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Sweet nothings? Imagining the inexpressible in contemporary French romantic comedy
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Harrod, Mary (2013) Sweet nothings? Imagining the inexpressible in contemporary French romantic comedy. Studies in French Cinema, 13 (2). doi:10.1386/sfc.13.2.171-1 ISSN 1471-5880.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/sfc.13.2.171_1
Abstract
The impossibility of expressing the ‘uniqueness’ of romantic love through a language plagued by cliché is a staple of rom-com that has become increasingly explicit in the global genre since the late 1980s. This article considers the responses offered by the French rom-com of the 1990s and 2000s to this tension, in prominent and often commercially successful films by both popular auteurs (Christian Vincent, Pierre Salvadori, Yvan Attal, Tonie Marshall and Agn`s Jaoui) and more mainstream directors (including Olivier Baroux, Danièle Thompson, Pascal Chaumeil and Valérie Guignabodet). On the one hand, in a ‘post-screwball’ move that is markedly common in the French genre, romantic desire in several films is displaced into playful sparring, both verbal and physical. On the other, some film-makers reproduce romantic quotations and platitudes with acknowledgement of their status as such, allowing them to be at once appropriated and disavowed in a way that is typical of recent developments in the global genre. Indeed, the article invokes the Hollywood rom-com throughout as a point of comparison and contrast to French practice. In this way, it explores Franco-American differences in the representation of romance, as well as certain potentially more universal traits linked to sexual and romantic desire. Specifically, it suggests that a Gallic predilection can be discerned for acknowledging the socially constructed element of desire itself.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > French Studies | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Studies in French Cinema | ||||||
Publisher: | Intellect Ltd. | ||||||
ISSN: | 1471-5880 | ||||||
Official Date: | June 2013 | ||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 13 | ||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.1386/sfc.13.2.171-1 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
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