Studies in French Cinema

Studies
in
French
Cinema
StudiesinFrenchCinemaAnnualConferenceThursday30June2016
RoomK-1.56,King’sCollege,London(StrandCampus)
Programme
9.00-10.00Women’sdocumentary1
-EmnaMrabet(Paris8),Lamémoiredansl’œuvredeYaminaBenguigui
- Jenny Chamarette (QMUL), Seeing beyond: Raymonde Carasco’s transcendental
ethnography
10.00-10.30Break
10.30-12.00Women’sdocumentary2(AgnèsVarda)
-SarahCooper(KCL),AgnèsVardaandtheimagesofdocumentary
- Nathalie Mauffrey (Paris 7), LesVeuvesdeNoirmoutier d'Agnès Varda : un dispositif
documentairepourunimaginairecollectifauféminin
-EmmaWilson(Cambridge),AgnèsVardaandladouleur
12.00-13.00Keynote:DominiqueCabrera
13.00-14.15Break
14.15-15.45Childhoodandadolescence1(Contemporary)
-RomainChareyron(WashingtonState),Portrayinglivesintransition:CélineSciamma
andthetranscriptionofexperience
- Kaya Davies Hayon (Manchester), Embodying queer sexual subjectivity: Abdellah
Taïa’sL’Arméedusalut(2014)
- Nick Rees-Roberts (Bristol), Mommie dearest: sex, style and scandal in My Little
Princess(EvaIonesco,2011)
15.45-16.15Break
16.15-17.15Childhoodandadolescence2(Pre-andpost-war)
- Daniel Morgan (Paris 3), A negotiated image of delinquency: young offenders and
reformschoolsinFrenchcinema,1949-1955
- Barry Nevin (NUI Galway), Framing forest/framing France: viewing child poverty in
postwarParisthroughJacquesFeyder’sCrainquebille(1923)andGribiche(1926)
17.15-17.45RoundTable
-Tocelebratethepublicationofthe40thvolumeofMUP’sFrenchDirectorsSeries
17.45-18.30Reception
18.30-19.00SFCAnnualGeneralMeetingoftheEditors
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Practicalinformation
Location
TheconferencewilltakeplaceinLectureTheatreK-1.56,King’sCollege,London,Strand
Campus(postcodeWC2R2LS).EnterbythemainentranceofftheStrand.Godownone
floorusingthestaircaseonyourleftnearthelifts,thenstraightaheadthroughthefire
doorsanddownaramp,whereyouwillseeacorridorofftotheleftwithseveralrooms
offit.K-1.56isthelastroominthatcorridor.Theroomwillbeopenfrom8.30.
SeehereforapagewithlinkstoaGooglemapandgeneraldirections:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/campuslife/campuses/strand/Strand.aspx
SeehereforaPDFoftheBasementwherewewillbelocated:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/campuslife/campuses/download/KBBasement1forweb.pdf
Fee
The conference fee is £35 (£25 students, unwaged, retired). Please enroll in advance
here:
http://store.surrey.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=2&catid=62
Thefeecanalsobepaidonthedayincash(notchequeorcard).
Refreshments
Wedonotproviderefreshments.Thereisarestaurant/caféinthebuildingwewillbein,
andtherearemanyrestaurantscloseby.
Accommodation
Wedonotsuggestanyparticularhotels,asyoucanfindmanyformsofaccommodation
in London. If you have not yet used Airbnb, we can recommend this as the most
economicalternative:https://www.airbnb.co.uk/.
Papers
Paperswillbe20minuteslong(withtheexceptionofthekeynote).
Listofspeakers
JennyChamarette(QMUL)[email protected]
RomainChareyron(WashingtonState)[email protected]
SarahCooper(KCL)[email protected]
KayaDaviesHayon(Manchester)[email protected]
NathalieMauffrey(Paris7)[email protected]
DanielMorgan(Paris3)[email protected]
EmnaMrabet(Paris8)[email protected]
BarryNevin(NUIGalway)[email protected]
NickRees-Roberts(Bristol)[email protected]
EmmaWilson(Cambridge)[email protected]
Acknowledgments
WewouldliketothankRosalindGalt,
HeadofFilmStudiesatKing’sCollege,
London,forprovidinguswithavenue;
andMatthewFrostofManchester
UniversityPressforfinancialsupport.
