French Director Research Articles

The construction of ‘Jacques Becker’: realism, popular film and the auteur in 1950s film criticism

ABSTRACT Jacques Becker is well known as an auteur, one of the few French directors working in the post-war period who has been hailed as an ‘uncle’ of the New Wave (alongside Robert Bresson, Max Ophuls, Jean-Pierre Melville and Jacques Tati). This article positions him in relation to the ‘quality’ and popular cinema of the period through an exploration of the critical discourses that coalesce around his films. Becker embraced an auteurist conception of cinema but operated in an industry that was dominated by a commercial, quality cinema of international co-productions, stars and films destined for export. Drawing on articles from both the specialist and general press, this article explores the construction of Becker as an auteur at the very moment when the politique des auteurs was setting out its stall in opposition to the Tradition of Quality and popular cinema more generally. By tracing how Becker came to occupy a unique position in post-war French film, it sheds light on the framing of popular, quality and auteur film in relation to key social, political and aesthetic discourses in play at this time.

Mirror Images in "The Double Life of Vronique"

Krzysztof Kielowski was a world-class French director of Polish descendant whose early documentaries had a strong realistic style, and his later work, represented by the Red, White, and Blue Trilogy, showed a strong personal style and philosophical thinking of human beings. The Double Life of Vronique is his transition work, essential in the shift from Poland to the West. The use of mirrors as imagery and the mirror-parallel structure of the two women's stories become an essential way to express the core of the film. This paper will analyze the film's audio-visual language and mirror expressions, starting from the mirror and the mirror-parallel structure, to reveal how Kielowski uses virtual images and metaphors to express the universal experience of women as subjectivity in the filmusing Jacques Lacan's mirror stage to illustrate how Weronika and Vronique establish their subjectivity. Also, Krzysztof Kielowski created several layers of mirror relationships, all of which apply to the crystal of time of Gilles Deleuze's theory.

ОБРАЗЫ ВТОРОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ В СОВРЕМЕННОМ КИНО ЖАНРА ХОРРОР: КОДЫ КУЛЬТУРЫ

This article addresses the problem of contemporary European vision of the results of World War II through the prism of cinema, namely, a specific genre: horror. The images created in this genre by Norwegian and French directors are analyzed: Standartenführer, Germans, Soviet soldiers. The material is two relatively well-known films of the horror-comedy (black humor) subgenre («Operation "Dead Snow" (2009), «Operation "Dead Snow 2" (2014) (Norway) and the slasher «Underground Horror» (2022) (France, Belgium). The balance of power in these films, when the victory over zombies (German soldiers who have turned into the living dead) is won either by Europeans and Americans, or by representatives of national minorities, is, from the author’s point of view, the code of modern culture in the West, when the role of Soviet troops in the Victory over fascism is hushed up, when gays or representatives of national minorities act as heroes; when the Second World War becomes the subject of a comedy comprehension with an admixture of trash. Such a code differs significantly from the one that existed in literature and cinema of the immediate post-war period (in the second half of the 20th century), when living witnesses (war participants) were more numerous and moral values were somewhat different. This prism of artistic vision of the Second World War is justified by the nature of postmodern thinking and the demand for this kind of film production among Western viewers.

Кинематограф в одном кадре

The article examines the status of the screenshot, a separate static frame, a fragment of the cinematic stream, its relationship to the “whole” of the film, its influence on the spectator’s perception, as well as everyday user practices involving the observation and creation of screenshots. The starting point of the text is an attempt to reconsider the common notion of the screenshot/one-frame as a particle in a subordinate position to the film (and more broadly to the history of cinema). On the basis of texts by Pascal Bonitzer, Sergei Eisenstein, and Roland Barthes, the basic thesis is formulated — the mutual relation between the frame and the film can be constructed differently than the logic of “the frame is a lower-order element nested within the whole film;” on the contrary, the frame and the film in some cases meet as equivalent phenomena or they are superimposed on each other according to the principle of palimpsest. The article deals with three common forms of using frames and screenshots advertising and illustrative shots, the use of film images in sticker packs for messengers, and albums of images in social networks. The question is raised about the communicative plasticity of separate images, the metamorphoses that occur with them when they are taken out of their original context, and their insertion into new artistic and research practices. As such practices, the text pays special attention to two cases — the screenshot project of French director Frank Beauvais and contemporary audiovisual film criticism (based on the works of Johannes Binotto, Carrie Griffith, Daniel McIlwright).

