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Why fears matter. Cinephobia
..
..
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..
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..
in early film culture
..
..
...
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.. FRANCESCO CASETTI
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
.. In 1920 the influential German literary critic Friedrich Sieburg described
..
..
.. how it felt to be at a film screening that lacked the usual musical
..
..
...
accompaniment:
..
1 Friedrich Sieburg, ‘The ..
transcendence of the film image’,
..
.. I tell you, it was frightening. I felt as if I were six feet under. Only with
..
in Anton Kaes, Nicholas Baer and ..
.. great difficulty could the figures onscreen be carried through by the
Michael Cowan (eds), The Promise ..
..
..
action. Depth disappeared; the roads lost their distant curves; and the
of Cinema: German Film Theory ..
1907–1933 (Berkeley and Los
..
..
actors seemed as if asleep, like silent, moving corpses.1
..
Angeles, CA: University of ..
California Press, 2016), p. 93;
..
.. Sieburg’s statement seems to echo a well-known text, signed by the
..
originally published as ‘Die ..
.. Russian writer Maxim Gorky and penned in 1896:
Transzendenz des Filmbildes’, Die ..
..
Neue Schaubühne, vol. 2, no. 6 ... Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows. If you only knew how
..
(1920), pp. 144–46. ..
..
.. strange it is to be there. It is a world without sound, without colour.
2 Maxim Gorky, ‘A review of ..
Lumière programme at the Nizhni-
..
.. Everything there – the earth, the trees, the people, the water and the
..
Novgorod Fair’, in Jay Leyda, Kino: ..
..
air – is dipped in monotonous grey [...] It is not life but its shadow. It
..
A History of the Russian and ..
..
is not motion but soundless spectre.2
Soviet Film (London: George Allen ..
..
and Unwin, 1960), pp. 407–9; ..
.. Sieburg’s words also recall another famous opening in which film is
originally published in ..
Nizhegorodski Listok, 4 July 1896.
..
.. defined as a source of puzzlement. In 1921 the French essayist and
..
3 Jean Epstein, ‘Magnification’, in ..
...
filmmaker Jean Epstein described how he experienced something
Richard Abel (ed.), French Film ..
..
..
between awe and annihilation when confronted with a closeup: ‘A head
Theory and Criticism: A History/ ..
Anthology, 1907–1939 (Princeton, ..
..
suddenly appears on the screen and drama, now face to face, seems to
..
NJ: Princeton University Press, .. address me personally and swells with an extraordinary intensity. I am
..
1988), pp. 235–41; originally ..
.. hypnotized.’3 Epstein’s bewilderment manifests as sheer displeasure in
published as ‘Grossissement’, in ..
.. the French writer Georges Duhamel, who in an extremely popular
Bonjour Cinéma (Paris: Editions de ..
..
la Siréne, 1921), pp. 93–108. .. book published in 1930 summarized his experience as a filmgoer as

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 ...
..
..
follows: ‘Everything was false. The world was false. I myself was
..
..
..
perhaps no longer anything but a simulacrum of a man, an imitation
4 Georges Duhamel, America: The
..
.. Duhamel.’4 The tone becomes even harsher when film’s social effects are
..
Menace. Scenes from the Life of ..
.. being discussed. In a conference held in 1922, the Italian lawyer Piero
the Future (Boston, MA: Houghton ..
.. Pesce-Maineri, acting as if he were a public prosecutor, listed the dangers
Mifflin, 1931), p. 27; originally ..
..
published as Scènes de la vie .. of cinema: ‘Among the modern inventions, film is most likely to cause
..
..
future (Paris: Mercure de France, ..
.. disorders to sight, to the nervous system, and to all the organs of our
1930). ..
..
.. perception and sensibility, as well as intense and deep effects on psychic
...
5 Piero Pesce-Maineri, I pericoli ..
..
life’.5 This sense of menace is identified not only in the content of movies
sociali del cinematografo (Torino- ..
..
..
but also in the sites where they are screened. In a social survey aimed at
Genova: Lattes, 1922), pp. 10–11. ..
.. tracing the profile of the ‘individual delinquent’, the American
..
..
.. psychiatrist and criminologist William Healy wrote in 1915:
..
..
..
..
..
No one considering the effect of moving pictures can neglect the
..
..
..
possibilities of bad behaviour which occur through the darkness of the
..
..
..
hall in which the pictures are shown. Under cover of dimness evil
6 William Healy, The Individual
..
... communications readily pass and bad habits are taught.6
Delinquent (Boston, MA: Little, ..
..
..
Brown, 1915), p. 308. He continues ..
..
Others went even further. In 1919 the German scholar Wilhelm Stapel –
by noting that ‘Moving picture ..
..
..
who would acquire prominence during the Nazi government for his racist
theatres are favourite places for ..
the teaching of homosexual .. positions – resolutely stated that ‘the sheer fact that the viewer becomes
..
practices’. .. habituated to the flashing, fluttering and twitching images of the
..
..
.. flickering screen slowly but surely destroys his psychic and, ultimately,
..
..
..
.. his moral stability’. The implications were apocalyptic: ‘The cinema is
..
..
.. constructing a new human type, inferior in both its intellectual and moral
..
7 Wilhelm Stapel, ‘Homo ..
...
capacities: the homo cinematicus’.7
cinematicus’, in Kaes, Baer and ..
..
..
Since its very beginnings the cinema has raised a wide range of
Cowan (eds), The Promise of ..
Cinema, pp. 242–43; originally .. anxieties. An object of admiration and love, it has nevertheless also been
..
..
published as ‘Der homo .. seen as a threat. Under suspicion was not simply film’s inclination
..
cinematicus’, Deutsches Volkstum, ..
.. towards graphic content, violent narratives or even its suggestiveness; the
no. 10 (1919), pp. 319–20. ..
.. idea that film was spreading a moral evil and required severe censorship
..
..
..
.. at the hands of public authorities was just one part of the picture. The
..
..
.. worries were wider, spanning from the distress in front of a silent image
..
..
...
to the impression of being prey to an excess of fascination, from the
..
8 Tom Gunning, ‘Flickers: on ..
..
panic for a safe environment to the sheer dread at the advent of a new
cinema’s power for evil’, in Murray ..
..
..
civilization, as my opening quotations show. Additional worries
Pomerance (ed.), Bad: Infamy, ..
Darkness, Evil and Slime on .. addressed areas such as the mechanical nature of film images, the
..
Screen (Albany, NY: State
.. formulaic character of film narratives, the addiction induced by the
..
..
University of New York Press, ..
.. movies, and the promiscuity of the audience. Given that cinema’s most
2004), p. 21. ..
.. basic defining features were considered dangerous, it is little wonder that
..
..
9 Giraud’s Lexique Franc¸ais du
..
.. it provoked such a widespread sense of discomfort. This reaction was
..
cinéma records the emergence of ..
...
most evident from the early 1910s until the mid 1930s, but it has to a
the word cinéphobe in the trade ..
..
..
lesser extent surfaced throughout cinema’s lifespan. Tom Gunning
journals in 1908, and an increasing ..
use of the words cinéphobie and ..
..
speaks of ‘an essential suspicion of cinema – a suspicion of cinema’s
cinémaphobie since 1912. See
..
.. nature’8 that keeps pace with and echoes its rapid expansion, and has
..
Jean Giraud, Lexique Franc¸ais du ..
.. enjoyed a long-lasting influence.
cinéma des origins à 1930 (Paris: ..
.. This multifaceted and ubiquitous suspicion, which embodies what at
Centre National de la recherché ..
..
scientifique, 1858), pp. 75, 84. .. least since 1908 has been commonly called cinephobia,9 has been largely

