederman 96
9. Implications of the Cel Animation Technique
Kristin Thompson 106
10. Machines of the Visible
Jean-Louis Comolli 121
I I . The Place of Visual Illusions
Maureen Turim
143
12. Technology and Ideology in/through/and Avant
Garde Film: An Instance
Peter Gidal 151
Discussion
Laura Mulvey, Christian Metz, Sandy Flitterman,
Jean-Louis Comolli, Maureen Turim, Peter Gidal 166
13. The Cinematic Apparatus: Problems III Current
Theory
J acq ueline Rose I 72
14. Through the Looking-Glass
Teresa de Lauretis 187
Notes on the Contributors 203
Index 205
List of Plates
Plate I Smile, Darn Ya, Smile
Plate 2 Draftee Daffy
Plate 3 Little Nemo
Plate 4 Hare Conditioned
Plate 5 Conrad the Sailor
Plate 6 Draftee Daffy
Plate 7 Duck Amuck
Plate 8 The Cholmondeley Sisters
vii
Preface
The papers and discussions collected in this volume constitute one
record of a conference on 'The Cinematic Apparatus' held from 22
to 24 February 1978 by the Center for Twentieth Century Studies of
the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The conference could not
have taken place without the support, from inside the University, of
the College of Letters and Science nor without that, from outside, of
the National Endowment for the Arts (through Don Druker) and of
the Cultural Services of the French Embassy (through Jean-Loup
Bourget and Hugues de Kerret). The organisation was done by
Teresa de Lauretis and Stephen Heath in conjunction with Charles
Caramello, Robert Dickey, Divina Infusino, Jean Lile and Carol
Tennessen at the Center and with a coordinating committee
composed of David Bordwell, Douglas Gomery, Patricia
Mellencamp and Kristin Thompson. Robert Dickey, who designed
and built the conference space, was also responsible for much
editorial work in connection with the present volume.
The, summer following the conference saw the death of the
Center's Director, Michel Benamou. In the midst of his other
activities and projects, he had been instrumental in introducing,
continuing and in every possible way encouraging work on cinema
and film at the Center. We can do no more here than state the loss
his death represents and our sorrow at that loss.
It must be stressed that this volume constitutes one record of this
conference. Over the three days, much took place; films were
screened and debated, and wide-ranging and various discussion
occupied a large part of the time. Only a little of this could be
directly included here and we have thus tried to construct as
coherent an account of the diversity as is compatible with the
constraints and demands of publication in book form, using some
papers distributed in advance of the conference (Comolli, Heath),
some given during it, either wholly or in part (Allen, Anderson and
Anderson, Doane, Gidal, Gomery, Lederman and Nichols,
VIII
Priface
lX
Turim, Wollen), some subsequently revised or recast in new
directions or engaging new areas (Andrew, Thompson) and some
written quite specifically after the conference as reflections on and
developments of issues raised (de Lauretis, Rose), together with one
or two moments of discussion that bear particularly on problems
encountered in the succession of the papers. The reader may, in fact,
follow fairly closely something of the effective movement of the
conference - its displacements of interest in the conception of the
cinematic apparatus, its returns on notions of technology and the
technological in the course - from the perspective - of those dis
placements. The 'cinematic apparatus' is a term that can pull at
once towards the technology of cinema as usually defined (the
various machines and techniques involved in the making and
screening offilms) and towards more recent attempts to understand
and describe cinema as a particular institution of relations and
meanings (a whole machinery of effects and affects): one aim of the
conference, one part of its work, was to set those two directions
together, to grasp at least the points at which they come apart, the
problems thus found.
In this respect too, a central feature of the conference was
discussion, with the participation of the makers, of a range of
examples of current film-making practice, in differing degrees
independent of the normal commercial circuits of production and
distribution. The films thus screened were La Cecilia (Jean-Louis
Comolli, Italy/France, 1976), Woman/Discourse/Flow (Steven Fagin
and Aimee Rankin, USA, 1978), Riddles qf the Sphinx (Laura
Mulvey and Peter Wollen, Britain, 1977), Condition of Illusion (Peter
Gidal, Britain, 1975)' Something of the presence of films and
discussion can be felt at many points in different papers and the
discussion following the papers by Turim and Gidal is given
especially in connection with this.
Finally, it is important to emphasise that this volume is, as it were,
a constant reference to the participation and contributions of
everyone who attended and worked in the conference, including, in
addition to those already named or who appear as contributors of
papers or discussion in this volume: Rose Avila, Serafina Bathrick,
Peter Baxter, Robert Bell, Nick Browne, Mike Budd, Ron Burnett,
Keith Cohen, Rob Danielson, Marty Dolan, Joseph Donohoe,
Regis Durand, Patricia Erens, Pamela Falkenberg, David
Fishelson, Simonne Fischer, Bette Gordon, Dana Gordon, Claudia