De la rencontre de l’Autre à la perte de soi. Les réécritures filmiques de "L’aventure ambiguë" de Cheikh Hamidou Kane

This article reads the films L’aventure ambiguë by French director Jacques Champreux and L’Afrance by Franco-Sen-egalese filmmaker Alain Gomis as possible sequels, continu-ations or follow-up stories of L’aventure ambiguë, the best known novel of Senegalese author Cheikh Hamidou Kane. Building on the hypothesis that film adaptation is a creative endeavour that allows filmmakers to state their views, not just on the literary source text but also about their contem-porary social environment, it studies the aesthetic strategies and film techniques deployed to replicate the written literary content in the audiovisual media and elucidates some of the new perspectives that this remediation brings on the ques-tions raised in the novel. It argues that through a complex relationship of continuity and rupture, convergence and sub-version, the films recontextualize the ideas put forward in the novel to connect them with present-day sociocultural issues.

Analysis of Clo from 5 to 7 Regarding the Gaze Theory

Before the 1960s, cinema was predominately focused on previous works of literature or the history before WW2 in France. A group of French directors in the late 1950s and 1960s, or the nouvelle vague (new wave), which can be directly translated to the new wave - contradicted this notion because they felt like this did not depict the realistic lives of people and produced films that countered the dominant cinema. Agnes Vardas 1962 Cleo from 5 to 7, follows Cleo (Corinee Marchand) in real-time on her journey through Paris, awaiting for the diagnosis relating to her cancer. This article argues that through the objectification of Clo under the male gaze, the audience is sutured into Clos perspective, allowing them to empathize with her emotions and understand the struggles that women face in a contemporary setting. This essay argues the point above by the detailed analysis of two particular scenes focusing on camera shots and the iconography of certain props and actions. By doing so, the analysis mirrors the social and political problems regarding gender of the films particular time of 1962.

Masterpieces of French animation of the turn of the XX-XXI centuries: analysis and interpretation in the context of the development of French animated cinema

The article presents an analysis and interpretation of the features of two animated works of French animation created at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. "Kirikou and the Sorceress", a cartoon released in 1998, is one of the most interesting works of the famous French animated film director Michel Oselo. The "Trio from Belleville", a work that appeared on screens in 2003, gained popularity not only in France, but also glorified the name of its creator Sylvain Chaume in the world of animation. The aim of the study is to develop theoretical knowledge about the world's oldest animation school by analyzing these works as the most representative in French animated cinema at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. The methodology of the research is based primarily on the use of formal stylistic, iconological and cultural-historical methods, which makes it possible to describe and analyze the artistic forms of works of artistic animation in France, to determine the meanings contained in them in the context of the culture that gave rise to them. The novelty of the research is primarily connected with the introduction into the circulation of Russian science of previously unexplored works of modern French animation and their interpretation in the context of the development of French animated cinema. The author analyzes the plot features, character systems, reveals the metaphors and meanings that fill the cartoons in question, as well as the means of artistic expression used by French directors. The analysis of these works shows that the animated works of the turn of the XX-XXI centuries reflect a significant stage in the development of modern French animated cinema. This development takes place not by referring to foreign experience, but by forming national specifics in the creation of animated works. French directors manage to successfully improve their own original handwriting, while transferring the meanings and values of national culture to the screen.

Healing in Antonin Artaud's Theatre

Antonin Artaud was a distinguished French director, actor, theatre theorist and poet. Artaud's reputation in the theatre world is fundamentally due to his promotion of a series of "anti" theatre theories including, but not limited to, the "theatre of cruelty", which highlights the aesthetics of the therapeutic aspects of Artaud's theatre. The use of theatre as therapy for self-awareness and improvement of the individual's physical and mental condition is a value that has been in play since its emergence, and Artaud's influence on the development of theatre therapy is mentioned in the book Drama Therapy. It is conceivable that the healing presence of Artaud's theatre is obvious and essential. in this paper, we will take Artaud's theatre theory as the main body of discussion, and take three key words-"language, metaphysics, and cruelty" as the starting point to elaborate the healing properties of Artaud's theatre.

