DOCSLIB.ORG

BEAU TRAVAIL Gute Arbeit Good Work

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
BEAU TRAVAIL Gute Arbeit Good Work 17 BEAU TRAVAIL Gute Arbeit Good Work Regie: Claire Denis Land: Frankreich 1999. Produktion: Pathé Télévision, La Sept/ Synopsis Arte, SM Films. Regie: Claire Denis. Buch: Ciaire Denis, |ean Pol Former sergeant-major Galoup remembers his time in Fargeau. Kamera: Agnès Godard. Ausstattung: Arnaud de Moleron. the French Foreign Legion on a desolate outpost some• Kostüme: Judv Shrewsbury. Musik: Eran Tzur. Choreographie: where on the Gulf of Djibouti. It was a regimented life that Bernardo Montet. Ton: Jean-Paul Mugel. Schnitt: NelK Quettier. he enjoyed sharing with his people, his men. But when a Mischung: Dominique Gahorieau. Produzent: Jérôme Minet. Aus• new recruit attracted the attention of his commanding führender Produzent: Eric Zaouali. officer, Galoup had decided to put his rival out of action. Mitwirkende: Denis Lavanl (Galoup), Michel Subor (Marchand), The plan failed. Galoup was drummed out of the Foreign Grégoire Colin (Sentain), Marta Tatesse Kassa (junge Frau). Legion and returned to Marseille. Format: 35mm, 1:1.66, Farbe. Länge: 90 Minuten, 24 Bilder/Sek. Sprache: Französisi h. Three questions to the director Uraufführung: 2. September 1999, Filmfestival Venedig. Question: How did BEAU TRAVAIL come about? Weltvertrieb: Mercure Distribution, 27, rue de la Butte aux Cailles, Claire Denis: Because a contract and a wish coincided. 75013 Paris, Tel. (33-1 ) 44 16 88 44, Fax: (33-1 ) 45 65 07 47. Pierre Chevalier commissioned me to make a film for his Arte series Terres étrangères (Foreign Lands) about the Inhalt history of the French abroad. I also wanted to bring to the Ex-Feldwebel Galoup erinnert sich an seine Zeit in der französi• cinema the feeling I got from reading Herman Melville's schen Fremdenlegion, irgendwo auf einem Außenposten im Golf poem 'The Night March'. The screenplay is based on von Dschibuti. another Melville story, 'Billy Budd', although it's told from Ein durchstrukturiertes Leben, das er mit seinen Leuten, seinen the point of view of the 'evil' Claggart, represented by the Männern gerne teilt. Als ein neuer Rekrut die Aufmerksamkeit non-commissioned officer Galoup in my film. And in seines befehlshabenden Offiziers findet, beschließt Galoup, den place of a screenplay, Jean Pol Fargeau and I wrote Konkurrenten außer Gefecht zu setzen. Der Plan schlägt fehl. Galoup's diary. Galoup muß die Fremdenlegion verlassen und geht nach Mar• Question: We know from your first film, Chocolat, that seille zurück. you grew up in Africa. Why base the film in Djibouti, of all places? Drei Fragen an die Regisseurin CD.: I spent a part of my childhood there and it's the Frage: Wie ist BEAU TRAVAIL entstanden? place that sticks more firmly in my mind than anywhere Claire Denis: Indem ein Auftrag und ein Wunsch zusammentra• else in Africa. In any case, the Foreign Legion is in Djibouti. fen. Es gab den Auftrag von Pierre Chevalier für eine Sendereihe Everyone cautioned me against shooting there because bei Arte, die unter dem Titel 'Terres étrangères' (Fremde Länder) of the climate, because of the inadequate infrastructure, die Geschichte der Franzosen im Ausland schildern sollte. Und because of the local population, because of the French es gab den Wunsch, das Gefühl auf die Leinwand zu bringen, das army and also because of the conflict between Eritrea ich beim Lesen von Herman Melvilles Gedicht 'The Night March' and Ethiopia. The Foreign Legion didn't help us. The at• empfand. Das Drehbuch basiert auf einer Geschichte, die eben• mosphere on location was rather hostile and rumour- falls von Melville stammt, 'Billy Bucld', wobei die Geschichte aus ridden. It was even suggested we were filming a porn dem Blickwinkel des 'Bösen', Claggart, erzählt wird, dem Unterof• movie. But it all worked out in the end. fizier Galoup in meinem Film. Anstelle eines Drehbuchs haben Question: How did you work? Jean Pol Fargeau und ich dann Galoups