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Abstracts
EmnaMrabet,Lamémoiredansl’œuvredeYaminaBenguigui
Parmi les jeunes cinéastes issus de l’immigration maghrébine qui émergent dans les
années 80, rares sont les femmes qui s’emparent de l’outil cinématographique. On
assiste cependant, dans le tournant des années 90, à l’émergence de quelques figures
féminines comme Yamina Benguigui, Zaïda Ghorab-Volta, Rachida Krim qui
commencent à faire entendre leurs voies et à raconter de manière autre l’histoire de
leur communauté. Les réalisations de Yamina Benguigui se démarquent ainsi par le
choix de la forme documentaire et par une refocalisation du discours narratif sur la
générationdesparents(alorsquesescompèresmasculins–àl’instardeMehdiCharefet
Malik Chibane – mettaient principalement en scène des personnages de jeunes). De
Mémoires d’immigré à 93. Mémoire d’un territoireen passant pas Inchallah Dimanche,
sesfilmssontàobservercommedesœuvresemblématiquesdanslechampducinéma
franco-maghrébin. Le présent exposé propose ainsi d’examiner la question de la
mémoirequijalonnel’œuvredeYaminaBenguiguietd’observerdequellemanièreses
réalisations documentaires, mais aussi fictionnelles, contribuent à la restitution d’une
mémoire collective oubliée, la parole recueillie devenant à la fois le réceptacle et le
révélateurdecettemémoire.Tracesindélébiles,instrumentsdeluttecontrel’absenceet
l’amnésie,sesfilmssontégalementàconsidérercommeautantdedocumentshistoricosociologiques pouvant entrer en résonance avec le malaise que traverse la France
contemporaine.
Bio
EmnaMrabetestaffiliéeàl’écoledoctoraleEsthétique,SciencesetTechnologiedesArts
(EDESTA)del’universitéParis8oùelleenseignedepuis2010.Elleasoutenuunethèse
de doctorat intitulée Contexte et développement du cinéma franco-maghrébin (19692013).L’exempled’AbdellatifKechiche.Elleestl’auteurd’articlesmettantenperspective
et en questionnement les spécificités des œuvres des cinéastes issus de l’immigration
maghrébine, notamment, Contestation et défense des droits humains chez les cinéastes
Abdellatif Kechiche et Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche (Studies in French Cinema), La question
identitairechezlescinéastesissusdel’immigrationmaghrébine (L’Harmattan), Sorin, C.,
Mrabet, E. De la citation à la performance : processus en œuvre(s) dans le cinéma
d’AbdellatifKechiche(PressesUniversitairesdeRennes).
[email protected]
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JennyChamarette,Seeingbeyond:RaymondeCarasco’stranscendental
ethnography
The films of Raymonde Carasco are relatively unknown, but recently witnessed a
resurgence of interest amongst French cinema scholars, such as Nicole Brenez, and in
circles of documentary and ethnographic film in Europe and beyond. Carasco’s film
work is deeply experimental, tinged with a sense of the transcendent, and follows
repetitions of gesture and voice that trace both the life rituals of the Mexican ethnic
group,theTarahumaras,andthewritingofAntoninArtaudonthissamepeople.Carasco
was also a writer and academic: her writings too grasp at the poetics of language,
writing,andlooking,inaformativephilosophyoffilm.Herconceptsoftheciné-fragment
and auto-bio-ciné-graphie complement theorisations of cinema and writing from
celebrated filmmakers such as Agnès Varda. This paper aims primarily to bring
Carasco’sworkbackintothespotlight,particularlyinanAnglophonecontext.Herfilms
in the 1970s offers a very different form of experimental, indeed transcendental
ethnography,comparedtootherfilmmakersofthetime(Strand,Rouch),andoffersome
insightintotheorisationsofcontemporaryartcinema(Rousseau,Rivers,Grandrieux).
