Thompson, Céline and Tavernier: An Historical Echo Chamber of Western Imperial Ideology

Sophie Watt

doi:10.18573/newreadings.117

Abstract

Bertrand Tavernier’s film Coup de torchon (1981) in dialogue with Jim Thompson’s novel Pop . 1280 (1964) and Louis-Ferdinand Celine’s Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932) produces an historical echo chamber around racial violence which is rooted in layers of historical practices and discourses with transatlantic ramifications. This article argues that racial violence resonates across historical periods and functions as a metonymic narrative thread between the texts, bringing together the history of slavery, racial segregation, colonial violence and neo-colonial power as an integral part of Western culture and identity. This article analyses this historical convergence as a form of multiple enunciation, creating a metatextual space which allows for the articulation of a strong critique of Western imperial violence and thought systems.

Highlights

Reading French director Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de torchon (1981) in dialogue with the US-American noir novel from which it was adapted, Jim Thompson’s Pop . 1280 (1964), and its principal textual influence, Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932), facilitates a multi-temporal historical approach that offers a deeper understanding of global imperial ideology
I argue that from the American Deep South of the 1910s to Western Francophone Africa in the 1920s and the 1930s, racial violence resonates across historical periods and functions as a metonymic narrative thread between the three texts
The processes of adaptation between the texts elicit a critical reading of the historical periods and locations of the three fictional narratives and the time of their release, all linked by a shared history of racial violence

Summary

Metonymic Violence

The cultural palimpsest built between Thompson and Tavernier principally via Céline, and André Gide and Georges Simenon, acts as an historical echo chamber. – Bah ça prouve rien du tout, il aurait tout aussi bien pu téter une vache, et ça prouverait pas que les vaches c’est des gens ! This technique, that takes racist discourse and exaggerates it until it is revealed as irrational and absurd, subverts the pseudologic of racist discourse with sarcasm, while showing how central it is to everyday violence, as it allows for a justification and a normalization of racially motivated violent practices As seen in these passages that aim to represent the 1910s and the 1930s, respectively, the racist discourse dehumanizes the black population, whether in the USA or Africa. The protagonists are embedded within a multi-layered history of racial violence and as a result are portrayed as entrapped in a system that justifies the unjustifiable

The Breakdown of the Societal Matrix and the Loss of Humanity

Conclusion

Works Cited