In Praise of Cinematic Bastardy In Praise of Cinematic Bastardy Edited by Sébastien Lefait and Philippe Ortoli In Praise of Cinematic Bastardy, Edited by Sébastien Lefait and Philippe Ortoli This book first published 2012 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2012 by Sébastien Lefait and Philippe Ortoli and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book 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 copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-3782-2, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-3782-8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .................................................................................. viii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Sébastien Lefait and Philippe Ortoli Part I: From Adulterous Crossbreeding to Generic Bastardy Chapter One............................................................................................... 20 Les genres ne font-ils que des bâtards? Christian Viviani Chapter Two.............................................................................................. 29 Film Genre and Modality: The Incestuous Nature of Genre Exemplified by the War Film Matthias Grotkopp and Hermann Kappelhoff Chapter Three............................................................................................ 40 Vampire Parents and Jealous Brothers: Hollywood Viewed by the Underground Barbara Turquier Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 52 Bastardy: Jarmusch’s Way from Mongrelization to Non-dualism Céline Murillo Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 65 The Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing: From Reference to Bastardy Karine Hildenbrand Part II: Exploring Degeneration: Bastardy as New Filmic Rhetoric Chapter Six................................................................................................ 82 Hybridation cinématographique en situation de guerre froide (1958-1966) De quelques films du pacte de Varsovie “métamorphosés” en stéréotypes culturels occidentaux Joël Mak dit Mack vi Table of Contents Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 92 Yndio do Brasil (S. Back, 1995): Potentiel discursif de la bâtardise dans le cinéma brésilien Erika Thomas Part III: Blurred Lineages: Bastardy and the New Critical Cinema Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 104 Catherine Breillat Reconsidering the Representation of Sexuality in Classical Hollywood Cinema: For a Bastard Method of an Aesthetics of Interpretation Claudine Le Pallec Marand Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 116 Adieu Gary: du métissage et des moyens d’en rendre compte Martin Goutte Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 127 Francis Ford Coppola et le voleur d’yeux L’inquiétante étrangeté de Tetro (2009) Carmen Bernand Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 136 Bastard Remakes: Homage and Betrayal in Dawn of the Dead (Zack Snyder, 2004) and Halloween (Rob Zombie, 2007) David Roche Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 146 Disparition du statut narratif dans Schwarzer Garten (Black Garden) de Dietmar Brehm Gabrielle Reiner Part IV: The Unnatural Nature of Creation Chapter Thirteen...................................................................................... 158 Bastardy Spiralling Down the Gutter of Time: Sterne and Winterbottom’s Games of Pleasure Brigitte Friant-Kessler and Ariane Hudelet-Dubreil In Praise of Cinematic Bastardy vii Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 170 Gainsbourg: vie héroïque by Joann Sfar (2010) “Drawing in Motion” and the Bastard Biopic Trudy Bolter Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 179 Le film en version “suédée.” Rencontre du spectacle et du spectateur Anaïs Kompf Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 189 Vincere (Marco Bellocchio) and Milk (Gus Van Sant): Hybrid Fictions and Dissensus Sarah Leperchey Part V: Asserting Cinema’s Ontological Bastardy Chapter Seventeen................................................................................... 200 Formats mixtes et cadres polymorphes Sylvain Angiboust Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 211 Looney Bastards: le film de genre à l’épreuve du cartoon Vincent Baticle Chapter Nineteen..................................................................................... 219 Impure or Bastard? The Actual Place of Heterogeneity in André Bazin’s Writings Marco Grosoli Bibliography............................................................................................ 230 Films Cited .............................................................................................. 245 Contributors............................................................................................. 253 Index........................................................................................................ 259 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This volume stems from the three-day international conference “In Praise of Cinematic Bastardy” held at the University Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense from 28 April to 30 April 2011. This conference was organised under the auspices of the University’s research group on English literature, culture and civilisation, the CREA (EA 370), to which we are indebted for both organisational help and intellectual stimulation. Our special thanks go to the research group’s director, Chantal Delourme, who was kind enough to support a project fostered by two lecturers who conduct their research at University Paris Ouest while teaching at University of Corsica. We also wish to express our deepest gratitude to the CICLAHO, the CREA research unit which focuses on Classical Hollywood Cinema, and to which the editors of this volume both belong. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the academics in charge of the CICLAHO, Anne-Marie Paquet-Deyris, Serge Chauvin, Anne Crémieux and Dominique Sipière, whose indefectible passion and encouragement helped us through all the stages of the undertaking, from the fine-tuning of the original idea to the selection of contributors. We are also grateful to the other members of the conference’s scientific committee, Gaëlle Lombard and Jonathan Ervine, for their assistance. Finally, it would not have been possible to organise the event and to publish this volume without the financial and symbolical support of the doctoral programme devoted to literature, languages and arts (ED 138) and of the foreign languages department at University Paris Ouest, and without the help provided by all the technical services of the institution. Above all else, we wish to praise the contributors to this volume for proving the relevance of praising bastardy in the current context of filmic creation, but also for illustrating how academic debates may go beyond university borders to address the prevalent social question of individual or collective identities, in times when the omnipresence of identity-related issues makes it necessary to correlatively tackle the legitimacy of identities whose origins cannot be traced back to a unique or stable source. INTRODUCTION SEBASTIEN LEFAIT AND PHILIPPE ORTOLI The art of cinema, because it was born from various and heterogeneous sources (science, photography, popular entertainment, etc.) has constantly tried to preserve that taste for blending. And even though it finally created its own specificity, the art of film has not reneged that founding principle. Indeed, because it is reflected in its productions, the genealogy of cinema’s identity is one of its most important theoretical issues. Yet though processes of “biological” filiation between certain film works, genres, or forms have been the subject of many studies, concerning for instance the ways in which crossbreeding, in its diverse versions, may generate hybridisation or miscegenation, it appears that the question of the legitimacy of cinematic filiations, which is intrinsically linked to that of the legitimacy of filmic unions, has not received due treatment so far. Some recent works, however, among which Inglourious Basterds, make it necessary to study this correlated aspect. Quentin Tarantino’s films,1 and specifically the latest one, are pioneering in that they vigorously suggest that cinema should be defined as the art of bastardy. Inglourious Basterds exemplifies a new conception of the circulation of cinematographic memory, at a time when works, whether old or new, are quickly and permanently available, and when the extensive use of intertextuality makes it difficult, not to say quite impossible, to create an original movie. At the very least, Inglourious