Christophe Honoré: A Critical Introduction

by David A. Gerstner, Julien Nahmias

Overview

Studies Honoré as an auteur who intervenes in French filmmaking practices and culture with a queer "caméra-stylo."

French filmmaker Christophe Honoré challenges audiences with complex cinematic form, intricate narrative structures, and aesthetically dynamic filmmaking. But the limited release of his films outside of Europe has left him largely unknown to U.S. audiences. In Christophe Honoré: A Critical Introduction, authors David A. Gerstner and Julien Nahmias invite English-speaking scholars and cinéastes to explore Honoré's three most recognized films, Dans Paris (2006), Les Chansons d'amour (2007), and La Belle personne (2008)—"the trilogy." Gerstner and Nahmias analyze Honoré's filmmaking as the work of a queer auteur whose cinematic engagement with questions of family, death, and sexual desire represent new ground for queer theory.

Considering each of the trilogy films in turn, the authors take a close look at Honoré's cinematic technique and how it engages with France's contemporary cultural landscape. With careful attention to the complexity of Honoré's work, they consider critically contested issues such as the filmmaker's cinematic strategies for addressing AIDS, the depth of his LGBTQ politics, his representations of death and sexual desire, and the connections between his films and the New Wave. Anchored by a comprehensive interview with the director, the authors incorporate classical and contemporary film theories to offer a range of cinematic interventions for thinking queerly about the noted film author.

Christophe Honoré: A Critical Introduction reconceptualizes the relationship between film theory and queer theory by moving beyond predominant literary and linguistic models, focusing instead on cinematic technique. Students and teachers of queer film will appreciate this thought-provoking volume.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814338636
Publisher:	Wayne State University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2015
Series:	Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

David A. Gerstner is professor of cinema studies at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island, where he is chair of the Department of Media Culture. He is also a faculty member at the CUNY Graduate Center. His books include Queer Pollen: White Seduction, Back Male Homosexuality, and the Cinematic and Authorship and Film (coedited with Janet Staiger).

Julien Nahmias is a psychiatrist and works at the Institut Paul Sivadon–Association L’Élan Retrouvé, Paris, France. He has written a medical thesis about the cinematic representation of the psychiatrist and has given lectures on the topic of psychiatry and cinema (University of Paris V).

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

The Trilogy

Part I Dans Paris (2006) 49

Part II Les chansons d'amour (2007) 85

Part III La belle personne (2008) 127

Interview with Christophe Honoré 171

Appendix A Filmography 203

Appendix B Authored Books 211

Appendix C Other Media Productions 213

Notes 215

Bibliography 237

Index 245

What People are Saying About This

Professor of English Language and Literature at University of South Carolina and Author of Psycho-Sexual: Male Desir - David Greven

An exciting new study that will prove invaluable to scholars of Honoré's work, contemporary French cinema, and LGBTQI issues in the cinema. Gerstner and Nahmias do an expert job of unpacking the complexities of Honoré's brilliant but also at times impenetrable films. Their work illuminates the director's significance, and the authors examine his films with sensitivity, intelligence, and grace.

Editorial Reviews

Gerstner and Nahmias’s unusual partnership (Gerstner is a film scholar whereas Nahmias is a psychiatrist with a scientific expertise in cinema) produces one of the best and most profound books on French cinema I have read in recent years. Their critical presentation of Honoré’s Paris trilogy opens many avenues and one can only hope that the two authors will continue to explore the filmmaker’s cinematic landscape and provide us with more insight.

H-France Review - Florian Grandena

Christophe Honoré is a tour de force of deep explication. Its central chapter, Love Songs, ranks up there with the very best English-language stand-alone work on a specific French film. It’s a pleasure to read such superb work.

Professor Emeritus of French and Film Studies and John E. Burchard Professor Emeritus of the Humanities at the Massachus - Edward Baron Turk

An exceedingly welcome exemplar of queer analysis focused on a queer filmmaker. Wisely insisting upon queerness as a form of productive disturbance, the authors’ reading of Honoré’s too-little-seen trilogy does something rare in cinema studies: it brings a group of films into definitive focus while inspiring readers’ own complex, enthusiastic reactions. This book will no doubt be read, returned to, and learned from by French, queer, and authorship scholars for many years to come.

associate professor of film studies and women's and gender studies, Texas A&M University, and author of Queer Bergman: S - Daniel Humphrey

Christophe Honoré has become a pivotal figure in contemporary, post–New Wave French cinema. In this remarkable volume, so attentive to questions of cinematic form, David A. Gerstner and Julien Nahmias situate Honoré’s filmmaking practice within a vital history of both queer aesthetics and French film theory.

professor, Department of Film and Media Studies, Hunter College/City University of New York and editor of Vincente Minne - Joe McElhaney

An exciting new study that will prove invaluable to scholars of Honoré’s work, contemporary French cinema, and LGBTQI issues in the cinema. Gerstner and Nahmias do an expert job of unpacking the complexities of Honoré’s brilliant but also at times impenetrable films. Their work illuminates the director’s significance, and the authors examine his films with sensitivity, intelligence, and grace.

professor of English language and literature at University of South Carolina and author of Psycho-Sexual: Male Desire in - David Greven