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Why fears matter

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 ...
..
..
underestimated by film studies scholars. Among the few exceptions are
..
..
..
Lea Jacobs and Lee Grieveson, whose research captures the extent of the
10 Lea Jacobs, The Wages of Sin:
..
.. issues implied in the debates about censorship,10 and Tom Gunning, who
..
Censorship and the Fallen ..
.. connects the moral concerns about cinema to the aesthetic experience
Woman Film, 1928–1942 ..
(Madison, WI: University of
..
.. elicited by the medium.11 What their contributions capture is an essential
..
Wisconsin Press, 1991), and Lee .. issue: far from being a superficial and irrational reaction to film’s rapid
..
..
Grieveson, Policing Cinema: ..
.. triumph, cinephobia represented a systematic and radical conflict that
Movies and Censorship in ..
Early-Twentieth-Century America
..
.. addressed film’s assets and successful dynamics. In this sense, its
...
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: ..
..
negative attitude helps us better to understand film’s ultimate rationale.
University of California Press, ..
..
..
Put another way, cinephobia was not just a by-product of a new
2004). ..
11 See, for example, Tom Gunning, .. invention, but a constitutive component of the social and symbolic
..
..
‘From the opium den to the .. processes elicited by film’s successful dissemination, at least in the
..
theatre of morality: moral .. western world. In fact the hostility towards film revealed a refusal of
..
discourse and the film process in ..
.. innovation across wide strata of public opinion; it forced public authorities
early American cinema’, in Lee ..
..
Grieveson and Peter Krämer ..
.. to promote extensive investigations into the fledgling art/medium;12 it
..
(eds), The Silent Cinema Reader .. obliged more sympathetic voices to come to terms with the forces of
..
(London: Routledge, 2004), ...
pp. 145–54; ‘An aesthetic of
..
..
tradition;13 it elicited sometimes productive, sometimes controversial
astonishment: early film and the
..
..
..
compromises between opposed interests;14 and it raised questions that
[in]credulous spectator’, Art and ..
..
..
forged a vocabulary used thereafter in the public arena. If film became the
Text, no. 34 (1989); ‘Uncanny ..
reflections, modern illusions: .. art/medium of the twentieth century, its path there was neither linear nor
..
.. did it come without great cost. The fear of cinema was at once an
sighting the modern optical ..
..
uncanny’, in Jo Collins and John .. opponent, a resource and a symptom of its controversial presence.
..
Jervis (eds), Uncanny Modernity: ..
Cultural Theories, Modern
..
.. Against this backdrop it can be useful to consider the full extent of the
..
Anxieties (London: Palgrave ..
.. fears surrounding cinema. If the study of cinephobia enhances our
..
Macmillan, 2008), pp. 68–90. .. comprehension of what film represented in its social context, an attempt
12 See, for example, National ...
..
Council of Public Morals, Cinema
..
..
to understand cinephobia in its ‘golden age’ adds some crucial brush-
..
Commission of Inquiry, The .. strokes that help us better to discern the whole picture. In what follows I
..
Cinema: Its Present Position and ..
.. address four questions. Why did film appear to be far more frightening
Future Possibilities (London: ..
.. than any other invention? Did cinephobia exemplify specific reactions
Williams and Norgate, 1917). ..
..
.. towards the medium, or did it reflect general tendencies within
13 See, for example, the German ..
..
Kinodebatte, well documented in .. modernity? Did cinephobia have a sort of core that was always present,
..
Kaes, Baer and Cowan (eds), The ..
Promise of Cinema.
..
.. despite any differences in topics, tones and intensity? And, finally, how
..
14 Lee Grieveson in Policing Cinema ..
...
did cinephobia address the endangered spectators, and what kind of
has provided an excellent ..
..
..
social reaction, or at least resistance, did it envision? In attempting to
reconstruction of the social ..
negotiations between 1906 and
..
..
answer these questions I will keep in mind that what is at stake here are
..
1914 that enabled cinephobic .. discourses. I pay close attention to the narratives elicited by the fear of
..
discourses to play a role in the .. cinema at the expense of an analysis of the singular contexts in which
..
emergence of the so-called ..
.. these discourses emerged, not because I have contempt for facts – after
Hollywood classical cinema. ..
..
.. all, discourses are facts and elicit facts – but because I want to retrace
..
..
..
.. some recursive elements of a debate that ultimately defined the general
..
..
...
battlefield on which cinema had to fight.
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
.. First, then, why cinema? There is something that early writings on film
..
.. were perfectly aware of, but that we often now tend to forget: in the first
..
..
.. decades of its history, cinema was regarded as a strange, surprising and
..
..
.. excessive object. It promised nothing less than the preservation of life

