Introduction. Une approche « relationaliste »

This essay, which presents the special issue of Cinéma & Cie and discusses the reasons that led to it and its main aims, is divided into four parts. Starting from the relevance that Figures III has had in film studies, the first part focuses on its role in providing both a theoretical frame and singular tools to film analysis and tries to discuss the particular nature of theoretical borrowings from Figures III as well as the ambivalence of Genette’s narratology towards cinema. However, even this strong interest in Figures III seems to be exhausted now. This, together with the general indifference of film studies to Genette’s last works (in the fields of narratology, Poetics and Aesthetics) is linked, in the second part of the essay, to a broader crisis concerning both literary and film theories and the notions of “cinema” and “film culture,” as they have been conceived in the 20th century. In the third part, it is the strict relationship between Genette’s Poetics and Aesthetics that is taken into account, in order to discuss how Genette’s notions of immanence and transcendence could be useful for understanding the so-called “post-cinema” landscape, as well as contemporary urgent issues such as media and movie “piracy.” To conclude, the last part of the essay presents the main topics developed in the special issue, together with some other still open questions.