There is no doubt that Louis Malle while making the movie Lacombe Lucien wanted the eyewitness to feel uncomfortable when watching it. In the film we have to judge for ourselves but at the same time try to understand what leads people to do things that they choose to do. Louis Malle attempted to tell a 'real' story of 'real' people, rather than the good vs evil caricature. Possibly Malle wanted us to feel discomfort while watching the movie so that we identify with the individuals more and in some way, very minor, experience the feelings they experienced which due to the times they lived were very complex and uneasy. He wanted to manipulate the medium of film in order to make the audience reconsider their preconceptions and because the film acts upon the conscious mind far more than any other form of art he managed to achieve his goal effectively. In the movie there are many scenes in which the audience can feel uncomfortable. Whilst it begins we see Lucien cleaning the floors in a hospital. As he walks towards the window, he sees a singing bird. Making sure that nobody is looking he takes out his slingshot and shoots the bird dead. When we see a close up shot of his face, Lucien seems rather proud of himself. << We don’t know whether to laugh at boy’s mischief or to be horrified by a cold blooded killing. >> Despite the fact that the bird is dead, Django Reinhardt’s joyful music is starting to play in the background. This is one of the first times when the audience gets a feeling of discomfort as we wonder why this music was chosen for the particular scene. At the same time we are aware it definitely was not a coincidence. Despite Lucien’s previous reaction, few scenes later he is shown as moved by stroking a dead horse whic...
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...is can cause people to feel uncomfortable as they can come up with a few different conclusions with regards to themselves.
Works Cited
Altman, Charles F. “ Lacombe Lucien: Laughter as Collaboration,” The French Review, Vol. 49, No. 4, American Association of Teachers of French, (March1976), pp. 549-558.
Baker, Charles A. “Review: Two Views of Vichy France, ” The French Review, Vol.51, No. 5, American Association of Teachers of French, (April 1978), pp. 763-764
Hewitt, Leah D. “Salubrious Scandals/Effective Provocations: Identity Politics Surrounding Lacombe Lucien,” South Central Review, Vol. 17, No. 3, Cinema Engage: Activist Filmmaking in French and Francophone Contexts, John Hopkins University Press, (Autumn 2000), pp. 71-85
Lacombe, Lucien (The Criterion Collection), 2006. Video recording. Directed by Louis Malle, France : Optimum World Releasing
In the piece “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” Jean Luc-Comolli and Jean Narboni define the critic's job as the discernment of “which films, books and magazines allow the ideology a free, unhampered passage, transmit it with crystal clarity, serve as its chosen language” and which films “attempt to make it turn back and reflect itself, intercept it, make it visible by revealing its mechanisms, by blocking them” (753). Through their examination, seven film categories are outlined. Clue falls into the “E” category, which is defined as “films which seem at first sight to belong firmly within the ideology and to be completely under its sway, but which turn out to be so only in an ambiguous manner” (75...
the French Revolution. Hunt, Lynn & Censer, Jack. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press (2001)
Removing the sound from Melville’s Bob le flambeur might lead one to believe that he or she is watching a Hollywood film noir, circa 1950. Melville, though not professionally trained as a director, manages to create an oddly stirring and quirky French film shrouded in the sheer curtain of Hollywood film noir. Though he retains much of the Hollywood style, he also employs tools of his own—camera movement and voice-over—to embrace the film in Melville-vigilante-style.
Andress, David. The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
[2] Kennedy, J. Gerald and Bryer, Jackson R. French Connections: Hemingway and Fizgerald Abroad, pg 6
In the French film entitled Lumumba, director Raoul Peck recreates the revolutionary struggle of Patrice Lumumba, the newly elected Prime Minister of The Congolese Republic. In the movie, we do not see much of the independence struggle against the Belgian government, but we begin to see the reconstruction of the African state in African hands. While no one ever claimed that decolonization was easy, maybe this particular example can best be explained by Fanon’s simplified little quip “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon. ” In this paper, I will seek to locate where this post-colonial violence is located in discourses regarding race, class and gender. Particularly, I will look at the representations of race and class, and the lack of the representation of gender, in order to draw conclusions about the nature of representation and the effects this has on anti-colonial film.
Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History. First Edition. New York: Basic Books, 1999
While all this was taking place on the other hand in France a new movement was surging of blanket term devised by critics for some of the French filmmakers of the late fifties and sixties who were impacted by the Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood films. It initially was never a movement which was officially planned, but the up surging filmmakers were being connected to it because of their self-conscious dismissal of classical filmmaking methods and their spirit of young iconoclasm which was a sample of the European art movies. Many filmmakers were involved with their work as they tried to involve the social and political turmoil’s of the era.
[7] Hunt, Lynn. Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. Berkeley: U of California, 1984. Print.
Furthermore, Gopnick argues that Babar was created as a metaphor to parallel France’s history of establishing order from chaos. By creating Babar as an inherent outsider, and using his de-familiarized perspective, De Brunhoff enabled himself to parody French societal norms and ideals of order. De Brunhoff transforms Babar from an unruly, chaotic and savage elephant to a cultured and uniformed French bourgeois gentleman. By doing so, claims Gopnick, De Brunhoff’s Babar is not only about French colonialism and re...
Burgess, Glyn. "Chivalry and Prowess in the Lais of Marie de France." French Studies 37.2 (1983): 129-42
To summarize the book into a few paragraphs doesn't due it the justice it deserves. The beginning details of the French and Ind...
The Vichy Regime was the French government that came after the Third Republic in the year 1940 (Editors, 1). Many historians say Vichy France was a very dark and unfortunate time. Vichy was a wartime government in a town south of Paris called Vichy. It was established by Marshal Philippe Pétain after France surrendered to Germany on June 22, 1940 (Editors, 1). On the same day, France was divided into two zones: one to be under German military occupation and one to be left to the French. There were, however, a few zones of France unoccupied (Holocaust). Not too long after the new government was made, Pierre Laval joined it and soon became the main architect of the regime (Editors, 2). Laval was the man who granted Petain to create a new constitution so he would have full legislative and executive powers in the French State (McMahon). Petain was a beloved hero from World War II. Even though the Vichy government lasted four years, there was never a new constitution (McMahon, 1). Vichy France, known as the “French State”, would rule the south and most of France’s oversea colonies would remain loyal to Vichy.
...s At The College De France: 1975-76. Eds. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana. Trans. David Macy. Intro.
Shepard, Todd. The Invention of Decolonization: the Algerian War and the Remaking of France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2006.