Up Close and Personal
The Subjective Cinema of Xavier Dolan
Josie Taalman Date: 26th of June 2017 10003959 Word count: 23.783 MA Film Studies Thesis
Supervisor: dr. Amir Vudka Second Reader: dr. Emiel Martens
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Up Close and Personal
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Abstract
Since the release of his first feature film J’ai tué ma mère in 2009, Canadian director Xavier Dolan has been one of the most celebrated young talents of the independent film industry. Despite his expanding body of work and rising success, the academic attention for Dolan’s films has been relatively limited. This thesis aims to examine the oeuvre of this self-taught filmmaker. It is shown that subjectivity is a central element in Dolan’s work and the primary focus of this thesis is to examine this subjectivity.
Following the articles that have been written on Dolan, that mainly focus on his recognizable style and his mentation, the subjectivity of the filmmaker is discussed in connection to auteur theory. A reading of Dolan as a modern-day auteur shows that, although he has a specific style, it’s impossible to recognize Dolan’s subjectivity in his films. Theories on passive and active spectatorship are used to examine the subjectivity of the spectator. Following theories on active spectatorship, it is argued that subjective cinematic experiences can’t be generalized. Finally, it is shown that Dolan himself provides an accurate theory on his films by stating that characters’ stories and subjectivity are central.
Several theories on character subjectivity are discussed to show that Xavier Dolan uses specific techniques to create this subjectivity. The terminology of David Bordwell, Kristen Thompson and Jeff Smith is used to distinguish perceptual and mental subjectivity. Through formal analyses of his films, it’s argued that Dolan constructs perceptual subjectivity with shots that assume the spatial position of characters, shots that show characters’ interpretative
perception and semi-subjective shots. Bruce Kawin’s theory on the mindscreen is connected
to mental subjectivity and Gilles Deleuze’s theory on actual and virtual images is used to recognize memory-, dream- and crystal-images in Dolan’s films. Furthermore, Torben Grodal’s argument on the connection between subjectivity and control is discussed to show that Dolan subjectivises the objective. In these formal analyses a connection is made with the major themes in Dolan’s films, as these are constructed and shown through the characters’ conscious minds. It is argued that the subjective images reflect on characters’ isolated position in the film’s reality, their fractured family bonds, their yearning for an impossible love and their desire to retain control on their life.
Key words: Xavier Dolan – Character subjectivity – Perceptual subjectivity – Mental
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Table of Contents
Introduction………...4
1. Defining Subjective Cinema………...8
1.1 Subjectivity of the Filmmaker………..8
1.2 Cinematic Experience………11
1.3 Subjectivity of Characters.……….14
2. Subjective Techniques in Xavier Dolan’s films………18
2.1 Perceptual Subjectivity………..21
2.2 Mental Subjectivity………35
3. Subjectivising the Objective……….…..52
3.1 Enclosing Space……….53
3.2 Coloring……….60
3.3 Soundtrack & Temporality……….65
Conclusion………68
Notes………...71
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Introduction
“The flamboyantly coiffed Quebecois writer-director who put the auteur into hauteur, Xavier Dolan has enjoyed a sensational career rise over the last five years, going from teenage actor
to Cannes Competition contender at the ridiculously young age of 25.” (Stephen Dalton, 2014)
“Many critics have argued the age of the ‘auteur’ filmmaker is over. Dolan proves it’s back.” (Matthew Wade, 2014)
“In fact, of all the excellent directors currently working today, he seems to me to be the most potent auteur, who recalls the grandest of directors like Renoir, Truffaut, Varda, yes Fellini.”
(Declan Cochran, 2016)
Despite his young age and lack of education, Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan has already enjoyed a thriving career. The now 28-year-old, self-taught filmmaker has released six feature films since 2009, that all premiered at prestigious film festivals and received international critical acclaim. As can be read in the quotations mentioned above, some critics have even stated that Dolan can be recognized as an auteur. These critics praise Dolan’s unique style and often recognize his films as being partly autobiographical. They connect the identity and mentation of the filmmaker to reoccurring themes, storylines and stylistic elements in his films. These reoccurring ‘autobiographical’ elements have also been recognized by various scholars, although the academic attention for Dolan’s films has been relatively limited. The first stirrings of scholarly attention have mainly focused on the films’ queer angle and Dolan’s queer identity, his take on family and mother-son relationships and his Canadian heritage1.
