FRENCH 171.

REVIEW SHEET QUIZ 3

•The quiz will cover material from session 1 to session 6. On the

whole, students should be familiar the following:
The directors and the six films screened so far:

-Billy Wilder Double Indemnity

-Alfred Hitchcock Rope (excerpt)
-Jean-Luc Godard Breathless
-Jean-Pierre Melville The Samurai
-François Truffaut Shoot the Piano Player
-Claude Lelouch Happy New Year

•Some short excerpts were also used to illustrate particular points:

Raoul Walsh, White Heat; Alfred Hitchcock Psycho; Paul
Verhoeven, Basic Instinct; Leo McCarey, the Marx Brothers in
Duck Soup.

•A comparison was made -- using slides of paintings – between

filmmaking and painting in order to discuss the issue of “form”
versus “content”. Students should by now be aware of the basic
distinction between “form” and “content” that we have been
discussing from the beginning of the course.

•The focus of the quiz will be on material discussed in class, but

students will find it very helpful to read the material posted on
Husky-CT, which is a more complete version of that material:
an article on film noir, an article on Double Indemnity, an article
on Breathless, a list entitled “Film vocabulary”).

•Reviewing quizzes 21 and 2 will also be profitable.

FRENCH 171: GANGSTERS, THRILLERS, AND CLASSICS
Instructor: Professor Roger Celestin. Office: Arjona 206.Office hours:
Wednesday 9-10, Thursday 9-10, and by appointment. Phone: 486 3091.
E-Mail: roger.celestin@uconn.edu

Course requirements
-Regular attendance. If you have to be absent, make sure you obtain
notes from another student in the class.

- Class participation (even though this is a large group, there are

possibilities for students to intervene, ask questions, etc))

-Reading of photocopied articles on film theory and history, as well as

on particular films. Familiarity with the material discussed before and
after film showings. There will be a reading posted for each session.

-5 to 8 quizzes -- announced ahead of time.

-Final exam.

Session 1. Introduction. Billy Wilder Double Indemnity

Session 2. Alfred Hitchcock Rope (excerpt)

Session 3 Jean-Luc Godard Breathless

Sesssion 4. Jean-Pierre Melville The Samurai

Session 5 . .François Truffaut Shoot the Piano Player

Session 6 . Claude Lelouch Happy New Year

Session 7. Jean-Jacques Beinex Diva

Session 8 Benoît Jacquot A tout de suite

Session 9. Luc Besson Nikita

Session 10 Eric Rohmer Pauline at the Beach

Session 11. Daniel Vigne The Return of Martin
Guerre

Session 12. . Claire Denis Chocolat

Session 13 Heineke Caché

Session 14. Eric Zonka The Dream life of Angels

Session 15. TBA

Lost in fields of interracial desire
Claire Denis' Chocolat (1988)
Kinoeye. Vol. 3. Issue 7. June 2003.

Through a close examination of the film's

cinematography and mise-en-scène, Hilary Neroni reveals
how, in Chocolat, desire is structured "not on the
level of the verbal but instead in the field of the
visible, which is where the characters' unspoken
longings are played out."

Hiding in the field of the visible

Claire Denis' Chocolat (France/West Germany/Cameroon,

1988) begins with France Dalens (Mireille Perrier), a
white French woman in her late twenties, returning to
Cameroon to revisit her childhood home. On her way, she
stops to enjoy an unpopulated beach and ends up
obtaining a ride into the city from the only other
people on the beach, William "Mungo" Park (Emmet Judson
Williamson) and his son. Mungo assumes that France is a
French tourist who is "slumming" her way through
Africa, but as France stares out the window, the film
takes us back to when she was a little girl growing up
in a colonial outpost in Cameroon, where her father was
a captain in the French army. The rest of the film
depicts a particular moment in her childhood that seems
to best capture the interracial tensions and conflicts
from that time.

The majority of the film relies on the visual rather

than the verbal to explain the stresses that exist
between France's family, the servants and the family
guests. Thus, it falls to the mise-en-scène and the
camera placement to clue the audience into what the
characters themselves dare not articulate. Not
surprisingly, this visual commentary also clues us into
larger metaphoric meanings regarding Cameroon, France,
colonialism and the politics of desire. Chocolat
suggests that we structure desire not on the level of
the verbal but instead in the field of the visible,
which is where the characters' unspoken longings are
played out. In this sense, cinema becomes the
privileged vehicle for the representation of colonial
power because it can show how the field of the visible
articulates power relations and relations of desire—
and, of course, their intermingled nature.