Tagebuch geschrieben. CD.: We had to wait three years before we were allowed Frage: S\e sind, wie wir seit Ihrem ersten Film Chocolat wissen, in to make the film. In the meantime, the choreographer Afrika aufgewachsen. Warum spielt der Film ausgerechnet in (Bernardo Montet) and I made all the arrangements, chose Dschibuti? the fifteen soldiers and began rehearsals, without even CI. D.:lc h habe dort einen Feil meiner Kindheit \eibi,K ht und den knowing if we'd be able to travel there. A month-and-a- Ort als anders als den Rest Afrikas in Erinnerung. Außerdem be• halt of daily training bonded the men together. So incred• findet sich die Fremdenlegion nun mal in [Dschibuti. Alle Welt hat ibly tightly, in fact, that the sacrifices we had to make on mir abgeraten, dort zu drehen, wegen des Klimas, wegen der man• location (Ramadan had just begun) couldn't stop us gelnden Infrastruktur, wegen der Bevölkerung, wegen der franzö• anymore. sischen Armee und schließlich auch wegen des Konfliktes zwi• (The interview was conducted by Jean-Michel Frodon in schen Eritrea und Äthiopien. Die Fremdenlegion hat uns nicht Le Monde, Paris, June 6th 1999) geholfen, die Atmosphäre vor Ort war eher feindlich und voller Gerüchte - man hat sogar behauptet, wir würden einen Porno Inspiration drehen -, aber letztlich ist alles gutgegangen. The Night March Frage: Wie haben Sie gearbeitet? With banners furled, and clarions mute, C. D.: Wir haben drei Jahre gebraucht, um den Film machen zu An army passes in the night, können. In der Zwischenzeit habe ich mit dem Choreographen And beaming spears and helms salute, Bcrnardo Montet die Vorbereitungen getroffen, gemeinsam die The dark with bright. fünfzehn Mitglieder der Truppe ausgewählt und zu proben ange• In silence deep the legions stream, fangen, ohne daß wir wußten, ob wir würden reisen können. With open ranks, in order true; Anderthalb Monate täglichen Trainings haben die Truppe auf ganz Over boundless plains they stream and gleam - außerordentliche Weise zusammengeschweißt, so sehr, daß uns No chief in view! trotz aller Entbehrungen vor Ort - und der Ramadan hatte gerade Herman Melville begonnen - nichts mehr stoppen konnte. (Das Interview führte Jean-Michel Frodon, in: Le Monde, Paris, 6. About the film Juni 1999) (...) In Marseille, ex-marshal Galoup (Denis Lavant) re• calls his life in a forgotten Foreign Legion post in the gulf Inspiration of Djibouti, where young soldiers spend their days play• The Nightmarch ing war games and repairing roads. In his diary, he in• With banners furled, and clarions mute, dulges in unlikely literary reminiscences about how splen• An army passes in the night, did life used to be, before it all went wrong. And beaming spears and heims salute, Small,wiry and pockmarked, Galoup cuts a strange fig• The dark with bright. ure around his 'boys,' shaven-headed young giants with In silence deep the legions stream, faces as sculpted as their biceps. Short on words, these With open ranks, in order true; stylized, emotionless soldiers perform strenuous gym• Over boundless plains they stream and gleam - nastics and graceful tai chi, swim in the azure sea in No chief in view ! abbreviated desert togs and occasionally mix with local / lerman Mel\ ille girls in throbbing dances at the disco. Galoup's deep, ambigious love for his tough command• Über den Film ing officer (Michel Subor) is threatened by the arrival of (...) In Marseille rekapituliert der ehemalige Unteroffizier Galoup new recruit Sentain (Gregoire Colin), beloved by his com• sein Leben auf einem verlassenen Posten der Fremdenlegion im rades for his goodness and generosity. (To illustrate, he is Golf von Dschibuti, wo die jungen Soldaten ihre Tage mit Krieg• shown risking his life to rescue a downed helicopter pi• spielen und Straßenarbeiten verbringen. In seinem Tagebuch er• lot.) Brooding over the Commander's attraction to the geht er sich in ziemlich unwahrscheinlichen literarischen Betrach• youth, Galoup, the equivalent of Melville's Claggart, tungen darüber, wie