Dolan himself has regularly contested the label of ‘auteur’ and argues that his mentation and identity can’t be connected to his films. He especially despises the term Queer
cinema and states in several interviews that his queer identity does not define his craft or
style. He prefers to be seen as a ‘storyteller’ (Musto, 2011). According to Dolan, an audience should be able to forget the filmmaker and watch the life-world of on screen characters, their story, identity and mentation. In an interview with Filmcomment he stated:
A lot of directors out there promote their own signature and their own trademark and I’m really happy for them, but it’s also very distracting when you watch a film to feel
5 that someone is putting himself or herself up front and won’t give you a break from
remembering that this is a movie directed by someone. When you watch a movie you want to forget this and think this is a microcosm created for you and for the story and not for someone to show off and say this is my oeuvre—it’s tiring.
Although Xavier Dolan clearly opposes the quoted critics and scholars that focus on his identity and mentation, a similar ground can be recognized in their claims. Both Dolan and these writers focus on the subjectivities that are involved in cinematic practices. They aim to define the conscious minds that are related to film. The critics and scholars try to locate the subjectivity of Dolan; they define the films as products of his mind. In doing so, their ideas can be connected to one of the earliest theories that has been formulated on cinema: auteur
theory. Dolan, on the other hand, focuses on the construction of the story and mentation of his
characters. He argues that the subjectivities of characters should be central in film.
My personal fascination for this filmmaker started with another subjective mind; my own, as a spectator. In 2011, I went to a small cinema in Amsterdam to see a film of an upcoming director; it was Dolan’s Les amours imaginaires (2010). For 102 minutes I felt the hyper-stylized images were alternately attracting and repelling me. This interplay constantly reminded me of the constructed nature of the film and my position towards the screen. From that moment on, I’ve been intrigued by this maker and his films. I’m aware that my personal example can’t be generalized as the experience for all spectators, but it does show there’s another subjective mind that should not be neglected when looking at Dolan’s films.
The three subjectivities that are hereby exposed, that of the filmmaker, the fictional characters and the spectator, are involved in all cinematic practices and have been discussed extensively within Film Studies. The disagreement between the critics and Xavier Dolan and my personal experience show that these subjectivities have an important position in Dolan’s films. Because very little academic texts have been written on this director, despite his rising success, this thesis will investigate these subjectivities. In doing so, the following main question will be answered: What is subjectivity in the films of Xavier Dolan?
This main question evokes several sub-questions that are interwoven throughout this thesis. First the notion of subjectivity will be examined, answering the question: How can subjectivity be defined or produced in cinema? This question will be answered by looking at theories on the three subjectivities that are dominant in Film studies. After these subjectivities are defined, this thesis aims to recognize the conscious minds in Dolan’s oeuvre. The
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following questions will be answered: How can the subjective minds of the filmmaker, the spectators and the characters be recognized in Dolan’s films? To answer these questions, different theories will be connected to Dolan’s films and to the existing texts that have been written on this filmmaker. It will be argued that only the constructed subjectivity of characters can truly be examined. This thesis will continue to focus solely on these conscious minds, answering the question: How does Xavier Dolan construct the subjectivity of characters in his films? This question will be answered through formal analyses of Dolan’s films.
In order to make a valuable and cohesive statement on Dolan’s films, all his released feature films will be analyzed and compared. The main focus of these analyses will be the reoccurring visual and audial elements that construct subjectivity. Dolan also directed two music videos: Indochine’s College Boy (2013) and Adele’s Hello (2015). These videos will not be analyzed, as Dolan did not have the sole control on their creation and because these clips construct story and character in a different manner. This means the following films will be examined: J’ai tué ma mère (2009), Les amours imaginaires (2010), Laurence Anyways (2012), Tom à la ferme (2013), Mommy (2014) and Juste la fin du monde (2016).
