Reframing violence in Corsica : cinema as mask and mirror

Abstract

Corsican historical and endemical violence takes many forms (armed fight for Independence, ‘terrorist’ attacks, bombings, delinquency…) and this violence has often been overexploited by media and political discourses. What viewpoints might filmmakers in Corsica have of this violence? Is their filmic output reflective of the situation, offering original mise-en-scene to mirror and engage with the socio-historical context? Should Corsican cinema, on the contrary, take some distance to reconstitute the framework of a stereotyped, decontextualised violence, at the risk of dismissing historical reality? A new generation of filmmakers is at odds with the touristic, exotic, and truncated exploitation of the image of a sunny yet explosive island, a strange and foreign Corsica. This paper seeks to question the ethical dilemma these filmmakers are facing and analyse the dialectical position of the screen as mask and mirror. Filmmakers need to delocalise, internalise, decontextualise and reframe this violence in the specific context of Corsica to reveal the unspoken, to highlight silences, to echo clandestine testimonies, to exorcise individual memories and collective trauma.