50. 378 Images of Women in
French Cinema
Take Home Final Examination, mailto:joseph_garreau@uml.edu or placed in my mailbox (Coburn 113) by the required
time and day.
A. ESSAY QUESTION (20 points):
Using as a mode of analysis the
following:
• woman as object
• women as an exploited
element in a patriarchal society
• positive role model of
women,
in a clear and cogent manner,
synthesize your observations on the films
we’ve screened that you find relevant and for which you can apply
the above characteristics. Also, detail which woman - or women -
represent(s) for you the most positive feminine image.
These films were:
1. Girl on the Bridge
2. Diva
3. Betty Blue
4. Entre nous
5. French Twist
6. The Widow of St. Pierre
7. Story of Women
8. Indochine
9. The Lover
10. Camille Claudel
11. Thérèse
12. La Femme Nikita and its remake Point of No Return
13. Chaos
B. ON THE FILMS THEMSELVES (70 points)
1. Girl on the Bridge
a) Briefly comment on the following: “Girl on the Bridge is a peculiar sort of romantic drama about a man and a woman bound together by an alloy of danger, fatalism, luck, libidos, and sharp steel. On one level the film is preposterous; on another, implausible; and yet on another a compelling, fantastic drama.”
b) To which three exotic places
(besides Paris, of course!) did the film take us?
2. Diva
Diva has been described as an aria of adolescent male obsession
with the fatal mystery of womanhood, a movie oscillating between the realms of
obsessive love and urban thriller. What did you retain of Diva’s unforgettable female characters, both in the
principal (Cynthia Hawkins) and the supporting roles (Alba, Paula and
Nadia)?
3. Betty Blue
a) What does the French title,
37, 2º le matin, refer to?
b) Why is the meaning of the above
title, lost in “Betty Blue” significant for the understanding of
the whole movie?
4. Entre nous
a) In what sense is Entre nous less a feminist than a feminine film?
b)Why, in your opinion, was the
French title Coup de foudre (meaning
“Love at first sight” changed to Entre nous ?
c) In Pauline Kael’s view,
Diane Kury’s idealization of Lena and Madeleine seems to be based on a
traditional conception of women as being finer-grained and more sensitive than
men. Please, comment, comparing the two women to their husbands.
5. French Twist
a) Why did Josiane Balasko tackle
such a subject in French Twist?
b) Borrowing from to Denise
Brahimi’s critique, how can we interpret the last scenes in French
Twist? Or, to phrase the question
differently, if Balasko had genuinely wanted to give lesbianism a place in
cultural representation, why did she not have Loli, Marijo and children set up
home together, independently of Laurent?
6. The Widow of St. Pierre
a) What is the double
meaning of the word “Veuve” in the French title?
a) Briefly comment on the
following remark of a French critique: “Le poids des images compte bien
plus que le choc des mots”, or, in an approximate translation: The
film’s images weigh much more than the words themselves.
c) What are for you the two most
memorable scenes?
7. Story of Women
a) Pierrot's wish (over the
birthday cake) is to be an executioner, "un bourreau". Why?
asked his mother. " 'cause they put something on their head and one
doesn't know who they are when they execute people". What idea, do you
think, Chabrol is trying to convey?
b) What is the obvious
symbol of the goose hanging by the legs that the blind players try to
decapitate?
c) Whose voice, narrating the
execution of Marie Latour, do we hear at the very end of the film?
8. Indochine
a) Wargnier plays on Catherine
Deneuve’s status as an icon of French womanhood, able to ‘signify a
constellation of traits’; which ones more specifically?
b) Why did the filmmaker give
Deneuve such a dominating narrative role in Indochine ?
c) Although centering on a
romantic triangle composed of a young white officer, an older white woman and
her adopted Vietnamese daughter, it what sense can it be argued that Indochine
- first and foremost a glossy romantic
drama - can be viewed as a feminist film?