The first chapter will examine how subjectivity can be defined and produced in cinema and will aim to find these subjectivities in Dolan’s oeuvre. Following the critics and scholars that recognize Dolan’s conscious mind in his films, the subjectivity of the filmmaker will be defined through ideas that were formulated as auteur theory. A brief overview will be given on the development of this paradigm and ideas by well-known auteurists, such as Alexandre Astruc, François Truffaut, André Bazin, Andrew Sarris, Peter Wollen and Pauline Kael, will be discussed. Through a reading of Xavier Dolan as a modern-day auteur, it will be argued that the critics and scholars paint a limited picture of Dolan’s films by focusing solely on the identity and mind of the director.
The subjectivity of the spectator will be examined by looking at important theories on the cinematic experience. The view on the spectator’s agency in this experience has shifted since the 1980’s, moving from the notion of a passive spectator, to a more active spectator that can interpret films in different ways. Established theories in both the passive and active tradition will be discussed in connection to ideas of Jean-Louis Baudry, Christian Metz, Stuart Hall, Torben Grodal and Richard Maltby. Following the theories on active spectatorship, it will be argued that it’s impossible to define the experience for the audience, as it consists of different thinking subjects that can’t be generalized.
The subjectivity of characters will be examined in connection to their constructed nature. It will be shown that these conscious minds are the only subjectivities that can truly be
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analyzed, as they are not connected to an existing subject. To investigate the constructed nature, the terminology of David Bordwell, Kirsten Thompson and Jeff Smith will be used to distinguish characters’ perceptual and mental subjectivity. Bruce Kawin’s notion of the
mindscreen has a close resemblance to mental subjectivity and will be used to elaborate this
notion. Furthermore, the distinction between subjective and objective shots will be questioned and Torben Grodal’s argument on the connection between subjectivity and control will be used to argue that objective images can elicit subjective feelings.
The second chapter will focus solely on the construction of character subjectivity in Dolan’s films. First, the construction of perceptual subjectivity will be examined. Through formal analyses it will be shown that Dolan constructs perceptual subjectivity with two different point-of-view shots: shots that assume the spatial position of a character to expose narrative information and shots that show a character’s interpretative perception. Dolan’s use of the semi-subjective shot, as defined by Jean Mitry, will also be discussed. The second sub-chapter will focus on the construction of mental subjectivity, or mindscreens, in Dolan’s films. It will be argued that Dolan constructs four different types of mindscreens. First, the inner voices that convey a character’s thoughts will be discussed. The other mindscreens will be defined using Gilles Deleuze’s theory on virtual and actual images; it will be argued that Dolan constructs memory-, dream- and crystal-images.
The third and final chapter of this thesis will deal with images that can’t be categorized as perceptual or mental subjectivity. It will be argued that Dolan also uses images that are external to characters to construct these characters’ subjectivity. Dolan’s original use of aspect ratio and framing, color patterns, soundtracks and temporality will be analyzed to show that these elements reflect the emotional state of main characters. The characters assert control on these images, as the shots reflect a character’s emotional reaction at the exact time it sees or interacts with an object. As noted by Grodal, subjective feelings can thus be conveyed through this control. It will be stated that Dolan has the ability to subjectivise the objective.
The conclusion reviews all findings and answers the main question. It will be argued that Dolan provides a useful theory on his own films by stating that characters’ stories and subjectivities should be central in film. Dolan has developed specific techniques to create the subjectivity of characters. He uses different shots to show perceptual and mental subjectivity, but he has also found a way to make the objective, subjective.
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1. Defining Subjective Cinema
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word subjectivity has the following definitions: “Relating to the thinking subject, proceeding from or taking place within the individual consciousness or perception; having its source in the mind; belonging to the conscious life”. Subjectivity thus refers to the conscious mind of an individual and is therein opposed to objectivity, which refers to the object of perception or thought that is external to or independent of the mind.