großartig das Leben war, bevor alles schief hatches a scheme designed to get rid of Sentain forever. ging. But the recruits soon deduce the truth and the Com• Klein, drahtig und mit Pockennarben gibt Galoup neben seinen mander sends Galoup packing. The iron-fisted sergeant 'Jungs', jungen kahlgeschorenen Riesen mit Gesichtern, die ebenso finds himself stripped of his stripes and with a lot of time gemeißelt wirken wie ihr Bizeps, eine ziemlich seltsame Figur ab. on his hands, which in the pic's surreal coda he spends Wortkarg absolvieren diese gleich aussehenden, unbewegt drein- in frenzied, self-absorbed disco dancing. blickenden Soldaten ihr anstrengendes Training und ein elegant The film's anti-militarist message is evident but second• wirkendes Tai Chi, schwimmen in knapper Wüstenkluft im azur• ary to the personal story of the c razed Galoup, expressed blauen Meer und tanzen gelegentlich mit einheimischen Mäd• in Lavant's surprisingly off-beat pert', Subor's rock-faced chen zu hämmernden Rhythmen in einer Diskothek. Commander and Collin's noble innocent. The whole crew Galoups heftige und ambivalente Gefühle für seinen hartgesotte• is observed with mute bemusement by the local inhabit• nen Kommandeur (Michel Subor) werden durch die Ankunft des ants, like a visiting circus of curious animals. Echoing neuen Rekruten Sentain gestört, der von seinen Kameraden für Denis' stripped-down dialogue and staging, cinemato- seine Anständigkeit und Großzügigkeit bewundert wird. (Man grapher Agnes Godard empties the frame to give the film sieht, \\ ie er sein Leben riskiert, um einen abgestürzten I lubschrau- a strong, clean visual style that astounds with the colors berpiloten zu retten.) Galoup, das Äquivalent von Melvilles and beauty of nature (male bodies included). The exalted Claggart, beginnt zu grübeln, warum sich der Kommandeur zur mood of Benjamin Britten's opera 'Billy Budd' is retrained Jugend hingezogen fühlt, und heckt einen Plan aus, um Sentain in several sequences that seem on the verge of turning für immer los zu werden.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia Other Books by Jonathan Rosenbaum
    Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia Other Books by Jonathan Rosenbaum Rivette: Texts and Interviews (editor, 1977) Orson Welles: A Critical View, by André Bazin (editor and translator, 1978) Moving Places: A Life in the Movies (1980) Film: The Front Line 1983 (1983) Midnight Movies (with J. Hoberman, 1983) Greed (1991) This Is Orson Welles, by Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich (editor, 1992) Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism (1995) Movies as Politics (1997) Another Kind of Independence: Joe Dante and the Roger Corman Class of 1970 (coedited with Bill Krohn, 1999) Dead Man (2000) Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Limit What Films We Can See (2000) Abbas Kiarostami (with Mehrmax Saeed-Vafa, 2003) Movie Mutations: The Changing Face of World Cinephilia (coedited with Adrian Martin, 2003) Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons (2004) Discovering Orson Welles (2007) The Unquiet American: Trangressive Comedies from the U.S. (2009) Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia Film Culture in Transition Jonathan Rosenbaum the university of chicago press | chicago and london Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote for many periodicals (including the Village Voice, Sight and Sound, Film Quarterly, and Film Comment) before becoming principal fi lm critic for the Chicago Reader in 1987. Since his retirement from that position in March 2008, he has maintained his own Web site and continued to write for both print and online publications. His many books include four major collections of essays: Placing Movies (California 1995), Movies as Politics (California 1997), Movie Wars (a cappella 2000), and Essential Cinema (Johns Hopkins 2004). The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2010 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved.