Bio
Jenny Chamarette is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Queen Mary, University of
London.AuthorofPhenomenologyandtheFutureofFilm:RethinkingSubjectivitybeyond
French Cinema (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), she has published widely in
journals such as Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Paragraph, Studies in
French Cinema, and Modern and Contemporary France. Her research examines
intermediality, phenomenology, cultural politics and affect in contemporary visual and
moving image cultures, in Europe, North America and the Middle East. She is
particularly interested in the intersections of gender, race, complex embodiment and
transnational art cinema. She is currently working on a monograph entitled
Cinemuseology:DigitalScreens,MuseumVitrinesandCulturalPolitics.
[email protected]
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SarahCooper,AgnèsVardaandtheimagesofdocumentary
In this paper I focus on select short films by Agnès Varda, most notably Ulysse (1982)
and Les Dites Cariatides (1984), exploring in close detail the permeable boundary
between fiction and documentary in her work, with a view to demonstrating how her
films stimulate the imagination. My interest lies specifically in the image-making
capacityoftheimagination,whichliteraryratherthanfilmtheoristshaveaddressedto
dateinordertoarticulatehowgreatwritersgetustocreatevividmentalimagesaswe
read. From Gaston Bachelard to Elaine Scarry, cinema is understood in contrast to
literature to perform the action of making images for us, rather than expecting us to
visualize dynamically as we would when we read. Paying attention to the intricate
relationbetweenspokenwordandvisualimageinVarda’swork,Icontestthisviewof
theprivilegedstatusofthevividmentalimageinreadingliterature.Ishowhowfilmtoo
can cause us to make and move images in our minds while we also view images on
screen,formingacomplexsuperimpositionofthevisibleandtheinvisible,theperceived
andtheimagined,asimagesofscreenandmindoverlayoneanother.
Bio
SarahCooperisProfessorofFilmStudiesatKing’sCollegeLondon.Sheistheauthorof
several books, including Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French Documentary (Oxford:
Legenda, 2006); Chris Marker (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008); and
TheSoulofFilmTheory(Basingstoke:PalgraveMacmillan,2013).
[email protected]
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Nathalie Mauffrey, Les Veuves de Noirmoutier d'Agnès Varda : un dispositif
documentairepourunimaginairecollectifauféminin
Malgré les nombreux courts et longs métrages documentaires depuis L’Opéra-Mouffe
(1958) aux Plages d’Agnès (2007) qui constituent autant de portraits de femmes
artistes,musesoucollectionneusesdanslesquelslacinéastesereconnaît,AgnèsVarda
estavanttout«uneauteur(e)aufémininsingulier»quis’affranchitdetouteétiquettey
compriscellesdedocumentaristeetdeféministemaisquienfilmantdesfemmes,parce
qu’elle est une femme, se filme elle aussi. Ainsi le documentaire « Quelques veuves de
Noirmoutier » réalisé en 2003 dans lequel la cinéaste interroge des veuves qui lui
ressemblent doublement pour avoir perdu un mari et vivre dans la même île qu’elle
n’est-il que l’une des pièces d’une utopie dont rend compte l’installation audiovisuelle
Les Veuves de Noirmoutier (2004-2005) que nous nous proposons d’analyser. Ce
dispositifdocumentairemetenscèneunepoétiquedel’espacehéritéedeBachelardet
deJungquisenourritdutémoignagesingulierdecesveuvespourformerunimaginaire
collectif rêvant l’union ambivalente du singulier et du collectif, du réel et du rêve, du
féminin et du masculin. Notre propos est de montrer dans quelle mesure le geste
documentaired’AgnèsVardas’inscritdanscettedialectiquematérialistedel’imaginaire.
Bio
NathalieMauffreyestagrégéedeLettresclassiques,doctoranteduCERILACetATER à
l’Université de Paris Diderot-Paris 7 où elle prépare une thèse en études cinématographiquesintitulée«Utpoesispictura:lacinécritured’AgnèsVarda»sousladirection
de Claude Murcia. Elle donne des cours sur l’analyse filmique, la poétique du récit,
l’errance, le rythme et les liens entre cinéma et littérature. Elle a publié entre autres
l’article « Pour un cinéma de poésie : la figure du chiasme chez Agnès Varda » dans «
L’Écranpoétique»dirigéparMarionPoirson-DechonneinCinémAction,n°157,2015et
uncompte-rendud’ouvrage«Exercicesdestyle»inActafabula,vol.14,n°6,Notesde
lecture, Septembre 2013. L’article « Bricol’ et récup’ : de l’aut(r/o)portrait chez Agnès
Varda » est à paraître sous peu dans Les Intermittences du sujet aux Presses
Universitaires de Rennes. Lors du congrès « Narrative Matters : Récit et savoir » en
2014,elleestintervenueausujetdes«RécitskaléidoscopiquesdansJaneB.parAgnès
V.d’AgnèsVarda»,disponibleenlignesurHAL.
