New Publications

André Gaudreault & Laurent Le Forestier, De l’assemblage au montage cinématographique. Instauration et standardisation d’une pratique (PUM, 2022)

Using a technically oriented approach, focusing as much on the tools and gestures as on the accompanying discourses, this book aims to show how a series of assembling operations ended up constituting an autonomous phase of the post-production process of so-called silent films. Scattered both in the chronology and in the space of this process, this set of practices and procedures acquired different values and statuses over the years, which crystallized, before its conceptualization, in the notion of editing.

 

Table of Contents

Foreword by Hervé de Luze

Preface by Walter Murch

Introduction: Assemblage contre montage  Assembling versus Editing

Chapter 1: Raccomoder et rapiécer  Stitching and Patching

Chapter 2: Abouter et coupler  Abbutting and Coupling

Chapter 3: Truquer et raccorder  Tricking and Matching

Chapter 4: Accumuler et élaguer  Accumulating and Pruning

Chapter 5: Alterner et inter(s)caler  Crossing and Inter(s)calating

Chapter 6: Ordonner et (encore) raccorder  Ordering and (Again) Matching

Conclusion: Montage contre assemblage  Editing versus Assembling

 

Reviews by Domitor Members

“Going beyond the exemplary case of an Eisenstein or a Griffith, this innovative and unique book describes the multiple forms of cutting and pasting that have shaped the practice of film editing. How did it all begin? This book gives the key to the mystery!” (Tom Gunning)

“A huge leap forward in research, which challenges the idea of the “invention” of film editing and opens new perspectives for young researchers in film history and theory.” (Jane Gaines)

“Unexpected, if not unhoped-for, but now necessary, Gaudreault and Le Forestier’s book renews the question of cinema editing by the extent of its historical and technical documentation and by the taxonomy it draws from it.” (François Albera)

 

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