From the Emergence of Varieties of the Concept to the Question of Authorship

This chapter treats the emergence of the concept of découpage in the late 1910s. The writings of Henri Diamant-Berger already contained three fundamental aspects: 1. découpage as practice (breaking a plot down into individual shots); 2. découpage as a written document (the shooting script or shot list); and 3. découpage as filmic form (the structure of the finished work). The chapter also discusses whether or not the word découpeur described a specific professional group and what was considered “American découpage.” In the 1920s, excerpts of découpages (in the second sense of the word) were printed in film magazines, the functions of which are also discussed. The last section is devoted to the relationship between découpage and film shooting in terms of different poetics.