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A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895–19591895: The Lumière Brothers

A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895–1959: 1895: The Lumière Brothers [In this chapter I present the argument that the name of the Lumière Brothers’ first film, La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon) can be regarded, counterintuitively, and even under the most rigorous philosophical considerations, as a proper definition of documentary. Leaning on a close semiotic reading of the film name’s word structuring, I analyze the function of “description” in the service of defining any X, following which I explain the key role of the word “workers” in constructing the Lumièrian core of documentary. Throughout the chapter I contend that this intuitively embryonic definition of documentary launched, unawares, the great Lumièrian ship of cinema and of Documentary with a coded message on its mast: Realism does not signify naïve realism. One hundred and twenty-six years after that December 1895 premiere in Paris, the Lumières’ symbolic Documentary Logos and Nomos still echo loud and clear. Their prophetic forewarning has remained pertinent: in order to function properly, Documentary requires the crafting of a rule, a law, a definitive call for order—specifically, an unavoidable measure of intervention on the filmmakers’ part that is always more intrusive than what meets the viewer’s eye.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Philosophical History of Documentary, 1895–19591895: The Lumière Brothers

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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
ISBN
978-3-030-79465-1
Pages
33 –49
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-79466-8_2
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[In this chapter I present the argument that the name of the Lumière Brothers’ first film, La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon) can be regarded, counterintuitively, and even under the most rigorous philosophical considerations, as a proper definition of documentary. Leaning on a close semiotic reading of the film name’s word structuring, I analyze the function of “description” in the service of defining any X, following which I explain the key role of the word “workers” in constructing the Lumièrian core of documentary. Throughout the chapter I contend that this intuitively embryonic definition of documentary launched, unawares, the great Lumièrian ship of cinema and of Documentary with a coded message on its mast: Realism does not signify naïve realism. One hundred and twenty-six years after that December 1895 premiere in Paris, the Lumières’ symbolic Documentary Logos and Nomos still echo loud and clear. Their prophetic forewarning has remained pertinent: in order to function properly, Documentary requires the crafting of a rule, a law, a definitive call for order—specifically, an unavoidable measure of intervention on the filmmakers’ part that is always more intrusive than what meets the viewer’s eye.]

Published: Sep 16, 2021

Keywords: Description; Workers; Leaving; Factory

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