Jacques Copeau in tune with romanticism, hand in hand with Rousseau: from the myth of child’s innocence to the problems of actor’s consciousness

The article examines the relationship between Jacques Copeau’s innovative approach to actor training and the romantic ideals associated with the figure of the child that prevailed at the turn of the twentieth century. Initially, the article explores how Copeau’s veneration of the child reflects his yearning for ‘untouched beings’ – individuals who are malleable and free from previous experiences. It then elucidates the explicit connections between Copeau’s perception of the child’s ‘unconscious genius’ and the myth of the child-artist, capable of marvelling at the world and perceiving hidden connections and insights that escape others. This highlights the French director’s belief that the source of artistic creation and the actor’s dramatic vocation reside, to some extent, beyond the realm of conscious perception. Subsequently, the article draws on Rousseau’s Émile ou De l‘éducation to highlight the striking parallels between Rousseau’s principles for the education of children and the fundamental principles proposed by Copeau in the realm of actor training, parallels hitherto strikingly little explored in texts on the French director. In conclusion, the text shows that the child model, despite its idealization for innocence, facilitates transformative practices integrating the actor’s unconscious and embracing the unknown in training. This departure from traditional stage reconstructions ushers in a discovery-based logic through improvisation that we can recognise in the work of pedagogues and directors such as Jacques Lecoq, Philippe Gaulier and Ariane Mnouchkine. By engaging with the child model, Copeau’s actors embraced curiosity, fostering a dynamic shift towards fluid and exploratory artistic expression.

Imagining the Elements with Gaston Bachelard and Claire Denis: ‘Weighted’ Images, Drift and Diffusion in L’Intrus/The Intruder

Abstract Adapted from philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy’s semi-autobiographical text, The Intruder remains one of French director Claire Denis’ most transnational and yet dreamlike works. In this article, I pair philosopher Gaston Bachelard (in particular, his concept of the material and dynamic imagination and his reveries on water and air) with Denis to explore how The Intruder enacts an imagining of the elements and an elemental poetics of film form. Bringing Bachelard into a dialogue with Saad Chakali’s, Rosalind Galt’s and Nancy’s writing on the film’s imagery, I also approach The Intruder as an image-poem that is structured by poetically ‘weighted’ images and by recurrent symbolism. Shot through with an oneiric sense of drift, voyaging and diffusion, I explore some of the ways that Denis’s elemental imaginings of air and oceanic water reflect an affective politics.

Ephemeral Sentimentality in Gaspar Noé’s Creative World

The article focuses on the imaginary, yet somewhat real world created by one of the most contradictory filmmakers of our time, Gaspar Noé. Noé is a French director of Argentinean origin, born in 1963. His works received both admiration and criticism over the past decades. He is criticized for the brutality of any episodes and motifs, yet adored by those who can appreciate the hidden sentimental overtone of his films. The emotional impact of his works is ephemeral and difficult to grasp at once, yet it lingers on. The initial episodes of the “Irreversible” can cause nausea, but the latter ones (edited in an inverted chronological sequence) possess an inevitable hint of vain hopes of happiness. Gaspar Noé labeled his next film, “Enter the Void,” a “psychedelic melodrama.”We traced this ephemeral sentimental mood from the earliest short “Carne” (1991) to the director’s releases of 2018–2019. All the forbidden topics (not so much forbidden in the contemporary cinema) appear in Gaspar Noé’s films: excessive violence depicted too realistically, drugs of various kinds, soft porn, even hardcore (in “Love”). One can see the incest taboo, regarded by anthropologists to be the core of culture, suspended here (not for the first time in the contemporary cinema as well). Nevertheless, the sentimental aura dissolves it all.The world of Gaspar Noé’s creative work is dangerous and unpredictable. You can take a wrong turn in the city, be raped and cruelly murdered. You can enter “The Void” (a bar named so) and be accidentally shot. And then you wonder if the Tibetan Book of Dead gives you a chance of return, in the womb of your own sister, as a child of your friend.A fantastic world, but much too keen to the real one. In a true fantasy, “Game of Thrones” for example, we find as much violence, rape, incest, burning a witch alive (compare the latest Noé’s production, Lux Aeterna). But you do not feel it. Fantasy is a safe medium of releasing our primitive fears and drives in a suspended mode: it never was so, the fake medieval world of George Martin does not exist. The world of Gaspar Noé exists, it is crammed into modern cities and waits around the corner.Here we need the aid of Lacanian psychoanalysis. To interpret the difference, one must take into account Jacques Lacan’s concept of “the Real”. If the Real (not the outer reality, but Real inside the human being) comes too close to us, we feel fear and anxiety. If the Real crosses the Imaginary (vain hopes for happiness, for example), such an intersection provokes hatred. If the Real crosses the Symbolic, it provokes a vigorous desire not to know. Those who blame Gaspar Noé feel this desire. Those who appreciate him try to encompass the polarity of abomination and sentimentalism in the real world.

