An exhaustive elaboration of this thesis is impossible in the short space of an essay. So allow me a series of strategic notes that capture facets of the cinematic imaginary and the
photographic fact. I’ll open with an anecdote by Chris Marker. I will then trace the shudder in theories of photography and film, specifically those of Roland Barthes and Siegfried
Kracauer. Thirdly, I will point to exemplary instances of the photographic fact in the post-WWII avant-gardes, above all, in painting and film. Finally, I will outline the contours of the interwar cinematic imagi-nary. At the end of the essay, there is no denouement, let alone a grand finale. I will conclude where I began: the post-World War II avant-gardes aspired to photography, but made paintings and films; members of the interwar avant-gardes, by contrast, were trained in painting but aspired to cinema. (excerpt)
Fig. Frames from Andy Warhol’s Empire. (US 1964, 16mm, bw, silent, 8h 5min).
