Cadrer sans yeux
Drawing from gesture theory, the article investigates the engagement of the body when creating the filmic frame. As a medium of illusionistic movement that is obtained — in every one of its past phases — through a corporeal act, the cinematic machine itself implies its own gesturality, one that in s...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Centre d´Histoire et Théorie des Arts
2022-12-01
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| Series: | Images Re-Vues |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/imagesrevues/12600 |
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| Summary: | Drawing from gesture theory, the article investigates the engagement of the body when creating the filmic frame. As a medium of illusionistic movement that is obtained — in every one of its past phases — through a corporeal act, the cinematic machine itself implies its own gesturality, one that in some sense sets aside the optical element, classically considered central to its interpretation. The original design of the first cinematic machine is grafted on a pair of very different, even dissonant gestures, that combined create the moving image: on one side aiming, on the other turning; keeping one’s eyes fixed and making a movement; looking and manipulating. The article suggests some genealogical lines of this gesture, following the complex affective component of which it is imbued: the desire for control, that is expressed in the act of taking aim and potentially “shooting”, and the desire for magic, which is in part the pleasure of playing: using optical toys, a practice which belong to the prehistory of cinema, but also gambling in the amusement arcades, which involves taking a risk and confronting chance. Within a gestural history of the modern machines, cinema and gambling devices became very close, as the artist Joseph Cornell precociously envisaged. |
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| ISSN: | 1778-3801 |