Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 6 No. 28, September 2002
Greg Hainge
In Search of Frenchness Lost?
_French Cinema in the 1990s:
Continuity and Difference_ Edited by Phil
Powrie Oxford: Oxford
University Press,
1999 ISBN
0-19-815958-7 286 pp. In the opening essay in this
volume, 'Heritage, History and 'New Realism': French Cinema
in the 1990s', Phil Powrie argues that certain trends can be
discerned within French film production in the 1990s, trends
which can be attributed to the GATT negotiations, the return
of the auteur, and a new political consciousness in young
film makers. This is an assertion he makes in spite of his
simultaneous claim, after Susan Hayward, that 'the issue of
a national cinema is a complex one, and not always useful in
defining the panorama of French film production at any given
time' (1). Although approaching the question in a number of
different ways, many of the contributions to this volume
appear to attempt to do precisely this, to attempt to show
the ways in which the films dealt with are inherently
French. The first section of the
book, entitled 'History, Heritage, and Pastiche', deals
mainly with period films that revisit French history:
_Germinal_ (Berri 1993), _Indochine_ (Wargnier, 1992), _Les
Roseaux sauvages_ (Techine, 1994), _Un Heros tres discret_
(Audiard, 1996), _Ridicule_ (Leconte, 1996) and _Les
Visiteurs_ (Poire, 1993). In each case, the authors of these
essays are at pains to point out why it is that these films
found an audience in France in the 1990s, and in many of
these contributions some convincing answers to this question
are proposed. Russell Cousins, for instance, charts the
commercial context in which _Germinal-_ was made, and argues
that the film itself is symbolic of French cultural
protectionism. Brigitte Rollet reads _Indochine_ as being
indicative of postcolonial attitudes in France, whilst
Kathryn Lauten sees in _Un Heros tres discret_ a significant
revisitation of Occupation times which, spectre-like, still
linger in the minds of the nation. Mireille Rosello, for her
part, finds in _Ridicule_ not so much a concern to
faithfully transmit precise historical fact and detail but,
rather, an addressing of contemporary anxieties in a
heritage setting. A very similar phenomenon is observed by
Martine Danan in her analysis of a film which, at first, may
appear to the viewer as the very antithesis of _Ridicule_,
namely _Les Visiteurs_. In this section can also be found
Paul Sutton's essay, 'Remaking the Remake: _Irma Vep_
(Assayas, 1996)', which reads this film as a self-conscious
commentary on the remake itself, which requires the
collusion of the spectator for the remake to be successful,
and Keith Reader's 'Right-Wing Anarchism and _Le Bonheur est
dans le pre_ (Chatiliez, 1995), which places this film in
the long-standing French political tradition to which its
title alludes. The second section of the
book, 'Inscribing Differences', concentrates on films which
give voice to minoritarian voices or concerns: _Les Nuits
fauves_ (Collard, 1992), _Gazon maudit_ (Balasko, 1995),
_J'ai pas sommeil_ (Denis, 1993), _Romauld et Juliette_
(Serreau, 1987), _Metisse_ and _La Haine_ (Kassovitz, 1993
and 1995) and, more generally, the notion of *cinema de
banlieue* -- which is to say films shot in housing projects
at the periphery of major French towns, and which give voice
to the sentiments created by the socio-economic conditions
of these suburbs. For Carrie Tarr _Les Nuits fauves_ is a
film which repositions male sexuality in France during the
AIDS-era, whilst Brigitte Rollet reads _Gazon maudit_ as an
example of humour being used by women as a transgressive
force, a move that Rollet traces back in French cultural
history to the 1860s with the nineteenth-century cabaret
artist Theresa. Cynthia Marker, for her part, carries out a
complex analysis of _J'ai pas sommeil_ which finds the
thematic quest for in-between culturally negotiated spaces
echoed in the very stylistic elements of the film, whereas
Dina Sherzer finds the attempt to portray a similar kind of
space through the portrayal of interracial relationships in
_Romauld et Juliette_ and _Metisse_ somewhat flawed since,
ultimately, the slave-owner dichotomy is retained. The two
essays dealing with *cinema de banlieue*, although dealing
with roughly the same films, approach this corpus in very
different ways. Myrto Konstantarakos comments on the use of
the *banlieue* as a peripheral space apart from the centre,
drawing conclusions as to the political ramifications of
this, conclusions which distinguish these films from the
American 'hood' movies to which the *cinema de banlieue* is
so often compared and sometimes references -- never more so
that in Kassovitz's _La Haine_. Carrie Tarr, meanwhile, in
her second essay in the volume, notes how white-authored
*cinema de banlieue* focuses on the anger, alienation, and
violence of the *banlieue*, whilst films by Maghrebi
directors are more concerned with avoiding potential
conflict, instead exploring individual crises of identity
and integration from within their very traditional
culture. One more essay figures in
this second section, Russell King's 'Zapping without Mercy:
_Merci la vie_ (Blier, 1991), an extremely insightful
analysis that reads Blier's use of colour in this film as a
punctuating device that points to a multiplicity of
narratives which follow a 'zapping' logic common in the
youth of today, who take incomplete snatches of information
and conflate them into muddled historical and other
narratives. To my mind, this essay would fit much better in
the book's final section, 'Defining the 'National''
(although, admittedly, not under that section title), in
which are examined _Les Amants du Pont-Neuf_ (Carax, 1991),
_Chacun cherche son chat_ (Klapisch, 1996), _Mon Pere ce
heros_ (Lauzier, 1991) -- contrasted against its American
remake, Kieslowski's _Trois couleurs: Bleu_ (1993), _Blanc_
(1993), and _Rouge_ (1994), and Besson's _Le Cinquieme
element_ (1997). Whilst these essays are found in a section
called 'Defining the 'National'' the authors here, like