A desire born out of Colonialism

To begin making this point, Denis and her director of

photography Agnès Godard create a stunningly beautiful
yet isolated portrait of Cameroon. The remote outpost
where France's family lives is vast and unpopulated. By
placing the story in such an exquisite but lonely area,
Denis can concentrate on the intimate relationships
existing between a mere handful of characters. Just as
these characters are trapped in their remote
surroundings, they are also trapped in their roles as
wife, servant, child, colonialist and so on. Denis
works to highlight this by mapping out the house in
terms of racial spaces, which are also demarcated as
public or private ones.

The servants are all black Africans, and where they

eat, shower, etc, are all public spaces, while the
white family's home (especially the bedroom and
bathroom) are depicted as private spaces. The public
spaces seem constantly on display. Several scenes in
particular highlight this and in the process reveal the
intensity of the relationship between France's mother
Aimée (Giulia Boschi), a French woman in her twenties,
and Protée (Isaach De Bankolé), their Cameroon servant
of about the same age. For while the flashback does
depict the experience of France as a young girl (Cécile
Ducasse), Aimée and Protée's relationship is what
drives the plot and what shapes France as a young girl
and later as an adult.[1]

The scenes between Aimée and Protée are often intensely

personal, though staged in a completely public space.
For example, in one particular scene, Protée is taking
a shower. However, the shower for the male servants is
outside—in plain view of the house. Denis sets this
scene during the day when the colours are rich and the
sun is high. We see a medium long shot of Protée
soaping himself and then rinsing. Protée and the
servants' quarters are in the foreground of the frame,
and the big house is in the background. As he is
showering, the audience is aware that Aimée and France
are returning from a walk. As they reach the porch of
the house, Protée also catches sight of them, which
means that they can see him as well. Upon seeing them,
he leans back and stifles a cry as he smashes his elbow
against the wall behind him. While not one word is
spoken throughout this entire scene, Denis reveals that
the very layout of the colonial house with the servants
on display is charged with desire. The servants'
quarters become a visual field that the colonialist
surveys. But this field is also charged with sexual
yearning.

The cental question posed by Chocolat is whether two

people on opposite sides of these fields desire each
other with a desire that is not born out of
colonialism. Or is desire, in this environment, always
informed by colonialism? As indicated above, Denis
presents this question by articulating the sexual and
power relations on the level of the visual.[2] It is
clear that Aimée and Protée want each other (though
they never speak these feelings), but what is not
clear—presumably neither to the audience nor to the
characters themselves—is whether such feelings are
manufactured and exploited by colonialism, or whether
it is possible for their desire to stand outside of
colonial power relations. Protée is clearly humiliated
by having to be literally on display for Aimée, but at
the same time it is only through her gaze that he can
discern the nature of her desire for him.

Importantly, this scene contrasts with another shower

scene. Later in the film, Aimée decides that she needs
a shower and orders Protée to fix her one. The rest of
the scene takes place outside, where we see Protée
rigging up the shower, which emanates from a barrel
that is placed outside the house. Here again, Denis
shoots the scene in a medium long shot in which we see
the corner of the house, the barrel and some of the
surrounding landscape. What we cannot see, however,
because she has a privacy in the bathroom that extends
even to the camera's eye, is Aimée taking a shower.
Instead, we see only the dirty bathwater that swirls
out of the bottom of the house while she is bathing. At
the sight of this water, Protée kicks the buckets he'd
brought the water in and walks away. In this way,
Aimée's privacy is sexualised through the emptying
bathwater, on display for Protée. Ultimately then, even
the film's supposedly private moments happen under
someone else's gaze.

Staging a racialized gaze

This is a point that Denis emphasises throughout

Chocolat. The majority of her shots are not simply
descriptive or omniscient views; rather, each moment
seems to be staged specifically for the gaze of one of
the characters. The introduction of a young white
Frenchman works to highlight this filmic trope. Luc
(Jean-Claude Adelin) shows up with one of the French
families who arrive to help the Dalens dig a runway for
a flyer whose airplane made an emergency landing in
their remote part of Cameroon. Luc eventually leaves
the French family he was traveling with and comes to
stay with the Dalens. He seems more progressive than
the other white Frenchmen because he makes an attempt
to integrate into the African community as much as the
French community. I would argue, however, that Denis
makes it clear that Luc is also using both communities
to his own advantage. Luc is in no way a hero in this
situation; instead he acts more like a mirror for the
actual fields of power and desire that exist between
the groups.