Yolande Zauberman

Veteran arts reporter and FQ contributing editor Joan Dupont interviews the French director Yolande Zauberman, whose extensive oeuvre spans groundbreaking documentaries and prize-winning feature films including Moi Ivan, toi Abraham (1993), Clubbed to Death (1997), and M (2019).

The nomadic subject as a cinematographic hero by Alain Resnais

The author of the work raises the issue of the phenomenon of nomadism in the context of the work of the French director Alain Resnais. The object of the research is the early works of the director, such films as "Last year in Marienbad", "Hiroshima, my love", "I love you, I love". The purpose of the work is to answer the question of how nomadic strategies allow the author to create non-linear narrative structures, oscillating characters and flickering characters in his films, and how understanding these strategies can help viewers and researchers in the act of deciphering works. The author also analyzes a number of phenomena related to nomadism, such as the rhizome, the body without organs, deterritorialization, escape, flicker. The novelty of the research lies in the application of nomadic strategies to the cinema of Alain Resnais. This approach makes it possible to use the current philosophical and art history prism to study narrative structures, intraframe space and characters. The author argues that Rene's cinematography can be viewed through a position of resistance to forms of power - suppression and control - which manifests itself in the violation of traditional forms of narration and the creation of split characters. To study the mentioned aspects of Rene's work, the author resorts to the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. The author also explains the position of the modern viewer and describes the strategies of looking, which can lead to a state of pleasure from interacting with nomadic works.

OUT 1 ЖАКА РИВЕТТА. ДИСКУРС-АНАЛИЗ КИНОПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЯ

The present case study offers a brief review of the history and methods in discourse analysis of films, makes an assumption about the film Out 1: Noli me tangere (1971) by the French director and critic Jacques Rivette being a unique example of a “linguistic” film; makes an attempt to analyze the film with the help of existing theoretical models.

Worldview and art components of the innovative concept of the theater of French director Jacques Copeau

The goal of the work. Identify the ideological and artistic components of the innovative concept of the theatre of the French actor, director, theatre teacher and critic J. Copeau as a holistic worldview and artistic formation. The research methodology consists in the application of the historical-cultural method: for the analysis of the directorial and pedagogical activity of J. Copeau in the context of the socio-cultural space of the first half of the twentieth century; system method: for the analysis of the theatrical and pedagogical concept of J. Copeau; art method: to analyse the formation of worldviews, artistic and aesthetic principles and directorial individuality of J. Copeau; structural and functional method: to analyse the innovative essence of the system of training a well-developed actor: the theatre school "Vieux-Columbie". The novelty of the study is to determine the basic worldview and aesthetic guidelines of the artist, part of the innovative directorial concept of theatrical art. Conclusions. Jacques Copeau's directing career had a great influence on the development of European theatre. His method of conducting acting training using a mask is considered in the world of performing arts one of the most effective ways to master professional skills. The idea of the master of the "permanent architectural scene" is considered, according to experts, the most original in solving the stage form. Copeau's international success in journalism, drama, directing, acting and teaching is a level of achievement unparalleled in the history of modern French and perhaps even modern European theatre. While the French theatre was in desperate need of leadership and new goals, J. Copeau's work demonstrated extraordinary inspiration and a constant pursuit of quality. His influence on French cultural policy was indeed great and profound, and his work has left a deep mark in the theory and practice of leading researchers of American and British institutes. Keywords: theatre, actor, director Jacques Copeau.

