The spectator’s anxiety in film narrative: Notes on films by Bertrand Bonello

Abstract

The representation of emotions and affects in cinematic narrative can participate in the construction of narration in the same way as the representation of events. Anxiety as one of the “expectant emotions” (E. Bloch) is of particular interest in this regard. By anxiety in the narrative, we mean any zone of uncertainty associated both with the field of the narrator or participant in the world of history, and with the field of the viewer. It is interesting in this regard to consider cases when anxiety ceases to be related to a specific character and is created at the intersection of the event-receptive field, referring to the entire structure of the narrative and thereby causing anxiety in the viewer. Films directed by Bertrand Bonello, regarded as an example of a special type of sensuality in contemporary French cinema, find themselves involved in the construction of this particular type of anxiety. By destabilizing the narrative, depriving the viewer of the familiar landmarks during the unfolding of the story, Bonello in every film refuses to provide the viewer with a habitually safe “place,” as happens in classic Hollywood cinema. Instead, films provoke a state of gripping, affective engagement, which arises, among other things, in a situation of failure of the usual strategies of narrative perception. This article attempts to describe the narrative strategies in three films by B. Bonello (“L’Apollonide: Souvenirs de la maison close” / “House of Tolerance”, 2011, “Saint Laurent”, 2014, and “Nocturama”, 2016), provoking “viewer’s anxiety” and also consider the mechanism of this anxiety, which is closely related to the experience of experiencing pain.