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Screening Youth: Contemporary French and Francophone Cinema ed. by Romain Chareyon and Gilles Viennot (review)
French Forum Pub Date : 2021-04-22
Leon Sachs

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

  • Screening Youth: Contemporary French and Francophone Cinema ed. by Romain Chareyon and Gilles Viennot
  • Leon Sachs
Romain Chareyon and Gilles Viennot, eds. Screening Youth: Contemporary French and Francophone Cinema. Edinburgh UP, 2019. 253 pp.

This volume of fourteen chapters preceded by an editors' introduction examines, as its title indicates, representations of youth in recent French and Francophone cinema. The editors maintain that although the "teen film" is a well-established Hollywood genre accompanied by a significant amount of scholarship, the same cannot be said of filmic representations of youth in the French/Francophone context. Scholars of French and Francophone film have overlooked the "ways film can help us get a better, more nuanced and [End Page 367] true-to-life understanding of the complexity and struggles of youth" (1). The choice of the word "youth" in the volume's title is deliberate. The films studied in this collection embrace an expansive idea of youth, ranging from childhood to early adulthood, and the borders between different stages of development, like the very concept of coming of age, are fluid. The word "youth" is meant to capture this expanse and fluidity. The volume's essays examine films that are about youth but not necessarily aimed at youth as their primary audience. They focus on the particular ways contemporary directors broach the subject matter and how the topic of youth intersects with other concerns in contemporary society (democracy, globalization, economic disparity, immigration). The editors view these films as "sound boxes" offering an amplification and distortion of contemporary life through the filtering lens of young people who, according to the critic Timothy Shary, are entering a "more fast-paced [world that is] removed from the traditions and mores of their parents' generation" (4). The genre of French youth film, if it is a genre at all, does not have the same status as the "teen film" in America with its highly-codified, trope-laden format most commonly set in the high school (think Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High or John Hughes's Ferris Bueller's Day Off). One reason for this is that the prominent role of the director as auteur in French film lends itself to a kind of general aversion to genre. Most of the directors considered in the volume still display a debt to the New Wave directorial tradition even if, as some of the essays indicate, there is an attempt to move out from under the shadow of the New Wave.

The editors are at pains to argue that the youth depicted in the films in question do not conform to clichés about youth and therefore offer us more authentic images. They present individual struggles with the "process of youth" and avoid confirming preconceived ideas of what youth is. No single image of youth emerges from these films. Each film is better understood, the editors explain, as a "snapshot" of what it means to be an adolescent in contemporary France. Though it may be difficult to generalize about youth, there are a number of recurring themes in the essays and films, such as gender and sexual identity as well as social class and ethnic identity.

Because of the number of contributions, it is impossible to discuss them all. What follows are some summary thoughts about a few of the essays that stood out for this reader. Another reader might well have selected different essays.

Gemma Edney's contribution, "Un Vrai 'Teen Film' Français? The Contemporary Adolescent Genre in French Cinema," complements the editors' introduction as another point of entry into the topic in general. Edney divides [End Page 368] the genre into two types, those that have a popular audience and those that attract critical attention. The latter are about (and not necessarily for) teens, have an arthouse style and tend to present youth in a more realistic and less stylized or idealized way. Edney observes for instance that French actors in these films (as opposed to their American counterparts) tend to be closer in age to the characters they represent, thereby offering what seems to be a more authentic rendering of the teen experience.

Karine Chevalier's essay on the films of...



中文翻译:

放映青年:当代法国电影和法语电影编辑。Romain Chareyon和Gilles Viennot撰写(评论)

代替摘要,这里是内容的简要摘录:

审核人:

  • 放映青年:当代法国电影和法语电影编辑。罗曼·查里顿(Romain Chareyon)和吉尔斯·维诺(Gilles Viennot)
  • 莱昂·萨克斯(Leon Sachs)
Romain Chareyon和Gilles Viennot编辑。放映青年:当代法国和法语电影院。爱丁堡UP,2019. 253页。

这本书共十四章,开头是编辑引言,正如书名所示,它考察了法国和法语国家电影院最近的青年形象。编辑认为,尽管“青少年电影”是好莱坞电影中成熟的类型,并附有大量的奖学金,但对于在法国/法语国家背景下的青年电影作品却不能说同样的话。法国电影和法语电影的学者们忽略了“电影可以帮助我们变得更好,更细微和更清晰的方式[End Page 367]真实地了解青年的复杂性和挣扎”(1)。本书标题中的“青年”一词的选择是有意的。成年早期和发展的不同阶段之间的边界,就像时代的到来的这个概念,是流动的。这个词“青春”是指捕捉到了这个广阔和流动性。该卷的散文研究具有电影有关青年,但不一定以青年为主要受众。他们专注于当代导演探讨主题的特殊方式,以及青年话题如何与当代社会的其他问题(民主,全球化,经济差距,移民)相交。编辑们将这些电影视为“音箱”,通过评论者蒂莫西·谢里(Timothy Shary)所说的年轻人的过滤镜头,提供了当代生活的放大和扭曲,根据评论家蒂莫西·沙里(Timothy Shary)的说法,他们进入了一个“快节奏的世界,这个世界已被淘汰”。父母的传统和习俗”(4)。法国青年影片的流派,如果说完全是一种流派,则与美国的“青少年电影”相比,地位不高。里奇蒙特高地或约翰·休斯的摩天轮(Ferris Bueller's Day Day)的快速时光)。这其中的一个原因是导演中的突出作用是导演在法国电影适合于一种通用的厌恶流派。即使如某些论文所表明的那样,尽管有一些尝试试图摆脱新浪潮的阴影,但本书中考虑的大多数导演仍对新浪潮的导演传统有所欠缺。

编辑们竭力争辩说,这些电影中描绘的年轻人与关于年轻人的陈词滥调不符,因此为我们提供了更多真实的图像。他们提出了与“青年进程”相关的个人斗争,并避免确认关于青年是什么的先入为主的观念。这些电影中没有年轻人的单一形象。编辑们解释说,每部电影都被更好地理解,这是对当代法国青春期意味着什么的“快照”。尽管可能很难对青年一概而论,但论文和电影中还是有许多重复出现的主题,例如性别和性身份以及社会阶层和种族身份。

由于文稿数量众多,因此不可能一一讨论。接下来是对读者引起关注的一些论文的一些总结性想法。另一位读者很可能选择了不同的论文。

杰玛·埃德尼(Gemma Edney)的著作“弗莱(Un Vrai)青少年电影Français?法国电影中的当代青少年体裁”,对编者的介绍起到了补充作用,这也是该主题的总体切入点。埃德尼(Edney)将[End Page 368]的类型分为两种类型,一种是受到大众欢迎的类型,另一种是引起关注的类型。后者是关于(但不一定是)青少年的,具有艺术风格,并且倾向于以更现实,更少风格化或理想化的方式呈现青年。例如,埃德尼(Edney)观察到,这些电影中的法国演员(而不是美国电影中的演员)在年龄上趋近于他们所代表的角色,从而提供了看起来更真实的青少年体验。

Karine Chevalier的电影...

更新日期:2021-04-22
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