Contemporary French National Cinema: the 400 Blows and Amelie - Essay Example

The 400 Blows and Amelie: Representing Contemporary French National Cinema An Analysis Paper of Paper Introduction One of the most remarkable features of the cultural and political backdrops of France is, certainly, an obsession with national history and cultural myths. Not merely has this obsession found a fascinating reflection in French cinema but silver screens have fulfilled, and remain to fulfil, an important role in the manner France commemorates its national past and learns by heart its cultural myths and, thus, perceives its present (Lanzoni 2004). That fact is perfectly echoed by Susan Hayward’s (2005, 328) claim that the “cinema is a cultural artefact that articulates the nation’s myths... the cinema speaks the national and the national speaks the cinema.” This paper argues that French cinema reflects its national past and cultural relics, just like how France’s culture and history reflects the development of its cinema. This thesis is substantiated through the analysis of two great French films, The 400 Blows by Truffaut and Amelie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, which both influenced the contemporary thought on French memory and history. Apparently, France is not the only society where in dominating political and cultural myths are preserved, or, more seldom, questioned by cinematic themes. However, it is also factual that the reverence customarily given to French cinema has reinforced the major function it has fulfilled in relation to myths coinciding with the national past (McLaughlin 2010). For instance, relating to the ways where in the dismal phase of the Occupation has been commemorated, scholar Henry Rousso argues that movies “seem to have had a decisive impact on the formation of a common, if not a collective, memory” (Vanderwolk 1997, 62). In a yet wider sense, it may be argued that if, for justifications to be discussed later. Although French cinema has embodied the national history in unparalleled ways, the value and focus it has given to French history is barely a new trend. Somewhat the opposite, as mentioned above, practically from its beginning, French cinema played as an essential source of national past and cultural myth. Films from the 1890s until the 1950s, with remarkably few exceptions, represented a particular image of French history (Higbee & Leahy 2011). To a considerable extent, the particular essence of this image, which was mostly dominant and conscious, was created by, and expressed, a major historical meeting (Williams 1992): the era that witnessed the emergence of French cinema also witnessed the French shared past embrace the nationalistic and devoted forms that would characterise it for years to come. Obviously, it is true that these forms had started to emerge prior to the 1890s (Greene 1999). Jules Michelet, a prominent French historian, described his homeland in the same nationalistic and almost deferential manners that, almost a century afterwards, would echo all over Gaulle’s vision of France (Hayward 2005). The belief of Michelet that his France had been granted a mission to “incarnate a moral ideal of the world” (Greene 1999, 13), that his country was fated to deepen the reaches of the Enlightenment and the Revolution, encouraged him to regard the splendour of French history as a reservoir of inspiration not just for the country but for the entire world. Michelet, seeing France a ‘living fraternity’, a form of ‘religion’ (ibid, p. 13), eloquently stated that “all other histories are mutilated; only ours is complete... the national legend of France is a streak of immense and uninterrupted light, a true Milky Way for the eyes of the world” (Greene 1999, 13-14). French cinema, from 1895, could be drawn upon to preserve the nationalistic image of the national history perceived fundamental to the core essence of France (Hayward 2005). The ‘great national recit’ (ibid, p. 205) could now be narrated not just by historical novels and works of art but also by moving pictures. France’s moviehouses, similar to its classrooms, became a haven where in a ‘nationalist pedagogy’ could be perpetuated. Certainly, a lot of historical movies were just like moving textbook images, vivid illustrations of prominent personalities and events from France’s history that were already firmly embedded on the collective memory (Williams 1992). For instance, the well-known masterpiece of Marat by David inspired the movie The Assassination of Marat in 1897 (Greene 1999). The demise of Robespierre also inspired an 1897 movie, The Death of Robespierre (ibid, p. 14). The period before World War I, during a point when French cinema attained a global supremacy never to be achieved again, historical movies turned into more ambitious and complex ones (Lanzoni 2004). As if to show the manners where in dominant outlooks establish our perception of history, historical creativities started to manifest a uniquely post-’68 issue of power and, thus, with the core essence of the state (Hughes 2007). Bringing back to life episodes and moments neglected by, suppressed from, and ‘established ’representations of France’s history, historical attempts started to delve into the ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ of power (Lanzoni 2004) Hence they showed a new concern for regional developments and in collective uprisings that questioned the power of the state as well as the imagined solidarity of the country (Hughes 2007). As time passed by, this pursuit for ‘collective memory’ crossed over popular history although its emphasis started to change. Rene Predal, a French cinema historian, states that one of the major features of the 1970s French cinema was a fixation with ‘social reality’ recognised as ‘history, sociology, and politics’ (Lanzoni 2004). As argued by Predal, the 1970s, the period where in a recently realised concern for the past was strongest, witnessed the creation of several movies tackling French history (Greene 1999). Certainly, the 1970s saw creations as varied as Louis Malle’s mysterious psychological depiction of a young traitor in Lacombe Lucien; Alain Resnais’s entertaining re-enactment of a well-known 1930’s scandal in Stavisky; and Bertrand Tavernier’s mural of the Regency era in Que la fete commence (ibid, p. 20). As more and more movies depict the past, the particular vision of France, the core representation of history so thoroughly enriched by a long development of historical cinema, discovered itself under a barrage of criticisms. The seriousness and adoration that defined earlier historical films, both in adaptations of fictional classics and historical legends, almost vanished. Certainly, these conventional genres disappeared as other forms of films, such as detailed reinterpretations of earlier periods, documentaries, represented the past (Hughes & Williams 2001). Rather than depicting the victories and grandeurs of the national history, a large number of these productions began to explore its most unpleasant events, to relive its most discordant periods. The prominent historical icons who had reigned supreme in earlier movies were replaced by average individuals although the focus transferred from the ‘elites’ to the ‘underprivileged’ (Williams 1992). Hence Paris and Versailles heralded the provinces; deemphasised murderers and exploited, poor peasants displaced heroines and heroes (Greene 1999) like Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte. Practically, all these preferences could be viewed, for instance, in what was perhaps the pioneering film obviously enthused by the union of the ‘gauchiste’ character and new history ignited by ’68: Les Camisards by Rene Allio in 1970 (Hughes 2007). A greatly politicised reinterpretation of France’s history, the film highlights the oppressive character of the state of France although it questions the national solidarity myth. Its central theme, the 18th century uprising of a group pursued Protestants labelled ‘les Camisards’, bring to mind the history of the religious wars and separations that troubled France for hundreds of years (Greene 1999). Permeated with the spirit of major fault lines of France, the movie represents the conventional iconography, derived from works of art (Greene 1999), seen in previous historical movies. Rather, to recreate the fated revolt of this religious group, the director consults the original documents: a great deal of the narration heard all over the movie contains passages from real Protestant journals (Hughes 2007). This point of view permits Allio to represent history from the ‘grassroots’, through the point of view of the Protestant dissenters instead of through the lens of those in authority, and to reconstruct the social traditions and physical realities that dominated the lives of the harassed Camisards (McLaughlin 2010). It is factual that films by the 1980s appear to become less revolutionary and less challenging in their representation of history. Even as the 1970’s ‘gauchiste’ essence vanished, French cinema started to see a revival of traditional historical sorts such as literary adaptations of French works of art and prolific demonstration films (McLaughlin 2010). But even though such movies apparently reverberates earlier traditions, they also showed accurately how much perception of history had transformed (Higbee & Leahy 2011). For instance, they depicted that the ‘Annales’ framework of the past, its interest in the unidentified parts of the past, its emphasis on the lives of average individuals, stayed strong (Higbee & Leahy 2011). With regard to this, two prolific demonstrations by Jean-Paul Rappenau, film director, are notable (Greene 1999). These themes are clearly explored in two of the greatest French movies of the contemporary period, The 400 Blows and Amelie. The 400 Blows and Amelie The 400 Blows by Francois Truffaut was an inspiring, psychologically solemn depiction of the director as a young man. The film is also historically significant due to the fact that its immediate success contributed to the emergence of a national film movement referred to as the French New Wave (Vanderwolk 1997). This movement thrived for quite some time, particularly between 1959 and 1963, when particular economic, technological, and historical forces merged to provide substantial empowerment to several young French directors who had began as historians, scholars, and film critics (Lanzoni 2004). An important motivation for the filmmakers of the New Wave movement originated from the works of Alexandre Astruc, a French movie critic. Astruc claimed that films were capably an instrument of expression as intricate and understated as written language (Williams 1992). He claimed that films are also a language, “a form in which and by which an artist can express his thoughts, however abstract they may be, or translate his obsessions exactly as he does in a contemporary essay or novel” (Williams 1992, 306). New Wave filmmakers, motivated by Astruc, adopted what was previously a radical method of constructing and interpreting movies. The literacy story of The 400 Blows interlocks with the major narrative of the movie, which is a disastrous historical story where in the problems of Doinel are an outcome of a mishmash of having parents who ignore him (Trier 2007). The movie can also be perceived as an account of social analysis for its denunciation of the institutions of society, in particular, the legal system, the school, and family that jointly disadvantaged Doniel (Trier 2007). To establish the thesis of this paper in relation to this film, the primary components of the plot will be summarised. The expression ‘the 400 blows’ is synonymous to the phrase ‘raising hell’ which described the experience of Doniel throughout the days that comprise the duration of the movie’s major plot. I discern various forms of cultural or national aspects in the movie, particularly in terms of education and politics. I think that Doniel is reprimanded for his actions in terms of pedagogical episodes. For instance, he is castigated for the essays and poems he writes. However, he is also castigated for not possessing particular ‘texts.’ The cultural narrative hence is a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t” (Trier 2007, 35) account. The cultural narrative is not merely interlocked with the ‘personal’ story. It is fundamental to it. It comprises it. This means that the absence of the cultural perspective will hamper the presence of the other (Vanderwolk 1997). The episodes that put Doinel into more trouble are cultural and national events. A great deal of the initial remark on the The 400 Blows overlooked Truffaut’s aim to focus on the ‘French realism’ (Hughes 2007). The movie, unlike earlier French historical films, deserted its hero prematurely. That The 400 Blows falls under the standards of the pedagogical account has become apparent, where in Truffaut has carried out his portrayal of Doinel. That the movie also tried to transcend the concern with quality to revive a portion of the misplaced grandeur of the realists was apparent. In The 400 Blows, as mentioned a while ago, Truffaut was motivated to remove some independence from his heroes. Doniel increasingly resembled the traditional realist hero as he got older, revealing by his constant failure in life the need to conform to the national and cultural narrative (Trier 2007). Similar to Truffaut’s, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s movie Amelie is clearly a social trend, and a true representation of French national cinema. Jeunet elaborates with remarkable insight the cinematographic and socio-historical importance of the movie (Higbee & Leahy 2011). The outcome is a culturally rich work of art with a global extent; this is, possibly, one of the most powerful components of the movie. The director knows that although Amelie builds significantly from a collage of cultural artefacts familiar specifically to the French, the movie develops a great deal from international cinema, particularly American film making from which Jeunet obtained his experience in filmmaking (Higbee & Leahy 2011). Although Jeunet perceives the movie as a personal one, he takes into account that the movie has a global existence of its own; to persuade the audience of this critical argument, he adds a prominent reception element, an experimentation of the persuasion techniques of Anglo-Saxons (Hughes 2007). He moves through modern cinema to show the inclinations which bring to the formation of the greatly-formalised Montmarte of Amelie. Jeunet’s technique in creating characters, cinematographic effects and themes raise the cultural and national perspective of Amelie (Lanzoni 2004). The movie underlines a vast majority of the issues required for a genuine understanding of French national cinema, presenting the audience with a concrete understanding of how the movie can be considered as an extraordinary collection in current lucrative cinema (Lanzoni 2004). Amelie is a new narrative and visual form of filmmaking in France, something that appeals to global viewers, with a hint of worldwide relevance and cultural specificity; according to a Vanderschelden (2007), a film critic, “Jeunet has moved even closer to a new form of cultural diversity, distinct from Hollywood, but no longer strictly defined by its nationality” (ibid, 96). Aside from demonstrating the richness of the French national cinema, the works of Truffaut and Jeunet also show the contention about ‘national identity’ and ‘Frenchness’, specifically, that France’s major cultural, social, and political role in Europe and the rest of the world is vanishing. On a cultural perspective, it is apparent that Paris is not the creative centre anymore. Nor can present-day French culture and thought complement the influence given by existential thinking or by French ‘theory’ (Hughes 2007). From a wider historical and political setting, France is currently, it is commonly recognised, a ‘mediocre power’ that is rapidly misplacing even the greatest role it traditionally had in relation to its ex-settlements in Africa (Greene 1999). Or, as shown by The 400 Blows and Amelie, France is not the haven of history anymore but merely the site where history took place. In the face of this imagined weakened status and power, even apparently apolitical themes, such as those represented by Doinel and Amelie, can trigger nationalist obsessions (Hayward 2005). Emphasising that French cultural identity has constantly been tied to consolidated political and cultural foundations and thoughts, Doinel and Amelie portrays that the desertion of the French state of a large number of its control over the society, the ‘globalisation’ or ‘Europeanisation’ of that society, cannot fall short in influencing French cultural and national identity (Hayward 2005). Practically all of these important concerns, the disappearance of French grandeur, the speeding up of history and the emergence of a nation founded on the debates over French identity, global competition, and the crisis of ideology, established their marks on cinematic embodiments of history (Hughes 2007). At times, the existence of these issues could barely be more evident: the heartrending depiction of a boy in Truffaut’s film leaves no uncertainty