1 Mediterranean Seascapes in Contemporary French Cinema
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Mediterranean Seascapes in Contemporary French Cinema: Between Myth and Reality Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Caroline Noble, M.A. Graduate Program in French and Italian The Ohio State University 2018 Dissertation Committee: Professor Margaret Flinn, Advisor Professor Patrick Bray Professor Benjamin Hoffmann 1 Copyright by Caroline Noble 2018 2 Abstract Can the presence the sea in French cinema have a function other than that of a backdrop and if it is the case, what does its presence imply? My dissertation examines this question by focusing on the representation of the Mediterranean Sea through a psychoanalytical lens, mainly dialoguing with Bachelard and Jung. Seen as a symbol for the unconscious, motherhood, and femininity, the study of the function of the sea in films allows for questioning about identity, gender stereotypes, and sexuality. Because of its mythological tendencies through painting and arts, the Mediterranean Sea has often been perceived as an object of fascination. Additionally, unlike films set by the Atlantic which are generally characterized by a more hostile and uninviting climate, the south of France has been a suitable place for the expression of sexual freedom and female emancipation. My dissertation starts tackling the invention and mythicization of the Mediterranean seascape in French film, notably thanks to the presence of the French icon Brigitte Bardot. Indeed, what the first films which use the allegorical function of the sea have in common is the presence of the famous actress. In Rozier’s Manina la fille sans voile (1952), Vadim’s Et Dieu créa la femme (1956) and Godard’s Le mépris (1963), the obvious parallel between Bardot and mythical creatures contributed to the idealization and promotion of the Mediterranean Sea as a sensual place at a time when France was in search of a national symbol. At the same time as women’s rights were increasing, masculinity crisis grew stronger and contributed to shaping the Mediterranean Sea as an allegory of inner struggles and fear of castration. Both Jacques and Brice, the respective protagonists of Besson’s Le grand bleu (1988) and Huth’s Brice de Nice (2005) are anything but the embodiment of the traditional male hero. Both male protagonists have recurrent dreams about mermaids and prefer the sea as a way to reject any form of ii sexuality and reconnect with their nuclear family. Additionally, it is the woman who is in charge of their sexual education and participates in reversing the traditional gender roles. Eventually, I contend that the representation of the Mediterranean Sea in French cinema has been affected since the end of the Algerian war of independence. No longer seen as a place suitable for love-making or for the expression of repressed male sexual desires, the sea has been demythicized because of the social changes occurring in the Mediterranean basin. Both Godard’s Pierrot le fou (1965) and Merzak Allouache’s Harragas (2009) use the sea as a rejection of society and portray the journey of men and women towards the acquisition of a new identity in a context that oppresses them. I conclude this dissertation by making an analogy between the sea and the topography of the mind insofar as the Mediterranean Sea is used as a map of the mind so as to enable a crystallization of French myths and realities. iii Acknowledgments I would first like to thank my advisor, Professor Flinn, for her continuous support during these past two years. I am extremely grateful for her confidence in my project, her patience, understanding, and guidance all along the different steps of the dissertation writing. I am also indebted to Professor Bray and Professor Hoffmann for their valuable insight and their constant encouragement. It has been a real pleasure and honor to work with knowledgeable and talented professors like you all. I am thankful for all the wonderful professors, colleagues, and friends from the French and Italian department at Ohio State. I will certainly miss working with such warm-hearted and gifted persons. Finally, I would like to thank my loving partner, Alexander, for his attentive listening, kindness, and affection during the many ups and downs of this process. Thank you for being here during every step of it. iv Vita June 2003 ....................................................... Lycée Dumont D’Urville 2008 ............................................................... M.A. English, Université de Toulon 2011 ............................................................... M.A. French, The Ohio State University 2014 to present ............................................. Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: French and Italian v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. iv Vita ...................................................................................................................................... v Introduction: The Lure of French Seascapes ................................................................. 1 Psychoanalysis and the sea …..............................................................................................3 Scholarship on the sea in French cinema …........................................................................5 France and the Mediterranean ….........................................................................................7 The Mediterranean Sea before the 1950s …......................................................................14 Chapter 1: And Bardot… Created the Mediterranean ............................................... 22 The ambivalence of the Bardot myth….............................................................................31 Recreating a mythological space …...................................................................................36 Bardot's nudity …...............................................................................................................53 Rohmer's blazon of the seascape: a shift in the representation of the Mediterranean........58 Chapter 2: Sea, Sex and Sons: Masculinity in Crisis in Luc Besson’s Le grand bleu and James Huth’s Brice de Nice ................................................................................... ..66 Narcissist child-men in Le grand bleu and Brice de Nice…..............................................72 Questioning the oedipal model: the sea as the mother …..................................................82 Jacques, Brice, and women …...........................................................................................88 Water and dreams …..........................................................................................................93 The sea as the preferred space for homosocial bonding …................................................99 vi Jacques and Brice's self-realization ….............................................................................106 Chapter 3: “Poussée vers l’eau-delà” or the sea as a threshold between society and the ego-ideal in Pierrot le fou and Harragas ........................................................ 112 The sea as a threshold between Ferdinand's outside and internal worlds …...................115 The sea as a transformative place in Harragas …...........................................................134 Mapping the mind ….......................................................................................................154 Conclusion: Seascapes beyond France and the Mediterranean ................................ 157 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 168 vii Introduction: The Lure of French Seascapes In a conference on “Le cinéma et la nouvelle psychologie” held in March 1943 at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques, Maurice Merleau-Ponty spoke about the connection between the mind and the senses, that is to say how the perception of the world varies from one human being’s perspective to another’s, before moving on to the effects of cinema upon the mind. While evoking the difference between literature and film-making, the phenomenologist essentially argued that “le cinéma ne nous donne pas, comme le roman l’a fait longtemps, les pensées de l’homme, il nous donne sa conduite ou son comportement, il nous offre directement cette manière spéciale d’être au monde” (23). According to the philosopher, while literature often enables the reader to have access to a psychological reading of the characters, cinema creates more distance between the character’s inner state on the one hand and the spectator on the other hand, to become for the latter nothing but an experience that is perceived, as opposed to being an experience that is thought and processed. Undeniably, for Merleau-Ponty, “le cinéma ne se pense pas, il se perçoit” (22). If the argument according to which having access to the character’s psychological development is more challenging in a film than in literature might have been valid for the phenomenologist, on the contrary, Christian Metz argues that cinema is a “veritable psychichal substitute” (4) that sheds light onto the mechanisms