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2036-461X
19209
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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Annette Kuhn, An Everyday Magic. Cinema and Cultural Memory (London-NY: I.B. Tauris Publisher, 2002)
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
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2003-03-01
2022-12-03
2003-03-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Mariagrazia Fanchi
2003/03/01
2036-461X
2
en
Annette Kuhn, An Everyday Magic. Cinema and Cultural Memory (London-NY: I.B. Tauris Publisher, 2002)
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/19209/17054
2
SELECTED BY

sous l’égide duquel on a placé l’évolution du                   SELECTED BY:
cinéma et du film – voire son “langage” – se                    FRANCESCO CASETTI
voit ainsi contrebattu par une permanence et                    AND MARIAGRAZIA FANCHI
une diversification des procédés et procédures
inverses qui comportent leur face purement                        Annette Kuhn, An Everyday Magic. Cinema
mercantile (plus-value des bonus, énièmes                       and Cultural Memory (London-NY: I.B. Tauris
restaurations et autres “déclinaisons”) mais                    Publisher, 2002)
aussi bien leurs virtualités critiques ou de
renouvellement.                                                    In the past few years, the topic of the spec-
   L’ouverture qu’opère ce livre doit emporter                  tator and his viewing experience has acquired
l’intérêt et l’adhésion précisément parce que                   a new weight in cinema studies. Due to the
cette opposition oral/écrit, performance/texte,                 attention given to moviegoing by historical
sous-tendue par des relations de pouvoir, de                    approaches and to the spectator’s interest in
domination, représente un enjeu très actuel à                   fields of research other than semiotics and
plusieurs niveaux: dans l’art (performance,                     psychoanalysis, the debate has increased
installation) comme dans les médias (interac-                   greatly, and not only from the numerical
tivité).                                                        point of view. The recognition of spectator-
                                                                ship as an independent field of research,
                                                                within which different perspectives act and
1      Ce chapitre est peut-être le plus fragile de l’en-       confront each other, has generated a more
       semble et celui qui est le plus appelé à                 critical and conscious attitude towards both
       “vieillir”car l’état de l’information évolue très        the reference theories and the adopted
       vite en un certain nombre de cas. Si la situation        methodologies.
       française demeure encore sous-explorée, faute               Annette Kuhn’s text exemplifies this new
       de documents exploitables (alors que des témoi-          and more mature season of research on spec-
       gnages attestent de la réalité du phénomène:             tatorship, showing the main lines of develop-
       voir André Gilloix par exemple) et aussi parce           ment and the themes around which the
       qu’elle offre de possibles complexités qui lui           reflection and the issues, which are still prob-
       sont spécifiques (Alain Carou a entrepris d’étu-         lematic, possess close coherence.
       dier la place de l’écrit “aléatoire” dans les salles),      The volume reconstructs the forms of the
       celle de la Russie, en particulier, dont les don-        movie viewing experience in the Thirties
       nées ici demeurent très frustes (travaux pion-           through an integrated methodology that
       niers mais déjà anciens de Vance Kepley jr), est         compares different source dialogues with one
       appelée à être reformulée de fond en comble              another. These include paratexts (the popular
       (une recherche en cours, au CNRS – menée par             press, the specialistic press, publications
       Valérie Posener – a démultiplié les sources et les       about cinema); the spectators’ memories (col-
       faits sur la question et donc la signification du        lected through an ethnographic survey car-
       phénomène).                                              ried out with the help of in-depth interviews
2      Cf. dans le même sens, les propos de Hanns               and questionnaires) and a sample of represen-
       Eisler sur la musique chorale dans ces mêmes             tative films of the period (selected on the
       années, repris partiellement dans Composing              grounds of their significance in the literature
       for The Films (New York: Oxford University               and in the spectators’ memories, and read
       Press, 1947) où l’on peut aussi repérer le lieu du       again with the instruments of narratological
       différend avec Adorno.                                   analysis). After a theoretical-methodological
                                                                introduction, the text develops through eight
                                                                chapters that provide in-depth study of sever-
                                                                al aspects, the most salient being spectator-