[email protected]
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EmmaWilson,AgnèsVardaandladouleur
In Les Plages d’Agnès (2008) Varda evokes briefly a rupture in her relationship with
JacquesDemy.Thispaperwillfocusontherelationbetweenthismomentofreckoning
with love, and with ladouleur, and the more protracted, semi-fictional and essayistic
portrayal of heartache and lovesickness in Varda’s Documenteur (1980). Varda has
describedLesPlagesd’Agnèsasan‘auto-documentaire’andDocumenteuras‘anemotion
picture’. Through the work of Lauren Berlant on affect, through discussions of French
life-writing,andcomparisonswiththephotographyofNanGoldin,inparticulartheslide
show TheBalladofSexualDependency, I will examine the archive of images of painful
loveinVarda’swork.Picasso’spaintingsofDoraMaarareakeypointofreferencehere,
as well as self-portraits by Frida Kahlo, and a broader repertoire of images from the
Westerncanonoftherecliningnude.IseeVardaindocumentary,likeGoldinintheslide
show,makinguseofintimate,realmaterialinordertoofferanewvisualnarrativeofla
douleur,ofloveandpain.
Bio
EmmaWilsonisProfessorofFrenchLiteratureandtheVisualArtsattheUniversityof
Cambridge.HermostrecentbookisLove,MortalityandtheMovingImage(2012).Sheis
currently working on a project, Lovers, Models and Muses, that explores the work of
AgnèsVarda,CatherineBreillatandNanGoldin.
[email protected]
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Romain Chareyron, Portraying lives in transition: Céline Sciamma and the
transcriptionofexperience
With what could be called her ‘youth trilogy’ (Naissancedespieuvres (2007), Tomboy
(2011), and Bande de filles (2014)), Céline Sciamma has displayed an acute eye for
coming-of-age narratives, offering sensitive and complex portrayals of youth that
intertwinethequestionsofgender,sexualityandethnicity.Thispresentationintendsto
discuss Sciamma’s three feature films by commenting on the relationship between
filmmakingandthequestionofidentity,basedonthesignificanceofthefilmedbodyand
itsaffectivepowers.Iwillfocusonthedirector’suseofthesensoryqualitiesofthefilm
imagetoconveythecharacters’inexpressiblefeelingsandinnerstruggles.Insodoing,I
willbringoutthehapticqualityofSciamma’smise-en-scèneanditsabilitytocreatean
empathic connection between the viewer and the characters. My analyses will pay
specific attention to Sciamma’s affective use of movement, colors, music and clothing,
puttingforwardtheideathatimagesinherfilmsoftenillustratethefleetingandeverchangingnatureofexperience.Iwillalsotiethesignificanceofamultisensoryapproach
tofilmmakinginwithmorerecentresearchonthehealingpropertiesofthefilmimage
toexposehowthelatterisusedtoalleviatethecomplexemotionalcircumstancesfaced
bythecharactersinSciamma’sfilms.
Bio
Romain Chareyron defended his thesis in contemporary French cinema in 2010 at the
University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada. He currently teaches French in the
Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures at Washington State University. He his
co-editing a volume on the representation of youth in contemporary French and
Francophone cinema and his current research investigates how contemporary French
and Francophone films are engaging with the concepts of loss, grief, trauma and the
experienceofoutsiderdom.
