Screening the Old: Femininity as Old Age in Contemporary French Cinema
2006; Volume: 39; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2165-2678
Autores Tópico(s)Cinema and Media Studies
ResumoIn the introduction to her extensive 1970 essay on old age, Simone de Beauvoir states that her primary objective is to break a conspiracy of silence: apart from specialized sociological and medical works, she protests, old age is never talked about. This comment certainly applies to cinema; indeed, it becomes a truism when film is envisaged first and foremost as an extension of consumer culture, its overriding function to provide a type of fantasy entertainment that is aligned with consumer values. In effect, such is the power of the logic of occultation that even in the face of aging Western populations, and in spite of the commitment to a different vision that includes trends of realism, independent and European cinemas seem almost as reluctant as their Hollywood counterparts to give space to the aging and the old. French cinema, for instance, has certainly produced at least a few feminine screen icons who, while growing older, retain their place in the pantheon of international stars. At seventy-three, Jeanne Moreau undoubtedly remains a highly regarded figure on the national and international scene. Yet in spite of her undaunted enthusiasm and activity, she has lost a great deal of her public prominence. Moreau's management of her career as she grows older is interesting: the actress has taken a pro-active approach, initiating and producing theatrical adaptations and films which provide her with roles. Cet Amour La her latest cinema project, however, received limited coverage and distribution. Younger than Moreau by ten years, Catherine Deneuve remains one of the leading internationally rated French female stars, but significantly she is celebrated for her aura, her function as beauty icon, and her agelessness. (1) This essay will only allude to the incarnation of femininity as the mature woman--a problematic addressed elsewhere and in particular through studies of Deneuve's career (2)--focusing instead on femininity as the old woman, and on women who play their age. To help set a partly arbitrary marker, one may use as a reference the age of such established personalities in French cinema as Moreau and director Agnes Varda, both over 70. (3) The representation of aging femininity throws into relief issues that, though raised by feminist writers and directors since the 1970s, appear as pertinent as ever. It generates a range of questions that are fundamental to the problematic of gender, otherness, and of exclusion as a whole. Given that in the Western economy of image construction, definitions of femininity have been dominated by appearance, physicality, and objectification as far as cinematic representations of women are concerned, in film the process of aging has been a process of nullification. Gender plays a further role in the strategies of exclusion: not only are men on screen granted a longer life-span as sexual beings, (4) but they retain a status as individuals, defined in terms of (actual or past) activities, professional, cultural, or political. Since in the case of female characters, such aspects traditionally tend to be played down to emphasize their function as sexual objects, such conversion is often denied them. In fictional films, the old woman belongs to one of the least visible of categories. There are, of course, notable exceptions, but in the few instances where the central protagonists are old, as in the touching, empathetic Belgian film Pauline et Paulette, aging is also likely to be the very subject of the film rather than a matter of course. Not only are old women virtually absent in mainstream cinema, but they are rarely given a voice of their own. Restricted to the margins of the screen and the background of the image, deaf, dumb, beset by senility and death, they tend to remain silent, or to become prophetic vessels that speak a language of doom or a discourse of wisdom that goes beyond them. In this context, Moreau's recent collaboration with director Jose Dayan to produce a biographical film based on the life of Marguerite Duras seemed promising. …
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