Un regard hors de soi : étude des rapports entre corps, caméra et espace dans l’histoire des techniques de prise de vues au cinéma
As a phenomenon that is as much technical as it is formal, camera movement can pose problems to those wishing to analyze it. As Vivian Sobchack (1982, 317) put it, the vocabulary typically used to describe camera movement refers back to filmmaking techniques and is not sufficient to describe the experience of camera movement as seen on screen. The goal of this dissertation is to approach camera movement from the point of view of the relations between bodies, cameras, and spaces, that is, both at the time of filming and in the context of the film viewing experience.  One key example of camera movement guides this project, namely what we call “exo- centric images.” This phenomenon derives from a unique arrangement or the body-camera-space triad that is divided into three steps: 1) the camera is linked to the body which it films, 2) it is carried with, but away from, the body (in front or behind), and 3) it is flipped back onto the body that carries it. Building from these three “movements,” this dissertation focusses on three paradigmatic body-camera-space relations: proximity, emancipation, reflection.  To accomplish its goal, this dissertation builds from phenomenology by proposing descriptions of camera movements that are based solely on the appearance of the phenomenon perceived on screen, a method that allows us to be free from the preconceptions tied to the vocabulary typically used in film studies. More specifically, we call upon Don Ihde’s postphenomenology as well as Vivian Sobchack’s film phenomenology as a way to question the intermediary role of a machine in our experience of the world, as well as to recognize the specificities of the film viewing experience.  Through the exo-centric image, this dissertation puts forward new ways of interpreting camera movement by interrogating the relations between bodies, cameras and spaces throughout the history of filmmaking techniques.
Filmmaking techniques Camera movement Phenomenology Point of view