Working Paper 138/2014 Antoine Doinel’s Spleen: Truffaut Misreads Baudelaire Achinoam Ester Berger Published by the European Forum at the Hebrew University Jerusalem 9190501, Israel Tel: (972 2) 588-3286 Fax: (972 2) 588-1535 E-mail:
[email protected] http://www.ef.huji.ac.il Working Paper 138/2014 Antoine Doinel’s Spleen: Truffaut Misreads Baudelaire Achinoam Ester Berger © European Forum at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the European Forum at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the author of this paper. European Forum at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905, Israel | http://www.ef.huji.ac.il Tel: (972 2)588-3286 | Fax: (972 2)588-1535 |
[email protected] Abstract:1 This essay examines the intertextual dialogue between François Truffaut’s cycle of autobiographical films, known as the Doinel cycle, and Charles Baudelaire’s collection of poems The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal), and collection of prose poems The Spleen of Paris (Le Spleen de Paris: Petits poèmes en prose). The focal point is the fourth Doinel film, Bed and Board (Domicile Conjugal, 1970), and the poem “Spleen IV” in The Flowers of Evil. By applying Aner Preminger’s (Preminger: 2006) cinematic adaptation of Harold Bloom’s “anxiety of influence” theory (Bloom: 1973) and “misreading” concept (Bloom: 1975), I argue that the explicit and implicit references to Baudelaire are not a homage, i.e.