ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the difference between trying to write about the “effect” as opposed to the “meaning” of a text. Looking at “archival footage” as footage producing an “archive effect” for the viewer frees us from thinking primarily about filmmakers’ intentions or a film’s “meaning” in favor of thinking about archival footage as an experience, which opens up many new avenues of thought. The archival became, a matter of the experience of a given viewer watching a film such as 49 Up and recognizing the temporal disparity between different images within the same film. Writers impose an existing theory on a film, whether this means performing an ideological analysis, psychoanalytic assessment, or cultural critique. This is a useful and important exercise, but it is only a beginning.