King, seem less intent on doing this than those in the first
two sections, preferring instead to carry out in-depth and
complex analyses of these films that, far more often than in
the previous two sections, address the stylistic specifities
of cinema rather than treating film as just another text to
be dealt with thematically. Doing so, these essays stand
apart in this collection, delivering what, for me, good film
writing should, namely insights into the films that change
one's perception of them. Unlike reading, an activity which
obeys the timetable of the reader who can pick up a book
when s/he wishes and review passages at will, cinema (and I
refer to cinema when seen on the big screen, obviously, even
if most viewers watching a video will do so in one
uninterrupted sitting also) enforces its own temporality
upon the spectator, who is not free to stop the projection
and rewind the reel in order to look more closely at a
specific detail. The interest in film analysis often lies,
then, in its ability to pick out elements -- very often
stylistic elements -- which, although vital to a full
comprehension of the work, may escape the casual
viewer. Most remarkable in this
respect are King's essay already mentioned, Graeme Hayes's
'Representation, Masculinity, Nation: The Crises of _Les
Amants du Pont-Neuf_', Julia Dobson's 'Nationality,
Authenticity, Reflexivity: Kieslowski's _Trois couleurs:
Bleu_, _Blanc_ and _Rouge_', and Susan Hayward's 'Besson's
'Mission Elastoplast': _Le Cinquieme element_'. Hayes, in his essay,
highlights the importance of the recurrent themes of water
and fire in _Les Amants du Pont-Neuf_ -- each of which are
coded to the two main protagonists, the symbolic importance
of the bridge under renovation, and, through a Lacanian
psychoanalytic reading, discovers a contrast between 'the
representation of national identity through France's
re-enactment of the myth of the foundation (the
Bicentennial), and its representation through cinematic
production' (208) that comes of the film's intertextuality.
For Hayes, it is the State that replaces the father-figure
of Hans in Alex's process of oedipalisation/socialisation,
but a State which is dysfunctional. Alex is, then, never
fully oedipalised, never able fully to enter into the
Symbolic, an assertion that allows Hayes's to read the
ending of this film in such a way that it is saved from the
worst excesses of potential sentimentality and simplicity
that disappointed so many. Julia Dobson again stresses
aspects of the notion of 'Nation' in her analysis of
Kieslowski's trilogy, but the great merit of her essay lies
in its analysis of Kieslowski's carefully crafted
cinematography which opens up many further dimensions to a
reading of his films. Susan Hayward, meanwhile, chooses to
examine the role of the cyborg in the _Le Cinquieme
element_, as well as the film's transgressive male bodies.
These questions ultimately, however, are subsumed in the
final paragraph to comments about how such a film could not
be made in Hollywood because of its transgendered, queer,
and archetypically French elements. This paragraph weakens
the essay somewhat, but is perhaps due to the author's
desire to maker her contribution conform more faithfully to
the theme of the collection, as though, we might say, she
had applied the elastoplast of her title to her own
essay. Ultimately this is
indicative of the collection as a whole, which seems to
insist too heavily on finding what is specifically 'French'
about these films and why they appeal to French audiences.
This emphasis on situating the films studied in a French
context to show why they were made at this point in French
history leads, at times, to somewhat pedestrian analyses
that state the obvious, and to the repetition of some basic
data across contributions. It does not need to be said
repeatedly, for instance, that commercial considerations are
of the utmost importance in the genesis of any film; this is
axiomatic of the film industry, and even those films made on
what are termed shoe-string budgets still require
considerable amounts of money. It is, then, not necessary to
argue that filmmakers attempt to find latent themes that
resonate with audiences regardless of the explicit content,
for any filmmaker knows s/he is finished without a box
office return of some kind, even in a country whose
government is as generous towards the seventh art as the
French government. The other aspect of this
book that it is slightly hard to figure out is precisely who
its target audience is. Whilst many of the essays point out
the importance of the potential audience in the making of a
film, as we have just stated, it is nigh impossible to gauge
who this collection, as a whole, is aimed at. So keen is the
collection to stress the Frenchness of the films studied,
one would imagine that it is intended for Francophiles,
which makes the choice to quote from the dialogues of these
films almost exclusively in English somewhat surprising.
Having ascertained that the book is aimed at Francophiles
passionate about cinema, the question then arises as to what
kind of Francophile is being addressed. The very complex
analyses of some of the essays (particularly the later ones)
would seem to be directed towards a scholarly audience, but,
at the same time, many of the general pronouncements made on
the politics, demographics, and history of France would, no
doubt, be entirely superfluous and a bit of a bore for a
scholarly Francophile -- and, of course, vice
versa. In spite of this
inconsistency, however, it should not be forgotten that this
collection does contain some gems of interpretation and, for
the casual Francophile, much interesting data that helps
explain the particularities of the French cinema industry.
Every reader will, then, find something to please him/her in
this volume, but not, perhaps, throughout. Adelaide
University,
Australia Copyright ©
_Film-Philosophy_ 2002 Greg
Hainge, 'In Search
of Frenchness Lost?', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 6 no. 28,
September 2002
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n28hainge>.
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