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 ...
..
..
beyond death; it addressed nothing less than a universal audience; it
..
..
..
merged nothing less than science and magic; and it heralded nothing less
..
.. than the end of an era, based on the printed word, and the start of another,
..
..
.. based on the image. Its ambition was seemingly limitless. It is not by
..
.. chance that Noël Burch places the invention of cinema under the aegis of
..
..
.. two radical themes: the myth – embodied by Frankenstein – of Man
..
..
..
.. competing with God in respect to Creation, and the imperative –
..
..
.. associated with Baudelaire – to simultaneously display the Beauty and
...
15 Noël Burch, Life to Those ..
..
the Truth of Things.15 Both themes provide a narrative centred on a
Shadows (Berkeley and Los ..
..
..
challenge beyond any reason, a reckless bravery, an extreme
Angeles, CA: University of ..
California Press, 1990), esp. .. determination and a boundless goal. The very fact that these two themes
..
..
pp. 6–22. .. not only played a paramount role in the nineteenth century but also
..
.. echoed more ancestral phantasies provides further evidence of film’s
..
..
16 André Gaudreault speaks of an .. impudence and audacity. In other words, cinema was not just an
..
..
‘irreducibility of the alien quality’ ..
.. innovative device it was a scandalous cultural object.16 It exerted
of early cinema, in Film and ..
Attraction: From Kinematography
..
.. an ‘attraction’ that seemed at once irresistible and poisonous.17 A
...
to Cinema (Urbana, IL: University ..
..
technological Leviathan, film provoked both awe and terror.18
of Illinois Press, 2011), p. 36. ..
..
..
Early film ‘theories’ coped with this situation. Through a variety of
17 It is Tom Gunning who astutely ..
speaks of ‘attractions’ in order to ..
..
discourses, including novels, chronicles and reports, they responded to
..
underline early film’s provocative .. the need for a practical and shared definition of a phenomenon that
..
appeal: the word, when applied .. seemed to go beyond any regular expectations. They brought to the fore
..
not only to filmic representations ..
.. not a ‘method’ or a ‘discipline’ – as classical theories would do – but a
but to film as a social fact, ..
..
provides a perfect picture of the ..
.. handy explication of something that, in its offering of unprecedented
..
controversial feelings that cinema .. experiences, was otherwise inexplicable. In this sense, early film
..
raised in the first stage of its life. ..
See Tom Gunning, ‘The cinema of
..
...
‘theories’ were similar to the personal accounts that we formulate to
..
attractions: early film, its ..
..
make sense of those daily actions that are not taken for granted, and that
spectator and the avant-garde’, ..
.. ethnomethodology describes as a key component of our social lives.19
Wide Angle, vol. 8, no. 3/4 ..
..
(1986), pp. 63–70. .. Accounts epitomize the ways in which members of a community signify,
..
.. describe or explain the properties of a specific social situation in order to
18 The pairing of terror and awe is ..
..
underlined by Carlo Ginzburg in .. clarify and share its meaning. Early theories likewise sought to turn what
..
his re-reading of Hobbes, Fear, ..
Reverence, Terror: Reading
..
.. at first might appear ambiguous and odd into something comprehensible
..
Hobbes Today (San Domenico di ..
.. and approachable. They tried to elaborate a ‘public image’ of cinema
..
Fiesole-Florence: European .. capable of channelling social feeling about this ‘strange’ presence and
University Institute, 2008). ...
..
19 Harold Garfinkel, Studies in
..
..
defining the conditions of its acceptance.
..
Ethnomethodology (Englewood ..
..
The battle between cinephobia and cinephilia was a battle about film’s
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967). ..
.. ‘public image’; it was a conflict of interpretations. Both parties were
On early film theories as ..
.. perfectly aware of the ‘strangeness’ of cinema, but their ‘readings’ of this
‘accounts’, see Francesco Casetti, ..
..
.. were diametrically opposed. For cinephilia this strangeness was
‘The throb of cinematograph’, in ..
..
Francesco Casetti, Silvio Alovisio .. associated with the possibility of a new kind of spectacle – and even
..
and Luca Mazzei (eds), Early Film ..
Theories in Italy, 1896–1922
..
.. more, with a new kind of experience. In 1927 the French Surrealist
..
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam ..
...
Robert Desnos offered a radical formulation of this hope: ‘What we
University Press, 2017), ..
..
..
request from cinema is the impossible, the unexpected, the surprising [...]
pp. 11–32.
20 Robert Desnos, ‘Mystères de
..
..
..
it is what love and life deny us, mystery and miracle’.20 Cinephobia, on
..
cinéma’, in Cinéma (Paris: .. the other hand, saw in film’s strangeness a problem, because it
..
Gallimard, 1966), p. 165; .. constituted a rupture in perceptual, cognitive and behavioural habits. In
..
originally published in Le Soir, ..
.. 1914 the far right Spanish Capuchin Francisco de Barbéns claimed that
2 April 1927. ..
..
.. cinema was disrupting the three main human faculties of intelligence,

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 ...
..
..
will and sensibility, due to ‘a sort of excess in film images’ that found a
21 See Francisco de Barbéns, La
..
..
..
match in ‘the pathological disorders in spectators’ mind’.21 Cinema was
moral en la calle, en el ..
.. going astray, it was ‘an element of destruction, instead of being a
cinematógrafo y en el teatro ..
(Barcelona: Luis Gili, 1914), esp.
..
.. principle of social elevation’.22 Any reconciliation with it was deemed
..
pp. 135–48 (my translation). .. impossible.
..
..
22 Ibid., p. 136. .. So we have a strangeness, and the sense of an impending threat.
..
..
..
.. Cinephilia, in its optimistic view, was fair but not fully honest.
..
..
.. Cinephobia, in its pessimistic view, was unfair, generally incorrect but
...
..
..
symptomatic. In considering film’s strangeness as something that was
..
..
..
impossible to lessen and thus had to be battled, cinephobes implicitly
..
.. recognized film’s radical otherness and, consequently, the high cost that
..
..
.. society had to pay in order to make it suitable. Cinema cannot be tamed,
..
.. and this is why it is threatening and demands to be kept at a distance –
..
..
.. this, ultimately, was cinephobia’s lesson. This lesson may appear to be,
..
..
..
.. and often was, repressive or paranoid; nevertheless it was also
..
..
.. illuminating, at least insofar as it made clear how extreme film’s
...
..
..
challenge was, and how difficult the inclusion of new objects and
..
..
..
practices into society.
..
..
..
..
..
..
.. Second, did the fear of cinema speak only about the object itself, or did it
..
..
.. reflect general tendencies of the time? Cinephobia undeniably echoed
..
..
..
.. some of the fears of modernity. As I already mentioned, film’s grandiose
..
..
.. dominance recalled Hobbes’s Leviathan in inspiring a mix of terror and
..
..
...
awe, and its ambiguous characteristics and effects raised a feeling close
..
..
..
to Kierkegaard’s angst. The connection with the specific fears of the
..
.. twentieth century was even more apparent; in some respects, cinephobia
..
..
.. coincided perfectly with them.
..
.. Fear was one of twentieth-century modernity’s main fixtures. To be
..
..
.. scared was a persistent state of mind that deeply affected social life. Such
..
..
..
.. an attitude was undoubtedly bolstered by the great tragedies that
..
..
.. characterized the century, from the sinking of the Titanic to the trenches
..
..
...
of World War I, from Nazi or Soviet totalitarianism to the Holocaust and
..
..
..
the atomic bomb. Yet what mattered in these dramatic events was not
..
..
..
only their death toll but their symbolic value. Indeed they attested to the
..
.. fact that the optimistic vision prompted by the Enlightenment and
..
.. bolstered by capitalism was ultimately unachievable. The idea that
..
..
.. progress, with the help of science, would bring humankind to a future
..
..
.. happiness was unrealizable. As technology became more pervasive, it
..
..
..
.. seemed increasingly to destroy human relations and human agency; as
..
..
...
the whole of mankind shared ideals and ideas, their availability could be
..
..
..
used to convey the most devilish messages; and as the future approached,
..
..
..
it displayed a dystopic face that threatened to rob human beings of what
..
.. was most dear to them, namely a life in connection with their
..
.. surroundings and with others. Consequently the dream of infinite
..
..
.. progress gave way to a sense of potential loss, and hope turned into fear.
..
..
.. Along with the Titanic it was the myth of the machine that sank; with

