The animation of cinema

Abstract This essay seeks to resurrect the name, work and achievements of the most significant pioneering film animator at best marginalized, at worst effaced, by English language Film Studies and Animation Studies: Émile Reynaud. It won the 2010 McLaren-Lambart Award from the Society for Animation Studies for best essay. It continues the author’s work on the theorising of animation begun in 1991 when he edited The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation, the world’s first anthology of scholarly essays theorising animation.