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DRESS, UNDRESS, DISGUISE, AND DRAG! EXPLORING THE COSTUMES OF THE GENDARME SERIES STARRING LOUIS DE FUNÈS By ALEXANDRA TYLER CHERRY A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2016 © 2016 Alexandra Tyler Cherry To the Ross Geller of my Joey Tribbiani ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to my thesis chair and committee for your enthusiasm, support, and guidance. Thanks to my best friend and parents who keep me focused. But most of all, thanks to Louis de Funès for his life, work, and laughter. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION - « REGARDEZ-MOI LÀ, VOUS ! » .............................................. 9 2 CAST, CREW AND PUBLIC RECEPTION ............................................................. 13 3 MYSELF AS OTHERS SEE ME: UNIFORM ........................................................... 16 Men Controlling Men ............................................................................................... 18 Women Controlling Men ......................................................................................... 20 Men Controlling Women ......................................................................................... 26 Imagination Altering Appearances .......................................................................... 27 Altering The Uniform ............................................................................................... 28 Foil Provided By Classically Dressed Women ........................................................ 30 Relaxed In Uniform ................................................................................................. 31 Men Out Of Uniform ................................................................................................ 32 4 HIDING MYSELF: DISGUISE ................................................................................. 37 To Escape Shame .................................................................................................. 37 To Pursue Suspects ............................................................................................... 39 To Infiltrate .............................................................................................................. 40 To Assist Others ..................................................................................................... 41 5 EXPLORING MYSELF: CROSS-DRESSING ......................................................... 42 Cross-Dressing In Mythology and Modern Film ...................................................... 42 To Hide ................................................................................................................... 43 As a Means of Rescue ............................................................................................ 44 6 SHOWING MYSELF: NUDITY ................................................................................ 46 Voluntary Nudity ..................................................................................................... 46 Forced Nudity ......................................................................................................... 49 Shedding Clothes To Regain Power ....................................................................... 53 7 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 55 APPENDIX PRECIS ...................................................................................................... 57 LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 59 5 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ............................................................................................ 61 6 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts DRESS, UNDRESS, DISGUISE, AND DRAG! EXPLORING THE COSTUMES OF THE GENDARME SERIES STARRING LOUIS DE FUNÈS By Alexandra Tyler Cherry May 2016 Chair: Dr. Sylvie Blum-Reid Major: French and Francophone Studies Costumes in film signify more than the physical appearance of a given character. A costume permits a silent conversation between the costume designer and the viewer. In The Gendarme French, comedic saga, featuring six films spanning from 1964 to 1982 and starring Louis de Funès and Michel Galabru, costumes are utilized by the director Jean Girault in order to create or support gags in this farce of police authority, as well as to aid in character development of the principal gendarmes, their wives and children. This essay will examine four specific types of costumes- uniform, disguise, cross- dressing, and nudity- in order to analyze the purpose of the director, scriptwriter, and costume designer for their employment in this comedic saga. The beige gendarme uniform used in all six films represents the consistency and authority of the gendarmes, contrasting their often-childlike behavior. While pursuing criminals, or avoiding getting into trouble, the gendarmes don disguises that conceal or reveal their selfish motivations: pride when pursuing criminals, and shame when avoiding chastisement. Furthermore, cross-dressing, a long-standing tradition in the comedic genre and antiquity, is employed to question not the sexuality, but the authority of a given 7 character, since a burlesque clown in drag appears less authoritative. Finally, a gendarme out of uniform possesses less clout, and nudity thus represents a gendarme at his most vulnerable and powerless. In altering the uniform or appearance of a gendarme, their identity is altered, which director Jean Girault exploits to encourage audience laughter. 8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION - « REGARDEZ-MOI LÀ, VOUS ! » Costumes permit a wordless conversation between the director and the spectator. They serve to define a character in a context, or set him apart. By interlacing everyday apparel with out-of-the-ordinary costumes, a grandiose character wearing a larger-than-life outfit can be made to stand out. According to costume designer Richard La Motte, “almost every film contains some kind of ‘Gag Outfit’…with the special purpose of setting a character apart, in something other than regular clothes” (La Motte 87). Consequently, a ‘Gag’ character is distinguished not only by their exaggerated personality, but also is set apart by their costume that differs from other characters in color, fabric, styling, embellishment, or theming. A comedy can contain several ‘Gag’ characters, and “any characters who stand out are in ‘Gag’ outfits, and this might go for their clothes, their manner of wearing the clothes, or the condition of the clothes.” (La Motte 89). So how can the moviegoer define one gag character when each character appears more ridiculous than the next? The costume designers of The Gendarme series Jacques Cottin – for Le gendarme se marie (1968), Le gendarme en balade (1970), and Le gendarme et les extra-terrestres (1979)- and Ritta Laffarque (Se Marie) accomplish this in two ways. One, a gendarme’s uniform sets him or her apart from a civilian. Only an active-duty gendarme can wear such a uniform, which signals the authority that the gendarme holds over the average citizen while working. Two, costumes emerge in the films that serve a specific joke or gag. For example, Cruchot wears a nun’s habit in Extra-Terrestres, but he does not remain in this same costume throughout the series. 9 The Gendarme comedic series includes six films: Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez (1964), Le gendarme à New York (1965), Le gendarme se marie (1968), Le gendarme en balade (1970), Le gendarme et les extra-terrestres (1979), and Le gendarme et les gendarmettes (1982). This essay will explore how the director (all six films) and screenwriter (New York, Se Marie and En Balade) of Le Gendarme series Jean Girault and the screenwriters Richard Balducci (Saint-Tropez) and Jacques Vilfrid (New York, Se Marie, En Balade, Extra-Terrestres, and Gendarmettes) utilize uniforms, disguise, cross-dressing and nakedness to create situational gags for their comedic characters by means of often-clownish costumes in the entire The Gendarme series that spans 18 years and three decades. As mentioned above, the costumes of The Gendarme series starring Louis de Funès were created by French costume designer Jacques Cottin, who also crafted the costumes for Jacques Tati in Jour de fête (1949), Mon Oncle (1958), and Playtime (1967), among other French and British (Me and the Colonel) films. The gendarme uniform in the films of The Gendarme series includes a beige jacket, shirt, pants, and kepi with black trim, a belt, a white or black holster, and formal black dress shoes. The official dark blue and black uniforms of French gendarmes, present in the French public consciousness, thus act as a foil that exaggerates the comedy of the costumes in the movies. The ‘Gendarmerie Nationale’ or “the French Gendarmerie was formed as a national military police force in 1791, replacing the Constabulary of the previous old regime. The National Gendarmerie has continued its existence until the present day, acting as both a national police force and as provost police for the armed forces” (Kidd