ABSTRACT
For the silent documentary At the Renault Factory, produced by the Gaumont Film Company to glorify Renault’s effort during the First World War, a short take was shot in a chassis workshop showing a working device that I identify as an early form of assembly line (even though this cannot be certified through usual historic written evidence). To be preserved, the film was transferred in the 1990s onto a new video base, but without cardboards or written subtitles, resulting in it being a totally mute “orphan.” Thus, the main argument of this chapter is to suggest a methodology to study these types of archival, or truncated, films, as well as any other types of historic images through systematic cross-analysis and 3D technology.