Luc integrates into the African community by literally

inhabiting their public spaces. For example, the Dalens
first see Luc standing in the back of a truck with all
the other African workers who have come to dig the
runway. His white face sticks out amongst the rest of
the workers, and the family is clearly fascinated with
this white man who so easily inhabits this non-white
space. Thus, right from the beginning Luc's allure is
defined by his inserting himself into an African
space.[3] Luc's very presence amongst the workers also
reminds everyone that normally their spaces are quite
separate. Denis articulates all of this by first
mapping out these racially separate spaces and then
staging conflicts or tensions within them.[4]

Another important example of this strategy is again

staged at the outside shower. Walking back to the
house, Protée comes upon Luc bathing in the worker's
outdoor shower. Luc seems to be fully enjoying the
shower in a sensual way, as if—even with no one around—
he is enjoying the fact that he is showering in a
public space that he is not expected to be in, a
colonial space within which tension and desire
inevitably lie. Protée is outraged and chastises him
for showering there. Denis shoots this from the same
medium long shot that she originally shot Protée's
showering scene. Once again, Aimée and France appear in
the background walking back into the house. Luc sees
the pair and calls to them, which makes them turn and
look in his direction, thus viewing him fully naked. In
this way, he forces both Protée and Aimée to look at
him as he inhabits the fields of desire that they had
been mapping out, thus making these visual fields
obvious.

The only scene in which this tension is even slightly

articulated verbally takes place one evening when Aimée
comes out on the porch to discover Luc eating with the
servants. The contrast to the Dalen family's dining
arrangements is obvious. The family dines inside at a
table with all the accoutrements that define French
"civilisation." Meanwhile, the servants eat outside in
front of the house, sitting on the ground around a
fire. Luc calls out to Aimée and says that he has
decided he will no longer eat with the family inside.
Furthermore, he claims that what Aimée really wants is
to be sitting outside with the servants next to Protée.
In other words, he hints at the sexual tension that
exists between Protée and Aimée.

While Luc's words seem to draw attention to the fields

of desire that exist around this house, it is the mise-
en-scène that really calls attention to these visual
fields of power and desire. The scene is set up through
a shot/reverse shot that goes back and forth between
Aimée on the porch and the reverse shot of Luc sitting
on the ground amongst the workers. Aimée is standing
towards the back of the porch, somewhat in the dimness
of the house. Denis here highlights the fact that Aimée
is separated and alone, with the expanse of the porch
surrounding her.

The reverse shot of Luc, Protée and the others is a

tighter one, emphasising the group warmly lit by the
fire. Even still, it is clear that Luc does not belong
in this space, and that he has literally inserted
himself into it for a reason. Luc engages in this
activity in order to seduce Aimée, but in doing so he
throws both Protée and Aimée's roles into question by
making these fields of desire public. In other words,
his action reveals and critiques the fields of desire
that exist in and around this colonial house, and
suggests that the real manifestation of Protée and
Aimée's desire is in the field of the visible, which is
intimately tied to representations of colonial power.

Luc's intrusion into these fields of desire leads to a

scene in which Aimée tries to reach out physically to
Protée. This scene is staged in the dark shadows of the
house when Protée is closing up the windows and doors.
Fully invested in this play of desire, but all too
aware of the way this desire has been shaped by these
spaces of colonial power, Protée rejects her. As is
common throughout the film, this entire scene takes
place without one word of dialogue. Soon afterwards,
Aimée asks her husband to remove Protée from house
duties, and the film returns from the flashback to the
modern day framing story of the adult France's journey
back to her childhood home.

Defining the battle lines

Claire Denis' Chocolat (1988)The film ends with an

exchange between Mungo and France that neatly and yet
ambiguously sums up many of the formal and content-
driven themes of the film. Before they part, Mungo asks
to see France's hands so that he can read her palms.
One palm, however, is covered with burn scars (burns
which the audience saw occurring just at the end of the
flashback, a kind of last painful pact between the
young France and Protée). Mungo remarks that he'd never
met anyone with no life lines on their hands, "someone
with no past and no future." It is especially difficult
to overlook here that he is speaking to someone whose
name is "France"—thus possibly suggesting that France
itself has no past and no future when it comes to
Africa.
It is at this remark that France finally seems to warm
to Mungo and asks if he would like to have a drink with
her. He declines, however, following the pattern
established in the flashback. In other words,
interracial relationships (even between Mungo, an
African American living permanently in Cameroon, and
France) are overdetermined by the fields of power and
desire that colonialism set up in Africa. Thus Chocolat
ends, suggesting that not much has changed in Cameroon.
Denis' insistence on confronting these fields of desire
and attempting to define and investigate them through
cinema, however, seems to suggest that it is within
these very visual fields that the battle against
colonialism and racial inequities must be fought.
French 171-Fall 2005.
Session 8.
WORKSHEET 8
Nikita (1990)
By
Luc Besson

