DATING IN LATER LIFE
On the possibility of conducting visual ethnography on such an intimate topic
Cécile Flipo
Supervised by Peter Snowdon
Master in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology
Track Visual Ethnography
Leiden University – June 2018
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ABSTRACT
Dating in later life has already been the object of much research, whether using quantitative or qualitative methods. These studies notably examined the functions of dating in later life. However, the methodologies employed to conduct such studies were only briefly discussed. Discussing methodology seems all the more important since questions related to dating in later life touch on very intimate areas of experience. Indeed, how can one possibly conduct research on such an intimate topic? This article aims to give some possible answers to this question by considering a visual ethnographic research conducted in France among four elderly people. First of all, it explores how and to what extent it was possible to conduct the research despite the impossibility of spending an extended period of time with the four protagonists, by organizing scattered encounters with the participants in their homes. In the second place, it suggests that using visual methods – that is, deploying the camera as a methodological tool – may be an asset rather than an obstacle when studying such an intimate topic.
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ACKNOWLEGMENTS
This research would not have been possible without the participation of my four main participants, Francois, Jean, Lydie, and Luce. It has been a pleasure to meet them and spend time with them. I wish to thank them for opening their doors to me and sharing with me some of their most intimate stories. I also would like to thank the members of the club of seniors who taught me every week new cards games in a very cheerful atmosphere. Thanks to Francoise Petit, the leader, for having introduced me to this club.
Many thanks to Peter Snowdon who guided me all along this research, really helped me to think about my experiences in the field and encouraged me in the making of the ethnographic film. Thanks also to Metje Postma and Mark Westmoreland for their good guidance all along the Master’s program.
Finally, I am very grateful to my classmates for their great friendship and support, and with whom it was possible to dream about future filmmaking projects.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ... 5
Research Question and Conceptual Framework ... 7
Communicative context and methodological approach ... 9
A FiELD MADE OF FIRST ENCOUNTERS ... 11
Entering in contact ... 11
“Dating” my participants ... 15
Complex relationship ... 16
THE CAMERA, MY PARTICIPANTS AND I ... 19
Performing authenticity and authentic performances. ... 19
Filming objects, revealing intimacy ... 24
A dancing ethnography? ... 27 Conclusion ... 32 Bibliography ... 34 Other references ... 36 Filmography ... 36 Photos. ... 36
5
INTRODUCTION
The question of intimacy and sexuality in retirement homes in France has recently received a lot of attention in social debates, while the retirement system has also been called into question. Though little academic research has been conducted on this topic to date (Lefebvre des Noettes, V. & Gauillard, J. 2015: 34), Véronique Lefebvre des Noettes, psychiatrist, has pointed out the lack of facilities allowing the elderly to have sexual intimacy (36).
The question of intimacy and sexuality in later life is all the more important since the lifespan has increased as has the number of years without any health incapacity (Brugière, 2011/3: 182). The sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann, a specialist in the Sociology of couples, even speaks of a “Second youth” (17, in Dubois, 2017) to refer to this new category of “young” retired people who are able to enjoy their free time.
If I have a personal interest in topics related to elderly people it is because (in my experience) I like their company. Some of them are quite vulnerable, and I find this vulnerability touching. Yet, I also enjoy taking part in situations where, suddenly, they get very lively and embrace life. For this reason, my first intention was to conduct research on a retirement home run by nuns in the suburb of Paris, but this project fell through at the last minute because the nuns changed their minds about allowing me to film inside their retirement home. In order to find a new subject, I looked at what was on the news regarding elderly people. Among other things, I came across an article about younger elderly people using dating websites. This caught my attention because indeed, one could see that many new online dating websites specifically targeting this age group were flourishing in France. For instance, created in 2011, Quitonic.fr promises to be “The website to go out, have fun and make encounters…because life starts at 50 years old”. In 2017, the Meetic group launched “Disons-Demain.fr”, a dating website for seniors which also promises them activities and leisure. These websites target people above the age of 50 years (a cut-off point which seems strange to me, because I don’t consider people of 50 as being already seniors). So, I decided to try and pursue a study of dating in later life (which I take to mean starting from 62 years old, the legal age of retirement in France).
6 Dating1 in later life had already been studied before the arrival of the internet and the emergence of
dating websites. Yet, at that time, academics preferred to study “adjustment to widowhood through analysis of kin or peer networks” (Bulcroft, O’connor, 1986: 397) rather than paying attention to the intimate relationships of the elderly. This was partly due to the belief that dating in later life was not common. This idea was “reinforced by stereotypes of the elderly as asexual and uninterested in developing intimate heterosexual relationships” (Bulcroft, Bulcroft, 1991: 245). However, Kris Bulcroft and Margaret O’Connor conducted a qualitative study (based on in-depth face to face interviews) in 1986 in order to find out how dating relationships could have an influence on the well-being of the elderly (aged 60 years old or more). The findings of this study were followed up a little bit later, in 1991, with a quantitative survey (Bulcroft, Bulcroft).
These studies mostly reflect on the functions of dating in later life. In that sense, the Bulcrofts acknowledge that “the need for intimacy remains in the later stages of life” (1991: 245); but they don’t discuss in any detail the methodology they employed when conducting their research. Speaking of their use of in-depth face-to-face interviews, they affirm that “the respondents were candid and reliable in the course of the interview” (1986:398), and they also believe that “the interview process was “therapeutic” in nature for the participants (399). Yet, can we believe that the topic can be exhausted just by hearing what the respondents have to say about it? Would there not also be something to observe – something they cannot, or would not, say? And if so, how can one observe such an intimate “practice”? More generally, what kind of methodology is needed to study such an intimate topic? And how could I, as a young woman, possibly hope to carry out this research successfully, when I would never speak about this topic with my own grandparents?
This research was challenging for two main reasons. First of all, I could not impose on my participants (4 elderly people living in their private homes) the conditions of classic participant observation: I could not move in with them for an extended period time. Secondly, it felt difficult to take directly part in my participants’ dates2. Therefore, how could I conduct research on this subject which would deserve to be
considered “ethnographic”?
It was my desire to explore these issues of methodology that led me to establish my main questions.
1 We use term “dating” thinking of the following definition of “date”: “A social meeting planned before
it happens, especially one between two people who have or might have a romantic relationship” (Cambridge). Here, we refer to romantic dates.
2 I did not ask my participants in a directly if they would let me take part in some of their dates. Yet, I found out along the way
that it was mostly not something they were willing to do, mainly because they often did not want to involve their partner in the research / or explained that their partner did not want to get involve (or involved too much).