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ship in the Thirties. These aspects encompass      widened context in which the vision takes
moviegoing and the reappropriation of urban        place. In other words, spectatorship includes
space (“The Scenes of Cinema Memory”); the         both the symbolic processes that develop on
socialized nature of the viewing experience        the film-spectator axis, and the social and cul-
and the films’ role in shaping this sort of        tural processes that are produced by the rela-
experience (“Jam Jars and Cliffhangers”); cine-    tion with the environment. In this frame-
ma as an emancipation space and as an asser-       work, the topic of the relationship between
tion of independence for young spectators          what takes place inside and outside the movie
and therefore as a resource that contributes to    theatre and the capacity of the exhibition
the forming of both generational identity and      places to function as liminal spaces that medi-
gender identity (“When The Child Looks” and        ate the meeting between the symbolic and the
“Growing Up With Cinema”); cinema’s capa-          social – and between the event of vision and
bility of modelling behaviours and collective      everyday life – becomes salient.
rites, for example seduction, and of modify-          The second issue is the idea of pathway of
ing the common sense of decency (“This             life, of going to the cinema as an experience
Loving Darkness”); the relationship between        that is defined in the background of the sub-
cinema and other experiences, like dancing,        ject’s story, and is an experience whose grow-
and their mutual influences (“An Invitation        ing and lines of development not only reflect
to Dance”); the star system phenomena, and         the evolution of the medium (of the lan-
the modes through which cinema concurs in          guages, the technologies, the exhibition condi-
stimulating a palingenesis of life patterns        tions), but also reflect the changes that affect
(“All My Life, and Beyond…”); and finally the      the subject’s life, his turning points, his crises,
cinema’s escapist function and its abilities to    the definition and re-definition of his biogra-
place itself as a boundary space between real-     phical projects. In this picture, we can again
ity and desire (“Oh! Dreamland!”).                 try to read the classical question on the rela-
   Although the discussion on these subjects       tionship between cinema and identity in both
adopts a predominantly phenomenological            a dynamic and complex perspective, in which
and descriptive approach (giving ample space       the viewing experience is one of the many
to the direct quotation of the sources), this is   fields within which the subject constructs and
often to the detriment of the interpretative       gives consistency to his own social identity, in
moment, a direction towards which it               a game of crossroads and exchanges, of pas-
emerges that the study of spectatorship has        sages and mutual interferences, whose stake is
been very clearly moving in both its focus of      the elaboration of a self-centred discourse, an
attention and the theoretical and method-          image that can be spent and ratified in the con-
ological points of view taken. From this per-      text and in the historical circumstances in
spective, Kuhn’s volume is an excellent refer-     which the spectator lives. From this notion,
ence book for those who are studying specta-       different research directions can be opened.
torship today. Taking the cue from her work,       One of the most promising seems to be that of
and taking into consideration the back-            studies on memory, which are striving to
ground of current field research which has         reconstruct and to settle the plan (texture) of
also blossomed in Italy in the last few years1,    relations – that act between the vision experi-
it seems proper to focus attention on some of      ence and the other experiences of the subject’s
the issues.                                        life – and in particular, that new trend of
   The first is the idea of situated vision, a     research that examines how films’ discursive
complex event that not only deals with the         structures contribute to defining the pictures
filmic text and the spectator, but also from       of forming social experience and one’s own
the beginning brings into play the close and       life story.

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   The third issue is the idea of vision as a                (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1999) and R. De Berti,
process of negotiation, mediating the differ-                Dallo schermo alla carta (Milano, Vita e
ent instances that coexist in the situated                   Pensiero, 2000), contributions, that systemati-
vision and control their conversion into                     cally act creating tension in the study of texts,
resources to be invested in everyday life and                in the reconstruction of contexts and in the
in self-construction.2 The concept of negotia-               analysis of the viewing experience, are emerg-
tion has the merit of underlining the interac-               ing. On this subject, to be noted the book
tive and process-oriented character of filmic                Spettatori, a series of studies about spectator-
communication, bringing out the contribu-                    ship in the Thirties and Fifties in Italy (Roma-
tion that spectator, film and environment                    Venezia: Edizioni di Bianco & Nero, 2002).
give to the definition of situation of vision            2   The idea of communication as process of nego-
and exhibiting the multiplicity of places and                tiation is developed and studied in-depth by
forms where the vision processes intersect                   Francesco      Casetti    in    Communicative
life pathways. Around the notion of negotia-                 Negotiation in Cinema and Television (Milano:
tion, and the system of categories and con-                  Quaderni dello Stars/Vita e Pensiero, 2002).
cepts that this notion has produced (those of
articulation and suture, quoting two con-
cepts the writers have been reflecting upon),
is a series of hypotheses and perspectives of            SELECTED BY: LORENZO CUCCU
research, that seem to have the power of put-
ting the studies about spectatorship into the               Sandro Bernardi, Il paesaggio nel cinema
field of discourse again and of offering an              italiano (Venezia: Marsilio, 2002)
arrangement and a theoretical and method-
ological support able to stand comparison                  In questo brillante e stimolante lavoro,
with the new and changeable forms that are               Bernardi sviluppa il suo studio sul paesaggio
assumed today by the vision. Above all, these            nel cinema italiano muovendo dalla con-
three notions together have the power of                 vinzione che il paesaggio – nella sua corre-
moving the studies on spectatorship and                  lazione con i concetti di natura, da una parte,
forms of vision from an essentially phenome-             e di “sguardo”, dall’altra – sia una delle forme
nological approach to an approach that is                simboliche più significative e pregnanti
capable of pushing in-depth into the inter-              della cultura occidentale, oggetto di una rif-
pretation of the phenomena, reconsidering,               lessione il cui ripercorrimento è la premessa
in a viewpoint that seems more heuristic,                necessaria di ogni discorso. E dunque, la
more traditional questions as well, such as              definizione del ruolo del paesaggio nel cine-
the question of relations that are established           ma italiano deve essere collocata nella più
between the film and the spectator or the                generale prospettiva che ha visto succedersi
dialectic between the personal dimension                 la concezione della natura come kaos e come
and the institutional dimension in the expe-             kosmos, poi, husserlianamente, come “l’am-
rience of vision.                                        bito complessivo dell’esperienza possibile”,
                                                         fino alla concezione più moderna, nella
                                                         quale paesaggio e natura sono investiti dalla
1      Besides a rich trend of research that recon-      rottura della centralità del soggetto, inteso
       structs the social value of cinema, using films   come centro della visione, dalla moltipli-
       as circumstantial documents of processes and      cazione dei punti di vista e delle forme possi-
       tendencies crossing the historical and cultural   bili di rapporto con il mondo. In questa
       context. Among the most recent and exemplary      prospettiva filosofica e antropologica
       works are: R. Eugeni, Film, sapere e società      Bernardi colloca l’evoluzione del ruolo del

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