On Artists, Models and Artworks: Balzac’s The Unknown Masterpiece and Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken in Jacques Rivette’s Art Theory

The artistic theory that French director Jacques Rivette (1928-2016) developed throughout his long career is concentrated in a very singular way in La Belle Noiseuse (1991). His reflection on issues such as the nature of the artist, the traumatic process of creation and the very essence of the artwork draws from many sources, most of them literary, which he links together very suggestively. Among the literary sources, Balzac's famous story The Unknown Masterpiece (Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu, 1837), of which the film is a very free adaptation, and Ibsen's last drama, When We Dead Awaken (Når vi døde vågner, 1899), stand out most notably. Rivette's fruitful connection of both texts is a matter that has barely been addressed by critics, despite its crucial importance for the interpretation of the film's artistic theory. This article analyzes this connection, focusing on the reasons that led Rivette to choose one of Ibsen's most obscure and least known plays and on the subtle way it is interwoven with Balzac's text.

“Do I Have to Sign My Real Name?” Ethical and Methodological Challenges in Multilingual Research with Adult SLIFE Learning French as a Second Language

In 2017, Quebec’s Auditor General reported several major issues regarding government-funded French as a second language (FSL) courses, especially those intended for adult students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE). To this day, no official framework or program exists for this specific population, a situation that the government of Quebec wishes to resolve. Our research team was thereby mandated by the Ministry of Immigration to conduct a large-scale multilingual study with the objective of gaining a better understanding of the realities and needs of the various stakeholders involved in low-literate FSL classes. We met 42 teachers, 24 French learning center directors, and 10 pedagogical advisors in individual interviews; we also led 107 group interviews with SLIFE in 26 languages, allowing us to meet 464 adult SLIFE enrolled in low-literate FSL classes from 11 regions of the province of Quebec, most of them being refugees. This article reports on the decision-making process in which we engaged to overcome the ethical and methodological challenges we faced at various stages of the data collection with SLIFE participants: recruitment, informed consent, confidentiality, interview protocol design, instrument piloting, data collection, and data translation and transcription. To make informed decisions, we had to turn to literature outside SLA (i.e., refugee research and translation/interpreting literature) for guidance. In this article we discuss the limitations and contributions of our research to guide researchers who will conduct studies with similar non-academic samples/populations.

On language and gender: An interview with Olivier Lallart about PD

In this interview, I discuss with French director Olivier Lallart his film PD (or, in English, Fag) (2019). PD focuses on the sometimes-toxic-and-sometimes-romantic relationship between Thomas (Paul Gomérieux) and his schoolmate Esteban (Jacques Lepesqueur); and it offers thoughtful exploration of the language with which we describe same-sex love. The film has had a resoundingly successful second life on YouTube. Since its premiere, this 35-minute film has had more than 3.7 million views and it has been subtitled in over a dozen languages. In what follows, we discuss the film’s production – exploring issues ranging from casting to shooting, and from production costs to reception – and, more significantly, Lallart’s social commentary by means of Thomas’ and Esteban’s story. This interview advances scholarship both by attending to this film’s remarkably successful second life and by advocating for more critical attention to be directed to our use of language.

Dreamlike and narrative nature of screen texts

It is argued that the screen narrative is the most effective means of representing dreaming, the temptation of voyeurism. A gradual historical movement of a screen narration from literary work with plots related to dreaming and to oneiric as the poetics of a future film is noted in the paper. The feature drama of the French director François Ozon "In the House" (2012) is analyzed. The postmodern characteristics of poetics and semiotics of the film are considered. A model "the narrator and the listener" is proposed as a semiotic interpretation of the film.

#MeToo, #BalanceTonPorc, the Feminist Rape-Revenge Film in the 2010s and Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge

This article brings together essays on revenge by philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Emmanuel Levinas with the rape-revenge film genre through a detailed reading of French director Coralie Fargeat’s first feature film Revenge (2017). It also links the film’s presentation of rape and violence to the #MeToo movement and how it played out in France under the #BalanceTonPorc hashtag and suggests that the leading protagonist of Revenge Jen (Mathilda Lutz) may be considered as an example of the twenty-first century version of horror’s “Final Girl” first theorized by Carol Clover in the 1980s.