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Research Question and Conceptual Framework
The questions I wish to address here are:
1) What did conducting this research on elderly people dating mean and imply in terms of fieldwork? Were ethnographic methods capable of approaching such an intimate topic?
2) How did filming ethnography become a support rather than an obstacle for approaching such an intimate topic?
These questions center around three main concepts: Fieldwork, filming ethnography, Intimacy. "Fieldwork represents one of the fundamental or "paradigmatic" elements of anthropology as an academic discipline" (Sluka, Robben, 2007: 4). Yet, the definition of fieldwork has evolved through the history of anthropology, "with the inclusion of new concerns and ideas about ethics, politics, reflexivity, collaboration, and reciprocity." (6). Participant observation usually goes with conducting fieldwork. Yet, one could wonder: Is the field given to the ethnographer or is it the result of his actions? Johannes Fabian explains how anthropological investigations imply "entering a context of communicative interaction through the one medium which represents and constitutes such a context: language" (1971: 27). Following this idea, the ethnographer would enter a certain communicative context, a certain field, to which he wishes to adapt by speaking the "same language" as his protagonists.
In an opposite way, some anthropologists believe that the field is not given but constructed. In this way, Jacinthe Mazzocchetti and Emmanuelle Piccoli think that the encounter between an ethnographer and his protagonists is a source of new experience for both parties (2016: 4). Perle Møhl also explains how participation defines the field and “not the other way around" (2011: 243). Yet, she refers here to fieldwork conducted with a camera by a filming ethnographer. She argues that filming ethnography puts the ethnographer in a situation where his own “presence, actions and whole endeavours are highlighted to a much higher degree than when one simply takes notes.” (230). Thus, the latter has no choice but to make his objet explicit, “and thereby also the fact that it has an object” (229). Consequently, the ethnographer becomes even more dependent on people’s consent over the ethnographic project but also on their participation (231).
Of course, like any ethnography, filming ethnography enables observation; both while filming, and when looking back at the footage produced. Yet, a filming ethnography does not simply mean that the ethnographer observes and that the protagonist is observed. Rather, it asks for the participation of both parties. In that sense, Perle Møhl stresses the fact that the specific participation of both the ethnographer/filmmaker and the participant shapes the field in a certain way. (201: 243). She argues
8 that “it alters the fundamental relational and epistemological conditions of the fieldwork and for the representations that may come out of it.” (228).
Furthermore, at the core of my fieldwork is intimacy. The anthropologist and psychoanalyst Jeanne Favret-Saada defines intimacy as «The superlative of the inner being. It would be in the deepest area of the self, visceral and hidden to other people’s eyes.» 3 (My translation. Favret-Saada, 1977, in Dassié,
2010: 41). In other words, intimacy is the space where one can be oneself (Dassié, 2010: 340). Intimacy is experienced; yet, it also has a material existence. First of all, intimacy is embodied in the body (Meder-Klein, 2005: 5). Moreover, intimacy exists and develops in private spaces. "Home" is therefore to be understood as an intimate space. The experience of Home is called intimacy (Serfaty-Gorzon, 2003: 65).
Yet, intimacy is not only related to the private sphere, but is also highly associated with the public sphere. Indeed, it constantly enters into contact with this sphere. This happens every time the body make itself visible in public sphere. This happens every time intimate objects are shown to others. In this sense, Véronique Dassié says that intimacy is the object of an "articulation between the private and public sphere" (2010: 345). Last but not least, intimacy is intrinsically social and cultural, and therefore appears as a "common denominator between different individuals (340).
Therefore, if intimacy is not understood as a property but as a relation, it might mean that intimacy has to be approached through a relation. Intimacy would only appear through the course of a relationship in process in the field. It would not be given by the field itself. It would result from the relationship built between the ethnographer and his/her participants. Yet, would a relationship ethnographer/participant such as a relationship observer/observed be suitable to unveil the intimacy of the participant? If intimacy is intentional, would the participant not have to engage himself in the process of unveiling his intimacy to actually unveiling it? In that sense, and because a filming ethnography installs a “reciprocal participation” (Møhl, 2011: 232) from both parts in the process of producing representations, would it not be more of a suitable way of approaching intimacy? Considering the communicative context of my research and the methodological approach I have followed, I intend to discuss these points.
3 Original quotation: “le superlatif de l’intérieur. Son lieu propre serait à ce titre le plus profond de ce qui repose en soi,
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Communicative context and methodological approach
My research took the form of 10 weeks of fieldwork (from January to mid-March 2018) during which I built relationships with four main participants, all of whom were more than 62 years old. Besides that, I also joined a group of seniors playing cards every Tuesday4. My field started in the suburbs of Paris, in
France. But the research subsequently extended to embrace Normandy, and the French Riviera in the South of France.
My main research participants were all retired and currently dating. There were two men, François (78 years old, retired magician) and Jean (82 years old, engineer, and still working as such). I found them through Meetic, a French online dating website. There were also two women. I discovered Luce (76 years old, retired private detective) through a book she wrote in 2017 called “Je n’ai jamais renoncé à l’amour5”. When I met her, I found out that she was also a Meetic user. Finally, I met Lydie (82 years
old, retired housekeeper) by answering a newspaper advert she had published seeking to meet men. I also gained access to the club of seniors via its leader, who I already knew. The club members’ ages ranged from about 62 years old to 90 years old.
My fieldwork mainly involved visiting my main participants from time to time, mostly for an afternoon, in their homes. In the case of Luce, we met for three whole days in a row, during a fieldtrip I made to the South of France. These scattered visits enabled me to root my relationships with the participants over time, becoming more at ease and familiar with them during the second or third visit. Of course, my goal was also to see how their quest for love was evolving over time. To conduct this research, I used qualitative approaches. With the members of the clubs I mostly did participant observation, learning about the members by playing cards with them. In this article, I will mainly elaborate on my encounters with my four protagonists.
With the four main participants, I used informal conversations as my main method. These conversations were often accompanied by actions on the part of my participants. For example, they would show me some of the activities they do online, or they would tell me about some of their personal possessions. I also conducted life story interviews with each of my protagonists, with the aim of interpreting their dating practices in later life in the light of their whole life course. Almost everything I did was filmed. Even more, filming was a key catalyst for the conversations I had with the participants. As I will argue in the main
4 I first joined this group with the intention of finding elderly people dating and/or questioning elderly people who do not date
and who socialize in other ways. The idea was to get another perspective on the question of dating in later life through elderly people themselves.
10 body of this text below, the camera was a real methodological tool in its own right, which enabled me, to some extent, to get access to the intimate life of my participants.
