Zachary Baqué, UT2J
The Transition to Modernity in the Fiction Shorts of the US Department of Agriculture (1919-1932)
In 1938, Fanning Hearon, the director of the Division of Motion Pictures for the Department of the Interior, was proud to report that a major American weekly had claimed that “next to Hollywood, the most important movie-manufacturing city in America is Washington, D. C.” In 1943, his counterpart in the Department of Agriculture, Raymond Evans boasted that since the end of World War I, his department had produced “more than several hundred films”. Far from being a mere transitional period between World War I and World II, the heights of government film production in the US, the1920s and 1930s were decades in which the federal government experimented with film form in its ongoing task of instructing the public. These films were mostly “uninspiring but necessary” (Evans) documentaries but a few of them relied on dramatization to show edifying stories whose morals were clear and obvious. All these largely unstudied shorts films describe the transition from antiquated agricultural practices that lead to the destruction of crops and animals and to poverty and famine to more modern practices based on science that ultimately bring in the Jeffersonian ideal of self-sufficiency. The “frankly melodramatic” (Evans) narratives rely on stock characters (the old curmudgeon, the dashing young man, the government envoy, etc.) to make the message easy to grasp by those members of the audience who would have to put this transition in place. Focusing on the period from 1919 to 1932 (the Roaring Twenties and the early years of the Depression), this presentation aims at analyzing the rhetorical and aesthetic tools used in these film shorts to make the transition to modern agriculture seem like the only rational solution. Basic plotlines, comparisons, crosscutting and dissolves are some of the strategies used, in other words “the sugarcoating, or the lubrication, or whatever you may call the artifice used to make the dose easy for the public to swallow” (Evans). Ultimately, it will be shown that cinema, both as a means of expression and a social practice, was the main vehicle of this national experiment in implementing an agricultural transition.
Hélène Charlery, UT2J
“Boyz Won’t Be Boys: Ava DuVernay’s Netflix Mini-series on the ‘Central Park Five’”
This paper focuses on Ava DuVernay’s 2019 When They See Us, a four-episode miniseries for Netflix, on what U.S. media, aspiring politicians and private citizens (such as D. Trump) originally named the Central Park jogger case, then infamously the Central Park Five, creating a national scare narrative around a rape case on April 14, 1989, into a highly mediatized criminal case. The case, that ran from 1989 to 2002, shifted from being that of a white middle-class woman, jogging in Central Park, repeatedly raped and left for dead, allegedly by five teenagers of color, to the story of the five “monsters” of color who raped her. They spent from 6 to 13 years in jail until proven innocent. As a director and co-writer of the series, DuVernay segmented the series’ four episodes so that audiences, “by the end of it, […] should be fully versed in all of the different nooks and crannies of the criminal justice system.” (Trevor Noah, “Ava DuVernay – Revisiting the Central Park Jogger Case with “When They See Us” The Daily Show, May 28, 2019). The four episodes were released simultaneously on the streaming platform on May 31, 2019. Episode 1 (63 minutes) focuses on the police interrogation leading the boys to confess a crime they did not commit; episode 2 (71 minutes) on the court system, including the racial and class bias of the bail system; episode 3 (73 minutes) and 4 (88 minutes) on the juvenile system for the underage and the post-incarceration system. DuVernay framed the criminal justice system and the story of “the Central Park Five” as the thematic running continuity of the mini-series. This paper explores the challenges of the form (more than 60-hour length mini-series episodes) the director used to “Revisit the Central Park Joker Case” (The Daily Show). Since the four episodes of series were released simultaneously, this paper also questions the space left for audiences between each episode, hypothesizing that that space is the time left for audiences not to “facilitate [their] transition between the real world and the fictional world” (cf. CFP), but to invite audiences to think how fiction interrogates the real world, and how it is fabricated into narratives on and of the Othered.