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 ...
23 Henry David Thoreau (1854), ..
..
totalitarianism it was the promise of an open society; and with the atomic
Walden (New York: AMS Press, ..
..
..
bomb it was the very idea of a future.
1968), p. 57. ..
24 Charles Baudelaire, ‘The modern .. The fears characteristic of modernity often concentrated themselves
..
..
public and photography’, in Art in .. around the media. During the nineteenth century the ironic rejection of
..
Paris 1845–1862: Salons and ..
.. the telegraph by Henry David Thoreau23 or the aggressive sentence
Other Exhibitions, trans. J. Maine ..
(London: Phaidon, 1965),
..
.. passed against photography by Charles Baudelaire24 were both good
..
pp. 153–53; originally published ..
.. examples of what would quickly become a fixation. During the twentieth
..
as ‘Le public moderne et la .. century no other media was able to literally embody the turn to fear as
..
photographie’, Révue Française, ...
10 June–20 July 1859. ..
..
cinema did. For the sake of clarity I shall group the instantiations of
..
25 See Ricciotto Canudo’s manifesto ..
..
cinephobia into three categories that bear perfect witness to the dynamics
The Birth of a Sixth Art, ..
.. of the anxieties typical of the time.
25 October 1911, p. 60; but also, ..
..
previously, ‘Trionfo del .. Cinema was habitually conceived of as a ‘mechanical art’: along with
..
.. the gramophone, it was the emblem of the liquidation of traditional
cinematografo’, Il Nuovo ..
..
Giornale, Firenze, III, no. 330 .. modes of expression and of the advent a new kind of artwork, ‘regulated
..
(1908), p. 3. The epithet ..
‘mechanical art’ was quite
..
.. with mathematical and mechanical precision’, as Ricciotto Canudo put
..
popular in Europe in the first ..
.. it.25 There was no lack of enthusiasm for this novelty: in his famous
decades of the century, and ...
..
..
manifesto, Dziga Vertov embraced ‘the use of the camera as a kino-eye,
became the title of a popular
book by Eugenio Giovannetti,
..
..
..
more perfect than the human eye’.26 Even more radically, Jean Epstein
..
Il cinema, arte meccanica ..
..
hailed the arrival of ‘mechanical robots’ that would provide new forms of
(Palermo: Sandron, 1930). ..
.. intelligence.27 And yet film’s technology was more often experienced as
26 Dziga Vertov, ‘Kinoks: a ..
.. a burden: authors and spectators felt framed or trapped by an apparatus;
revolution’, in Kino-Eye: The ..
..
.. their gaze had to conform to an artificial mode of perception; their
Writings of Dziga Vertov, trans. ..
..
Kevin O’Brien (Berkeley and Los .. initiative needed to obey the rules of a device; their own bodies had to
..
Angeles, CA: University of ..
California Press, 1984), p. 15.
..
.. follow the rhythms of a machine. In Shoot, a novel written by the Nobel
..
27 See Epstein’s portrait of the Bell ..
...
laureate Luigi Pirandello in 1915, the main character, a cinematographer
and Howell in Jean Epstein, ‘The ..
..
..
named Serafino Gubbio, introduces himself as someone who is ‘nothing
senses 1(b)’, in Abel (ed.), French
Film Theory and Criticism, p. 244;
..
.. more than a hand that turns a handle’.28 Here machines no longer help
..
..
originally published as ‘Le Sens 1 .. man; it is man who is in service of the machine.
..
bis’, in Bonjour Cinéma (Paris: ..
.. Cinema was also considered a ‘democratic art’:29 not only did it
Editions de la Siréne, 1921), ..
.. provide everyone in the theatre with the same images, without
pp. 27–44. The expression ..
..
‘intellectual robots’ comes from
..
.. distinction, it also reached a universal audience. Film therefore embodied
..
The Intelligence of a Machine, .. the hope of a global community, yet its availability was also widely
..
trans. Christophe Wall-Romana ..
(Minneapolis, MN: Univocal
..
...
considered a danger. Spectators, in the view of many commentators,
..
Publishing, 2014); originally ..
..
were easily swayed by seductive images: they were exposed to the worst
published as L’Intelligence d’une ..
..
..
propaganda; they were pushed to engage in inappropriate behaviour; they
machine (Paris: Melot, 1946). ..
28 Luigi Pirandello, Shoot! The
.. were deprived of their capacity to tell the difference between what was
..
.. moral and immoral. Moreover, it was frequently claimed that repeated
Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio ..
..
Cinematograph Operator, trans. .. attendance at the cinema resulted in an addiction that inevitably caused
..
C. K. Scott Moncrief (New York, ..
.. mental and physical illness, with states of permanent excitation,
NY: E. P. Dutton 1926), p. 8; ..
..
originally published as ‘Si gira’,
..
.. difficulties in vision, and so on. Cinema was characterized as a disease:
..
Nuova Antologia, June–August ..
...
shared by the masses, it spread its viruses and infected the social body.
1915, then released as Quaderni ..
di Serafino Gubbio operatore
..
..
No one was immune, and young people in particular were thought to be
..
(Firenze: Bemporad, 1925). ..
..
at risk. As Herbert Blumer, the sociologist who played an important part
..
29 The epithet ‘democratic art’ was .. in the alarmist Payne Fund Studies, wrote:
popular in Europe at the ..
..
..
beginning of the century. See, for ..
..
The schemes of conduct which [movies] present may not only fill gaps
example, Enrico Thovez, ‘The art ..
of celluloid’, in Casetti, Alovisio
..
..
left by the school, by the home, and by the church, but they may also

