ABSTRACT
The main focus of this chapter is a close analysis of ‘Cinéma, an Art of Space’, the first article about films that Eric Rohmer ever published, in 1948. In this article, Rohmer laid the foundations of his theoretical approach to cinéma, grounded essentially on the aesthetic distinction between cinéma and literature, and on the premise that cinéma, thanks to its mechanical reproduction of the appearances of empirical reality, is more novelistic than the novel itself. His argument rests upon a binary opposition between ontology and language, in turn, overlapping other conceptual oppositions, such as space vs. time, showing vs. telling and cinéma vs. literature. Because, at that time, Rohmer was still heavily influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre, the latter's ontology is also expounded at some length.