    [Show full text]
  • Topaz (1969 Film) Actors List (Cast)
    Topaz (1969 film) Actors List (Cast) John Forsythe https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/john-forsythe-315217/movies Michel Subor https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/michel-subor-561288/movies Sándor Szabó https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/s%C3%A1ndor-szab%C3%B3-1293775/movies Ben Wright https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/ben-wright-2895601/movies Tina Hedström https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/tina-hedstr%C3%B6m-548189/movies Ann Doran https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/ann-doran-450047/movies Abel Fernandez https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/abel-fernandez-2821506/movies Carlos Rivas https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/carlos-rivas-2939437/movies Lew Brown https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/lew-brown-15462667/movies Philippe Noiret https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/philippe-noiret-106482/movies Roberto Contreras https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/roberto-contreras-691844/movies Alfred Hitchcock https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/alfred-hitchcock-7374/movies Michel Piccoli https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/michel-piccoli-295257/movies Dany Robin https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/dany-robin-279382/movies Sonja Kolthoff https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/sonja-kolthoff-4959435/movies Carlos Rivas https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/carlos-rivas-2459757/movies Frederick Stafford https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/frederick-stafford-670311/movies Gregory Gaye https://www.listvote.com/lists/film/actors/gregory-gaye-3116367/movies
    [Show full text]
  • Retrospektive Viennale 1998 CESTERREICHISCHES FILM
    Retrospektive Viennale 1998 CESTERREICHISCHES FILM MUSEUM Oktober 1998 RETROSPEKTIVE JEAN-LUC GODARD Das filmische Werk IN ZUSAMMENARBEIT MIT BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE, LONDON • CINEMATHEQUE DE TOULOUSE • LA CINl-MATHfeQUE FRAN^AISE, PARIS • CINIiMATHkQUE MUNICIPALE DE LUXEMBOURG. LUXEMBURG FREUNDE DER DEUTSCHEN KINEMATHEK. BERLIN ■ INSTITUT FRAN^AIS DB VIENNE MINISTERE DES AFFAIRES ETRANGERES, PARIS MÜNCHNER STADTMUSEUM - FILMMUSEUM NATIONAL FILM AND TELEVISION ARCHIVE, LONDON STIFTUNG PRO HEI.VETIA, ZÜRICH ZYKLISCHES PROGRAMM - WAS IST FILM * DIE GESCHICHTE DES FILMISCHEN DENKENS IN BEISPIELEN MIT FILMEN VON STAN BRAKHAGE • EMILE COHL • BRUCE CONNER • WILLIAM KENNEDY LAURIE DfCKSON - ALEKSANDR P DOVSHENKO • MARCEL DUCHAMP • EDISON KINETOGRAPH • VIKING EGGELING; ROBERT J. FLAHERTY ROBERT FRANK • JORIS IVENS • RICHARD LEACOCK • FERNAND LEGER CIN^MATOGRAPHE LUMIERE • ETIENNE-JULES MAREY • JONAS MEKAS • GEORGES MELIUS • MARIE MENKEN • ROBERT NELSON • DON A. PENNEBAKER • MAN RAY • HANS RICHTER • LENI glEFENSTAHL • JACK SMITH • DZIGA VERTOV 60 PROGRAMME • 30 WOCHEN • JÄHRLICH WIEDERHOLT • JEDEN DIENSTAG ZWEI VORSTELLUNGEN Donnerstag, 1. Oktober 1998, 17.00 Uhr Marrfnuß sich den anderen leihen, sich jedoch Monsigny; Darsteller: Jean-Claude Brialy. UNE FEMME MARIEE 1964) Sonntag, 4. Oktober 1998, 19.00 Uhr Undurchsichtigkeit und Venvirrung. Seht, die Rea¬ Mittwoch, 7. Oktober 1998, 21.00 Uhr Raou! Coutard; Schnitt: Agnes Guiliemot; Die beiden vorrangigen Autoren der Gruppe Dziga sich selbst geben- Montaigne Sein Leben leben. Anne Colette, Nicole Berger Regie: Jean-Luc Godard; Drehbuch: Jean-Luc lität. metaphorisiert Godaiti nichtsonderlich inspi¬ Musik: Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, Franz Vertov. Jean-Luc Godard und Jean-Pierre Gönn, CHARLOTTE ET SON JULES (1958) VfVRE SA VIE. Die Heldin, die dies versucht: eine MASCULIN - FEMININ (1966) riert, em Strudel, in dem sich die Wege verlaufen.