[email protected]
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KayaDaviesHayon,Embodyingqueersexualsubjectivity:AbdellahTaïa’sL’Armée
dusalut(2014)
L’ArméedusalutisMoroccanwriterandfilmmakerAbdellahTaïa’sfirstfull-lengthfilm
andtheonlyMoroccanfeaturetodatetotreatthethemeofhomosexualityopenly.Itisa
coming-of-age narrative that details the day-to-day existence of a young teenage boy
namedAbdellah(SaidMrini)whoisstrugglingtocometotermswithhishomosexuality
in a small village in rural Morocco. Upon its release, the film faced criticism from the
Moroccanpress,IslamicscholarsandMoroccanintellectualsbecauseofits“un-Islamic”
content, but was also credited with inaugurating an open debate on homosexuality,
individualismandgayrightsinMorocco.Readingthefilminthelightofthesedebates,
andphenomenologicalapproachestosexuality(Ahmed2006)andspectatorship(Marks
2000;Sobchack2004),thispaperarguesthatL’Arméedusalutdrawsthespectatorinto
asensoryrelationshipwiththeimagethatnotonlyenablesusto“feel”asthoughweare
“feeling” Abdellah’s physical sensations, but also invokes a kind of mimetic empathy
with his emotional and affective state of alienation within the heteronormative
structuresofthefamilyandruralMoroccansociety.ThispaperconcludesthatL’Armée
dusalutisalandmarkfilmthatmakesabraveandcrucialinterventionintocontentious
debatesonsexualityintheMaghrebandtheMiddleEastmorebroadly.
Bio
Kaya Davies Hayon recently completed her PhD in French Studies at the University of
Manchester. Her doctoral thesis, entitled ‘The Embodiment of Subjectivity in
Contemporary Maghrebi and French Cinemas’, interweaves corporeal phenomenology
with theological and philosophical thought on the body by scholars in and from the
Maghreb and the Middle East to examine how Maghrebi(-French) people have been
representedcorporeallyincontemporaryMaghrebiandFrenchcinemas.
[email protected]
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Nick Rees-Roberts, Mommie dearest: sex, style and scandal in My Little Princess
(EvaIonesco,2011)
In 1978, a year after Joan Crawford’s death, her daughter published a tell-all memoir,
later adapted for the screen, a testimony of abuse at the hands of her exploitative
celebrity mother. Actress Eva Ionesco’s debut film, My Little Princess (2011), tells a
similartale:setinastylisedversionofthepast,thissemi-autobiographicalfilmrecounts
the disturbed childhood of Violetta (Anamaria Vartolomei), a young girl coerced into
nude modelling by her ambitious mother (Isabelle Huppert), a photographer, who
artfullyexploitsperverseimagesofherdaughter’ssexuality.Deftlytacklingtheissueof
femalepaedophilia,Ionescodrewonherownexperienceashermother’smuseandthe
subsequent acrimonious legal battle to take back ownership of her image from Irina
Ionesco. The film, originally carrying the punk-inspired title I’mNotaFuckingPrincess,
transcends the autobiographical framing of the revenge narrative by shifting the focus
to the deranged mother. This paper will focus on the film’s exploration of childhood
trauma and memory; its framing of photography through cinema; and its stylised take
onthefairy-talegenre.Iwillpayparticularattentiontoproductiondesign,notablythe
contributionofthecostumedesigner,stylistCatherineBaba.Thepaperwillexplorethe
film through the lens of fashion studies, contributing to a broader understanding of
Huppert’s status as a style icon, and situating the use of costume within historical
debatesaroundtheemergenceofchildren’sfashionimagery.
Bio
Nick Rees-Roberts is Senior Lecturer in French (Film Studies) at the University of
Bristol. He is the author of French Queer Cinema (EUP, 2008), co-author of Homo
exoticus:race,classeetcritiquequeer(ArmandColin,2010),andco-editorofAlainDelon:
Style, Stardom and Masculinity (Bloomsbury, 2015). He is currently completing a
monograph, Fashion Film: Art, Advertising, Documentary (Bloomsbury, 2016), before
beginninganewprojectonFrenchfashionandfilm.
[email protected]
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Daniel Morgan, A negotiated image of delinquency: young offenders and reform
schoolsinFrenchcinema,1949-1955
OnFebruary2,1945,theFrenchprovisionalgovernmentpassedasweepingreformof
thecountry'sjuvenilejusticesystem,establishingtheprinciple,stillvalidtoday,thatthe
education and protection of young offenders must take precedence over punishment.