Emilie Cheyroux, Institut National Universitaire Champollion (Albi)
Work in progress : Women filmmakers, screenwriters and showrunners and the transition to gender equality in the French, American and British film industry (ANR FEMME)
The recent statistics about gender equality and inclusion in the film industry tend to show that the transition to a more equitable landscape is taking a slow turn. However, one cannot deny that since the #MeToo movement, the conversation about the disparities between men and women has led to the growing visibility of female filmmakers, some of which have been awarded prestigious prizes. The four-year ANR project (2024-2028) which will be the subject of this presentation seeks to investigate and study the role of French, British and American female filmmakers, screenwriters and showrunners in the potential transition to gender equality. Is women’s growing visibility and success reflective of deep strutural changes? Do they contribute to changing gender representation on screen? And, do they draw on feminist discourses and theories in their work? These are the questions at the core of the investigation, some of which are directly asked to female filmmakers in the Work Package dedicated to interviews. The project being in its first year, this presentation’s main goal is to offer some feedback about the first findings of the team of scholars involved in it. It will start with a comparative presentation of the state of the three industries involved, taking into account the specificities of each cultural landscape, and will then present the testimonies shared by the dozen filmmakers and showrunners interviewed so far. Their willingness to share their experience and reflect on the possible evolutions of the film industry is in itself a testimony of their endeavors to participate in the transition to an equitable industry, just as some women’s refusal to participate in the project can be reflective of an environement that does not make them feel safe to speak openly. Thus, this presentation can also be an opportunity to reflect on the work of scholars in gathering sensitive information.
Margaux Collin, Université de Reims
Repenser la masculinité noire : le rôle du montage introspectif dans Moonlight (2016)
On se souvient souvent de Moonlight (2016) pour l’impression de vulnérabilité qu’il dégage, ainsi que pour son esthétique contemplative et poétique. Cette impression est en grande partie due au montage, qui guide le spectateur dans un processus d’introspection et le plonge dans l’histoire de Chiron à travers des raccords davantage motivés par l’émotion que par une logique technique.
Barry Jenkins met en scène l’histoire de Chiron, un jeune Afro-Américain issu d’un milieu défavorisé, en structurant le film en trois chapitres : son enfance, son adolescence, puis sa vie d’adulte. Au cœur d’un environnement marqué par la pauvreté, la violence et l’hypermasculinité, le spectateur suit les questionnements d’un personnage en quête d’identité, luttant pour accepter son homosexualité. Le film se distingue par son rythme lent, presque méditatif. Ce rythme semble parfois être en contradiction avec l’action visible à l’écran, comme c’est le cas dans la scène d’ouverture, dans laquelle la fluidité de la caméra qui filme une altercation entre deux hommes peut surprendre. Cette fluidité est en fait le résultat de choix esthétiques qui privilégient la dimension sensorielle du film : plutôt que de se concentrer sur l’action, Jenkins met en avant les émotions et les sensations de son personnage principal. La caméra se fait le reflet de l’intériorité de Chiron, créant une ambiance contemplative qui invite le spectateur à ressentir plutôt qu’à simplement observer. Ce rythme lent permet au spectateur de s’immerger totalement dans le processus introspectif de Chiron et de vivre avec lui les émotions qui façonnent son expérience. Les choix esthétiques de Moonlight sont particulièrement significatifs car ils s’inscrivent dans une tradition cinématographique ayant longtemps perpétué des représentations stéréotypées de la masculinité noire, souvent hypersexualisée et monolithique. Le film dont il est question prend ainsi le contre-pied des codes établis en offrant un portrait intimiste et vulnérable. Les questions qui se posent alors sont les suivantes : comment le montage contribue-t-il à la construction d’une expérience émotionnelle et introspective pour le spectateur ? En quoi ces choix permettent-ils de reconstruire une masculinité noire longtemps malmenée par le grand écran ?