    [Show full text]
  • Five by Claire Denis’
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE PRESENTS FILM SERIES ‘FIVE BY CLAIRE DENIS’ Retrospective includes preview screening of Bastards and new 35mm prints of Chocolat and Trouble Every Day October 13–22, 2013 Astoria, New York, October 9, 2013—Museum of the Moving Image will present five films by the French director Claire Denis, to coincide with the theatrical release of her latest feature, Bastards, which is being distributed by Sundance Selects. The Museum’s retrospective, running from October 13 through 22, will include four of Denis’s greatest films and concludes with a preview screening of Bastards. The series Five by Claire Denis opens with her best-known film Beau Travail (1999), an adaptation of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, set amongst the French Foreign Legion in Djibouti, and starring Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) and Claire Denis regular Grégoire Colin. The films Chocolat (1988), Denis’s debut feature and semiautobiographical tale of a young girl growing up in 1950s Cameroon, and Trouble Every Day (2001), a vivid, sensuous, and gory take on horror starring Vincent Gallo and Beatrice Dalle, will be presented in brand new 35mm prints from Film Desk. The series also includes The Intruder (L’Intrus) (2004), a film of lush, mysterious images and textures, which follows an inscrutable older man (Michel Subor) as he searches the globe for his lost son (Colin). Bastards (Les salauds) (2013), which recently premiered at the New York Film Festival, is Denis’s first digitally shot film (by the great cinematographer and frequent Denis collaborator Agnes Godard), a contemporary film noir and savage revenge drama starring Vincent Lindon, Chiara Mastroianni, and Julie Bataille.
    [Show full text]
  • Nahuel Pérez Biscayart
    iciBarbès ARTE802/9 Date /06/18 DC Responsable Prod Print Commercial Directeur artistique Concepteur rédac. Client ARTE accompagne FID MARSEILLE la création PPR 150 X 200 mm documentaire Séances de La Lucarne au FID, le 11 juillet Dawson City : Frozen time, Bill Morisson Interior : Camila Rodríguez Triana Atelier Hors-champ Rimèd-razié, le 12 juillet © Le Livre d’image - Casa Azul Films - Ecran Noir productions. - Projection de Samouni Road, Stefano Savona, le 12 juillet L’Œil d’or du documentaire, Cannes 2018 OUVERTURE PERMANENTE 29e Festival International de Cinéma Marseille 10 — 16 juillet 2018 Sommaire / Contents 4 Partenaires / Partners & sponsors 106 Écrans parallèles / Parallel screenings 111 Elle, Isabelle Huppert 6 Éditoriaux / Editorials 123 Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol 137 Livre d’Image 15 Prix / Awards 161 Make/Remake. Quel amour (de cinéma) ! 20 Jurys / Juries 169 Histoire(s) de portrait 22 Jury de la Compétition Internationale / International Competition jury 189 We’re gonna rock him 28 Jury de la Compétition Française / French Competition jury 208 Les Sentiers – Les Sentiers Expanded 34 Jury du Prix Premier et du Centre national des arts plastiques / 215 Séances spéciales / Special screenings First film and National Centre of Visual Arts Jury 230 FIDMarseille + 35 Jury Institut Français / French Institute Jury 238 FIDCampus 36 Jury GNCR, Jury Renaud Victor, Jury Marseille Espérance, Jury des Lycéens, GNCR Jury, Renaud Victor Jury, Marseille Espérance Jury and Highschool student Jury 243 FIDLab Sélection Ofcielle / Ofcial
    [Show full text]
  • The Point in Time: Precise Chronology in Early Godard
    First published in Studies in French Cinema 3:2 (2003), 101-109 The point in time: precise chronology in early Godard ‘A film is out of date when it doesn’t give a true picture of the era it was made in’, said Godard in 1960 (Godard 1972: 26), and in 1966: ‘All of my films report on the situation of the country, are documents d’actualité’1 (Godard 1971: 12). My subject here is the actuality of the documents we see and hear in Godard’s sixties’ films, the truth of the picture given. Godard has a reputation for having kept pace with his time, a reputation founded in the 1960s,2 when his films held a mirror up to the ephemeral detritus of the real and said it was beautiful. Neon signs, film posters, records on the jukebox, magazine covers…: the film of these passing phenomena celebrates them, and documents them in their place and time. The mirror image implies a certain passivity, and here I wish to illustrate how the reflective function of Godard’s films is an active engagement with his time, in fact a critical revision of what it means to be ‘of’ a time. Serge Daney comments, somewhere, that Godard was the first to put in a fiction film the newspaper of the day of the shoot (Bergala 1999: 225). Daney may have forgotten the scene in Paris nous appartient (Rivette, 1961), filmed at the beginning of September 1958, where we see the front page of L’Equipe, with the headline announcing Ercole Baldini’s victory in cycling’s World Road Championship the day before.3 Then again, the newspaper is in the hand of Godard himself, cycling fan and extra in Rivette’s film, and we can at least say that from the outset he was associated with this cinematic use of found materials.