While I had planned to follow a certain methodological approach before starting my fieldwork (which I had chosen considering the communicative context I knew I would find myself in), my approach changed slightly but significantly once I entered the field, and continued to change as the field itself evolved. Therefore, the methodological approach I have described above was not given in advance, but was itself the outcome of a “process of inquiry” (MacDougall 1998:76) - and one which I continued to question as part of this process.
In this article, I aim to describe this process of inquiry and, in doing so, discuss my methodological approach. The film which I made during this research also addresses at certain points my process of inquiry, its challenges and ethical concerns. However, these methodological issues are not the focus of the film, which principally aims to address the questions: How and why do some elderly people date? And how does the practice of dating give us information on the ways that elderly people make sense of themselves and of the world around them?
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A FIELD MADE OF FIRST ENCOUNTERS
Arising from the will to decolonize anthropology, “Ethnographies of encounter” “explore how culture making occurs through unequal relationships involving two or more groups of people and things that appear to exist in culturally distinct worlds.” (Faier, Rofel, 2014: 1).
My participants have never met each other and are not intending to meet each other. However, they encounter people while dating. And indeed, dating sometimes makes them encounter people who are very different from themselves. In that sense, my research is related to encounters.
Yet, here, speaking about “A field made of first encounters”, I am mainly thinking of my own encounter with the participants, through this ethnographic research. I am going to reflect on my process of encountering the participants. Indeed, it is through this process of encountering that one can question empirical and epistemological issues. Anna Tsing argues that “ways of being are emergent effects of encounters” (2017: 23) and that therefore, “the point of ethnography is to learn how to think about a situation together with one’s informants”, claiming that this can lead to “a new anthropology of always-in-process collaboration” (ix). This kind of ethnography follows connections, follows people. The field is no more viewed as a single site, but as multi-sited, as a “field of relations” (1997: 8) (Hastrup and Olwig, in Hine, 2000: 60).
Even more importantly, this research implied first encounters of a special kind. It was not simply about an ethnographer encountering her participants for the first time. Much more was going on. I found myself in a process of going on dates with my participants, from when I started entering in contact with them to when I engaged myself into our relationship.
Entering in contact
Before starting this research, I did not know any elderly people dating online. Therefore, I had to look for participants. There were two main ways I could enter into contact with elderly people who were engaged in dating: I could meet them either offline, or online.
Offline, I went to a club of seniors (dedicated to cards players) hoping that maybe I would find some elderly people there who were dating or knew other elderly people who were dating. The first time I went to the club, I began by introducing myself to everyone, saying that I was conducting research about elderly people in general, but also about their use of online dating websites in particular. Before I had finished speaking they all started to laugh, saying “It is not us”, “we don’t use the internet” (field notes,
12 members of the clubs, 10/01: 30). One woman added, laughing, “We don’t want men, we use arsenic to poison them” (field notes, Christiane, married, 10/01: 30). Yet, another woman raised her voice saying, “I have a friend who did that, but it has been a disaster” (field notes, Chantal, 10/01: 31). A few days after, Chantal gave me the phone number of her friend, Claude. We spoke on the phone for more than 2 hours. Claude told me about her different dates / love stories in a very detailed way. I could hardly interrupt her. She was much more descriptive than my main participants were. However, when I finally asked her if we could meet in real life (mentioning the camera), she replied: “No, it is okay, I am too old for this. I think I have already told you enough” (Conversation with Claude, 19/01). Maybe she responded in this way because I had left it too long before mentioning that my research implied that we would meet up face to face. Yet, it may be because she did not want to expose / perform herself and her private life in front of other people, via the camera.
A friend of mine told me she had an aunt who was known for using online dating websites. Yet, when this friend asked her if she would participate in my research, this woman denied using this kind of websites. This is probably a sign that talking about using online dating websites remains taboo for some of those who use them.
While looking for participants offline without great success, I also tried to find people online, via the dating websites themselves. To do so, I created a specific account for my research. On my profile, I clearly indicated my research aims. Because of my age, I could not register on dating websites dedicated to seniors. Therefore, I targeted general websites. The first website I signed up with was JeContacte.com. It is a French website, and 100% free access. Yet, one day after I had written to a few elderly people (men and women) via the website, I found I could not access my account any more. My account had been deleted by the website administration. Maybe some of the elderly people I had contacted reported me. I decided to try a second time on the online dating website called Meetic. I was able to use this website from January to mid-March, when I received a mail from Meetic explaining that my account had been closed because I was not “respecting the terms of use” of the website and was acting against the “user-friendly” vibe of the website (email from Meetic, 15/03). It is clear that my attempts to meet elderly people dating using online methods of approach was quite problematic, for both ethical and legal reasons6.
6 Re-reading the terms of use of Meetic, I realise that the rule I was probably not respecting was this one: “Fundamental
obligations: The community member has the fundamental obligation of: - Not using the services for professional, commercial, lucrative (advertisement, prospection, etc.) or non-private reasons.”. Original quotation: “3.2.2. Obligations Fondamentales:
13 Despite the fact that I could not respect all the terms of use of the website, I decided to continue looking for participants on Meetic. Yet, I did so by taking precautions: I only used the personal information of my main participants because they gave me their consent to do so. Moreover, if I filmed my participants a few times while they were looking at Meetic profiles on their computers, in the final film, I have blurred faces and names of the other Meetic users that appear on the screen. This seems fair to me to do it this way. Here, I was willing to respect the right of the Meetic users’ personal information. However, I do not think I was acting against the “user-friendly” vibe of the website when I was contacting users. I was simply asking some users if they would be interested in participating in a study. The latter were free to answer me or not, decline or not. This situation demonstrates that these online dating websites are very protective and restrictive. They seek to promise the members that they are in an environment dedicated to finding Love (or at least, romantic and/or sexual relationships). Yet, spending time with my participants, I quickly discovered that these websites were used by members for different purposes. For instance, as Francois explains in the film, he uses Meetic to get engaged in unusual relationships and write about these relationships. However, he does it under the guise of his own romantic quest and therefore he doesn’t get blamed as I did.
Under the cover of preserving a “user-friendly” vibe, it seems like Meetic and JeContacte.com expelled me because a research like mine could present a risk for them; the risk of publicly lifting the veil on their promises.
In any event, this was the first time that I had used a website such as Meetic and I was learning about it as I went along. I soon found I had to make a first selection if I was to find participants.
