This book examines the aesthetics of gesture in a selection of French post-New Wave films, revealing how cinema can be used to show the impact of social conditioning on the body, especially in the aftermath of May 1968. These filmmakers developed radical cinematic approaches to represent the body, attitudes and postures.

«This fascinating study of gesture makes an original contribution to film studies through the persuasive insights it offers into the significance of gesture in its different manifestations in post-New Wave cinema. Meticulous analysis of an eclectic choice of examples and compelling meditations on wider questions of social conditioning, human memory and gender make this book essential reading.» (Dr Albertine Fox, Senior Lecturer in French Film, University of Bristol) Since the invention of cinema in the late nineteenth century, gesture has been a central preoccupation and source of innovation for early film pioneers and avant-garde filmmakers. A non-verbal form of expression and communication characterised by movement, gesture is a key theoretical concept in film analysis that raises crucial questions about the medium specificity of cinema. This book uses an interdisciplinary and intermedial approach to read gesture in terms of its interplay with film technology and its relations with the visual and performing arts. The author examines the aesthetics of gesture in a selection of films made during a complex historical and cultural period marked by the disintegration of the French New Wave, the uprisings of May 1968 and the decline of postwar economic prosperity. The book offers an in-depth study of the works of major and often under-explored French and Francophone filmmakers, artists, writers and intellectuals, including Chantal Akerman, Fernand Deligny, Jean-Luc Godard, Pierre Klossowski, Anne-Marie Miéville, Georges Perec, Bernard Queysanne, Jacques Rivette, Renaud Victor and Pierre Zucca. While revitalising the expression of gesture in modern sound cinema, their films developed radical ways of representing and revealing the impact of sociocultural conditioning on the body.

Autorentext

François Giraud is a Teaching Fellow in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Edinburgh, where he currently teaches documentary aesthetics, theories of intermediality as well as French language and culture. He holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. His most recent publications examine the intermedial and gestural aesthetics of major French filmmakers, including Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda and Alain Cavalier.

Inhalt

Contents: Everyday Gestures, Automatism and the Archive in Georges Perec and Bernard Queysanne's Un homme qui dort (The Man Who Sleeps, 1974) - Gestural Styles and Acting Styles in Chantal Akerman's Domestic Territory - Gesture, Image and Intermediality in Jean- Luc Godard's Prénom Carmen (First Name: Carmen, 1983) - The Mystery of Gesture according to Pierre Klossowski: Tableau Vivant and Film Performance in Pierre Zucca's Roberte (1979) - Gestural Lines.