The Notion of Chasing has been part of cinema life from the very beginning, so much so that it has almost become an archetypal form. It was the principal method of moving the plot forward in short films when cinema began and remained a normal method of structure for feature-films. The presence, or absence of chasing whether in a related form such as tailing someone or on foot, is an extremly interesting element of film characterisation. The condition of its elaboration and of reception must be put back into context and studied with the perspective of the history of the form. Studying the importance given to chasing by four French film directors of different eras, Louis Feuillade, René Clair, Jean-Pierre Melville et Philippe de Broca, will bring out the form’s perennity. Likewise comparing the director’s management of such scenes, especially since these four can on occasion seem like opposites, enables one to use chasing as an differentiating criteria that is particulary important when bringing out the value, both symbolic and intrinsic, of this form as an aesthetic and anthropological form.