I Film summary and a review:

Summary:
Internationally acclaimed director Luc Besson delivers a tour de force with his action-
packed story of Nikita (Anne Parillaud), a ruthless street junkie whose killer instincts
could make her the perfect weapon. Recruited against her will into a secret government
organization by a sadistic man known only as Bob, Nikita is broken and remade. In three
years, Bob transforms her into a sexy, sophisticated 'lethal weapon' named Josephine.
Released from the training compound, Nikita is caught in a web of intrigue and murder-
trapped in a double life as Marco's lover and Bob's hired gun. The thrilling provocative
climax makes La Femme Nikita one of the most shocking and intelligent espionage
adventures ever.

Filmography (selected):

Director
•The Messenger: the Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
•The Fifth Element (1997)
•The Professional (1994)
•Atlantis (1991)
•La Femme Nikita (1990)
•The Big Blue (1988)
•Subway (1985)
•The Final Combat (1984)

Producer
•Revolver (2006)
•Bandidas (2006)
•Transporter 2 (2005)
•High Tension (2005)
•Unleashed (2005)
•Taxi (2004)
•The Truth About Charlie (2002)
•The Transporter (2002)
•Wasabi (2002)
•Kiss of the Dragon (2001)
•The Dancer (2000)

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•Taxi 2 (2000)
•Nil By Mouth (1998)
•The Professional (1994)
•Subway (1985)

Screenwriter
•Bandidas (2006)
•The Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse (2005)
•Transporter 2 (2005)
•Unleashed (2005)
•The Transporter (2002)
•Wasabi (2002)
•Kiss of the Dragon (2001)
•The Dancer (2000)
•Taxi 2 (2000)
•The Messenger: the Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
•The Fifth Element (1997)
•The Professional (1994)
•The Big Blue (1988)
•Subway (1985)

REVIEWS:
Read the following two reviews of the film Nikita (1990):

1. Commercial success notwithstanding, Luc Besson has never really lived up to the
promise of his quirky imaginative debut feature, The Last Battle. In Subway, he spent the
first half hour setting up a great concept and a host of appealing characters, and then
proceeded to systematically waste every opportunity he had created for himself, while
The Big Blue had nothing much to say and devoted an awful lot of time and ocean to not
saying it and The Fifth Element, which looked as stylish and elegant as you'd expect a
Besson film to, also suffered from having nothing to tell. With Nikita, and afterwards
Leon, he found his touch again, producing a fast-moving, violent, desperately stylish
thriller that rarely puts a foot wrong. The opening battle in the drugstore is carried off
with real aplomb, as are all the succeeding set-pieces, and in Anne Parillaud the film has
an actress who is equally convincing as both pathetic, nihilistic waif of the early
sequences, and the sophisticated, guilt-ridden killer she later becomes, and who brings
some real emotion to a production which might have otherwise seemed dangerously
hollow.

Besson's storyline does become more ludicrously improbable as the film progresses, but
on this occasion his direction more than compensates for any deficiencies as a
screenwriter, and there's a glorious cameo from regular collaborator Jean Reno, who
shunts the film onto another plane entirely just when it seemed in danger of running out
of steam; fast, furious and oddly moving, Nikita may well be Besson's finest
achievement.

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 2. As the shogun of the second French New Wave (Cinema Du Look), Luc Besson was
expected to dish out another international hit to follow the huge success of The Big Blue -
La Femme Nikita delivered. Basically, this movie was written/co-produced/directed by
Besson as an ode to his wife, actress Anne Parillaud, and her feminist values. Originally
released in France 1990, the film's success and Besson's international recognition carried
La Femme Nikita to the States in 1991.

Luc Besson's motion picture has strong tones of 1990s feminism. Nikita possesses all the
ideal qualities of the woman of the 90s: independent, intelligent, feminine yet powerful,
etc. Marco is the male version of a housewife; cooking, cleaning, and providing
emotional support for Nikita when she gets home from work. The reversing of
stereotypical female/male roles is absolutely integral to the feminism flavor of the film,
and quite frankly, fun to watch. Considering that this movie was created at the dawn of
the 1990s feminist movement, Besson shouldn't be seen as kneeling to political
correctness. On the contrary, one gets the feeling that they're watching something new
and refreshing, perhaps... foretelling.

