THE CINEMATIC APPARATUS

Also by Teresa de Laurett"s

* ALICE 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

* Also 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

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First edition 1980 Reprinted 1985, 1988

Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD

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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

Priface

I. The Cinematic Apparatus: Technology as Historical and Cultural Form

Stephen Heath

2. Cinema and Technology: A Historical Overview

Vll

Vlll

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

4. Towards an Economic History of the Cinema: The Coming of Sound to Hollywood

37

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

Vl Contents

7. Motion Perception in Motion Pictures Joseph and Barbara Anderson

8. Flicker and Motion in Film Bill Nichols and Susan J. Lederman

9. Implications of the Cel Animation Technique Kristin Thompson

10. Machines of the Visible Jean-Louis Comolli

I I . The Place of Visual Illusions Maureen Turim

12. Technology and Ideology in/through/and Avant­Garde Film: An Instance

96

106

121

143

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 dis­placements. 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

x Pr~face

Gorbman, Inez Hedges, Ken Hope, William Horrigan, Bruce jenkins, Cathy johnson, Virginia Kelly, Dan Kirihara, Mary jo Lakeland, jayne Loader, judith Mayne, Margaret Morse, Roswitha Mueller, Mark Oppenheimer, Laura Oswald, Chris Privateer, Strother Purdy, Marcelle Rabbin, Phil Rosen,jonathan Rosenbaum, Tony Safford, Paul Sandro, Peter Schofer, Don Skoller, janet Staiger, Phil Vitone, Ann West, Miriam White ...

December 1978 Teresa de Lauretis and

Stephen Heath