’Rendre réel aux yeux du public‘: Stage Craft, Film Tricks, and the Féerie

Abstract

In this chapter, Kessler and Lenk provide a study on the role of tricks and effects for the French stage and film genre of féerie, which flourished throughout the nineteenth century and in the first decade of the twentieth century. Using the concept of dispositif as their theoretical framework, they offer an analysis of the féerie genre’s general characteristics. In a following step, they discuss the theoretical status of stage craft and tricks and the way in which they function as a central element of the genre. In the final part of the chapter, Kessler and Lenk present two examples, one from a stage féerie and one from a film, to illustrate the productivity of their media archaeological perspective.