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 and Mazzei (eds), Early Film ...
..
..
cut athwart the standards and values which these latter institutions
Theories in Italy, pp. 60–65; ..
originally published as ‘L’arte di
..
..
seek to inculcate. What is presented as entertainment, with perhaps no
..
celluloide’, La Stampa, 29 July ..
..
thought of challenging established values, may be accepted as
1908, p. 3. ..
.. sanctioned conduct, and so enter into conflict with certain of these
..
30 Herbert Blumer, Movies and ..
.. values.30
..
Conduct (New York, NY: ..
..
Macmillan, 1933), p. 197. ..
..
Cinema’s democratic character was thus seen as leading to a number of
..
..
..
troubles and disturbances, and as having the potential to create a sort of
..
... social infection.
..
..
.. Finally there is the perception of cinema as a ‘radical art’: its ultimate
..
..
.. goal is to render life in its fullness. Indeed what we see on the screen ‘is
..
31 Louis Delluc, ‘La beauté du ..
.. no longer a film, it is the natural truth’, as Louis Delluc stated in 1917.31
cinéma’, Le Film, no. 73 (1917); ..
..
.. Yet a belief in cinema’s ability to accomplish this task often ended in
then in Ecrits cinématographique, ..
Vol. II (Paris: Cinémathèque
..
..
disappointment. Film only provides representations ‘with some
Française, 1986), p. 31 (my
..
..
..
semblance of realism’, Giovanni Papini wrote in 1907;32 these
translation). ..
..
..
representations could be trusted due to the ‘impression of reality’ they
32 Giovanni Papini, ‘The philosophy ..
of cinematograph’, in Casetti, ... created, but in fact their substance was only illusory. This
..
Alovisio and Mazzei (eds), Early ..
.. disenchantment could also be applied to the spectators’ own lives: seen
Film Theories in Italy, pp. 47–50; ..
..
.. in light of film, their existence appeared to be as flimsy as that of the
originally published as ‘La ..
filosofia del cinematografo’,
..
.. characters on the screen. ‘Could the universe be simply a vast spectacular
..
La Stampa, 18 May 1907, p. 1. ..
.. motion picture with a few changes in the program now and then, for the
..
..
..
leisurely entertainment of a host of unknown supernatural powers?’,
..
33 Ibid. ..
..
Papini wondered.33 We do not live our own lives, cinema seemed to
..
..
..
suggest.
..
..
..
If cinema advertised modernity by embracing the ideals of speed,
... ubiquity, power and conquest, it echoed – and amplified – its frightening
..
..
..
.. aspects as well. The machine was no longer seen as an improvement on
..
..
.. human action but as a means of containment or servitude; the wide
..
..
.. circulation of images was no longer taken as a way of developing
..
..
..
freedom but as a threat; life was no longer considered in its potentialities
..
..
..
but as an insubstantial reality. The fear of cinema as apparatus, as
..
..
..
medium of transmission and as mirror of the world doubled modernity’s
..
..
..
disillusionment with machines, the prospect of a universally available
... form of culture, and the meaningfulness of existence.
..
..
..
.. This correspondence finds its perfect illustration in a public speech
..
..
.. delivered just few months after film’s invention, and few years in
..
..
.. advance of the advent of the twentieth century. On 4 May 1897, flames
..
..
..
sprung from a projector’s lamp and destroyed the Bazaar de la Charité,
..
..
..
an annual charity event organized in Paris. The incident caused 126
..
..
..
deaths, most of them of women belonging to French high society. Four
..
..
..
days later, in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, during the memorial service
... attended by the highest religious and civil authorities, Father Olivier
..
..
..
.. offered a sermon that blamed cinema and modernity both:
..
..
..
.. Oh mighty Lord of men and societies, you wanted to teach the pride of
..
..
.. the century a terrible lesson, in a time in which man continually
..
.. heralds his triumph over you. You have returned against him the
..
..
..

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 ...
..
..
achievements of his science, so groundless when not associated with
..
..
..
yours; and you have transformed the fire that he claims to have stolen
..
..
..
from your hands as Prometheus did into a tool of your retaliation.
34 Jules Huret, La catastrophe du
..
.. What gave the illusion of life prompted the horrible reality of death.34
..
Bazar de la Charité (Paris: ..
..
F. Juven, 1897), pp. 148–49 (my ..
..
Film and modernity are alike in their challenge to the divine order – in
translation). ..
..
..
both their audacity and their failure. It is their threat and the resulting
..
..
..
fears that make the former an emblem of the latter.
..
...
..
..
..
..
..
.. Third, cinephobia was a multifaceted reality. It did not display a single
..
..
.. visage but instead expressed itself in many different ways. Its concerns
..
..
.. targeted the uncanny character of images and the unsafety of theatres, the
..
..
..
suggestiveness of representations and the intensity of perception, the
..
..
..
automatism of film production and the filmmakers’ condescension
..
..
..
towards the audience. The range of affects and emotions it addressed was
..
... also diverse. Cinephobia expressed unease but also terror, unclear
..
..
.. worries but also specific concerns, generic apprehensions but also sheer
..
..
.. dread. Its approaches too were diverse: there was an aggressive,
..
..
.. antimodernist and openly reactionary ‘hot’ cinephobia but also a ‘cool’
..
..
.. cinephobia, one that though characterized by a suspicious attitude
..
..
..
towards cinema nevertheless requested greater knowledge before
..
35 The two cinephobias can be ..
..
demanding a course of action.35 It is in the nature of phobias to be many-
exemplified respectively by the ..
..
..
sided, and cinephobia was no exception. Yet beneath these different
Spanish Capuchin Francisco de ..
Barbéns and the Commission of
..
..
instantiations, the fear of cinema reveals a persistent structure. Many if
Inquiry appointed by the British ... not all contributions relied on a four-stage narrative. There is an
..
government in 1917. ..
..
.. introductory list of complaints, from the decay of morals to the end of art,
..
..
.. that bear witness to some of the anxieties that affect the social body.
..
..
.. There is the recognition of a culprit, the cinema. The very fact of
..
..
..
identifying the cause of the distress transforms an indistinct sense of
..
..
..
unease into a clear perception of being under attack; anxieties become
36 In differentiating anxiety and
..
..
..
fears.36 There is a recommendation addressed to the reader: the threat
fear, I follow Martin Heidegger in ..
..
..
must be prevented, removed, eluded; it must be kept at a distance. Finally
Being and Time, trans. John
... there is often, though not always, the wish that cinema could change its
Macquarries and Edward ..
..
Robinson (San Francisco, CA: ..
.. nature and become an opportunity instead of a menace; it has a potential
HarperCollins, 1962), pp. 179 ff; ..
..
.. that can be exploited for educational purposes.
originally published as Sein und ..
Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemayer
..
.. At the centre of this four-stage narrative there is a disjunction between
..
Verlag, 1927). ..
..
a potential viewer and the cinema: a subject is denied contact with a
..
..
..
dangerous object, after the danger has been recognized and in the hope of
..
..
..
the object’s conversion into a resource. This disjunction is open to
..
..
..
different interpretations. It can be the consequence of an obligation (the
... subject ‘must’ avoid an object), but also of a willingness (the subject
..
..
..
.. ‘wants’ to avoid an object), and of a possibility (‘can’). In the same vein, it
..
37 For the narrative programmes, ..
.. can represent an attempt to eschew the source of a distress (the subject
see Algirdas J. Greimas, On ..
..
..
wants to be separated from it), but also to eschew the willingness to interact
Meaning: Selected Writings in ..
Semiotic Theory (Minneapolis,
..
..
with an object that at first sight looks good (the subject does not want to be
MN: University of Minnesota
..
..
..
connected to it). Fear – fear of cinema included – is a complex story.37