Apolline Dosse, Université de Montpellier 3
The double transitional space of colonization and mourning in The Nightingale (Jennifer Kent, 2018)
Based on historical accounts of British colonization in Tasmania, The Nightingale is constructed as a 19th century rape and revenge tale as the protagonist Clare (Aisling Franciosi), an Irish convict, witnesses the brutal murder of her family before being assaulted by English soldiers, and decides to embark on a quest for vengeance with the help of a local Indigenous man, Billy/Mangana (Baykali Ganambarr). The Nightingale portrays a period of historical transition as it pertains to the British colonization of Australia in the early 19th century and borrows from the US genre of the Western to portray the Frontier as an interstitial space of confrontation through physical, moral, sexual and social violence (Richard Slotkin 1992) as the characters move through the forest. However, The Nightingale also explores mourning as a period of latency, as described by grief specialists like Colin Murray Parkes (2009) or William Worden (2008). In this cinematic exemplar of the Tasmanian Gothic, the forest thus becomes the spatial embodiment of the characters’ process of mourning, a liminal space between the living and the dead. This talk shall explore how The Nightingale articulates a historical transition to a personal transition through the liminality of the Tasmanian forest. The Tasmanian forest Frontier becomes a meeting point, if not a mirror, that establishes parallels between Clare’s grief and the horrors of colonization. I will explore how the spatialization of mourning provides a reflection on the characters’ oppression and the subsequent loss and reclaiming of their agency. I shall adopt a geopoetic approach, grounded in the work of Antoine Gaudin on cinematic space (2015), combined with a postcolonial perspective indebted to Homi Bhabha’s work on hybridity (1994), in order to investigate how the forest becomes a narrative, aesthetic and political receptacle of the past, if not a Third Space, to transition forward.
Francesca Genesio, Université d’Aix-Marseille
“Hollywood’s American Revolution and the transition towards anti-Nazi propaganda: Sons of Liberty (1939)”
Haym Solomon was a Polish-born, Jewish-American businessman and founding father who contributed vast sums of money to the revolutionary cause, sacrificing both health and fortune in the process. A lesser-known protagonist of America’s struggle for independence, he is the main character in the 1939 Academy Award-winning short Sons of Liberty and stands as a symbol of diversity among a Pantheon of famous patriots of more conventionally WASP origin. Between 1936 and 1939, Warner Bros. studios released a series of patriotic shorts aimed at celebrating the values of America’s revolutionary era. Among these were Give Me Liberty (1936), by B. Reeves Eason, The Declaration of Independence (1938) by Crane Wilbur, The Bill of Rights (1939) also by Crane Wilbur, and Sons of Liberty (1939) by Michael Curtiz. These films, collectively known as The Old Glory Series, were not meant primarily as sources of entertainment, but as didactic quasi-documentaries promoting quintessentially American ideals of tolerance, liberty, justice, and equality in the face of rising totalitarianism in Europe. While Hollywood remained generally silent about Nazism in the 1930s, Warner Studios pioneered an effort at countering fascist propaganda by mobilizing the ideological artillery associated with America’s identity as the country of freedom. Whilst all the shorts in the Old Glory Series appealed to universalist principles of honor, decency, independence, liberty and equality, Sons of Liberty went a step further, choosing to highlight the Jewish community’s unwavering commitment to a common set of patriotic and institutional values, adherence to which proved their unquestionable Americanness. Revolutionary principles and ideals are therefore portrayed as the fundamental glue that holds American society together, making Americanness compatible with the persistence of cultural and ethnic diversity within its population. While in this sense it could be argued that Sons of Liberty offers a cultural pluralist rereading of the American Revolution, potentially inspired by Horace Kallen’s writings, it also presents Sons of Liberty as an important – if somewhat inconspicuous – inflection point in Hollywood’s transition towards pro-Jewish and anti-Nazi stances. My paper therefore proposes to provide a close reading of Sons of Liberty, focusing on the depiction of Haym Salomon’s ‘patriotic Jewishness’ in the context of the cultural and historical transitions described above.
