Histoire(s) et historiographie du cinema en France : 1896-1953

This thesis is one of several recent works to re-evaluate the history of film studies. Its goal is to revise the present-day conception of film historiography in France from 1896 to the early 1950s by calling into question the view of traditional film history as homogeneous portrayed by the new film historians.;This thesis is divided into three sections. In the first, I describe my tools and analytical framework. I discuss the historiographical operation as it defined by Michel de Certeau, as the three-way encounter of a social space marked by dominant intellectual frameworks, a range of procedures used by historians to select their sources and construct events, and, finally, the writing of history, which involves creating a system of relations between the various events so constructed. I then describe historical currents in France from the 1870s to the early 1950s. This survey enables me to better identify the exchanges, borrowings and enrichments that occurred during this period between history and film history.;In the second part, I "construct" from within a vast range of discourses---those of film historians, cultural historians and film theorists---the dominant conception of film historiography. I show that it is created by product of those who are known by many commentators as the new film historians and that it is reduced as the succession of two great historical currents: traditional film history and new film history. I then discuss how this periodisation has been instrumentalised by those who created it. The goal of the new historians is not to bring to light the plurality of writings on film history, but rather to show the break that they have brought about in film historiography. Finally, a discussion of the role accorded to the mode of film exhibition known as Hale's Tours in general film histories published before and after the Brighton Congress enables me to soften the break between these two historical currents.;In the third part, I examine several ways of approaching film history. I identify various breaks in film historiography in France with respect to the historical topic historians adopt, the conceptual tools they call upon and the relations between these historians and the sources they employ. These case studies, finally, enable me to document the wealth of film historiography in France before the early 1950s.