The actors are familiar faces in familiar roles. Jeanne Moreau and Phillipe Leroy (first
French New Wave actors) are superbly cast in their oldschool roles of the ultra-feminine
woman of power and the hardnosed bossy guy, respectively. Besson also casts second
New Wave regulars Tcheky Karyo (Bob), Jean-Hugues Anglade (Marco), and
international star Jean Reno (Victor the Cleaner) in their typical roles as well. Besson's
casting is an obvious attempt at trumpeting the similarities between the two French New
Wave movements and uniting GenX with the Baby-Boomers.

La Femme Nikita has picked up an enormous following. This popularity is mainly due to
the recently dropped cable television show of the same name, featuring a Baywatch-type
chick battling it out with baddies in her thong and bra. Another contributing reason could
be that viewers of the Hollywood remake (Point of No Return) saw some potential in the
terrible Bridget Fonda flick and decided to watch the far better original. Or possibly, the
adolescent girls of Generation-Y are discovering a feminist role model in Nikita - the role
model that Generation-X created and left for them.

II. Cinema of the “Look”

a) What is the “look”?

The cinema of the “look” is a style of film-making which came to the fore in the
1980’s and is still influential in French film today. It is characterized not by any
collective ideology but rather a technical mastery of the medium, a cinephile
tendency to cite from other films, and a spectacular visual style (“ the look”). Three
directors are associated with this type of cinema: Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva, 1980),
Luc Besson, and Leo Carax (The Lovers of the Pont neuf, 1991). Even though they
work individually, they were grouped together by critics as the “new new Wave” and
shared a common passion for a sharp new visual style, while, to a certain extent, they

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 also shared subject matter (young people in urban and/or alienating surroundings).

b) Some objections to the “look.” Criticism.

Some objections to the “look” movement was the lack of plot and psychological
realism; its visual affiliation with “inferior” cultural forms like television, music
video, advertising, and the comic strip; and in some case its lack of ideology.
However, oddly enough, some critics praised “the look” for its daring and innovative
affiliation with popular visual art.

c) Conclusion.
In the end, the strong aesthetic component of the cinema of the “look”, the synthesis of
high and low art and its engagement with the problems of alienated protagonists (outside
of family structures), have become the predominant values of the “look” that pointed to a
creative renewal in French cinema.

III. Questions for class.

1. Find cinematographic effects of the cinema of “the look” in Nikita.

2.“I am guided by a single preoccupation: that modern society creates a familial

crisis, and an emotional lack for young people.” (Besson, about Nikita).
How is this quote illustrated in the film?

3. Nikita is an urban thriller (a male dominated genre derived from American

gangster movies and Film noir) with a female protagonist where one would expect
a male character. Is Nikita coded as “male”? How? Pay attention to the first scene
of the film.

4. How is Nikita “feminized”? Which shots are being used? What type of
composition? Colors? Music?

5. How is her change of identity completed?

6.What is the role played by the romance?

7.What makes the new Nikita a “feminine ideal”? How does the camera highlight this
aspect of Nikita?

8. With the arrival on the scene of Victor, “the cleaner,” the film unleashes the true
violence of a thriller with farcical brutality. Explain how this two aspects are
represented in the film.

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9. Does Nikita remain a beautiful and cool assassin through the end?

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FRENCH 171. Spring 2008

shot

1. in shooting, one uninterrupted run of the camera

to expose a series of frames. Also called a take.
2. In the finished film, one uninterrupted image
with a single (static or mobile) framing.

scene
a segment in a narrative film that takes place in one
time and space (or that uses crosscutting to show two or
more simultaneous actions).

sequence
a term commonly used for moderately large segment of a
film, involving one complete stretch of action and
consisting of one or more scenes. Comparable to a chapter
in a book.

diegetic sound
any voice, musical passage, or sound effect presented
as originating from a source within the film's world.

nondiegetic sound
sound represented as coming from outside the space of
the narrative, such as mood music or a narrator's
commentary.

nonsimultaneous sound
diegetic sound that comes either earlier or later than
the accompanying image of the source.

jump cut
an elliptical cut that appears to be an interruption of
a single shot. It occurs within a scene rather than between
scenes, to condense the shot.

iris
a round, moving mask that contracts to close down to
end an scene (iris-out) or emphasize a detail, or opens to
begin a scene (iris-in) or to reveal more space around a
detail.