L'écriture de l'histoire au présent. Débuts de l'historiographie du cinéma

In the late nineteenth century, numerous texts began to address kinematography as something with a history. Thus animated photographs were seen as belonging to one or sometimes several histories which on the one hand tied them to technical and scientific discoveries in the past and on the other outlined their technical and, sometimes at least, formal evolution. The authors of this article seek to distinguish four dimensions in these writings: the establishment of a genealogy, differences of opinion over priority, integrating history into descriptions of technology and, finally, the beginnings of a history of forms. We would add to this that these fields of analysis all contain topoi that will recur later in traditional histories.