ABSTRACT
When the Lumière Cinématographe was invented, was cinema invented too? And was the Cinématographe a true invention, or only an innovation within an ensemble of machines already established by 1895? These are certainly among the most debated questions in the historiography of cinema, and in its technological historiography in particular. They reappeared on a regular basis, in particular at the time of ‘anniversaries’ of the invention (1925, 1935, etc.), before being revived for other reasons by the transformation to digital encoding. This chapter reconsiders the Cinématographe’s status within the history of film technology, questioning whether it is an invention and where its newness may be situated. From its cams to the evolutions of its shutter, from its crank to its reversibility, from its relations with amateur photography to its relations with Marey’s chronophotography, the famous Lumière machine is reconsidered within its cultural, scientific, and technological contexts.
