ABSTRACT
Film is a historical object. This statement sounds simple and straightforward. But, as many assertions that appear self-evident at first sight, this turns out to be in actual fact a complex proposition with countless assumptions and preconditions, with many consequences and effects which this book will be devoted towards unpacking. History, the sequential, causal, and interpretative organization of past events, is a hermeneutical process which revolves around the selection of material, the connection of facts, as well as the argumentation of correlations and causations. An archaeological perspective on film history that this book proposes helps to shift attention towards the fragmentary state of sources, the material nature of records, and the necessarily constructivist manner of building evidence. While the academic discipline of history has made the turn towards a reflexive metahistory several decades ago, 1 film historiography appears to lag behind in this respect, as it still often clings to notions of natural evolution, national schools, and individual greatness.
