Beyond Auteurism

Rosanna Maule

Description

Beyond Auteurism is a comprehensive study of nine film authors from France, Italy and Spain who since the 1980s have blurred the boundaries between art-house and mainstream, and national and transnational film production. Maule examines how the individuals have maintained a dialectical relationship with the authorial tradition of the national cinema to which each belongs. In considering this tradition, Maule seeks to illustrate that the film author is not only the most important symbol of European cinema’s cultural tradition and commitment, but is also a crucial part of Europe’s efforts to develop its cinema within domestic and international film industries. The book studies the work, practices and styles of European film-makers including Luc Besson, Claire Denis, Gabriele Salvatores and Alejandro Amenábar. Beyond Auteurism offers an important contribution to a historicized and contextualized view of film authorship from a theoretical framework that rejects Western-centred and essentialist views of cinematic practices and contexts.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Película fotográfica
• Film director
• General officer
• History of film
• General
• Drama
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841502557
• Langue: English

Extrait

Beyond Auteurism
New Directions in Authorial Film Practices in France, Italy and Spain since the 1980s
Beyond Auteurism
New Directions in Authorial Film Practices in France, Italy and Spain since the 1980s
Rosanna Maule
First Published in the UK in 2008 by Intellect Books, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2008 by Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2008 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons Copy Editor: Holly Spradling Typesetting: Mac Style, Nafferton, E. Yorkshire
ISBN 978-1-84150-204-5 EISBN 978-1-84150-255-7
Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.
C ONTENTS
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: The Death of Cinema and the Institutionalization of the Author
Chapter 1: The Film Author and the Survival of European Cinema
Chapter 2: The Middle Generation: Maurice Pialat, Gianni Amelio, and V ctor Erice
Chapter 3: The Difficult Legacy of the Nouvelle Vague : Olivier Assayas and French Film Authors at the End of Auteurism
Part Two: The Film Author in the New Audio-visual System
Chapter 4: For an Impure Cinema: Gabriele Salvatores and the Hybrid Nature of Film Authorship in Contemporary Italian Cinema
Chapter 5: A Different Type of Cinephilia: Alejandro Amen bar and the New Generation of Spanish Film Authors
Chapter 6: Made in Europa : Luc Besson and the Question of Cultural Exception in Post-auteur France
Part Three: The Female Author in the Era of Post-feminism
Chapter 7: Auteurism and Women s Cinema in France, Italy and Spain
Chapter 8: Female Authors and Gendered Identity in Film: Claire Denis s Post-subjective Representation
Chapter 9: Feminine Matters: Francesca Archibugi and the Reconfiguration of Women in the Private Sphere
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
L IST OF I LLUSTRATIONS
Cover: Olivier Assayas
Chapter 2
Maurice Pialat
El sol del membrillo : the painter A. L pez Garc a and the quince tree
Pialat shooting Van Gogh
Gianni Amelio and the little protagonist of Il ladro di bambini
Lamerica (Enrico Lo Verso)
Chapter 3
Olivier Assayas
L Eau Froide (Virginie Ledoyen and Cyprien Fouquet)
Demonlover
Chapter 4
Gabriele Salvatores (on the left) and his crew
Quo vadis, baby ?: Giorgia
Nirvana : Bombay City
Chapter 5
The Others (Nicole Kidman)
Alejandro Amen bar and DOP Javier Aguirresarobe
El esp ritu de la colmena : Ana meets Frankenstein
Alejandro Amen bar and Ana Torrent
Chapter 6
Jeanne d Arc (Milla Jovovich)
Besson shooting L on in New York (on the left, Gary Oldman)
Cover of the first of the three tomes on the Arthur saga written by Luc Besson
Jet Li, star of Kiss of the Dragon (Europa Corp. s first production)
La turbulence des fluides (2002), by Qu b cois film-maker Manon Briand, co-produced by Europa Corp .
The North American poster of Arthur et le Minimoys
Chapter 8
Beau travail (Denis Lavant as Galoup)
Beau travail The training routines (in close-up, Gr goire Colin, who plays Sentain)
Claire Denis on the set of Chocolat
Chocolat : from the left, Aim e, Prot e, and France
L Intrus : the South Pacific Islands
L Intrus : dragging Trebor s body
Chapter 9
Mignon partita : Mignon says goodbye to Giorgio and his family
Verso sera (Marcello Mastroianni and Sandrine Bonnaire)
Verso sera : collective consciousness at home
Il grande cocomero (Laura Betti and little Alessia Fugardi)
L IST OF T ABLES
Table 1 : Lange, Les films europ ens sur les cha nes europ ennes de television. (04/2000) France. European Audiovisual Observatory Report, http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/reports/films_in_tv.pdf.en .
Table 2 : Lange, Les films europ ens sur les cha nes europ ennes de television. (04/2000). Italy. European Audiovisual Observatory Report, http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/reports/films_in_tv.pdf.en .
Tables 3 and 4 : Lange, Les films europ ens sur les cha nes europ ennes de television. (04/2000). Spain. European Audiovisual Observatory Report, http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/reports/films_in_tv.pdf.en .
Table 5 : Film Distribution Companies in Europe. European Audiovisual Observatory Report, 5 February 2007, http://www.obs.coe.int/about/oea/pr/distributionreport.html .