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 Press, 1987); originally published ...
..
..
The centrality of this disjunction reveals the complicity of fear with
as Du Sens: Essais sémiotiques ..
(Paris: Seuil, 1970), and Du Sens
..
..
desire: both bring to the fore the contact of a subject with an object, in
..
2 (Paris: Seuil, 1983). .. one case unwanted, in the other wanted. In this sense fear is the obverse
..
..
.. of desire and cinephobia is the obverse of cinephilia. If the latter is based
..
38 Lee Grieveson analyses cinema’s ..
.. on the desire for a repeated and always closer encounter,38 the former is
..
fascination in terms of process of ..
.. centred on the repeated and always reshaped attempt at avoiding such an
imitation, and extensively shows ..
how the mimetic paradigm
..
.. encounter, whatever the price, whether a renunciation of the object, its
..
influenced both early film studies ..
.. removal, or a fight against it. Yet the relationship with desire made
and governmental practices ...
..
..
cinephobia take on a more ambivalent character.
towards film. Lee Grieveson, ..
‘Cinema studies and the conduct ..
..
On the one hand cinema is desirable, and this makes it more
..
of conduct’, in Lee Grieveson and .. frightening. Indeed, among its dangers is its capacity for seduction –
..
Haidee Wasson (eds), Inventing ..
.. spectators can be carried away by images and end up lost in an
Film Studies (Durham, NC: Duke ..
.. illusionary world. When Émile Vuillermoz in 1918 spoke of a
University Press, 2008), pp. 3–37. ..
..
.. ‘compelling charm that singularly weakens spectators’ free will and
..
..
39 Émile Vuillermoz, ‘Routine’, Le ..
.. critical mind’,39 he expressed no more than a condescending trepidation.
..
Temps, 16 June 1918; then in ..
.. When Georges Duhamel in 1930 cried out ‘The moving picture usurped
Pascal Manuel Heu, Le temps du ...
cinéma: Emile Vuillermoz, pere de ..
..
the place of my ideas’,40 he conveyed a sense of desperation.
..
la critique cinématographique, ..
..
Nevertheless, both authors bore witness to an overpowering appeal; both
1910–1930 (Paris: Harmattan, ..
..
..
described something that attracted and entrapped. What emerges here,
2003), p. 224. ..
40 Duhamel, America: The Menace, .. more than a fear of cinema, is the fear of loving cinema (too much).
..
.. On the other hand, among the dangers we face is the loss of the
p. 28. ..
..
.. desired object. The inability to keep what we already have, as well as
..
..
..
.. the impossibility of obtaining what we want to acquire, are mighty
..
..
.. sources of fear. The concerns about cinema voiced by cinephiles offer
..
..
...
a good example of such a situation. Indeed there is no lack of protests
..
..
..
made on behalf of cinema itself against movies that spoil the basic
..
.. beauty of film; these complaints reveal an apprehension that can reach
..
..
.. a level of great intensity. In 1907 the Italian journalist Giovanni Fossa
..
.. penned a profession of faith – ‘I like, I adore cinema. I like it for what
..
..
.. it is, and I adore it for what it might be’ – that was followed by strong
..
..
..
.. reservations:
..
..
..
..
..
But I do not tolerate the movies made by industry that look like
... advertisements, and whose aim is just to make money; nor the soft-
..
..
..
.. porn programs, the adaptations of fairy tales or traditional myths, the
..
..
.. monstrous narratives, absurd and tedious, the remakes of what we
..
41 Giovanni Fossa, ‘Orizzonti ..
.. have seen on stage.41
cinematografici avvenire’, La ..
..
Scena Illustrata, vol. 43, no. 5 .. Such a negative portrait of current productions did not contradict Fossa’s
..
..
(1907). ..
.. expression of love. With an accent that was no less pronounced than the
..
42 On the concept of ‘good object’,
..
.. one used by the worst enemies of film, he simply expressed his
..
see Christian Metz, The ..
...
apprehension that an object worthy of admiration might take a dangerous
Imaginary Signifier: ..
..
..
path, and work for the worse. Such a fear, so closely tied with a sense of
Psychoanalysis and the Cinema ..
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana ..
..
affection, is no longer the opposite of a desire, it is its complement. It is
..
University Press, 1982), pp. 3–16; .. aimed at ‘protecting’ cinema from its inner enemies and at preserving it
..
originally published as Le ..
.. as a ‘good object’. 42
significant imaginaire: ..
.. Fear of cinema, fear of loving cinema (too much), fear for cinema:
Psychoanalyse et cinéma (Paris: ..
..
UGD, 1977), pp. 9–25. .. cinephobia is quite a variegated phenomenon, and yet the need for