    [Show full text]
  • BAM Presents Strange Desire: the Films of Claire Denis, Mar 29—Apr 9, the Largest-Ever US Retrospective Dedicated to the Celebrated French Filmmaker
    BAM presents Strange Desire: The Films of Claire Denis, Mar 29—Apr 9, the largest-ever US retrospective dedicated to the celebrated French filmmaker February 20, 2019/Brooklyn, NY—From Friday, March 29 through Tuesday, April 9, BAM presents Strange Desire: The Films of Claire Denis, the most extensive retrospective ever presented in the US dedicated to Denis, a filmmaker consistently counted among the greatest living directors by filmmakers and critics alike. Denis’ work is a delicate balance of contradictions: her films are beloved, yet elusive; influential, yet singular; grounded in corporeality, but with a shifting relationship with time. Born in France, raised in colonial Africa where her father was a civil servant, and eventually returning to France as a teenager, Denis subtly explores race and colonial relationships, love and eroticism, the texture of bodies and environments, and the elasticity of time. Following the retrospective, BAM will screen Denis’ critically acclaimed new feature, the poetic science fiction film High Life (2019), starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Mia Goth, and André Benjamin. Denis will appear in person at BAM for a sneak preview show on April 3. The film opens in New York and Los Angeles on April 5. The series begins with Beau Travail (1999), Denis’ masterful update of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, starring Denis Lavant and regular collaborator Grégoire Colin. A study of jealousy and obsession set among the existential ennui and empty rituals of the French Foreign Legion in Djibouti, Beau Travail captures Denis’ signature elliptical style and hypnotic rhythms. A balletic study of bodies in motion with an unforgettable final scene, Beau Travail is Denis’ most iconic and influential work.
    [Show full text]
  • The Genius of Hitchcock Part One: August 2012
    12/44 The Genius of Hitchcock Part One: August 2012 Special events include: x Tippi Hedren in Conversation x TV Preview + Q&A: THE GIRL – new BBC2 drama telling the full story of Hitchcock’s relationship with Tippi Hedren x Camille Paglia: Women & Magic in Hitchcock x The Lodger + composer Nitin Sawhney in Conversation Over the course of almost three months, Hitchcock’s surviving body of work as director will be presented in its entirety at BFI Southbank. The films will be grouped together, taking inspiration from one his most famous films to present the 39 Steps to the Genius of Hitchcock to help audiences increase their understanding of this complex and fascinating director. The first part of the BFI Southbank season in August, with special thanks to Sky Movies/HD, focuses on the first 12 steps, beginning with The Shaping of Alfred Hitchcock. The recent discovery in New Zealand of several reels of The White Shadow, scripted by Hitchcock, made international headlines. But other material, too, survives from his apprentice years, prior to The Pleasure Garden. In The Shaping of Hitchcock: Reflections on The White Shadow author Charles Barr will present a richly illustrated narrative of Hitchcock’s formative years, as an introduction to a screening of the thus-far incomplete The White Shadow (1924). BFI Future Film presents The DIY Thriller Film Fortnight to accompany the second step: The Master of Suspense. This course will give participants aged 15-25 the chance to make short thriller films inspired by Hitchcock. The Evolution of Style will look at the development of Hitchcock’s style – described by the director as ‘the first true Hitchcock film’, The Lodger (1926) introduces themes that would run through much of Hitchcock’s later work.