I tried to find protagonists with whom I would share at least one area of interest. Because, as Hugh Mackay explained in his study on the use of mass media in households: “Developing common ground, on the basis of mutual interests or activities, was an important way of generating acceptability and relationships” (in Hine, 2005: 136). That is how I selected Francois. On Meetic, he had written that he liked photography and arts. His profile was appealing. I contacted about 10 people and got 5 answers. Two men declined my quest. Another man was willing to participate but he wanted to verify my identity first and asked me to send him proof (I felt uncomfortable to do this). The last two men were Jean and Francois. Both of them were not really wiling to chat through messages, and told me they would rather I
Le membre a pour Obligations Fondamentales de : - Ne pas utiliser les Services à des fins professionnelles, commerciales, lucratives (publicité, prospection, etc.) ou non privées.” (2013: 4)
14 call them instead. Therefore, I called them before meeting them. I followed the same process with Lydie and Luce7.
In a way, then, I went through the same process as people do when dating: discovering the website, looking at profiles, selecting people, contacting them, talking by phone, and planning a meeting in real life. Through this process, my participants and I were checking the intentions of one another. In addition, I chose participants with whom I could feel comfortable with, both physically and mentally speaking. In a way, it was a question of “intimate” accordance between my participants and myself. It is how I went on “dating” my participants.
7 Lydie called me after having received my answer to her advert. After having bought the book of Luce, I got her number and
called her, we planned to meet. I only found out when meeting her that she was also using Meetic. On the phone, she had told me that she does not use it.
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“Dating” my participants
Date is most often related to romantic encounters. Yet, the definition mentioned before8 specifies that
this can also simply be a social meeting.
I was dating my participants, it was not a romantic date, but still, I could make a parallel between my dates with them and other romantic dates. Let’s take the example of my first date with François.
I had imagined and idealized François a lot just by discovering his Meetic page, talking to him by phone and reading about his blogs. Therefore, just before I met him, I was anxious that the good feeling I had about him fades away when I meet him. And indeed, during the first minutes of our meeting, I lost the confidence I had because he was not as I had imagined. In a way, I was dealing with my own confidence with some people and not others and my own ability to share intimacy with other people. Therefore, it seemed that we were both in a process of testing out the compatibility of our intimacies. It is maybe why I could not help but compare my participants and the relation we had together. I was judging them in their ability to be intimate, express their feelings, and also in their values.
Therefore, if the relationship I had with my participants was not romantic, the process of meeting them was of a romantic kind; Indeed, I was meeting “strangers” for the first time, in their private homes and after I had imagined and/or idealized them. In this way, the whole process was “marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized” (Merriam-webster). As the ethnographer, I was trying to understand my participants’ relationship to dating by actually going on a date with them. This applied also to experiencing the process of dating; so to say, getting emotionally involved in the process and acknowledging these emotions (Mazzocchetti, Piccoli, 2016, 2).
Moreover, it implied thinking about how my dates were similar but also different from my participants’ romantic dates. In that respect, François acknowledged the peculiarity of our date when he said the first time we met: “You are not frightened of going into people’s houses like that! I could be anyone!” (Conversation with François, 15/01). In saying that, he pointed out the adventurous and mysterious nature of our encounter. He also recognised that our meeting was quite unconventional and ambiguous. In addition, this suggests that, if he invited me in his home (knowing that I will film) and not in a café (as he usually does with his partners) it is because his motive was not simply to meet me and try to find out if our intimacies could matches. Rather, it might indicate that there was more going on. He was maybe
8 Date, “A social meeting planned before it happens, especially one between two people who have or might have a romantic relationship” (Cambridge).
16 not opening his door to me only, but also to people behind the camera; people to whom he could demonstrate his intimacy. In any event, and before speaking in more detail about the camera, these considerations demonstrate the complexity of my relationship with the participants.
Complex relationship
First of all, my research revolved around intergenerational encounters. I was a young woman encountering elderly people (men and women) in the context of an academic research project. Feminist scholarship has argued that encounters are always the result of “complex negotiation of similarities and differences between the researcher and the researched” (Tarrant, 494: 2014). Thinking about my encounters in the field means thinking specifically about the age gap between my participants and myself; and therefore thinking about the positionality I had in the field and how this positionality had an impact on the information that my participants would or would not give me.
Could I have conducted the same research if I myself had been 20 years older? Could I have conducted this research, following the same methodology, if I had been a man? For some reasons, it feels strange to me to imagine these possibilities. In a way, I felt comfortable in the position I was in. Indeed, I think my positionality positively helped me to conduct this fieldwork.
First, being a young student enabled me to “play” the “learner role”, allowing “the researcher to be a greenhorn” (Goransson, 1999: 910). So for example I would, from time to time, share with my participants my difficulties with the camera. In doing so, I was looking to reassure myself, but also to communicate to my participants that our meeting did not have to be too formal. Moreover, playing the role of the learner implied that I positioned myself as a young person who was willing to learn from my participants – from their life stories and love stories.
If my protagonists agreed to participate in my study, it may have been in part because they perceived me as “the young student”, and thus felt motivated to help me. The first time I had Jean on the phone, he told me “If it can help you in your studies, I would participate” (Conversation, 05/01). Surprised by his quick agreement, I sought to make sure he had really understood that I would film him. He insisted: “Yes, it is your job, do whatever you need to do for your job” (Conversation, 05/01). In this way, my participants agreed to answer my questions and show me some of their personal objects. But I did not have the feeling that they were really motivated to try and comprehend what I was aiming to do in making a film (with the exception of François). As a result, my initial plan of doing a form of participatory cinema9 failed, and I decided instead to follow a more indirect approach (this decision making of
switching form one methodology to another will be detailed later in the thesis).
9 Participatory cinema implies that the way the camera is used has to be decided with the participants and according to their
“views on the world” (Møhl, 2011: 229). It implies building the film with the participants, so that filmmaking is considered as a “craft” (Battaglia, 2015: 2), “something always in motion” (8).
17 Moreover, with the age gap, one might imagine that my participants would associate me with their grandchildren. However, I doubt that this was the case in the field I was in. In the relationships I had with the participants, there was a degree of formality which seems to have prevented such association. Moreover, my participants (with the exception of Luce) did not seem to really make a great deal of their grandparent role. Of course, this was even truer for François, as he does not have any children. This could explain why François had no problem speaking about sexuality with me. Indeed, Anna Tarrant explained that talk of sexuality was absent from her field because of how it was “constructed as inappropriate for a granddaughter and young woman to hear” (2014: 499) this kind of talk. Indeed, François was aware of the fact that speaking about sexuality in such an open way with a young woman was quite unconventional, yet, he also stepped away from this view, saying: “If people think it is wrong to speak about these topics, they are the ones who are in the wrong, not you. You are modern and young, and I am modern and…not old!” (Conversation. 15/01)
Considering gender positionalities, it seems plausible to suppose that my positionality as a woman helped me to find participants. Indeed, as explained before, making the first contact with my participants on a dating website, or by answering a post, in a quite unconventional way, could easily produce a reaction of mistrust. As Anna Tarrant suggests, the fact that the researcher is a woman probably helped reduce this threat: “[one can] consider women’s positionality as gendered outsider as advantageous, because they are viewed as different and unthreatening” (Tarrant, 2014: 494).
