ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the six-part series of articles by Jean-Louis Comolli, “Technique et idéologie.” Perhaps the most theoretically in-depth text produced by Cahiers du Cinéma during its Marxist phase, Comolli’s series interrogated questions concerning the ideologically determined nature of film technology, thereby intervening into debates between Cahiers, Tel Quel and La Nouvelle Critique. Here, he argued that the invention and subsequent technological evolution of the cinema is motivated by the interplay between economic and ideological factors. While film does rely on technologies grounded in scientific research, this does not grant it the status of an “objective” instrument, and its insertion into the sphere of ideology (for instance, through its use of Renaissance perspective) cannot be denied. From this point he moves onto a historical discussion of various developments in film technique—from depth of field to the close-up and the advent of sound cinema—and advocates a historiographic method based on Althusser’s notion of differential historical temporality.