C.E. Harris, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3
The Digital Pass-Through: Transitions between Substance and Space in Film and Television
The visual effect of the camera that appears to seamlessly pass through a solid object is not a recent phenomenon in Hollywood cinema, with notable early examples such as Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) [emerging even earlier in German expressionist cinema — F.W. Murnau’s Der letzte Mann (1924) and Fritz Lang’s M (1931)]. In the digital age, with the increasing use of simulated cameras, however, this “pass-through” device has undergone important shifts in terms of how it contributes to film style, how it carries out the function of transitioning between filmic spaces and scenes as an editing device, and how it stages relationships between the camera, the mise-en-scène, and the spectator. If the pass-through has been primarily relegated to studies of camera movement, focusing on long-take aesthetics or of the creation of flowing, phantasmatic points of view, voyeuristic immersion, and surveillant gazes, the present paper is concerned with the pass-through itself, that is to say, that very moment in which a virtual camera crosses the threshold from filming an object to passing through it, breaching its surface, penetrating into it. It is about the visualization of the threshold — the moment of transition — and the transformation of the threshold into a space worthy of exploration (however brief) in its own right. This paper presents an overview of this film form in transition as it has evolved in the digital age, (1) beginning with the early 2000s heyday of the CGI pass-through [Fight Club (1999), The Matrix (1999), Panic Room (2002), Enter the Void (2009)], (2) turning toward its evolution in dematerialized digital cinema [Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Hugo (2011), Gravity (2013)], and (3) highlighting its innovative uses in popular Anglo-American television series (The Queen’s Gambit, Good Omens, Mr. Robot) in order to ask: what does the pass- through device, as an expressive form and spatial actant, reveal about the relationship between cinematic (im)materiality and cinematic spatiality.
Anita Jorge, UT2J
“The advent of sound films in 1930s Britain: from the ‘purest form of cinema’ to ‘photographs of people talking’?”
“The soul of the film – its eloquent and vital silence – is destroyed. The film now returns to the circus whence it came, among the freaks and the fat ladies,” lamented film critic Ernest Betts in 1928, one year after the advent of the “talkies”. His position was far from isolated as many, from fellow film critics to filmmakers, shared his aversion for the sound film. Alfred Hitchcock famously said in an interview with Truffaut that “the silent pictures were the purest form of cinema” and that the transition to sound had coincided with the “loss of cinematic style”, as talkies were mostly mere “photographs of people talking.” This also signalled the end of the hitherto universal cinema, as dialogue in multiple languages would now have to be recorded, and spoken or mouthed by actors and actresses, many of whom did not speak English. The year 1928 was also marked by the publication, in the October issue of Close Up, of Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Alexandrov’s collective statement on sound. Their manifesto made the case for a creative, non-synchronous use of sound, as opposed to a purely mimetic one, and a cinema that would avail itself of “a new orchestral counterpoint of sight-images and sound-images”. The following year, the London Film Society hosted a conference of Pudovkin himself on sound, attended by all the British cinema intelligentsia. Yet, if a few commercial films like Hitchcock’s first talkie Blackmail (1929) drew on the Soviet filmmakers’ theories, sound experimentation was limited by the requirements established in the 1927 Cinematograph Films Act, which imposed quotas and a necessity for British feature films to be competitive on a world market. Concomitantly, a documentary film unit placed under the aegis of the government was created in 1926 (the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit until 1933, then the General Post Office Film Unit until 1940, followed by the Crown Film Unit during the war). The documentary school, as it came to be known, comprised many members of the London Film Society who were very enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by the coming of sound film (Alberto Cavalcanti, John Grierson, Paul Rotha, Harry Watt, Basil Wright, Humphrey Jennings, to name but a few). If opposition to the advent of sound was in no way limited to Great Britain, the concomitant development of film sound and of governmental cinema was very much a British phenomenon. Looking at governmental films with a highly creative use of sound such as 6.30 Collection (1934), Pett & Pott (1934), Coal Face (1935), or Night Mail (1936), this paper contends that, because the British documentary school received governmental funding and sponsorship, and therefore escaped commercial logics, it was in a position to pioneer experimentations in sound-image asynchronicity.
