FR 341 LE CINEMA FRANCAIS / FRENCH FILM
Prof. Jean-Jacques Thomas
Spring 2016
Proposed Topics Final Exam
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Select ONE topic (As many pages as you can, double-spaced, Arial 12, in English) jjtparis7@gmail.com immediately sent at the end of the exam.
1. Analyze one Quebec Film that you have seen during the BB Quebec Film Festival. Indicate what you saw as the difference for the Quebec Cinema.
Tristana (Bunuel)
2. How do you judge Tristana's attitude in the film vis a vis her "tutor". Explain why you think she was ungrateful or fair as he abused of her. Give specific examples.
3. Comment on Bunuel's representation of the world in Tristana. Remember that it was his first movie done in Spain after he went into exile when Franco took over in 1936. How do you perceive his representation of the Spanish people?
Le genou de Claire (Rohmer)
4. Explain the main character's fascination with touching Claire's knee. What type of value this gesture has for him in terms of desire of the other person. Do you consider his fascination for this part of Claire's body and the discourse of seduction that goes with it a bit farfetched? Would you ever value the fetish over the full actual object of desire?
5. Rohmer was the intellectual leader of the "Nouvelle Vague" describe what belongs to this type of cinema in this film.
L'Amant (Annaud)
6. In this relationship each one of the two partners got what they wanted: the young girl got wealth and prestige, the young Chinese got the prestige and satisfaction to have a "white" lover, a member of the French ruling class. However, Annaud inserted the possibility that there was love there somewhere and that made the book's author really unhappy so much so that she wrote another book to let us all know that during the duration of this "purely" materialistic relation she had other love relationships with other partners. Do you believe that it is belivable that such an intense physical sex affair as described in the film was totally void of something that we can call love?
7. Very little in the film describes the actual subaltern situation of the Indochina population under the French rule. Do you think that the film, realized in 1992, should have been more interested in the social and political situation of the population of the Colony and not simply focus on the relationship of two representatives of the dominating classes: a French young girl from France representing the cultural and administrative rule and a yound Chinese representing the trade and money elite of the Colony?
Nikita (Besson)
8. A critic said that in this film the story line is disgusting: how can one write a story in which the main female character is a drug addict and a cop-killer and the main male character a State paid assassin that is part of that shadowy part of the governing ruling class often located in a twilight zone behind the law; a main male character who happens to be a manipulative, sadic and honorless governmental scumbag. Objectively that is how the plot can be truly summarized. Nevertheless, many of you told me that you loved this movie. How can you justify your interest for the story and for the history of the two loving protagonists given this low morality and empty ethical value in the basic components of the story?
9. Besson is usually considered as a French director that make "American" films. How do you understand this perception of his cinematography. Give specific examples in the structure of the plot, montage and preference for the type of shots found in his films.
Samba (Nakache)
10. While the previous film of the Directors, "The Untouchables", was an enormous success, this commercial movie, "Samba", opened to mixed reviews. Critics thought that it was an "easy" feel-good movie, but that the plot was not very imaginative and that the events in the film were a chain of platitudes and never deserved the level of social attention that was given to the previous film. I would disagree with that characterization because I consider that the story brings to the attention of the French film going audience many issues related to the problems of the society located on the margins of the French society; thus the story is not simply the difficult frontier between interracial relationships but also a situation that, more importantly in French society, put two members of different social classes into contact; the main character is a succesful executive woman and the main male character is an illegal immigrant drifting on the edge of the law to stay in France so that he can keep his mother and sisters in Africa safe; his stated dreams have nothing to do with Europe; same for his uncle; they both want to go back to their native continent and sit down in the evneing in a nice chair on the balcony of their house and watch the sunset on the lake. What is your perception of the movie and of the strong love relationship that is at the heart of the story?
11. What do you think of the description of the social, cultural and personal situation of the main male character in Samba? Do you see in it an important lesson about the fate and abandon of a majority of immigrants in the world today. Or this seems "fake", cinematographically photoshopped and euphemized when compared to the harsh human reality of world immigration today? Give specific examples.
La belle et la bete (Gans)
12. In the original fairy story, Belle had a young suitor and thus the printed story tells us about the struggle of Belle between her young fiancé and her growing love for the Beast. The French film of 2014 does not keep the character of the young suitor thus Belle does not have to question the nature of her strange affection and then love for the Beast. The story of the French film is thus a more pure abstract story of "opposite attract" but also it makes it more necessary to live in the fairy tale where this type of "truth suspendng mode" mentality allows us to believe in situations that we know are impossible in reality. What do you think of this streamlining plot change that makes the story leaner and more straight forward in aligning the opposites?
13. Because the film production wants the spectator to remember that La Belle et la Bete is a fairy tale, it uses a luxurious decor setting, great costumes, fabulous diner tables, a palace of immense and dramatic architectural proportions to be used as the context of the story. Do you think that a more "neutral", "realistic", "everyday" settting would have made the story acceptable, plot and content, for the spectator. Would the story of a yound adorable girl and a monstrous, fricky, man become as acceptable as an example of suppressing the impossible odds as in the case of the obstacles filled loves of Romeo and Juliet or, more closely, Roxanne and Cyrano?
General
14. Using examples from all the films we saw this semester going from nothingness to bliss, via grief, use your experience with your own "sentimental journey" to describe what your own sentimental itinerary is most likely to look like at the end of your own journey.
Thank you for a fun film semester and enjoy your summer!