Anna Tarrant found that her participants (elder men) would stop themselves from speaking in a bad way about women, knowing that she was a woman (2014: 497). On the contrary, I found that François and Jean were not embarrassed about criticizing women in front of me. It is maybe because, when criticizing women, my participants were referring to older women using Meetic – that is, a specific group of women to which I did not myself belong.
Also, when Luce and Lydie were criticizing men in the context of situations they had encountered, they would sometimes ask me if I approved of their criticisms. And indeed, I would approve what they said. It was easy to empathize with them. The most obvious example of this gender dynamic occurred during an informal conversation with Lydie and Guy (Lydie’s new boyfriend). Sometimes, Lydie would react to Guy’s comments and then point at me, laughing: “Did you hear that miss…” In these moments, a kind of gender “solidarity” was at play.
Beyond these considerations of age and gender, two facts which reveal the complexity and uncertainty of my relationship with the participants, surprised me.
18 First, I was surprised by the way my protagonists valued my opinion, and sought my validation. For instance, Lydie asked me what I thought about the decoration in her flat. François asked me three times in a row if I thought his Meetic description coincided with what I had seen of him. Maybe they valued my “young gaze”? I am not sure. In the film “Soleil Sombre” (2017), it seems that the filmmaker Marie Moreau faced the same kind of questions from her main protagonist, Paulette Djemai (an older woman undergoing drug substitution treatment.). At the very beginning, Paulette asks her if she thinks she looks depraved. Here, it is clear that Paulette is seeking validation from Marie Moreau herself but maybe it has more to do with the filmmaker’s role as it does with her youth. Indeed, the filmmaker is recording images of her and her intimate life. It also implies that the filmmaker might pass judgement on Paulette. In the same way, I was filming her decoration and objects but, sometimes, I was not commenting on them. At these moments, Lydie did not know how what I was filming was perceived by me; and therefore would be perceived in the future, by a larger audience. In this process, the representation of her intimacy was at stake and, as the filmmaker, I was partly holding control in the way her intimacy was represented. This might also be why she was seeking validation.
Secondly, in between our meetings, it has not always been easy to stay in touch with my participants and plan new meetings, especially with Francois and Lydie. Regarding Lydie, it was clear that meeting me a second time was not the first thing Lydie had in mind. Whereas, the first time I had called her (before our first meeting), she was enthusiastic about meeting me: “Telling you about my life? You are going be surprised…” (Phone call with Lydie, before the 18/02). During our last calls, she seemed to be very preoccupied by her relationship with her new partner. This situation reminds me of the film, “People I could have been and maybe am” (2010) by Boris Gerrets. At one point during the film, Steve finds a girlfriend (Precious) and Gerrets films parts of their romance. Yet, one can see that, little by little, the close and intimate relationship Boris had with Steve fades away. It seems that Boris Gerrets is now only able to act as a recorder. He records Steve and his girlfriend having a good time together. And indeed, Boris Gerrets explains in the film, “I had found myself in a place, perhaps I should not have been” (45:01 minutes). It feels like the relationship filmmaker / participant exists as long as it fills a gap in the participant’s lives. The camera gives them the chance to think about who they are and who they want to be. It gives them the chance to reinvent themselves. In a similar way, when Lydie found a boyfriend she began to feel fulfilled by this relationship. She had started reinventing herself in this new relationship in such a way that the idea of meeting me again was no longer so appealing to her.
19
THE CAMERA, MY PARTICIPANTS AND I
As we have seen in the theoretical framework, the presence of the camera in the field partly determines it. In the case of this fieldwork, the camera took a central place in the dates I was having with my participants. In this section, I will elaborate on the way my use of the camera constructed my field, and most of all, on how the camera became a methodological tool, that enabled me to capture the intimate.
Performing authenticity and authentic performances.
In « Current Dilemmas of the Ethnographer behind the Camera », Jonathan Larcher and Noémie Oxley explain that the camera can be either an asset or a threat (or both) for the people filmed. Therefore, the filmmaker often has to negotiate his presence and his actions (Larcher and Oxley, 2015: 6).
In my case, I did not really have to negotiate the use of the camera with my participants (except with Lydie). At least, I did not have to negotiate it verbally. Indeed, my participants were surprisingly at ease with the camera. I say “surprisingly” because this was not what I had expected. Before commencing this fieldwork, I had interviewed other elderly people who were very intimidated by the camera. In the field, with my participants, however, I was the one being anxious to use the camera. Christian Lallier explains that the presence of camera is not only embarrassing for the protagonists (as it is often emphasised) but also for the filming observer (2016: 1).
One might think that if the protagonists agreed to participate in my research at the first place – seeing as I had got into contact with them through a “suspicious” process, and with the aim of discussing their romantic/sex life - it is because they are people who are generally quite at ease, and confident in their appearance.
Perle Møhl argues that because of the camera, people “may go on living their lives, but they do so in a slightly different way” (2011: 233). This could be because the presence of the camera and the filmmaker put the filmed ones in a situation of performance. Indeed, as Erving Goffman explains, the term ‘performance’ “refers to all the activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers.” (1958: 13). The interaction of filmmaker/participant could be one that fosters performances. However, surprisingly, while filming I did not have the feeling that the camera was affecting the way my participants normally act. For instance, I filmed Luce when she was ordering pizza. It was a difficult process because there was snow outside and no company would agree to deliver pizza to us. She was calling different persons, arguing with them in a very performative way. Yet, I did not feel that she was
20 acting this way for the camera, so much as because she is used to acting like this in everyday life. Indeed, she is a former detective. For her job, she had to play roles in order to get information from people. Therefore, it makes sense to think of Luce as someone who is a “natural performer”, even in everyday life. This is also true of Francois (who is a magician, a “showman”), of Jean (to some extent, as he is used to giving speeches for his company), and of Lydie (who explained that she likes to play roles). Their ways of acting did not seem to change when the camera was working compare to when it was off. Their performances were continuous from the moment I was meeting them to when I was leaving them10. This is why I did not believe at first that they were performing at all11. I was blind. Yet,
this effect was part of the performative effects that their performances had on me.