In cinema different individuals and their conscious minds are involved. The first subjectivity that was investigated in connection to Film Studies is that of the filmmaker. With the rise of New Wave cinema in the 1950’s, the concept of the ‘auteur’ came to the forefront in film criticism. The first sub-chapter will look into this theory. A different conscious mind that is extensively examined in connection to film is that of the spectator. In the second sub-chapter some of the major theories on spectatorship will be discussed. The final sub-sub-chapter will examine the subjectivity of characters. Although these subjects do not exist in our real world, it is possible for a film to construct and show their conscious minds.
By looking at the conscious minds that are involved in cinema, a theoretical framework will be provided for the analyses of Dolan’s films in the upcoming chapters. It will be shown that subjectivity in film is produced and recognized in different ways. By connecting the different theories to Dolan’s oeuvre, it will be argued that the subjectivity of fictional characters is the only conscious mind that can truly be examined, as it’s impossible to access the minds of the filmmaker and the spectators.
1.1 Subjectivity of the Filmmaker
Theories that focus on the conscious mind of the filmmaker are collectivized as auteur theory. Auteurist critics and scholars locate the controlling perspective of the director at the creative center of a film. They focus on theoretical and formal questions about personal expression in cinema and try to define who ‘authors’ a film and has agency for its meaning. This sub-chapter discusses auteur theory in order to see how the subjectivity of Xavier Dolan can be located in his films.
The origin of auteur theory can be found in the article “Naissance d’une nouvelle avant-garde: la caméra-stylo” (1948) that was written by Alexandre Astruc. In this article, Astruc introduces the term caméra-stylo. He states that cinema has developed its own language and has become a means of expression, just as all arts have been before it (159).
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According to Astruc, directors oversee all audial and visual elements of the film and create this language. He therefore argues that the director should be considered as the author of a film. He states that the filmmaker writes with his camera, as a writer writes with a pen (161).
The auteurist movement truly began with different articles that were published in
Cahiers de Cinéma. This French film journal was founded in 1951 by Lo Duca, Jacques
Doniol-Valcroze and André Bazin (Pisters 2007; 39). Its foundation marked the beginning of film theory and the journal became a key organ for the propagation of auteurism. François Truffaut and André Bazin started this movement and wrote articles on the importance of directors in French and Italian New Wave cinema2. They argued that some directors, with an individuality of style, could be seen as ‘author’ of their films (Pisters 2007; 40). The critics made a distinction between two types of directors. They used the term metteurs-en-scène for directors who simply translate scripts into film, adhering to dominant conventions. Contrary to cinéasts who use mise-en-scène as a self-expression, both in formal aspects, like a characteristic style, and in reoccurring motives, themes and storylines (Pisters 2007; 40).
The term ‘auteur theory’ was first coined by American film critic Andrew Sarris in his article “Notes on the Auteur Theory” (1962). He was inspired by the critics of Cahiers du
Cinéma and argued that some filmmakers have a specific vision to create a cohesive and
recognizable film-world. Sarris described that the way a film looks and moves should be in line with the way a director thinks and feels (562). He formulated three criteria that could help recognize an auteur: the outer circle (film techniques), the middle circle (personal style) and the inner circle (interior meaning). According to Sarris, the capabilities of an auteur cover all three of these circles (562).
In summary, these critics constructed the foundation of auteur theory. They argued that the director is the driving force in the creation of a film and that some directors should be recognized as an auteur. These auteurs should master film techniques and have a recognizable formal style. But, auteurs should also create films as a means of self-expression, meaning their personality and mentation can be discovered in reoccurring motives, themes and storylines. Scholars and critics in the auteurist tradition thus locate the conscious mind of the director in his films. From the 1970’s, during the rise of structuralism, this conscious mind was further examined. According to structuralists, such as Peter Wollen, the texts that were written on auteurism ignored the unconscious meanings that can be decoded in film. They argued that the meaning and reoccurring structures in a film text can exceed the intentions of the filmmaker, adding unconscious layers. In this sense, the author also functions as an
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Xavier Dolan, an auteur?