9. The Lover
a) In what ways was the love
between the young girl and the Chinese man in The Lover an impossible love?
b) Since you have not read L’Amant(The
Lover) or L’Amant de la
Chine du Nord (The North China Lover), it
may be difficult for you to comment on the fact that Annaud’s film lacks
the distinctive voice and ambiance of the Duras’s book, yet the abundant
soft-core sex scenes and the splendid sets make up for the banal style. In your
eyes, what makes The Lover such a
successful film?
c) There is a strong similarity
between the attitude of Camille in Indochine and “she” (Marguerite Duras interpreted by
Jane March). What similarity?
10. Camille Claudel
a)What were the societal obstacles
that stood in the way of Camille Claudel's acceptance as an artist?
b) Thérèse and Camille Claudel
I deliberately chose the biopics
of Thérèse (Thérèse Martin, 1873 -1897) and Camille
Claudel (1868 - 1955).Can you comment on the totally different approach of the
respective filmmakers: Alain Cavalier for Thérèse and Bruno Nuytten for Camille Claudel. Compare in particular the visual flair (or lack thereof)
of both cineasts.
11. Thérèse
a) As detailed in the handout, Thérèse
is a film built on reversals. Cavalier
flouts the convention of commercial cinema in the sense that it is not the
woman, but the man - an absent other, Jesus -, who assumes shifting personae.
In the nuns’ imagination, what are the several different representations
of Jesus?
b) As a mystic,
Thérèse does avoid food, but still revels in the body, in the
warmth of human touch. Which examples have you retained?
c) Why is Thérèse a film praised by both religious and non religious
viewers?
12. La Femme Nikita & Point of No Return
a) The original French title says
only “Nikita”. Why the addition of “La femme” for the
American market?
b) What specific example(s)
taken from the movie can you give to illustrate Anne Barlowe’s assertion
that “a woman cannot kill like a man”?
c) As much as you can formulate a
valid opinion from the video-clip shown in class, what differences and
similarities can you establish between Nikita (Anne Parillaud) and Maggie
(Bridget Fonda)?
13. Chaos
In lieu of a reaction paper on
this last film, address briefly the following points after reading the handed
out film review and additional comments:
a) Coline Serreau as a "non
politically correct" screenwriter and filmmaker;
b) the two-dimensional
characterizations of women as victims (or sly feminist avengers) and men as
egotistical dolts whose subjugation of women masks a desperate reliance on
them;
c) the film’s greatest asset
is that the story doesn’t tidily conform to the rigorously logical
demands of reality.
C. TRIVIA OR NOT SO
TRIVIA (10 points)
1. Which female movie star replaced Brigitte Bardot in 1985
as the model for Marianne, the figure representing the Republic that stands in
town halls throughout the country, and whose likeness in 1992 was put on
stamps?
2. I will have told you in class - or you may have read it in the handout -
which woman, in 2004, has been chosen as the new Marianne?
3. Name the French actress
who received twice an Oscar nomination as a troubled woman seeking independence
from a dominant father figure only to end up in an asylum.
4. Which other famous French actress said that “women’s
roles are more interesting
[than men’s] because they
are more provocative, more telling and more subversive.”?
5. They both
died, three months apart, in 1943, two women punished for defying male society
and asserting their independence. Who are they?
6. Which famous
female author wrote, in which famous book, in what year: “On ne
naît pas femme, on le devient.” “You are not born a woman,
you become a woman.”
7. Who (name the
actress) made the following comment:
“Deux choses sont sans limites: la féminité et les
moyens d’en abuser“ =
“Two things are without limits: femininity and the means of taking
advantage of it”? In which film?
8. The nuns in Thérèse cherish the
words of a key erotic text in mystical literature found in the Old Testament. What is the title of this poetic
text?
9-10. If you could summarize in one paragraph what you have
learned in this course, what would your comments be. Finally, what suggestions
can you offer to make it a better or more interesting course? Thank you!