Table 6 : The Fragmented Universe of Film Distribution Companies in Europe. European Audiovisual Observatory, Contribution to the Workshop Distribution of European Films (Venezia, 29-31 August 2003). European Film Distributors. http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/expert/filmdistcompanies.pdf.en .
Tables 7 - 9 : NEWMAN-BAUDAIS, S. The distribution of European Union films in Europe outside national markets. European Audiovisual Observatory Report (11/2002), http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/expert/disfilms_ue.pdf.en .
Table 10 : The Fragmented Universe of Film Distribution Companies in Europe. European Audiovisual Observatory, Contribution to the Workshop Distribution of European Films (Venezia, 29-31 August 2003). US Share in European Markets. http://www.obs.coe.int/online_publication/expert/filmdistcompanies.pdf.en .
Table 11 : Spanish Cinema in Figures and Data. Ministry of Culture. http://www.mcu.es/cine/MC/CDC/Evolucion/GraficosEvolucion.html .
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the academy, I am first of all grateful to Dudley Andrew, my dissertation advisor, for his mentorship and inspiration, as well as to the members of my dissertation committee, Rick Altman, Kathleen Newman, Lauren Rabinovitz, and Louis G. Schwartz, whose comments have been crucial for the strengthening of my arguments. A special thanks goes to my colleague Catherine Russell, for her precious advice and constant support during the development of my thesis into a book. I would also like to thank Nata a Durovicov , Flavia Laviosa, and Martin Lefebvre, from whose expertise I have benefited at different stages of my writing. I also thank Anna Antonini, Ana Br gido Corach n, Stephanie Dennison, Eduardo Gu zar lvarez, Susan Hayward, Song Hwee Lim, and Phil Powrie for their comments on earlier versions of parts of this study, which have been crucial for improving the present manuscript.
I am grateful to Olivier Assayas and Gabriele Salvatores for their generous collaboration during interviews. Thanks also to staff members of the Biblioth que du Film in Paris, especially those who work in the Iconoth que section of the library, as well as to the personnel of various institutions in France, Italy, and Spain where I have done research over the past six years.
The agencies and the institutions that have provided financial support for this book, including the Fonds Qu becois de la Recherche sur la Soci t et la Culture, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Fine Arts Faculty at Concordia University in Montreal, and the Research Group on the Inception and Formation of Cinematographic Theatrical Institutions, should receive special acknowledgment.
A very special thanks to my research assistants, Zo Constantinides and Bruno Dequen, who have been with me from the very beginning, for their wonderful collaboration and their patience. Their insightful comments have contributed immensely to improving this book. Many thanks also to Van Ha and Val rie Lefebvre, who put in long hours editing and formatting, as well as to Sylvain Duguay, Emmet Henchey, Nicky Park, and Cheryl Williams, for their technical support and their availability.
I am also particularly thankful to May Yao and Melanie Harrison at Intellect, for their punctual and skilful assistance throughout the editorial process. Thanks to Holly Spradling for her wonderful editorial work and patience throughout the process.
At Concordia, I would like to thank Catherine MacKenzie, Richard Kerr, and Tom Waugh for their support as chairs of the Cinema Department, as well as Amely Jurgenliemk, Marielle Nitoslawka, Eric Prince, Peter Rist, and Donato Totaro, whose friendship has helped me during my years as junior faculty.
Parts of chapters 1 , 5 , 6 , and 8 appear in Antonini, A., (ed.). 2003. Il film e i suoi multipli/Film and its Multiples . (Udine: Forum, pp. 241-50); Gu zar lvarez, E. and A. Br gido Corach n (eds). 2000. Lugares Sin Limites: Cinema of the 80s and 90s in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. Torre de Papel Spec. Issue 10.1 (Spring), pp. 65-76; Spanishness in the Spanish Novel and Cinema of the 20th-21st Century , ed. Cristina S nchez-Conejero, Cambridge, 2007: 107-20; Hayward, S. and P. Powrie. (eds). 2006. The Films of Luc Besson: Master of Spectacle . (Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 23-41); and Dennison, S. and S. Hwee Lee, (eds). 2006. Remapping World Cinema: Identity, Culture and Politics in Film . (London and New York: Wallflower Press, pp. 73-85).
The friendship of Chiara, Eleonora, Jennifer, Narcisa and James, Romaric and Yves, Guylaine, Rodrigue, Chiara and Dario, and Sandra has sustained me throughout the writing of this book.
Finally, and above all, I am indebted to my family in Italy, who have always encouraged me, and whose love and support have made my entire academic career possible. To them, and to the memory of Monte, this book is dedicated.
I NTRODUCTION
In western modern culture, the idea of authorship is associated with various theoretical approaches and sociocultural contexts to designate not only the person at the origin of an aesthetic manufacture, but also the unifying principle in the production, interpretation, and the reception of an artwork. As such, the author has been defined as a unifying element or a deep structure w