Nevertheless, at several moments during our encounters, I doubted the stories my participants were telling me. Mostly, the participants were telling me some of their date’s stories. Yet, sometimes, the stories were so peculiar and the participants were narrating them in such a dramatized way that I would end up doubting if they were real or not. For instance, Francois told me in front of the camera how he met a very flirty woman. While he was explaining how this woman was behaving with him and other men, he has imitating her with some gestures. In this case, his gestures made the performance very clear. Also, I came to think: “Did he really meet this woman?”, “Was she really acting the way he describes it?”, “Did he really end up having sexual relationships with her, as he affirms?” Many of my participants ‘stories made me doubt. These doubts might have been the result of my own bias as much as the result of the dramatized way in which my participants were often narrating them.
In any case, my participants tended to counterbalance their performative way of being and narrating stories by regularly reassuring me that they were honest and authentic. They did as if, from what they were telling me (or, because of the way they were performing), they understood I would doubt their sincerity. By reassuring me of their honesty, they were making sure that maybe the influence that their performance had on me was remaining intact.
Yet, this could indicate several things about the nature of their performance. On the one hand, it could indicate that their performances were actually based on lies. Therefore, they needed to make sure I believed their lies. On the other hand, it could mean that they actually really believed in the sincerity of their performances12 and that they wanted to be known for their sincerity, for their authenticity.
10 Except in the case of Lydie. I will explain it after.
11 It is however in the process of understanding my research and especially while editing my film that I came to see the
performances.
12 As Goffman suggests “We find that the performer can be fully taken in by his own act; he can be sincerely convinced that
21 Another fact led me to believe in this last possibility. As explained before, I had originally planned to conduct a form of participatory cinema. Indeed, my idea was to engage my participants in the film making process, by discussing with them (with the camera as witness) in a direct way what I should film in order to present them and their dating adventures. However, I quickly noticed while talking to my participants that they were not receptive to this kind of discussion. They were not bringing ideas or initiatives in a direct way. Therefore, I proposed to them some activities implying they perform. For example I suggested that they could introduce themselves in front of the camera as if they were introducing themselves to potential partners.
To this suggestion, Jean and Francois answered:
Jean: “I would try to sell myself? To sell my all... my strengths... […] Anyway, I think it is no
point to try and demonstrate we are something else than what we are because it will give an illusion, but it will last a day, no more […]
Cécile: Yes but you don’t have to necessarily sell yourself by overplaying it, you can also
remain sincere, if possible…
Jean: …This is it…one has to learn to know me, what do you want?…(My translation.
Conversation with Jean, 17/01)13
Francois: « No, I don’t want to do this. If it was for a theater play, yes, I would talk rubbish. But,
right now, what I can tell you is what is on my Meetic page, I cannot tell you something else […]. No, I introduce myself to everyone. I cannot do another way. It seems wrong to act a scene. (My translation. Conversation with Francois, 15/02)14
In a similar way, Luce did not follow my request15. Yet, here is the point. It is interesting to see that, my
participants, ‘natural performers’, did not feel like performing themselves in a direct way in front of potential partners. This, because they claimed because of their sincerity in this kind of venture.
This situation seems to reaffirm that they believed in the sincerity of their ‘natural’ performances in front of the camera. Even more, it seems that the main motives of their performances was to demonstrate their authenticity, their true self16. This also means demonstrating their intimacy because, as I have said
13 Original verbatim: “Jean: En essayant de me vendre? De vendre ma camelote…Quels sont mes atouts… […] Oui bah de
tout façon, il ne faut surtout pas chercher à démontrer qu'on est autre chose que ce que l'on est parce que cela peut faire illusion mais ça va durer quoi…une journée? […]. Cécile: Bah après moi je ne pensais pas à vous vendre de manière exagérée mais de manière sincère si c'est possible… Jean: ...voilà...il faut apprendre à me connaître, qu'est-ce que vous voulez que... (Conversation avec Jean, 17/01)
14 Original verbatim: « Bah nan ça ne me va pas parce que si vous me demandez un travail de comédien, parce que si c'est
dans le cadre d'une pièce de théâtre, oui je dirais n'importe, mais là finalement ce que je peux vous dire c'est ce qu'il y a sur mon profil Meetic et je ne peux pas vous dire autre chose […] nan je me présente à tous et je ne peux pas faire autrement; ça me paraît incongru de faire une scène, de tourner» (Conversation avec Francois. 15/ 02)
15 After that, I gave up with this idea and therefore never asked Lydie if she would do it or not.
16 This could imply lying. In that respect, while watching my footages afterwards, I discovered many unexpected elements.
For instance, Francois wanted to show me some of the emails he receives from Meetic and therefore I filmed his mailbox. It took a little while before he found the emails from Meetic. As he looked for them, he was going through his mailbox deleting
22 before, intimacy refers to the “inner being” (Favret-Saada, 1977, in Dassié, 2010: 41). Yet, their reaction to this exercise also shows that they were not only performing in front of the camera for me but also knowing that a larger audience will potentially watch the videos. Francois finds it therefore important to be authentic because as he explains: “I introduce myself to everyone”. In this case, “everyone” does not seem to mean anyone. It seems that it could include potential partners. If behind the camera was potential partners, like in a situation of romantic dating, it seems logical that demonstrating their authenticity in front of the camera was a great deal for my participants.
This is also maybe partly, why Lydie was reluctant to be filmed the first time I met her. In order to perform her intimacy she needed to be reassured in several ways. The following vignette will explain this in detail:
Our meeting started in a tense atmosphere. Lydie was suspicious and quite scared of the camera.
First of all, she got worried about what I would ask her to do in front of the camera. She even asked me, “I will not have to remove my clothes, right?!” (Conversation, 18/02). I was surprised and shocked by this question. Afterwards, I understood why she was worried about it. While telling me about the different dates she had been on, she explained that one day she met a man who led her to an isolate area, took his camera out and asked her to remove her clothes. Fortunately for her, she managed to run away. I did my best to reassure her and explained her the ethic principles that would guide my research.
Secondly, she was worried that people she knows would see her on screen. I started to explain to her that the film would only be shown in specific festivals, but it did not seem to reassure her. So I told her “It is not gonna be on TV. It is not going to be screened in Maromme17”. She
seemed to be a bit more reassured.
Finally, I think she wanted to be sure I was not a crook wanting to steal money. She asked me if she would have to pay something. This surprised me a bit, but I could totally understand that some people might be suspicious of my request.
