Les expositions de cinéma en Suisse entre 1943 et 1973. Légitimer une cinématographie nationale

Situated at the crossroads of the history of exhibitions and the history of cinema, this article interrogates the way in which the latter was developed (analysis of writing modalities) and transmitted (study of scenographic displays) within the framework of three major exhibitions devoted to a general history of cinema which took place in Switzerland: Der Film gestern und heute (Museum of Arts and Crafts, 1943), Der Film. Geschichte, Technik, Gestaltungsmittel, Bedeutung (Museum of Decorative Arts, Zurich, 1960) and Images du cinéma (Museum of Decorative Arts, Lausanne, 1973). Though between the 1920s and the first successes of a ‘new Swiss cinema’ in the early 1970s it was repeatedly claimed that Swiss cinema does not exist, which is to say that no fiction film of great value had been produced in the country, the three events all integrated Swiss films and displays into their programming. They contributed, then, each in its own way, to the writing of a pluralistic history of this cinematography, progressively stretching the usual boundaries of the concept of a ‘national cinema’. They also contributed to the slow legitimization and heritagization of Swiss cinema. This article, based on an analysis of unpublished archives, casts light for the first time on these three historically significant events.