Beau Travail - by women about men

Tonight we discussed the history, the institutional context of women within the film industry. We looked at the idea of the woman's picture, whether it is possible to identify particular themes and content that could indicate a film is targeted for a female audience. We wondered whether it is useful to employ some of the cine-psychoanalytical approaches that would argue for a gendered gaze - in particular, whether it makes a difference that a man or woman are behind the camera (as director/cinematographer) or are part of the writing.

Thinking about the clip 'Beau Travail' - is it helpful to consider it as reflecting the gender of the filmmaker? Using the ideas we collected around 'The Piano', I would argue there is an amusingly ironic play of the private/domestic (stereotypically female) activities with our ideas of the French foreign legion. The soldiers' beautiful bodies are on display, but are domesticated - we see their private, ordinary interactions (as the Russian soldier learns French through naming the washing). This is juxtaposed with Rahel, a local girl, hanging out her own washing - more brightly coloured, less uniform. Has Claire Denis taken an archetypal male domain and somehow made it feminine?

Is it equally relevant that Denis spent her first ten years in West Africa (where her father was serving as an administrator in the French colonial services)? Her first feature 'Chocolat' drew directly on this experience and 'Beau Travail' continues this engagement withh French postcolonial identity.

Some of us talked about the sensory experience of these films, for example, the strong emphasis on touch in 'The Piano' - as it starts with that x-ray shot of her fingers. Denis, for me, is visually really striking - creating sensations of that world just through the light and colour on display. Some women film critics have argued for touch to be a particularly appealing to female audiences and filmmakers. Do you agree?

Some of this, and our discussion, focussed on the form (camera shots etc) rather than the content. But what do you see as the most relevant questions to ask - about form, about the content of the films or about the context of the filmmaker?

2 Days in Paris

Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg in 2 Days in Paris


I rather enjoyed Julie Delpy's film. It's a kind of romantic comedy with elements of screwball and (very mild) grossout contemporary comedy that features a French woman and an American man who live together in New York and are visiting Paris on the way back from a holiday in Venice.

It is almost biographical in the sense that Delpy is an actor who has been out of France for some time. She had previously co-scripted the second film she made with Ethan Hawke for Richard Linklater, Before Sunset (2004). That film covered the brief meeting of an American man and a French woman who had met before (in 1995's Before Sunrise). In the new film, a similar scenario is played for laughs and Delpy directs and even writes some of the music.

Overall, I took this to be an American-style comedy, but with a French script that was more intelligent than American 30-something comedies and less whiny than Woody Allen. Allen is a reference point since the American man is half-Jewish and played by a Jewish-looking actor who in the film is mistaken for an Arab. I mention this because the film plays with the character's sense of Jewish denial (and a stereotypical French response) and because it is indicative of the kind of material in the film which seems to have upset many of the IMDB commentators, both French and American. But as one of the other users notes, these kinds of jokes are made in all cosmopolitan cities. So, get over it, I suppose.

I think it is depressing when Delpy gets criticised for being egoistic. She has produced intelligent, adult (i.e. grown-up) comedy. That's pretty rare in my view.

As to the difficulties of finding finance for a film like this, Julie Delpy must have some clout, but I noted that it was a French/German co-production, which possibly explains the brief cameo appearance of Daniel Bruehl.

'Pascale Ferran' - sex and death . . .

I guess a female French director was always going to adapt Lady Chatterley better than an English male -- right? I'm certainly keen since all the reviews I've read emphasise its ability to translate the sensual into the visual. There's a lot of cultural theory to back up the belief (okay, my belief) that women are better at this, than men. Alright, theory written by women, but with capital letters and everything - honest . . .

I watched Beau Travail again last night -- preparing for the course -- and was swamped by its brilliant creation (re-creation?) of sensuous and sensual experiences, just through our eyes. Also, Claire Denis' ability to suggest and communicate characters' inner lives through juxtapositions and interweaving of shots (not anything so structured as a narrative).

Amy Taubin, reviewing Lady Chatterley in Film Comment (Vol 43/3) talks about how Ferran deals with the primal experiences of death (Petit Arrangements avec les morts - sounds great, won at Cannes - but nowhere on distribution or DVD?) and now sex. She praises Ferran's ability to create an equivalent to third person, literary narrative and order the "inchoate feelings and ideas exhibited by the people onscreen". She further concludes that: "Lawrence believed that the mind was the most important organ of sexual experience. Ferran comes closer to proving that theory than he did". Taubin clearly claiming something more than a film the dirty mac brigade. I'm really curious to see if this film can really combine a literary voice, a sense of the inner life of the characters and a vibrant visual sexuality . . . ? But I'm sure we can come up with some examples already?

New Wave Women in France....

Pascale Ferran's Lady Chatterley comes to Bradford this month -- trailing glory, having won a number of the French film oscars, Cesars, including Best Film (with stiff competition from Indigenes/Days of Glory. An interesting article appeared in The Independent in relation to it 'The French Connection' (Geoffrey McNab). It discussed how the French film industry was doing a better job of revering our living 'auteur' directors than we do, how they were doing a better job of trawling well-known and obscure literary classics (Elizabeth Taylor's Angel)to produce successful films.
Do we agree? It seems to peddle a number of well-established stereotypes, although there is no denying that the French culture industry seems enviable in the way it cherishes a sense of identity and artistry. But are we really that bad by comparison?

I start to admit that maybe our nearest cultural cousins have the edge with the Cahiers du cinéma manifesto outlining 12 objectives for cinema in France. Maybe a little nervous about where Sarkozy is going, it looks to outline objectives for preserving and supporting the operations of the French film industry, stating films are important as 'shaping our views of ourselves and of others'. Amen to that.
Ferran's use of her winning speech to plea for better conditions and commitment to the French film industry - worried about a growing gap between the financing of "rich" (commercial) films and "poor" (art) films as a result of a system "that betrays the heritage of the greatest French filmmakers". French filmmakers seems to acknowledge their debt to history and to cherish French culture in a enviably integrated approach -- or is this sense of history a handicap, rather than an advantage?