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Representations of Sexuality in the Films of François Ozon By Alice Stanley A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in French Studies University of Warwick, Department of French Studies July 2009 Contents Page Abstract 1 Introduction 2 Chapter 1 Taboo and the Abject in Ozon’s Early Films (1998-1999) 17 Beginnings 17 The Power of Horror 22 Taboo in Les Amants criminels 40 Conclusion 51 Chapter 2 Questions of Genre and Gender in Sitcom, 8 Femmes and Angel 54 Introduction 54 Doing Genre 58 Sitcom 62 8 Femmes 84 L’ange criard: Angel 99 Conclusion 116 Chapter 3 Trauma and Loss in Sous le sable, Swimming Pool and Le Temps qui reste 121 A Change in Aesthetics 121 The Trauma of Loss 131 Alice Stanley 14/02/2010 Loss of Appetites/Repressed Desires 151 The Trauma of Diagnosis in Le Temps qui reste 165 Conclusion 186 Chapter 4 Queer Performances in Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes 190 No Way Out? 193 Queer Negativity 206 Queer Heritage 210 Camp Performances 218 Conclusion 230 Chapter 5 Life à rebours: Transgressive Narratives in 5x2 and Irréversible 234 Trangressions: telling the time 238 Transgressions: reproductive futurity 251 Transgressions: sex, violence and desire 256 Conclusion 274 Conclusion 278 Bibliography 281 Web resources 292 Filmography 293 Alice Stanley 14/02/2010 List of Illustrations Page No. Chapter 1 Figure 1 Tatiana (Marina De Van), Regarde la mer (1997) 29 Figure 2 Tatiana (Marina De Van), Regarde la mer 33 Figure 3 Siofra (Samantha Hails), Regarde la mer 35 Figure 4 Luc (Jérémie Renier), Les Amants criminels (1999) 49 Figure 5 Luc and Alice (Jérémie Renier and Natacha Régnier), Les Amants criminels 52 Chapter 2 Figures 1&2 Nicolas (Adrien De Van), Sitcom (1998) 74 Figure 3 Sophie and David (Marina De Van and Stéphane Rideau), Sitcom 78 Figure 4 Sophie (Marina De Van), Sitcom 78 Figure 5 DVD Menu, 8 Femmes (2002) 86 Figure 6 Louise, Augustine, Mme Chanel, Catherine and Mamy (Emmanuelle Béart, Isabelle Hupert, Firmine Richard, Ludivine Sagnier and Danielle Darrieux), 8 Femmes 97 Figures 7&8 Angel (Romola Garai), Angel (2006) 105 Figure 9 Theo Gilbright and Angel (Sam Neill and Romola Garai), Angel 107 Figure 10 Esmé and Angel (Michael Fassbender and Romola Garai), Angel 107 Figure 11 Angel (Romola Garai), Angel 111 Chapter 3 Figure 1 Tatiana (Marina De Van), Regarde la mer (1997) and Marie (Charlotte Rampling), Sous le sable (2001) 125 Figure 2 Marie (Charlotte Rampling), Sous le sable 153 Figure 3 Marie (Charlotte Rampling) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), Swimming Pool (2003) 161 Figure 4 Marie (Chalotte Rampling), Sous le sable 164 Figure 5 Romain (Ugo Soussan Trabelsi), Le Temps qui reste (2005) 175 Alice Stanley 14/02/2010 Figure 6 Romain (Melvil Poupaud), Le Temps qui reste 184 Figure 7 Romain (Melvil Poupaud), Le Temps qui reste 185 Chapter 4 Figure 1 Franz (Malik Zidi), Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes (1999) 194 Figure 2 Franz and Léopold (Malik Zidi and Bernard Giraudeau), Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes 195 Figure 3 Franz and Anna (Malik Zidi and Ludivine Sagnier), Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes 196 Figure 4 Véra (Anna Thomson), Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes 197 Figure 5 Franz (Malik Zidi), Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes 201 Figure 6 Franz and Léopold (Malik Zidi and Bernard Giraudeau), Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes 220 Figure 7 Franz and Léopold (Malik Zidi and Bernard Giraudeau), Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes 222 Figure 8 Luc and Sébastien (Frédéric Mangenot and Sébastien Charles), Une robe d’été (1996) 224 Figure 9 Véra (Anna Thomson), Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes 228 Chapter 5 Figure 1 Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), 5x2 (2004) 255 Figure 2 Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), 5x2 256 Figure 3 Gilles and Nicolas (Stéphane Freiss and Yannis Belkacem), 5x2 256 Figure 4 Le Tenia and Alex (Jo Prestia and Monica Bellucci), Irréversible (2002) 261 Figure 5 Le Tenia (Jo Prestia), Irréversible 261 Figure 6 Marion and Gilles (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Stéphane Freiss), 5x2 264 Figure 7 Gilles and Valérie (Stéphane Freiss and Géraldine Pailhas), 5x2 266 Figure 8 Gilles and Marion (Stéphane Freiss and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), 5x2 266 Alice Stanley 14/02/2010 Acknowledgements My first thanks go to my supervisors, Dr. Sam Haigh and Dr. Douglas Morrey, for their encouragement, time and patience. Thank you, Sam, for your thorough feedback, your knowledge of feminist theory