The ensuing changes in France's reform schools are reflected in three pre-New Wave
dramas. Au Royaume des cieux (1949), made by left-leaning industry veteran Julien
Duvivier,andLaCageauxfilles(1950),directedbyMauriceCloche,afilmmakerknown
primarilyasamouthpiecefortheCatholicchurch,areactuallybasedonthesamereallife riot in a girls' reformatory and a series of rabble-rousing articles about it in the
popularnewspaperFrance-soir.JeanDelannoy'sChiensperdussanscollier(1955),today
remembered mostly for François Truffaut's attacks on it, is also interesting because it
wasadaptedfromanovelwithheavilyCatholicinfluencesbytwofamouslyanticlerical
screenwriters.Whileeachoftheseworksiscloselyidentifiedwithaspecificpositionon
France's postwar ideological spectrum, all three films promote a remarkably similar
attitude toward juvenile delinquency and the state's approach to delinquents. This
uniformity, absent from print media but clearly visible on screen, is hardly a
coincidence:archivaldocumentsrevealthatthethreefilmswerealltheresultofcareful
negotiationsbetweentheirproducers,theCNC,andtheMinistryofJustice,whichuseda
carrot-and-stickapproachtoencourageaspecificrepresentationofthejuvenilejustice
system that could satisfy leftists and Gaullists, religious and secular alike. Taking a
historical approach based on archival research (CNC censorship files, Crédit National
archives), I examine the political implications of the representation of juvenile
delinquencyduringacriticalbutoftenforgottenperiodofFrenchfilmhistory,fromthe
endofWorldWarTwothroughtothebeginningoftheNewWave.
Bio
Daniel Morgan is a Ph.D. candidate in cinema and media studies, instructor in English
information at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 (IRCAV). His PhD dissertation
topicis‘RepresentationsofCriminalJusticeinPostwarFrenchCinema’.
[email protected]
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Barry Nevin, Framing forest/framing France: viewing child poverty in postwar
ParisthroughJacquesFeyder’sCrainquebille(1923)andGribiche(1926)
During the 1920s and 1930s, Jacques Feyder ranked as one of the most critically
acclaimed figures in the French film industry. However, Feyder’s aesthetically diverse
corpus and perceived lack of engagement with contemporary French society incurred
the wrath of the influential nouvelle vague critics during the 1950s, and his work
continuestolanguishinthefootnotesoffilmhistory.Remedyingthisneglect,thispaper
examines two films directed by Feyder during the postwar period, each starring child
actor Jean Forest, who was discovered by Feyder in the streets of Paris. Drawing on
RichardDyer’sdescriptionofstarsasa“phenomenonofconsumption”(Dyer1998,1719),thispaperexaminesForest’sperformancesastextualconstructionsgroundedina
historically and geographically precise context: through the suffering and isolation
experienced by Forest’s characters in updated adaptations of Anatole France’s
Crainquebille (1901) and Frédéric Boutet’s Gribiche (1925), Feyder criticises French
society’s failure to address child poverty in postwar Paris. By locating Forest’s
characters within surrogate families at the end of each narrative, these films
simultaneously evoke an optimistic image of France, wounded by war and poor
administration, but capable of rehabilitation through human collaboration amongst
differentgenerations.ByreferringtoFeyder’semphasisontheimportanceofdescribing
“thepsychologyofanindividual[...]inlight”(Feyder1925,70)andfulfilling“thesocial
importance of cinema” (Feyder and Rosay 1947, 25), this paper ultimately aims to
examinethecontemporaryresonanceofForest’scharacterisationofneglectedchildren
andtorestoreFeyder’simportanceasasociallyengagedfilmmaker.
Bio
Barry Nevin completed his B.A. International and doctoral thesis at the National
University of Ireland, Galway. This research examines the relationship between the
mise-en-scène of temporality and the portrayal of class barriers in the films of Jean
Renoir.ThisresearchwasfundedbyNUIGalway,l’AssociationdesÉtudesFrançaiseset
Francophonesd’Irlande(ADEFFI)inassociationwiththeSwissembassyinIreland,and
theIrishResearchCouncil.
[email protected]