SERGEI M EISENSTEIN

e a synthesis, an explicitly Eisensteinian notion developed particularly in the
NotesforaGeneralHistory.
Eisenstein knew of Sadoul through Moussinac; he read him and corresponded
withhimuntiltheeveofhisdeath. 36 OnehypothesisisthathisreadingofSadoul
served as a trigger changing his perspective toward cinema, which differed from
theperspectivehehaddevelopedundertheaegisofAll-UnionSocietyforCultural
Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS). On September 1, 1946, he wrote to
Sadoul: “I enjoyed very much reading the first volume of Histoire [générale] du
cinéma, and I hope to see the subsequent volumes soon.” Did he read the next
volume? Two clues point to a positive answer. First, a note within the main text
written for the English and French editions of “Dickens, Griffith and the Film
Today” on the close-up in Méliès and the English “Brighton School” refers to
Sadoul’s second volume. 37 In addition, a passage from the Notes dated January 4,
1948, 38 alludes to Lucien Nonguet’s 1905 Potëmkin (a reconstructed actualité),
referring to Sadoul 39 as well as – erroneously – to a book on Méliès. 40 Sadoul,
who wrote for Communist newspapers and periodicals (or those of allies of the
Communists), could be accessed in the USSR without a problem. Between 1937
and 1947, a whole series of periodical articles developed his historical undertaking
before it took on its final form, touching on “invention,” “animated films,”
“sound,” “Edison,” “Émile Reynaud,” “Méliès,” and “the Brighton School.” 41
Reading these articles and then going back to Sadoul’s first couple of volumes
reveals historiographic strategies completely different from those of his predecessors
(Coissac, Bardèche and Brasillach, Vincent), his contemporaries (Jeanne
and Ford, Toeplitz), and even his successors (Mitry, Robinson). This difference
notably has to do with his constant attention not only to the technical and economic
dimensions of the context, but also to “cultural series,” visual and audiovisual
spectacles that belonged in the realm of the emergence of cinema or heralded
it. His first chapter, “The Precursors of Cinema,” is thus devoted to
shadow shows and magic lanterns; it touches on Java, the wayang, the karagöz,
and the development of shadow shows in Europe in the late eighteenth century,
payingcloseattentiontothelinksthesemediaalwaysmaintainedwiththeevents
of their time (during the Revolution, for example, with songs), how they evolved
and intersected with others (the print workshops in Metz and Nancy, which
worked in the style of images d’Epinal, published cutout shadows, for instance),
how their audience changed and how they fed into the first films (Méliès’s tricks
and their characters growing or shrinking, their noses getting longer, etc.), and
how these media coexisted with cinema (Salis’s Chat Noir, Caran d’Ache’s and
Rivière’s friezes with their perspective effects, crowd effects, a musical or sung
accompaniment, a lecturer), just as cinema was interested in conjuring, pantomimes,
and optical theatre. Zglinicki 42 was to adopt this approach a few years
later. As his subtitle indicates, he included the “precursors” in the history of
cinema, which was far from obvious since, shortly afterward, archaeologist
274 françois albera