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 ...
..
..
avoidance – to keep at a distance a detrimental object that is getting
43 Detrimentality, closeness, the
..
..
..
closer – appears in all its manifestations.43
possibility to strike but also to ..
..
stay away, and finally the ..
..
Fourth, how did cinephobia address film spectators? What kind of
..
attempt of lessening the fearing ..
..
position did it assign to them? This question has two correlated aspects.
which results in an enhancement ..
of it, are all features that
..
..
On the one hand it brings our attention to the discursive strategies elicited
..
Heidegger underlines in his ..
..
by the fear of cinema; what is at stake is the depiction of ideal addressees.
..
definition of fear. See Heidegger, .. On the other hand the question implies a political aspect; the address was
Being and Time, pp. 179 ff. ..
.. also a call to arms, and spectators’ positions inevitably placed them on a
...
..
..
..
battlefield.
..
..
..
Indeed the first ideal-type is the militant, an individual who ceaselessly
..
..
..
fights against cinema in the hope of keeping it at a distance. Cinephobia
..
..
..
was not just the opposite of a desire, it was also a desire for opposition.
..
..
..
Hence the emergence of an aggressive attitude: movies must be banned,
..
..
..
or at least circumscribed; film is nothing but an enemy. The French
..
.. moralist Eduard Poulain, who in 1917 published an infamous pamphlet
..
44 Éduard Poulain, Contre le cinéma,
..
...
against cinema,44 associated himself with soldiers fighting in the trenches
école du vice et du crime, Pour le ..
..
..
against Germany: ‘Frenchmen’s duty is to contribute to the homeland’s
cinéma, école d’éducation, ..
moralisation et vulgarisation
..
..
defence. Soldiers with arms, civilians with work, charity, words, and
..
(Besançon: Imprimerie de l’Est, ..
..
pen.’ He added: ‘Committed to fight the moral evil which poisons our
1917). On Poulain and the cultural ..
..
..
Country, I still serve’.45
context in which he writes, see ..
Mélisande Leventopoulos, Les ..
..
The militant’s characteristics find their opposite in the second ideal-
catholiques et le cinéma (Rennes:
..
..
..
type, the expert,46 an individual who is well aware of the dangers
Presses Universitaires de Rennes, ..
.. represented by film and is ready to warn the others, but who also avoids
2014), pp. 29–55. ..
..
45 Poulain, Contre le cinéma, p. 11. .. being in the frontline, choosing instead to stay in the headquarters. The
..
46 On the emergence of film ... expert makes use of a relevant amount of information, collected from
..
experts, see Mark Lynn Anderson, ..
..
..
others’ experience more than from his own; his/her knowledge can
‘Taking liberties: the Payne Fund ..
Studies and the creation of the
..
..
provide essential instructions for coping with cinema. Usually experts
..
media expert’, in Grieveson and ..
..
speak in the third person in order to underline their objective position –
Wasson (eds), Inventing Film ..
..
..
an objectivity that is reinforced by an abundance of references and
Studies, pp. 39–65. ..
..
..
quotations. This was the case with the Italian Jesuit Mario Barbera,
..
.. whose contributions were centred on extended and even obsessive
..
..
.. collections of reports about incidents, problems and wrongdoing related
..
... to cinema and to subsequent interventions by public authorities. In such a
..
..
..
..
huge number of accounts, film’s condemnation found a substantiated
47 Unsigned, but Mario Barbera,
..
..
..
rationale.47
‘Cinematografo e moralità ..
..
..
The choice of ‘impersonal speech’ did not prevent the emergence of
pubblica’, Civiltà Cattolica, vol. 4, ..
no. 1546 (1914), pp. 421–40. ..
..
paranoiac tones, indeed ‘impersonal discourse’ was often embraced by
..
..
..
the most radical opponents of cinema – religious groups, educators,
..
.. sociologists – who in this way were able to prove that film’s menace was
..
..
.. widespread and common without fully assuming responsibility for their
..
... statements. Experts were often true militants in disguise. The words of
..
..
..
..
the director of a home for disabled children in Belgium provide a good
..
48 Maurice Rouvroy, ‘Le cinéma ..
..
example: ‘Film attendance does not inevitably lead to criminal
..
public et l’enfance. Etude ..
..
delinquency, which is detected and punished. It always leads to moral
psycho-criminologique’, Revue ..
Internationale de l’enfant, vol. 5,
..
..
delinquency, to petty criminality, against which our laws are
no. 29 (1928), p. 278.
..
..
..
powerless.’48 This sentence hides its prejudice beneath a veneer of

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 ...
..
..
objectivity. Spoken in the third person it presents as solid reality what in
..
..
..
fact is just opinion.
..
.. Nevertheless, experts have another, seemingly fairer, option. Instead of
..
..
.. drawing an impersonal sketch based on a pile of alleged facts, they can
..
.. include the voices of those who deal directly with film and filmgoers, and
..
..
.. thus make room for first-person testimonies. This was the case with the
..
..
..
.. statements of educators, policemen, film professionals, doctors and
..
..
.. priests that were included in the survey conducted by the 1917 Cinema
...
49 National Council of Public ..
..
Commission of Inquiry.49 While the first part of the investigation (The
Morals, The Cinema. ..
..
..
Report of the Commission) is in the third person, the testimonies
..
.. included in the second part (Minutes of Evidence) are often in the first
..
..
.. person. Experts are replaced by witnesses. In the Minutes we meet
..
.. individuals who actually dealt with film – someone who had the
..
..
.. opportunity to confront the danger first hand.
..
..
..
.. The use of the first person is paradoxical: an autobiographical
..
..
.. narrative implies that the distance at which the source of fear was
...
..
..
supposed to be kept had collapsed, and that the subject and object were
..
..
..
present in the same space. Distance has been overcome by closeness. The
..
..
..
pronoun ‘I’ testifies that a contact has already occurred; even more, that it
..
.. has already produced its effects. When Jean Epstein states ‘I am
..
.. hypnotized’ he speaks as a victim, albeit a happy one.
..
..
.. Such closeness could be cinephopia’s failure; it is evidence that the
..
..
..
.. latter’s warnings were useless. Closeness, instead, marks cinephobia’s
..
..
.. triumph: the enemy is among us; even more, the enemy is us. The worst
..
..
...
nightmares have become a reality. Duhamel’s desperation at having been
..
..
..
transformed into a pseudo-Duhamel gives us a sense of this development.
..
.. Yet this ‘I’ can be a space of negotiation. Since the witness speaks
..
..
.. from direct experience, he knows how to balance disadvantages and
..
.. advantages. The English Cinema Commission of Inquiry provides
..
..
.. substantive examples. A probation officer at the Westminster police court
..
..
..
.. recognizes that films depict ‘burglaries, robberies and other infringement
..
..
.. of the law’, but he also claims that ‘the closing of the picture house [...]
..
..
...
would have most unbeneficial results’ because ‘the cinemas are the only
50 Ibid., p. 205.
..
..
..
form of healthy recreation available’ especially in the poor city districts.50
..
..
..
So it seems that the threat is not so threatening. As the chief constable of
..
.. Aberdeen wrote:
..
..
..
..
..
Personally, I seldom visit the picture houses, but I know that they are
..
..
..
patronized by large numbers of citizens and are visited by members of
..
..
..
the force, and I am satisfied that if anything far wrong occurred my
51 Ibid., p. 178.
..
..
..
attention would soon be directed to the matter’.51
...
..
..
..
So it seems that things could happen, but they are under control. I could
..
..
..
multiply the quotations, but these two examples suffice to give an idea of
..
.. strategies of mediation.
..
.. Finally, the ‘I’ is also a space of conversion. Once experienced, film
..
..
.. can reveal a benevolent and even a seductive face. It can transform from
..
..
.. an object of fear into an object of affection. Such was the well-known