about the dreadful emptiness many felt as radical Utopian goals collapsed during the decade. Even though, more frequently, fears are experienced in subtle ways: the surreal cloud that envelops memories of the past in creations such as The 400 Blows and Amelie reflects the murky presence of current racial prejudice; the stylised ‘myths’ of the two movies enclose reflections of a treasured populist world that appears to have disappeared evermore (Higbee & Leahy 2011). But whether the presence of these issues is overt or covert generally bear witness to an era of prevalent and profound crisis and disorder. Obviously, both movies try to draw examples from the past to the present; both prosecute dominant and frequently lethal social institutions. Both filmmakers have never stopped to magnify their counter-image of the national past; to represent the ‘marginalised’ rather than the ‘powerful’; to condemn prejudice and abuse; to highlight ‘official’ fraud and insincerity. However, viewed from another point of view, the dissimilarities between The 400 Blows and Amelie are as important as the similarities. Distinguished by the ideological gulf built by the disintegration of Marxism, these movies represent history, and its embodiment, in quite distinct ways (Williams 1992). In The 400 Blows, hope for the future was strengthened by the inspiration of the Revolution; in Amelie this hope has paved the way to something quite more unassuming and still, possibly, more complicated: an aspiration to glimpse memory and understand the past. French cultural and national identity is in the midst of living the predicament of their political embodiments; a predicament of the nation-state in the verge of integrating with the bigger European solidarity; a predicament of collective memory that can be viewed in the historical reconstructions of our dawning myth of Revolution; a predicament of proletarian headship with the disintegration of the Communist Party and factions; a predicament of Socialist principle (Greene 1999); on what collective memory can we establish a new ideology of citizenship? Examining the demands France faces as it considers assimilation into an integrated Europe, several French historians remark, “It may be true that the more European and global economic integration intensify, the greater will be the temptation to defend and to mythologise all the remaining social and political components of French national identity” (Greene 1999, 188). This is similarly true of cinema. And it indicates, one final explanation why French cinema, confronted with the genuine likelihood of being assimilated and crushed by Hollywood personalities, must show such a defined nostalgia for visions that express, and address, profound aspects of national identity (Hughes 2007). As stated by scholar Francois de la Breteque, “It is impossible not to feel that today’s French cinema, sensing that the end is near, pays a frozen homage to past splendours” (Greene 1999, 189). Although the empty visions of contemporary cinema represent the nostalgia that is embedded in this ‘frozen homage,’ (ibid, p. 189) both movies still offer a process that possibly will be permanent. And what is possibly at risk may be not just a feature of national culture but, due to the function that cinema has conventionally fulfilled in the country, a part of France’s spirit. Conclusions It is, definitely, this feeling of profound national predicament that paves the way not just to the preoccupation with history which is manifested in French cinema but also to movies that are influenced, although in a variety of ways, by deep sadness and mourning. The grief-stricken burden of the past is, definitely, most powerful in the cinematic works of Truffaut and Jeunet: in their movies, oppressed and changing memories appear to control and repress action and though. However, to differing degrees, a related sense of immobility influences the main characters of the movies, Doinel and Amelie. If the lack of feeling that distresses the protagonists in The 400 Blows and Amelie be elaborated by the phobia of decolonisation, no related justification emerges for the lack of purpose and direction of the neglected and disabled young individuals who wander around present-day Paris. The fixation with collective memory witnessed in these movies may bring to mind the exploration for lost time embarked on by the narratives of Truffaut’s and Jeunet’s works of art. However, the delight that emerges in these two masterpieces when they restore the past cannot be located in other works of art. Instead, here the past assumes the solemn colours and movements of the present although it becomes imprisoned in what may be viewed as cinematic ‘havens of memory.’ References Greene, N. (1999) Landscapes of Loss: The National Past in Postwar French Cinema. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hayward, S. (2005) French National Cinema. London: Routledge. Higbee, W. & Leahy, S. (2011) Studies in French Cinema: UK Perspectives 1985-2010. London: Intellect Ltd. Hughes, A. (2007) France/China: Intercultural Imaginings. London: Legenda. Hughes, A. & Williams, J.S. (2001) Gender and French Cinema. Oxford: Berg. Lanzoni, R.F. (2004) French Cinema: From its Beginnings to the Present. London: Continuum. McLaughlin, N. (2010) French War Films and National Identity. London: Cambria Press. Trier, J. (2007) ‘The 400 Blows as Cinematic Literacy Narrative,’ Teacher Education Quarterly, 34(3), 35. Vanderschelden, I. (2007) Amelie: Le fabuleux destin d’Amelie Poulain: (Jean-Pierre Jeunet). University of Illinois Press. Vanderwolk, W. (1997) Rewriting The Past. London: Rodopi B.V. Editions. Williams, A. (1992) Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. New York: Harvard University Press. Read More