Copyright and Use of This Thesis This Thesis Must Be Used in Accordance with the Provisions of the Copyright Act 1968

COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Copyright Service. sydney.edu.au/copyright Maid in Space Contemporary French cinematic translation of the 19th century rebellious maid figure Miriam Thompson A thesis submitted in fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy French Studies, School of Languages and Cultures Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of Sydney 2013 All film stills are reproduced under the Fair Use conventions for research and criticism. Abstract This thesis offers a spatial analysis of the representation of female servitude and rebellion in contemporary French cinema through the archetype of the 19th century rebellious maid figure. The rebellious maid figure is an historical, social and cultural construct upon which a series of spatialised iconographic features were grafted during the nineteenth century and that continue to be employed in contemporary cinematic mise en scène. This thesis uncovers dual spatial translation processes. The first process under study is the translation of the maid’s ‘space syntax’ (a spatial and architectural iconography) into the cinematic medium. Film, by way of its spatial diegesis and mise-en-scène, manifests in a particular manner the archetypal maid’s narrative of servitude and rebellion. This will be demonstrated through the study of Chabrol’s La Cérémonie (1995) and Dercourt’s La Tourneuse de pages (2006), two films that represent, in a typological manner, the domestic architectural setting associated with the 19th century bonne à tout faire and her syntax of space. The second process that I refer to is that of the translation of the maid’s space syntax onto updated, contemporary social contexts and spatial settings of female servitude and rebellion in cinema that are divorced from the original domestic environment of the traditional maid figure. Achache’s Le Hérisson (2009), Klapisch’s Ma part du gâteau (2011), Charef’s Marie-Line (2000), and Mennegun’s Louise Wimmer (2012) will be analysed in that context. By examining how the maid figure is translated across time, space and medium, this thesis demonstrates the power of social and cultural constructions of space to endure radical temporal and environmental changes. In effect, this thesis will argue, the archetypal 19th century maid figure and her attendant space syntax survive as a latent construct that filmmakers draw upon in order to stage narratives of servitude and rebellion. The findings of this undertaking seek to inform critical understandings of the politics and poetics of the representation of rebellion in films that present narratives of female servitude. 2 Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 1: The Birth of the Rebellious Maid – Chronology and Criticism of a social and cultural figure .......................................................................................................................... 18 Historical contextualisation of the 19th century maid figure ................................. 20 The dualistic maid figure – the ‘perle’ and the ‘souillon’ ...................................... 23 Negative perceptions of the female domestic servant: criminality and the rebellious maid figure ................................................................................................................... 28 The Papin sisters (or the rebirth of the rebellious maid in France) ..................... 36 Chapter 2: Putting the maid in her place – The spatial and architectural construction of the 19th century maid figure ......................................................................... 41 1 – Theoretical concepts of space and architecture: towards a space syntax of the maid figure ................................................................................................................... 44 2 – 19th century French architecture, conceptions of home, and the social and cultural construction of the maid’s place .......................................................................... 51 Haussmann’s reconstruction of Paris ............................................................................................................... 52 The maid at home ...................................................................................................................................................... 53 Doorways, Staircases and Corridors: architectural liminality and the maid ................................... 56 The chambre de bonne and the spatio-social segregation of the maid .............................................. 59 Chapter 3: Cinema, space, and the servitude and rebellion narrative .......................... 64 Cinematic antecedents of the maid figure in contemporary French film ......................................... 64 1 - Cinema and Space – towards a methodology of film analysis ...................... 68 2 - The rebellious maid figure and her avatar in contemporary French cinema: an ideal type ............................................................................................................................ 76 The maid’s labour: intimacy and service in and beyond the home ..................................................... 77 Narratives of servitude and rebellion ............................................................................................................... 84 Chapter 4: Formalist cinematic translation of rebellion and servitude in bourgeois domesticity ........................................................................................................................................ 91 La Cérémonie (Chabrol 1995) – Translating the archetypal maid’s space syntax92 The mise en scène of servitude ........................................................................................................................... 92 Place-making, spatial evasion, and the conquest of territory ............................................................. 107 La Tourneuse de pages (Dercourt 2006) – The cinematic translation of the maid’s space syntax in the mise en scène of ‘pretextual’ servitude and revenge ................... 120 Chapter 5: The translation of the maid’s space syntax in transposed contemporary cinematic narratives of servitude and rebellion ................................................................ 143 Part 1: Residual domesticity – continuity and change in the translation of the maid’s space syntax ................................................................................................................ 145 Le Hérisson (Achache 2009) – a room of one’s own: the reluctant claiming of space .............. 145 Ma part du gâteau (Klapisch 2011) – ‘Monter à Paris’, descent into servitude ........................... 161 Part 2: Leaving home – translating the rebellious maid narrative in transposed spaces of servitude ........................................................................................................... 177 Marie-Line (Charef 2001) - Placelessness and place-making .............................................................. 177 Louise Wimmer (Mennegun 2012) – Homelessness, servitude and the spatialised posture of resistance ................................................................................................................................................................... 197 3 Chapter 6: The poetics and politics of representing the rebellious maid figure and avatar in contemporary French cinema ................................................................................ 218 The maid’s rebellion – between violence and refusal ....................................... 219 Social mobility, the destruction of servitude, and punishment .......................... 233 General conclusions and further inquiry .............................................................................. 242 Filmography .................................................................................................................................... 247 Central corpus ................................................................................................... 247 Secondary films ................................................................................................ 247 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................

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