After I had discussed everything with her, she remained indecisive, not telling me directly whether yes or no she agreed to be filmed… So I continued to argue, but I got a bit nervous. While speaking I was scratching my neck, and I realised Lydie was looking at me doing so. So, in a sense, she was observing me as much as I was observing her. She was trying to find out if I was here for good reasons or not. After a little while she even asked me, “Are you nervous? Your neck is red?” My first reaction was to say, “No, no, it is just because I was scratching my neck”. She insisted and seemed to become even more suspicious for a few seconds. Therefore, I thought it was better to admit that I was a bit nervous. So I said, “well, yes, maybe I am a bit nervous, it is not easy to explain my project and deal with the camera.” It was after that, that she finally did more or less agree to be filmed.
some emails. After our meeting, I watched again the clip I made of this moment and I realized that Jean was deleting some emails he had received from other dating websites. Yet, he had never told me that he uses other dating websites…
23 So, I started to install the camera on my tripod. She sat in front of the camera. Installing the camera took me a little while (maybe 2 minutes) because I wanted to make sure everything was correctly adjusted (audio, focus…). While doing so, I kept speaking to Lydie about the camera and other things, and Lydie was kind of waiting. She seemed to be still a bit worried. At some point she said, “OKAY, 1, 2, 3, go”, and then I pressed the button PLAY on the camera. From that point on, I felt the camera did not bother Lydie anymore. She was even acting in front of the camera. I think that in a way, the camera gave her a space to perform. After around 40 minutes she even asked me, “Is it still recording now? I had totally forgotten about the “feather duster”” (by feather duster, she meant the camera) and she laughed.
To summarize, during the first minutes of our meeting, the presence of the camera was the cause of many worries for both Lydie and myself. Yet, it is interesting to see that these worries started to fade away when I dared being honest about my neck scratching. Her worries faded away completely from the first second the camera became active. Indeed, it seemed like the camera offered a stage to Lydie; a stage where she was able to perform. In front of the camera, Lydie enlivened. She was telling stories of some of her dates by recreating the scenes. For examples she was playing the role of the man, enacting his discourses, and then she was answering, enacting her own role in the situation. Doing so, she was using numerous gestures and mimics.
Figure 1 – Lydie enacting her date with a man.
It was almost like if she was performing a theatre play by herself. Yet, she was performing this way while seated, without me asking for it, and ensuring me from time to time that she was being authentic.
24 However, I could not get all my information through this kind of performance. As Jean had stressed, “One must learn to know me” (My translation. Conversation with Jean, 17/01). This could suggest that Jean was not going to reveal his whole intimate life straight away. And, indeed, it is not what he did. Therefore, and in order to get a sense of his intimate life, I had to follow an indirect method. Next part will explain how.
Filming objects, revealing intimacy
As we have seen before, I was “dating” my participants but it was not exactly the usual romantic date where the two persons try to get to know one another’s life stories. My encounters were focused on my participants’ dating stories. My participants knew I was there to learn more about them and their intimate life. But still, it was sometimes difficult for me to ask very personal questions in a direct way. I was afraid of my participant’s reaction. Because, even if I was trying to be intimately engaged in their life (by my way of acting), I could still potentially be perceived by them as a stranger.
As Sacriste argued, it is not easy to make people speak about their own life without appearing too curious or intrusive (2018: 27). In a way, one can say it is even harder to do it with a camera, if the filmmaker directly points the camera at his participants. Instead of following such a direct approach, I decided to adopt a more indirect method, which involved questioning my participants about their personal objects18.
In that respect, I used the technique of photo elicitation developed for the first time by Collier (1967) and commonly used in Ethnography since then. Only, I applied this technique to personal objects. Therefore, I followed what the French ethnologist Véronique Dassié calls “ethnologie du chez soi" (Dassie, 2010 : 340); that is, so to speak, an ethnology of the “home” which has its own methodology and theoretical framework. "Ethnologie du chez soi" means looking at intimate spaces by paying attention to what is ordinary: "le registre du banal" (340). For her own research, Véronique Dassié studied objects that had affective value, starting her inquiries by asking her participants this question: “Do you have any memory-objects?”. From there she tried to understand how memory-objects were related to emotions. In my research, the camera itself helped me to question objects: personal objects, objects of affection, and/or memory-objects.
There are many examples in my research of personal objects which were valuable for my participants and which they told me about, thus revealing elements of their lives that might otherwise have remained concealed. Let us take the example of the tiny wedding dresses that were hanging on the wall of Lydie’s
25 entrance hall. Lydie hangs these tiny dresses as a form of decoration because, as she explained me while I was filming them: “A wedding dress is something I never had, so it doesn’t matter, I have some wedding dresses as decoration.” (Conversation recorded on camera, 11/02). During our second meeting, on 18 March, I probed her concerning these wedding dresses, and she explained to me in great detail the story of how she got married very young when she was not able to buy a wedding dress.
Figure 2 – Lydie asking me if I had filmed her tiny wedding dresses.
In the film “La rencontre” (1996), Alain Cavalier and his partner Françoise Winhoff tell the viewer about their daily and intimate life by filming their objects as well as parts of their bodies. Cavalier displays in front of the camera the objects which are meaningful for him and his partner: old watches, a key ring, stones…In voice-over, Cavalier and Winhoff narrate (almost whispering) the stories of these objects. Faces and full bodies are absent. The viewer is invited instead to watch close-ups of their personal objects. During the first minutes of watching the film, I had a feeling of rejection; it was “too intimate”. Yet, after a while I got used to being exposed in such a way to the intimate life of this couple. This film reveals that objects can be deeply imbued with intimacy.
When speaking about objects, we refer to personal objects, which can also include technological objects such as computers. Yet, here, the object “computer” is not simply an intimate object in itself, but also because people load it up with personal information. Screens (in this field, it was computer screens) can be vectors of the intimate. Filming my participants’ screens while they were using their computer even put me in situations where I had access to private information. For example, Jean likes to invest in stocks. During our second meeting, he showed me how he would proceed to invest in stocks. Therefore, he went online, connected to his personal bank account, and typed his password in
26 front of me19. Then, I could see all his stocks and account holdings. I was exposed to some very private
information. I did not know if I was supposed to see it or not.
Also, and more importantly, Jean showed me some photos of Annie (his Meetic girlfriend) and her home. As I could not take part in their dates, it was the only way I could get a sense of what their intimate relationship was like. Indeed, when talking about it with Jean, he would not tell me much about it (or at least not in any detail).Yet, when showing me the photos he had on his computer of Annie’s flat, he commented on them in detail, speaking about her flowers, Annie’s cat and Annie’s way of decorating. Perhaps the two screens that came between Jean and I (I was half looking at my camera screen and half at his computer screen; he was looking at his computer screen, knowing that I was looking at my camera screen) enabled Jean to share intimate details of his life without feeling that he was risking himself too much.
Figure 3 – Jean showing me intimate photos of Annie’s home.