Daniel Koechlin, Université du Mans
« Structural Transition and the Limits of Heroism in The Dark Knight Rises. »
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012) is a meditation on societal and cinematic transitions, reflecting ideological upheaval in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the Occupy movement. This paper explores the film’s portrayal of societal and cinematic transitions, focusing on its depiction of systemic collapse, class antagonism, and ideology. Formally, The Dark Knight Rises embodies a cinematic transition as the first film to feature over an hour of IMAX footage, amplifying both the grandeur and fragility of Gotham. This technological innovation enhances the narrative’s shifting scales between the intimate and the epic, mirroring the societal fractures at its core. Furthermore, the narrative’s reliance on time—through countdowns to impending collapse—underscores its focus on systemic change while complicating its resolution. Thematically, the film allegorizes modern capitalism’s crises through Bane’s revolutionary rhetoric and the ruptures he orchestrates, from the destruction of Gotham’s Stock Exchange to his pseudo-populist rhetoric. Drawing on Fredric Jameson’s theories of allegory and ideology, this analysis examines the film’s reactionary framing of collective resistance as destructive. Nolan quoted Burke’s critique of the French Revolution as a major influence, and the film’s ideological conservatism emerges as it frames social upheaval as orchestrated by déclassé demagogues, forcing Batman to aid law enforcement in suppressing rioters in a shroud of tear gas. Filmed in NYC during Occupy, this narrative reveals the superhero genre as fundamentally upholding the status quo. By situating the movie at the crossroads of cinematic and ideological shifts, this paper sheds light on how the film encapsulates a transitional moment in Hollywood’s engagement with audiences. It examines how the superhero genre often reflects reactionary anxieties by warning against the ‘misuse’ of power—superhero powers symbolizing the immense productive capacities of modern society—and intertwines themes of identification, sentimentalism, and the dangers of ressentiment in an age of instability.
Hubert Le Boisselier, Université Polytechnique des Hauts-De-France, Valenciennes
« Plague of the Zombies, John Gilling (1966): a transitional zombie film”
Horror films conventionally depict liminal or interstitial creatures that, considered in their in-betweenness, embody the genre’s taste for transitional states. Such manifestations occupy a space between the norm and its transgression, the rational and the irrational or the law and desire. One of those creatures typically stands for the indetermination characteristic of transitions, namely the zombie figure, as it evolves in a transitional world – ie apocalyptic – while at the same time embodying transition between states – life and death, sanity and illness, apathy and violence, human and posthuman thereby provoking paradoxical affects such as terror and laughter, inspiring abjection or / and empathy. Both as subgenre and as a figure, zombies are transitional, particularly when they are shown invading – roaming – shambling or running – exploring the transitional postapocalyptic film / world. Based on these preliminary observations, my presentation will focus on Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling, 1966), whose singular and – to my mind – prominent status in the evolution of zombie fiction is rarely discussed. I will argue that this film has a significant role as a transition between what critics term the classic / voodoo, and the modern zombies. Not only does the film straddle the dividing line between the two periods, but it literally reshapes the monster, enabling the zombie to enter the new era of the sub-genre. While Night of the Living Dead (George Romero, 1968) is generally considered as the turning point in the mutation of the sub-genre, an assertion that I will not challenge, I will however suggest that Plague bears some of the characteristics of the zombie figure as it has developed and transformed since the 1960s, the most significant of which being its grotesque dimension and its link with the cinema of attractions. In other words, my stance is that Gilling’s film can be considered as a transition both in terms of genre codification and as it largely contributes to creating the new / modern aesthetics of the zombie figure. I will concentrate on one of the most spectacular sequences in the film, set in a cemetery, in which the director shows the transformation of a character into a zombie. The fact that this transformation is the first of its kind, that it initiates, so to speak, a trope, an enduring convention of the sub-genre, is of great interest to research on the subject. And yet, another aesthetic trait of this sequence seems to me as fundamental and foundational. What I am referring to is the cinematography of this almost self-contained episode, in which the framing, editing and rhythm, contribute to creating a short and self-conscious skit that I would compare to the trick films seen in the era of the cinema of attractions. This analysis will even lead me to suggest that the zombie figure and zombie fiction as a sub-genre, comprise several characteristics that relate them to the aesthetics developed in this era of film history.
