The analytic gaze through the prism of childhood

Translated into English for the first time by Madeline Whittle, Emmanuel Siety’s article draws extensively on Jean Louis Schefer’s The Ordinary Man of Cinema to explore the connection between the films we encounter in childhood and a lifelong relationship with cinema. Siety asks what is the role of film education in the moving-image saturated contemporary era for preserving something of the special bond formed by our first encounters with films in cinemas, and our self-development. The article further considers the limits of an analytical approach to film, as opposed to a phenomenological approach which privileges the direct experiences of cinema, going beyond the ‘scholarly’ interpretation of films.