Melissa Gignac (Université de Lille)
The distinctive feature of Louis Delluc’s writings is that they consider the place of the film director at the heart of a system that is both industrial and artistic, as evidenced by his definition of the term “cinéaste”. This characteristic partly underpins the modernity of his approach, but is not without ambiguities, insofar as it is linked to a romantic imaginary (innate talent, gift, etc.) that pays little attention to the professional and technical conditions of the job (earning a living, precise skills). On the other hand, he draws a clear distinction between the French director, allegedly entangled in a theatrical tradition he would find hard to shake off, and his American counterpart – Thomas H. Ince in particular – whom he admires unreservedly. The aim of this paper is therefore to question the new “playmaker” that is the director ou “metteur en scène”, in Delluc’s sense of the term, according to national contexts. The aim is to contextualize these theoretical intuitions and historicize them, through archival work (director and production company fonds, press, scripts, etc.). The hypothesis is that he paradoxically contributed to the invisibility of the French directors who preceded him – and who nevertheless played a key role in the recognition of their profession and their art – to the benefit of the much admired and fantasized American filmmakers.
CV:
Mélissa Gignacis a lecturer at the Lille University and a researcher at the CEAC (Centre d’Étude des Arts Contemporains). She has recently published a book about Quatre-vingt-treize from Albert Capellani (1921). She also wrote several articles on Louis Delluc, such as « La nature morte cinématographique, de Thomas H. Ince à Louis Delluc » (https://www.peren-revues.fr/demeter/158 / ), on close-ups and filmic forms, or about screenwriting as « La voix des objets dans Le Silence de Louis Delluc» (in Le scénario: une source pour l’Histoire, AFRHC, 2020) and «Louis Delluc, auteur “cinégraphique” (in Films à lire, Des scénarios et des livres, Les Impressions nouvelles, 2019). She also contributed to the DVD edition of Delluc’s films by Les Documents cinématographiques.