Cristelle Maury, UT2J
« Transitioning Bodies, Transitioning Genres: Women’s Violence in Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding (2024) »
This paper investigates the theme of transition in Rose Glass’s queer neo-noir thriller Love Lies Bleeding, examining it both as a narrative device and a catalyst for genre transformation. The film follows the passionate lesbian relationship between a reclusive gym manager, entangled with a crime family, and an ambitious bodybuilder, while foregrounding female violence in a way that reclaims cinematic codes traditionally reserved for male characters. I argue that the female bodybuilder’s physical transformation through steroid use parallels the queer reimagining of film noir, which facilitates the depiction of emancipatory, unrestrained violence. This dual transition disrupts the binary opposition of oppressor and oppressed, creating a narrative framework where the reversal of domination becomes conceivable, and women’s violence is reframed as a politicized, subversive act.
Gilles Menegaldo, Université de Poitiers
Mutations monstrueuses dans quelques films d’horreur, de Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Rouben Mamoulian, 1932) à The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986) et au-delà.
La mutation monstrueuse de l’être humain en figure d’altérité constitue souvent un moment dramatique et spectaculaire dans les films d’horreur, en particulier dans les scènes de « transformation à vue » qui sollicitent des effets spéciaux plus ou moins sophistiqués (maquillages, prothèses, filtres colorés, effets sonores, animatronique, CGI, etc.). Si certains monstres mythiques tels la créature de Frankenstein conservent une apparence physique (en particulier un visage) relativement stable, d’autres changent drastiquement comme le Dr Jekyll qui devient une créature simiesque dans le film de Rouben Mamoulian, et déjà dans la version muette de John Robertson (1920). Ce processus suppose une dualité du personnage qui souvent incarne les deux rôles, ce qui implique aussi un travail d’acteur spécifique. On verra à partir de plusieurs exemples classiques, modernes et contemporains que ces scènes de transformation, parfois récurrentes, structurent les films et sont aussi bien tributaires des évolutions techniques que du contexte social et culturel et de l’idéologie ambiante.
Claire Pascal, Sorbonne Université
« We want our [Regency] back » : Représenter la Régence anglaise après le Brexit dans les adaptations austeniennes (de 2016 à nos jours)
Cette communication s’intéressera à l’évolution des adaptations austeniennes et à leur manière de représenter l’Angleterre de la Régence suite au référendum de juin 2016. Ce dernier, dont les négociations prennent officiellement fin en janvier 2021, exprime la volonté d’une majorité, si relative soit-elle, de retrouver des valeurs conservatrices fortes, aussi bien sur le plan économique que social. Ce choc politique, profondément anti-cosmopolite, continue encore d’inspirer de nombreuses productions artistiques britanniques, que cela soit sur la scène ou à l’écran, et de les mener à sonder l’environnement culturel et politique du Royaume-Uni lors de ce tournant inédit dans l’histoire de l’Europe. En prenant comme exemple les adaptations austeniennes, véritables véhicules de fantasmes et d’identification, nous analyserons si ces dernières se placent dans le prolongement de cette revendication d’un retour à une grandeur passé anglaise, dont nous étudierons les symboles. La représentation austenienne d’une société préindustrielle, de paysages pré-urbains, d’une politique nationale forte, et de corps aristocratiques majoritairement blancs, pourrait-elle être inscrite dans l’expression des désirs des publics les plus traditionalistes ? Ou bien, la mythologisation du passé colonial britannique, depuis le présent, peut-elle être une manière de divertir la population à un moment de dissensions politiques et sociales, un moment de déchirement pour les partisans du Remain ? Nous tenterons également d’élucider le manque paradoxal d’adaptations produites au Royaume-Uni pendant ces années de transition politique, manque ressenti en comparaison l’abondance d’adaptations réalisées, notamment par la BBC, des années 1970 aux années 2000. A travers l’étude des symboles du film historique (demeures de la haute bourgeoisie, grandes tables, costumes et accessoires ornés), nous tenterons d’interpréter les différents usages politiques de ces adaptations, et de les inscrire dans une tradition d’exaltation de l’identité anglaise, une « Englishness » d’un autre âge.
Erine Pioffret, UT2J
Transition ou adaptation ? La série Sanditon dans tous ses états.