Therefore, following a practice of elicitation, here applied to objects and photos, enabled me to approach and reveal parts of my participant’s intimacy without being too intrusive. This way, with my
27 camera, I tried to enter into a “dance” with my participants. In the next paragraph, I will explain in more detail how this came about.
A dancing ethnography?
Because my field was made up of encounters, I could not really conduct a “long-term fieldwork based on participant observation” (Sluka, Robben, 2007: 4) in the traditional way. However, one can also consider participant observation not only as a durational commitment, but also as a posture taken by the anthropologist who goes back and forth between “involvement” and “detachment” (Ibid: 1). In that way, the methodology I have followed, using a camera, consisted of stepping away and back from one posture to another. Doing so enabled my participants and I to develop our relationship.
I will start by considering my “involvement”. The camera certainly enabled me to get involved in my participants’ daily lives and enter into conversation with them.
First of all, the camera was a tool for starting conversations with the participants. Jonathan Larcher and Noémie Oxley mention that the camera can sometimes be a “relational vector” (2015: 7), when it provokes conversations. In the same way, Christian Lallier underlined that it is sometimes used as a tool to build relationships with the protagonists (2015: 12). This was especially true with François because he was interested in filming and photography. Several times he looked at my camera and asked me questions about it. He also showed my one of his cameras and we compared our cameras.
Yet, most of all, I used the camera to engage physically and verbally with the protagonists. Jean-Frédérique De Hasque argues that « encounters with a camera » formalize « connections through physical gesture » (2014: 42). This is why he argues that filming implies undertaking “a posture of involvement, or at least, of participation.20” (My translation. 42). He draws a parallel between the body of
a dancer in action and the one of a filmmaker:
“ The one that wants to film a dancer or an interlocutor find himself having to move or to dance in order to install a relationship of trust and reciprocity.21» (My translation. 2014: 44).
This resonates with my second meeting with Luce. As explained above, Luce was trying to order pizza. As she did so, she moved about a lot: she first tried to find a flyer in the kitchen; then she went back into the living room where she called the initial pizzeria. At this point she was standing. Then we sat in front of her computer in order to try to find another pizzeria online. Finally, because it was not possible to get a pizza delivered, she decided to defrost some cassoulet (a stew of sausages and beans). To do that,
20 Original quotation: “une posture impliquée ou, à tout le moins, participante” (De Hasque, 2014).
21 Original quotation: “Celui qui veut filmer un danseur ou un interlocuteur se trouve contraint à bouger lui-même ou à danser
28 she went back in the kitchen. During the whole process, I tried to follow her gestures, so that I was physically involved in Luce’s “dance”.
Moreover, if I was moving with my participants, following their activities, in some way, I think I was also making them move. Their dances became our dances. It was a two-way process. I was engaged in these dances by the way I was moving with the camera and framing. For example, for a certain amount of time, Lydie started to try on some clothes and shoes in front of myself and the camera. According to the way I was positioning myself and the camera, she was also moving and positioning herself in a certain way. For instance, she got some shoes in the hallway and I stayed in her kitchen. Only an open door separated the hallway and the kitchen. Because I used my camera from the kitchen, she moved with her shoes until the kitchen, in front of the doorway, to show off her shoes to the camera. Also, at some point, she tried on one of her coats. This time I was standing in front of the doorway (from the kitchen side). Therefore, Lydie stayed in the hallway while putting on her coat and showing it to me. I took the doorway as a frame for my shot. This way, I kept a certain distance from her and left a certain amount of room for her to move; even if I was blocking her way to the kitchen. I also framed my shots with the help of walls and doors when Jean was on the phone.
Figure 4 – Framing with walls and doors. Jean and Lydie in action.
My intent in doing so was to respect the privacy of my participants’ actions and intimacy of their bodies in action22.
22 However, when I was filming my participants during interviews, I was often framing faces, in quite a close way. I cannot
give a clear explanation for this. I just felt more comfortable to film this way. I found that my participants were very expressive. They had strong facial features and mimics. Maybe the fact that I was filming in a close way also fostered the display of their facial expressions. Their mimics were being put on stage by the camera.
29 Yet, just as importantly, I also tried to be verbally engaged in the dance. To go back to Luce, she was struggling to find a pizza for us, and I did not think it was right for me to passively “record” her struggling. Therefore, I was sometimes putting the camera down to help her navigate online through the delivery websites. Afterwards, together we tried to find a way to defrost the cassoulet faster. Therefore, while I was filming trying to defrost the cassoulet, we were discussing the situation. She was sometimes moving according to what I was saying. In this way, I think here we could extend the parallel made by De Hasque between a dancer and a filmmaker to include their involvement with each other through verbal gestures.
Figure 5 – I ask: “Or, maybe we can defrost a bit like that?”. Luce decides to defrost the cassoulet.
Moreover, I sometimes used the camera in order to break away from my relationship with the participants. I would say to the participants: “I was thinking of filming a bit your home, in order to convey the atmosphere of your home in the film, is that okay?” And then, I would start walking around and film the objects. This way, I would have time to observe. The camera was giving me the legitimacy to do so (Lallier, 2016: 9). Yet, also, the protagonists were free either to take a break and go on with their usual activities, or interact with me while I was filming. I tried to leave the field free for the protagonists’ actions or reactions. By my posture of detachment, I intended to communicate to the participants that the “stage is open” (Møhl, 2011: 230) and flexible.
And, indeed, my participants were sometimes interacting with me while I was filming objects, entering the stage in unexpected ways. The main example of that is when, while I was filming a poster in François’ home, François appeared on the screen, himself filming me with his selfie-stick. In a way, he
30 was inviting me to take a break in my “solo dance” and was inviting me to “dance” in another way. In this case, detachment brought me back to involvement. Detachment and involvement were not completely separated from one another. When I was taking a posture of detachment, it did not mean that I was no longer in this process of dancing with my participants.
Figure 6 – I film François‘ posters. His selfie-stick appears on the frame. François tries to engage with me.
31 On the contrary, when “dancing” by myself, I was leaving the option for the participants to engage in my dance, in the way they wanted to. From there, I had to answer to their ways of approaching me. When François appeared with his selfie-stick on the screen, I actually did not follow up with his dance as I wish I would have. I did integrate him in the camera frame, but after a few seconds, I turned away from him and went back on filming the posters on the wall. I was turning the camera away from him while he was trying to engage with it. I regret this because my gesture was equal to refusing to engage with him in a new dance that could have brought new situations. However, while dancing, my participants and I were not following choreography. It was not pre-written. In a way, we were improvising. Even if it was staged, it was also very intuitive. In this sense, the improvised dance could be revelatory of the kind of relationship I had with each of my participants.