and politics of the body, as well as for your mobile number which proved useful in emergencies. Thank you, Douglas, for your cinema expertise, your philosophical and searching questions and for stepping in as a supervisor. I am also grateful to Prof. Leslie Hill for putting me on the right track in the first year of my Ph.D. I would like to thank all the members of the French Department in particular and Warwick University in general for providing me with a supportive and stimulating learning environment. I especially thank Linda Watkinson for our chats. My thanks go to Darren Waldron and Fiona Handyside for our discussion of Ozon at Bristol University and to Darren for permission to cite his paper. I thank David Halperin for sending me a copy of his article and informing me of the publication of What do Gay Men Want?. I am grateful to François Ozon and the cast of Angel for providing lively discussion at the screening of the film at the Institut Français, London. Thanks to the Price family for their feedback and help, especially Catherine, Lynne and Matt. Peter & Ann Andrews, Beth Brewin, Sarah Fernau, Roger Hill, Fr. John Reid, Jo Rigby and Tania Smith have kept me going with offers of moral support and a social life. Thanks also go to Tim Jayne for our French conversations. Kris Coomar’s IT help has been invaluable. Claire Coniry has looked after my back. My friends Alessandro Brusa, Francesco Pullega, Areta Sobieraj and Sacha Solaroli have given me support, encouragement and plenty of opportunity for debate. Thank you. I cannot thank my family enough for their help over the last five years: Derek, Gabrielle, Louise and Francis Stanley, Paddiwack, Martin & Sarah Read- Jones, Lis Fisher and Pam Wade. This thesis is for Derek. Alice Stanley 14/02/2010 Abstract This is a study of the shorts and feature films by the young, prolific French film director, François Ozon. The thesis uncovers the impact of Ozon’s œuvre on cinematic audiences. The films raise questions about death, desire and sexual relationships in unsettling and surprising ways, through a variety of different genres. This thesis focuses on close textual reading of the films, employing feminist and queer theory to underline and echo the implications of Ozon’s representations of sexuality; here it is argued that Ozon’s work presents a challenge to heteronormative ideology and culture. In particular, this study suggests that Ozonian cinema encourages the spectator to take up a fluid and non-normative viewing position often denied in mainstream narrative cinema. This study focuses on analyses of taboo, trauma and loss, as well as generic conventions and gender performances which refer to psychoanalytic, feminist and queer understandings of certain behaviours and situations; quotidian, but intense, experiences in the films emphasize ways in which the human subject struggles with the expression of desire and sexuality. Although not as radical as queer theorists or film critics may wish, Ozon’s films often use comedy and irony to illustrate the problems of a restrictive patriarchal society and the way it can harm individuals, thus unsettling the normative assumptions on which the majority of social structures are still based. Ozonian cinema, this thesis argues, thus presents a compassionate and, indeed, political comment on contemporary French and European society. Alice Stanley1 14/02/2010 Introduction This study was conceived in order to fill a gap in French Film Studies on the work of the young, prolific director François Ozon, whose work had prompted very little academic criticism until 2008. By Spring 2009, a cluster of work on Ozon had been published, culminating in the monograph on the director by Andrew Asibong;1 thus it could be said that interest in the director, both in the media and in academic circles, is at its height. Ozon’s tenth feature film, Ricky, was released in February 2009 and its arrival in the UK is eagerly anticipated by fans and critics alike. For this film Ozon has worked with a new producer, Claudie Ossard, partly due to the commercial failure of his 2007 film, Angel, and because of his desire to shoot his new film with relatively unknown actors, in particular Alexandra Lamy who is better known for her TV work in Un gars, une fille.2 Viewers may wonder whether this change of producer will also mark a change in artistic direction for the filmmaker or whether Ozon’s new film will continue to raise similar issues about human sexuality and desire to those explored in his work to date. In his œuvre from 1998 to 2008 Ozon investigates the dynamics of non-normative desire and plays with our expectations, choosing odd couplings to suggest that conventional sexual identities no longer have any anchorage.