As can be read in the introduction, Xavier Dolan has been recognized by various critics as a modern-day auteur. In the tradition of auteur theory, these writers state that Dolan has a characteristic style that can be recognized in all his films. This specific style is created by certain cinematic techniques he has mastered. In his article in Daily Review, Matthew Wade mentions some of these techniques in connection to J’ai tué ma mère. He states: “Dolan constructs each frame in such detail that they become a thing of beauty. He also plays with colour and slow-motion. These stylistic techniques give the film and its director a distinct voice, one which Dolan is now becoming famous for.” As will be shown in the upcoming chapters, Dolan’s films indeed display reoccurring aesthetic elements, such as frequent use of unusual aspect ratios, slow-motion, close-up and a colorful pallet. These reoccurring aesthetic choices show that Dolan has a specific style that distinguishes him from other directors.
However, the scholars that have criticized auteur theory state that the construction of style can’t fully be attributed to a director. One of the most famous writers that criticized auteur theory, Pauline Kael, already stated in the 1960’s that auteurism doesn’t take into account the collaborative process of filmmaking (Pramaggiore & Wallis 400). A film is not solely created by a director, other crew members also provide creative input. In the case of Xavier Dolan, this argument only seems to confirm his control on the aesthetic character of his films. Dolan doesn’t just function as a director, he’s involved in the entire production process; he writes the screenplays, functions as a production and costume designer, produces, edits and even acts in his first three films. In this sense, it can be stated that Dolan has control on many aspects of the stylization of his films, which truly makes them his creations.
In connection to his specific style, Dolan could indeed be seen as an auteur who distinguishes himself from other directors. However, auteur theory is also preoccupied with the idea of film as self-expression of the filmmaker. Several scholars and critics connect Dolan’s identity and mentation to his films. Based on his personal life, they recognize reoccurring themes and storylines that (re)present his inner life-world. A central element of this self-expression is Dolan’s gay identity. Dolan has always been very open about his sexuality and states in several interviews that he has been attracted to men as long as he can remember (Musto, 2011). His films have often been categorized as Queer cinema, a term Dolan profoundly despises due to its ostracizing implications (Knegt 35). Indeed five of his released feature films have a central LGBT character, making it easy to see a connection with Dolan’s own identity and mentation. In his article, Jason D’Aoust even recognizes queer elements in Mommy, Dolan’s only film without any openly LGBT characters. D’Aoust
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focuses on the film’s competing diegetic voices, disruptive soundtrack and scenes of playback and lip-sync and argues that these ‘voices’ convey queer identifications (3). A different reoccurring element in Dolan’s films is the mother-son relationship. Dolan has stated that J’ai
tué ma mère is based on the relationship with his mother and is partially autobiographical
(Vaughan 157). However, the relationship between mother and son is, to different extents, a theme in all his films.In her text, Fulvia Massimi extensively discusses this theme in Dolan’s films. She finds a connection between this theme and Dolan’s Québécois identity, as he was born and raised in Montréal. Massimi states that the configuration of Québec as a matriarchal society can be recognized in the reinforcement of motherhood and the revision of patriarchal hegemony in the cinema of Xavier Dolan (9). This recognition of Dolan’s identity and mentation seems even more grounded, as he himself portrays the main characters in three of his films; he literally embodies the themes and storylines.
In this recognition of Dolan’s self-expression, the aim to locate the filmmaker’s subjectivity can be found. However, in finding this subjectivity, a problem arises. The connections that are made between the reoccurring story-elements in Dolan’s films and his own mentation are purely based on biographies and information that he has provided. Although this information can be truthful, it’s external to his mind and understood and processed by other conscious minds. The auteurist film critics thus seem to confuse biography with subjectivity. As can be read in the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary, subjectivity proceeds from the individual consciousness or perception. We can only ever access our own, individual conscious mind. In this sense, it’s impossible to ever truly access Dolan’s mentation, as it will always be connected to this subject. It can thus be stated that, although the subjectivity of the filmmaker has been recognized in Film studies, we can never truly access this conscious mind. When examining subjectivity in Dolan’s films, it’s impossible to locate the filmmaker’s subjectivity.
1.2 Cinematic Experience
Every human being views ‘reality’ subjectively, through its own conscious mind. A film is also watched through this conscious mind, making subjectivity a key component in film reception. In Film studies many different theories have been formulated on this reception and the position of the spectator. These theories look at the experience for the viewer, which is often referred to as the cinematic experience. This sub-chapter will discuss some important theories on the cinematic experience in order to see how the subjectivity of the spectator can be located in the films of Xavier Dolan.
