Sapphism on Screen: Lesbian Desire in French and Francophone Cinema by Lucille Cairns

Abstract

866 Reviews the rejection of literarymovements and stated doctrines. Noel's poetry interrogates identity,time, and thepower and failings of language. Itsmaterialism emerges from his intense engagement with the physical, and his insistence on the bodily basis of thought as he explores mental space and processes. La Chute des temps(I983) and L'Ete languemorte (I982), included here along with the short text 'encore', are among Noel's most significantworks, exemplifying his poetic preoccupations and individual style. The long texts are divided into three cantos and, in La Chute des temps, two intercalated 'counter-cantos'. The short, unpunctuated lines lead to frequent instances of enjambment that contribute both touncertainty of interpretation and to a sense of acceleration, 'falling' (discussed by Rothwell, pp. I8-23), or, touse Noel's preferred term, 'precipitation'. Noel's writing performs the passing of time even as itattempts to lay itbare. He writes of poetry that 'quelque chose appelle dans lemouvement I de sa propre disparition' (p. 70). La Chute des tempsisalsomotivated by a constant questioning each section opens with the line 'qui'-and it implicates a 'tu' figurewho is simultaneously an other within the text, the subject itself, the reader, and an evocation of silencing. L'Ete languemorte more clearly involves an interlocutor, and this poem explores love and desire through the lens ofmemory. Rothwell's approach as translator is 'mildly foreignising' (p. 41), which is help ful for readers of French who are offered new interpretations and ambiguities. It is particularly effective in revealing the earthiness ofNoel's language thatunderpins its more abstract formulations, and itdoes full justice toNoel's own tendency to render French strange in the experimental 'contre-chants'. The introduction traces Noel's poetic writing since the late I950s, bringing out the continuities and developments between volumes, and explicating complex images and concepts with great lucidity.An ideal introduction toNoel's poetry, italso forges links between diverse texts for those readers already familiarwith this challenging and compelling body ofwriting. UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM EMMA WAGSTAFF Sapphism on Screen: Lesbian Desire in French and Francophone Cinema. By Lu CILLE CAIRNS. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2oo6. 223 pp. /50. ISBN 978-o-7486-2 I65-I. Despite the increase in representations of lesbians in recent French and francophone cinema, scholarly attention to these images has mainly been restricted to journal ar ticles and chapters inedited volumes. Lucille Cairns's characteristically eloquent and well-researched monograph thereforemakes a decisive contribution toknowledge in the field of 'lesbian/gay/queer cultural studies within a French language cinematic context' (p. 19 ) . Cairns's corpus spans theperiod I936-2003 and encompasses both avant-garde and mainstream productions. Moreover, she includes a range of genres, both fictional and factual, and examines short-,medium-, and full-length features. The incorporation of non-French francophone filmsallows Cairns to engage in enriching transnational comparisons, although these are unavoidably within Western cultures; Cairns was able to findjust one filmabout lesbians in a developing francophone country-Joseph Gai Ramaka's Karmen Gei fromSenegal (200I). The book is underpinned by an impressive array ofwritings on sexuality by key psychoanalysts and philosophers, including Freud, Lacan, Deleuze, Kristeva, and Foucault. Additionally, Cairns engages with a broad range of scholarly debates on filmicmediations of lesbianism. Furthermore, she includes reviews from both the MLR, I03.3, 2oo8 867 mainstream and lesbian press, thus usefully adding the voices of others to her film readings. Structurally, thebook groups the films into the fourmost prominent modes of representation: 'criminality', 'pathology', 'liminality', and 'lesbo-affirmativemise en-scenes of desire'. These chapters are then subdivided into smaller units; forex ample, Chapter 2, entitled 'bad girls', categorizes the images into the subsections of 'sin', 'vice', and 'aggression, violence, bestiality'. The reader can thus construct a nuanced understanding of thedominant representational modes of lesbianism. Some films are included inmore than one chapter, as is the case with Jean-Pierre De nis's Les Blessures assassines (2000), which simultaneously conforms to stereotypes of lesbians as both criminals (p. 33) and incestuous (p. 76), but which offers explicitly erotic 'scenes [that] are none the less ripe forthe lesbian viewer's delectation' (p. I69). Cairns thereforereflectstheambiguities of screen depictions of lesbianism which can not be pigeon-holed into single,monolithic...