By Karine Abadie

Cinema exists by means of a series of mechanical and technical operations carried out with the goal of providing an audience with a finished product fixed on a base and understood by its creators and viewers as a work of art. But this technical dimension, even as it is a source of fascination, is also a deterrent for those who refuse to acknowledge the association of cinema and art. What is in fact concealed by this umbrella term technique, used imprecisely in most contexts? By examining discourses, we will interrogate how the imaginary of cinematic technique was constructed in the pages of four specialized French journals – Cinéma, Cinémagazine, Cinéa-Ciné pour tous and Photo-Ciné – from 1925 to 1932, a period of great upheavals. The sections of the present book will show the construction of a plural imaginary, made up of manifestations and motifs which show cinema’s potential.