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When Film studies began to establish itself as an academic discipline in the 1960’s, film scholars found inspiration in other academic fields. Most importantly, they were inspired by semiotics and psychoanalysis3. These disciplines are based on the understanding that larger cultural structures control the ways in which individuals engage with the world (Pisters 2007; 101-103). These structures are inevitable and inescapable, meaning individuals don’t have any control over their position within them. Spectators are seen as passive subjects; they don’t have any control on how they view films and the meaning they take from them.
One of the most notable theories on the passive spectator is the cinematographic
apparatus theory. This term was introduced by Jean-Louis Baudry in 1970. Baudry notes that
the central role of cinema is to imitate, through its technological basis, an ideology of idealism; an illusory sensation that the spectator perceives an ‘objective reality’ (42). The entire function of the cinematic apparatus is to make the spectator forget this apparatus. Following this idea, Christian Metz wrote his text “The Imaginary Signifier” (1975). According to Metz, a connection can be made between film and the phantasmatic nature of filmic signs, which are related to dreams. In this sense, film is an imaginary signifier that reflects and circulates unconscious desires. Metz states that this imaginary signifier is created through the connection between film and the spectator. However, this spectator is controlled by the text, its desires driven by hidden ideological codes.
In the 1980’s, theories were formulated that opposed the spectator as a passive subject. Several scholars noted that the spectator is actively involved in the process of understanding the images; he or she unites the signifying elements and accesses the film’s messages. It was stated that the spectator isn’t just watching the images, but reads the signs and interprets them. An important scholar that contributed to this theory, is Stuart Hall. In his article “Encoding/Decoding” (1980) he argues that makers encode certain meanings into images, but the spectator can actively find other meanings in the process of decoding these images4.
A different approach that recognizes an active spectator, is the cognitivist tradition. Cognitivists look at mental and biological activity of viewers as the central object of inquiry. According to this approach, the embodied brains, that have been shaped through evolution, are central for the experience of film (Grodal 2009; 4). Cognitivists argue that, rather than only looking at cultural systems as a model for understanding audiovisual media, films should also be understood as simulations of experiences of and for embodied brains in the world (Grodal 2009; 5). According to this approach, spectators’ experiences rely on different competencies that are often based on innate dispositions that have evolved over millions of years of human ancestors’ interaction with their life-world.
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The different theories that have been written on active spectatorship have received newfound attention in a trend that has developed in the past two decades: New Cinema
Histories. Scholars within this trend argue that the audience is often generalized. They state
that theories on spectatorship almost never take into account the diversity of spectators, even though these viewers can actively find different meanings. Richard Malty notes:
Writing the social history of audiences is inevitably an activity circumscribed by indeterminacy. Because audiences are evanescent, unstructured social agglomerations who assemble for each event, dissolving without apparent trace on each occasion, it is tempting to generalize the elusive empirical reality they constitute into abstract but stable social categories. Thus a great deal of writing on film refers to ‘the audience’, or sociologically derived sub cohorts within this imagined totality: the female audience, the gay audience, the child audience, the Nigerian audience and so on. (13)
Maltby’s quote shows the problem in defining spectators’ subjectivity. As already mentioned in the introduction, a personal example can’t be generalized as the experience for all spectators. A cinematic experience is always described from our own position: I can explain how I felt during a screening of Les amours imaginaires; I can argue that the images alternately repelled and attracted me, making me aware of my position as a spectator; but, I’ll never be able to explain this experience for other spectators. As argued in the tradition of active spectatorship, every spectator can find other meanings in a filmic text.