    [Show full text]
  • The Other's Intrusion: Claire Denis' L'intrus
    Thamyris/Intersecting No. 19 (2008) 195–208 The Other’s Intrusion: Claire Denis’ L’intrus Wim Staat Picture an elderly white man in a Polynesian beach cabin. The movie camera registers palm trees, clear blue water, and sandy beaches. These seem the conditions of luxu- rious retirement. In this film, however, exotic surroundings do not provide the protago- nist with the comforts of a tourist resort. In fact, the man would likely consider himself less a tourist than a traveler. His wanderings are purposeful; the stakes are high. He may consider himself a soul searcher, attempting to migrate from the familiarity of his home toward a landscape in which a new identity can be imagined. He may want to invest in dreams of a new life. But there will be no payoff. Picture no romantic reward. He will be shown destitute, unable to author his own life. His dreams will be night- mares, his imagined migrations haunted by sleeplessness. In the real places of his travels, our protagonist will be confined to his bed. Is this a migratory setting? This essay will argue that the bed is indeed a real place of imaginative migration. I claim that the imagined identity of the protagonist is real and inescapable for him. Yet, the protagonist will not be the originating subject of his own imaginings. L’intrus is a 2004 film by French director Claire Denis.1 L’intrus is also a small book by French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, published in 2000. The book was the inspiration for the film, and was credited as such in the end titles.
    [Show full text]
  • Good Work, Little Soldier: Text and Pretext
    First published in Journal of European Studies 34:1-2 (2004), pp.34-43 Good Work, Little Soldier: text and pretext Adaptation, the most explicit kind of intertextual relation implicating film, is not really intertextual at all, if intertextuality is understood to be a systematic, ongoing and infinite ramification of meanings that command our critical pause. But if we apply a more restricted model from literary theory, centred on a ‘centring text which retains its position of leadership in meaning’,1 adaptation can be read through a variation of this model: pretextuality. Film-on-book relations are generally pretextual: the adapted text as point of departure, as party in a dialogue, as measure of a difference, as mirror. Beau travail has two pretexts, a book and a film: Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor (1891) and Godard’s Le petit soldat (1960). The first is the kind of pretext familiar from cinematic adaptations of literary works, though it is made strange by reference to an intermediate operatic adaptation (Britten’s Billy Budd). The second is of a quite unfamiliar kind, a variant of cinematic pretextuality that may be peculiar to Beau travail. Most comparable instances of character and actor reappearing in a different director’s film would be from sequels or episodes in series,2 but though Michel Subor plays Bruno Forestier in both films, Beau travail is not, in narrative terms, a sequel to Le petit soldat. A more exact idea of the film-on-film relations that bind the two films is the object of this article. ‘Pretext and intertext’ is not a categorical distinction: pretextuality is just over- determined intertextuality.
    [Show full text]
  • Zkg2.Pdf (1.377Mb)
    DARK YEARS, DARK FILMS, LONG SHADOWS: THE OCCUPATION, NOIR, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN FRENCH FILM AND CRITICISM A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Zachary Kendell Gooch January 2014 © 2014 Zachary Kendell Gooch DARK YEARS, DARK FILMS, LONG SHADOWS: THE OCCUPATION, NOIR, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN FRENCH FILM AND CRITICISM Zachary Kendell Gooch, Ph.D. Cornell University 2014 Although the term arises in French film criticism, “noir” has long been associated with American cinema and a certain, recognizable type of visual and thematic style. Through a return to the French critics of the late 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s this dissertation defamiliarizes and redefines noir’s value to film and French studies by demonstrating its negatively constitutive role in the negotiation of French national identity and the central place of the Occupation in any discussion of French noir. By locating noir within criticism and performing close readings of the critical archive, which includes figures as diverse as Georges Sadoul and André Bazin, Lucien Rebatet and François Truffaut, I argue that noir critical discourse is defined by a tension between the category’s ever-changing value and the efforts of those who deploy it to fix the meaning of the nation before, during, and after the Occupation through careful omissions of the historical, collective memory. Because noir is central to debates on how the nation should and, more precisely, should not be represented, I also resist conventional, generic approaches to advance that individual films noirs are secondary to noir critical discourse.
    [Show full text]
  • Claire Denis Capitalist Bastards
    King’s Research Portal DOI: 10.1080/14715880.2015.1077036 Link to publication record in King's Research Portal Citation for published version (APA): Galt, R. (2015). Claire Denis's Capitalist Bastards. STUDIES IN FRENCH CINEMA, 15(3), 275-293. https://doi.org/10.1080/14715880.2015.1077036 Citing this paper Please note that where the full-text provided on King's Research Portal is the Author Accepted Manuscript or Post-Print version this may differ from the final Published version. If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the Research Portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognize and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. •Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. •You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain •You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the Research Portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
    [Show full text]