Cinema as a foucauldian dispositif: An anachronistic and materialistic approach

Abstract

In general terms it is possible to describe this research as a materialistic approach to cinema. Our grasp of film is focused on the perspective of films as a product of work, as a product of organized, distributed and selected manners of labor. Most of the films exist because they respect a set of implicit processes, rules of production and distribution that are finally embodied in the images according to the so-called "cinematic language". In addition, theory and history of cinema have usually been blind to that. In this problematic context, Michel Foucault's idea of a Dispositif as a mixture of discourses, practices, institutions, etc., is useful to uncover the cinematic system of production and self-legitimation. The cinematic Dispositf is finally expressed but simultaneously hidden on the screen. In other words, the cinematic Dispositif controls the form of films and also their social life as commodities but it is usually hidden behind its artistic performance.