L’adaptation filmique peut-elle s’apparenter à une forme de transition ? Définie comme le passage d’un médium écrit, oral ou visuel, à celui du support filmique, l’adaptation filmique désigne tant le processus de transformation que l’œuvre finale, souvent réduite à une question de fidélité à l’œuvre source. Mais l’adaptation n’est pas dans une visée de retranscription unique. Dans ce passage d’un état à un autre, l’adaptation filmique joue avec ses propres codes, tant narratifs, esthétiques que symboliques, afin de créer une œuvre filmique originale. Le lien avec l’œuvre source, souvent qualifié en termes de perte ou de gain, en devient pourtant plus complexe puisque l’adaptation cherche tant à s’en détacher qu’à en hériter. Il sera donc pertinent dans cette communication de s’intéresser à la série Sanditon (2019-2023), adaptation filmique britannique d’un travail inachevé de Jane Austen. Située au début du XIXème siècle, la série adapte pour le premier épisode les douze chapitres écrits par l’auteure avant sa mort. Les épisodes suivants s’inspirent donc du roman inachevé, afin de proposer une série originale. Sa popularité permettant d’atteindre la production de trois saisons, des critiques ont pourtant perçu certains choix filmiques comme étant en rupture avec l’esprit de l’écrivaine et de ses romans. Ainsi, la série offre des réflexions concernant le passage d’une œuvre écrite inachevée vers une œuvre filmique aboutie dans un médium sériel. Cette adaptation présente un contexte de production particulier, puisque le scénariste Andrew Davies a déjà écrit d’autres adaptations filmiques de Jane Austen par le passé, développant un style personnel esthétique marqué. La série a donc dû trouver une identité propre, tant vis-à-vis de l’œuvre source que des adaptations similaires produites. La présente communication s’attachera donc à analyser la façon dont la série puise dans le roman inachevé de l’auteure, ainsi que dans les autres adaptations écrites et filmiques, afin de proposer une œuvre palimpseste qui soit cohérente non seulement par rapport à l’écrit source, mais également pour le contexte de production filmique contemporain.
Joanna Vrignaud, Université de Nanterre
“It’s 1934, Lee, and you wanna put cowboys on Bonnie and Clyde?” Du western au film noir dans The Highwaymen de John Lee Hancock
The Highwaymen de John Lee Hancock (2019) propose un récit mythologisant de la poursuite de Bonnie et Clyde Barrow par le FBI en 1934. Alors que les forces de l’ordre, pourtant dotées de technologies de pointe, ne cessent d’être mises en échec, les braqueurs atteignent le statut d’icônes auprès du public et dans la presse, qui les compare à Jesse James. Les enquêteurs décident alors de rappeler d’autres icônes afin d’attraper les malfrats : des Texas Rangers à la retraite. Le film, à l’esthétique crépusculaire malgré son photoréalisme social, retrace en filigrane la transition d’une justice dite « à l’américaine » incarnée par les individus qui l’exécutent (la figure fantasmée du Texas Ranger) à un appareil exécutif systémique, uniforme mais incapable (les agents indifférenciables les uns des autres). Aigris et chancelants, hantés par leur passé de Rangers, Frank et Maney semblent pourtant les seuls à même de comprendre le comportement de Bonnie, Clyde ou leurs proches. Selon leur expérience, les hors-la-loi, comme les mustangs, veulent toujours rentrer à la maison. L’application de cette maxime par Frank est ce qui permettra finalement de confronter Bonnie et Clyde. Les motifs du cheval et de la voiture (l’iconique Ford) s’entrecroisent ainsi en permanence pour mieux souligner la transition d’un paradigme à un autre. Le film se présente ainsi comme une réflexion sur la transition entre l’atmosphère très caractéristique du western (shoot out, plans panoramiques d’un paysage sauvage, héros westerniens, course poursuite, nostalgie paradoxale d’un autre temps…) vers celle des codes du film noir (plans rapprochés, tons sépias, musique sombre et atmosphère mystérieuse). En plaçant des archétypes westerniens dans un film de gangster des années 30 à l’esthétique très léchée, il interroge l’adaptation et la nostalgie crépusculaire de ces personnages (et peut-être aussi d’un public conservateur) peinant comprendre le nouveau monde qui les entoure. Mais les structures narratives et systémiques qui régissent la violence du film de gangster sont-elles si différentes de celles du western ?