Sharpe, M (2019) Gender and the politics of decolonization in early 1960s French cinema. Journal of European Studies, 49 (2). pp. 163-183. ISSN 0047-2441
Abstract
In a recent monograph, Todd Shepard has implored us to examine the ways in ‘which the Algerian War modified the form and the content of debates surrounding contemporary sexuality in France’, from the nationalist revolution spearheaded by the FLN in Algeria, to the sexual paradigm shift of May ’68 (2017: 21). An important injunction, undoubtedly. But also an injunction that, as I will show, could also be inverted to examine how, in the world of cinema, the radicalization of identity politics catalysed by decolonization found itself similarly distorted by a tendency among male directors to imagine the War through the lens of their own androcentric preoccupations, fantasies and anxieties. Anxieties that, in the case of Jacques Rivette’s Paris nous appartient (1961), Louis Malle’s Le Feu follet (1963), and Jacques Dupont’s Les Distractions (1960), ricochet erratically between masochistic and misogynistic tales of impotence and carnal retribution. Anxieties that subtly twist the dynamics of the decolonial debate into strange shapes, places and meanings.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019, The Author(s). This is an author produced version of an article published in the Journal of European Studies. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | cinema; decolonization; gender; censorship; Algerian War |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Languages Cultures & Societies (Leeds) > French (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Feb 2019 13:09 |
Last Modified: | 24 Jun 2019 09:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0047244119837478 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:142211 |