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 ...
..
..
case of Louis Delluc, former foe of cinema who, after viewing William
..
..
..
S. Hart’s movies, became one of its main advocates. The description of
..
.. his change of heart is touching: ‘I admire the cinema, and I look forward
..
..
.. to loving it. I know that I will love it. Because I hated it and now I
..
52 Louis Delluc, ‘Le cinquième art’, ..
.. unconsciously notice the stages that bring one from hate to love.’ 52
..
Le Film, no.113 (1918); then as ..
..
‘L’art du cinema’, in Ecrits ..
..
cinematographiques, Vol. II (Paris: ..
..
Cinémathèque Française, 1986), ..
.. In 1912 the French journal Le cinéma published a chronicle entitled ‘The
pp. 114–15. ...
..
..
foes of cinema in England’. The journalist – who signed with an alias, J.
..
..
..
Daw, which not only sounds English but also recalls the placeholder
..
.. name John Doe – ironically claimed that the more relevant adversaries to
..
..
.. cinema were in Great Britain, certainly not in France, and mentioned
..
.. among them priests who had lost their believers, theatre actors who had
..
..
.. lost their jobs, bar owners who had lost their customers, and politicians
..
..
..
.. who had lost a place to rally their supporters, since all large public
..
53 J. Daw, ‘Les ennemis du cinéma ..
.. venues were now set up for projecting movies.53
en Angleterre’, Le cinéma, vol. 1, ...
..
..
This French chronicle is quite peculiar, and yet it helps me to reach a
no. 13 (1912), p. 1. ..
..
..
conclusion. To keep cinema at a distance, in an effort to avoid the source
..
..
..
of fear, was an impossible task. Cinema was successful, and the
..
.. enjoyable emotions it provoked proved to be stronger that any
..
.. concomitant worries. Its aggressive content, as well as the uncanny
..
..
.. nature of its images and the unusual situation of its spectators, were more
..
..
..
.. an asset than an impediment. There is, after all, pleasure in being scared
..
54 See Daniel Parker, Puissance et ..
.. to death by vivid representations, in front of a screen, in the dark. The
responsabilité du film (Paris: Aux ..
editions de Cine France, 1939),
..
...
only good answer was to keep fears themselves at a distance. To place
..
3rd edn, a fierce pamphlet which ..
..
them elsewhere. In England, for example.
was a direct expression of the ..
.. Indeed, the direct engagement against cinema, recurring in the first
Cartel. The Cartel was one of the ..
..
main sources of inspiration of the .. three decades of the twentieth century, gradually came to terms with
..
bill from July 1939 that aimed to .. approaches that were more interested in escaping its pressure. The fight
..
..
provide protection for the French ..
.. against cinema lost its momentum, thanks to an increasing acquaintance
family and the French nation. ..
55 See, respectively, Guy Debord,
..
.. with movies, some rules imposed by governments or self-imposed by
..
The Society of Spectacle (New ..
.. producers, an attenuation of the sense of novelty and, last but not least,
York, NY: Zone Books, 1995);
..
..
...
the rise of other, equally threatening media. The ideal of an antagonistic
originally published as Société du ..
spectacle (Paris: Buchet/Chastel, ..
..
spectator was progressively replaced by a spectator able to reckon with
..
1967); Guy Debord, Complete ..
..
peril and safety, suspicions and passions, displeasures and pleasures. The
Cinematic Works: Scripts, Stills, ..
.. perception of an endangered social body was replaced by the idea of a
Documents (Edinburgh: AK Press, ..
.. mass immunization. As a consequence, what was previously seen as a
2003); originally published as ..
..
Oeuvres cinématographiques .. threat eventually became a risk that could be managed. Fears of cinema
..
..
completes (Paris: Éditions Champ ..
.. were literally put at a distance. Occasionally they resurfaced, but when
libre, 1978); Jean Lois Baudry, ..
‘Ideological effects of the basic
..
.. they did so with the old virulence – as in the case of the French ‘Cartel
..
cinematographic apparatus’, in ..
...
d’action sociale et morale’ in the late 1930s and the 1940s – they looked
Philip Rosen (ed.), Narrative, ..
..
..
outdated and inadequate, despite the wide resonance that they still
Apparatus, Ideology (New York,
NY: Columbia University Press,
..
..
..
found.54 A more serious return was provided by the critical film theory of
..
1986), pp. 286–98; originally .. the 1960s and 1970s, when the denunciation of the ‘society of spectacle’
..
published as ‘Cinéma: effets ..
.. and the condemnation of the cinematic apparatus became a currency,55
idéologiques produits par ..
.. but their circulation was restricted to a small community of scholars and
l’appareil de base’, Cinéthique, ..
..
no. 7/8 (1970), pp. 1–8. .. their effect did not influence wider public opinion. In the meantime the

156 Screen 59:2 Summer 2018
Francesco Casetti
Why fears matter

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 ...
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general framework had deeply changed. In coincidence with the
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increasing acceptance of film as art, a process of reconciliation had taken
..
.. place. It is no coincidence that, in more recent years, the fears that still
..
..
.. affect cinema have mostly became fears for cinema and not of cinema.
..
.. Cinephobia, at least in its ‘hot’ version, is now a sort of archaeological
..
..
.. object. Its legacy is an impressive archive of contributions that found
..
..
..
.. their rationale in a battle against cinema. The true cinephobics never
..
..
.. suffered in silence. Let us listen to their voices.
...
..
..
..
.. Special thanks to Roxane Hamery and Mélisande Leventopoulos for their invaluable help during my archival research at the
..
..
.. BNF, and to Paul North for co-teaching with me at Yale a seminar on political fears
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157 Screen 59:2 Summer 2018
Francesco Casetti
Why fears matter

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/screen/article-abstract/59/2/145/5036221

by University Library user
on 12 June 2018