Article Title
Department
French and Francophone Studies
Journal Title
Studies in French Cinema
Publication Date
2009
First Page
259
Last Page
273
Publisher
Intellect Ltd.
File Name
093_Strand-Dana_EtreEtParler.pdf
Keywords
Kechiche, Cantet, language, education, national identity, Entre les murs, L’Esquive
Abstract
French film-makers have long recognized the primordial importance to the nation’s ‘imagined community’ of the centralized public school system, which, since the early days of the Third Republic, has been viewed as a bulwark of Republican values. In this essay, I discuss the ways in which two recent films, Abdellatif Kechiche’s L’Esquive/The Dodge (2004) and Laurent Cantet’s Entre les murs/The Class (2008), interrogate the role French schools play in shaping national identity. Both films focus on language as a marker of difference as well as a point of tension, performance and potential subversion, by exploring the respective contrast between the aggressive street French of the respective films’ adolescent protagonists with the stultifying bureaucratic discourse of the inflexible educational system (in Entre les murs) and Marivaux’s elegant eighteenth century French (in L’Esquive). Accorded significant media attention for their portrayal of the experiences of schoolaged youth, both films have thus contributed to the ongoing national debate about what it means ‘to speak, and to be, French’ (Doran 2007: 498).
Rights Management
Carleton College does not own the copyright to this work and the work is available through the Carleton College Library following the original publisher's policies regarding self-archiving. For more information on the copyright status of this work, refer to the current copyright holder.
RoMEO Color
Green
Preprint Archiving
Yes
Postprint Archiving
Yes
Publisher PDF Archiving
No
Paid OA Option
Yes
Contributing Organization
Carleton College
Type
Article
Format
application/pdf
Language
English
DOI
10.1386/sfc.9.3.259/1
Recommended Citation
Strand, Dana. "Etre et parler: Being and Speaking French in Abdellatif Kechiches LEsquive and Laurent Cantets Entre les murs." Studies in French Cinema 9.3 (2009): 259-273. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1386/sfc.9.3.259/1. Accessed via Faculty Work. French. Carleton Digital Commons. https://digitalcommons.carleton.edu/fren_faculty/1
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1386/sfc.9.3.259/1