The Panel R9 “Theorizing Special Effects in Film History” served both as a continuation of the conference on special effects held last year in Montreal, as well as a precursor to the book on this subject that is currently being developed by Marc Furstenau (the panel’s chair) and Martin Lefebvre (who acted as respondent). The interest in special effects comes out in part of their peculiar place within history of cinema (Metz, for example, suggested that all of cinema was based