This can also be concluded by looking at the academic texts on Xavier Dolan’s films that were discussed in the introduction and previous sub-chapter. These texts show various possible readings of the films, often depending on the background and interests of the scholar. Jason D’Aoust and Jim Leach, for example, rely on Queer theory5. D’Aoust focuses on
sounds in Mommy that, according to him, convey ‘queer identifications’ and Jim Leach defines the main character of Laurence Anyways as being in-between-states. Leach also relates this in-between-state to Canadian identity, which he argues, is also in an in-between condition. Leach thus also reads Dolan’s films through the prism of Canadian and national identity, just like Fulvia Massimi and Bill Marshall. Massimi, however, uses the mother-son relationship in Dolan’s films as a central element to define the Québec identity. In her Ph.D. dissertation6, Hannah Vaughan discusses the mother-son relationship in J’ai tué ma mère. She argues that Dolan’s film challenges conventional social and cinematic constructs in its use of narrative, visual, and sound techniques to reflect the fractured nature of the mother-son
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relationship. All these different arguments on the same oeuvre, confirm that different readings are possible and that the audience is not monolithic
As these scholars formulated their opinion on the films’ meanings, their experience of Dolan’s films can, to some extent, be accessed. However, besides analyzing these written texts, it is not possible to ever truly access their individual conscious minds. For all the spectators that haven’t written down their experience, this becomes even more difficult. Nobody can grasp the meanings that are constructed in other conscious minds, making it impossible to produce a cohesive statement on the experience for the audience. It can thus be concluded that, although the subjectivity of the spectator has been extensively discussed in Film studies, this conscious mind can never truly be accessed. In this sense, subjectivity in Dolan’s films can’t be recognized by looking at the cinematic experience for the audience.
1.3 Subjectivity of Characters
The previous sub-chapters discussed the subjectivity of people that exist in our real world. However, there’s another subjectivity involved in the cinematic practice, that is not connected to an existing subject. In film, the life-world of characters is created, often also providing access to their inner life-world. These inner life-worlds will be discussed in this sub-chapter.
The films of Xavier Dolan can be categorized as narrative cinema. A narrative is an account of a string of events in space and time. Not merely a cluster of random elements, but an ordered series of events connected by the logic of cause and effect (Pramaggiore and Wallis 62). This can be summarized by stating that narrative cinema tells a story. In contrast to other narrative mediums, such as a book, a film doesn’t tell a story with words; rather, it uses moving images to show a story. The way in which these moving images present story information is called narration. In his Ph.D. dissertation, Edward Branigan has defined narration as “the textual activity of telling and receiving through which a narrative is realized” (142). A film’s narration can thus be seen as the act of telling. This act determines the range of knowledge that spectators have. But, this narration also manipulates the depth of this knowledge, which refers to the access viewers have into the psychological state of characters.
When a story unfolds through information about what a character says and does, there’s a limited access to the character’s psychological state. The character is an object of perception, making the narration relatively objective. However, the story can also unfold through the perspective of a character, proceeding from its individual consciousness. Here, the narration is relatively subjective. David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson and Jeff Smith have formulated a distinction between two types of this subjective narration: perceptual and mental
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subjectivity (91). Perceptual subjectivity refers to the moments when spectators have access to a character’s senses. The film shows what a character sees and hears. Mental subjectivity can be recognized when the film goes beyond a character’s senses, into his or her mind. Spectators might hear an internal voice reporting the character’s thoughts or might see the character’s inner images, representing fantasy, dreams, hallucinations or memories. The notion of mental subjectivity has a close resemblance to a theory Bruce Kawin formulated in 1978. Kawin introduced the term mindscreen, referring to the field of the mind’s eye (10). According to him, a mindscreen shows what a character thinks, making it a tool to construct first-person narration. Kawin also uses the notion of the mindscreen in the tradition of auteurism. He states:
[..] many films as wholes literally present the mindscreen of their makers. Lest the term get out of hand, however, let me suggest that in such cases the authors are acting as narrators, and that not only certain first-person sequences, but also sustained narrations can be identified as the visualized mentations of their ‘speakers’. (12)
In this fragment, Kawin defines film as the screen of the filmmaker’s mind, which he refers to as the self-conscious mindscreen. Besides examining characters’ mindscreens, Kawin analyzes several films as self-conscious mindscreens and notes that makers are often the main ‘speakers’ in film. As stated in the first sub-chapter, however, it’s impossible to access the conscious mind of the filmmaker. Kawin’s analyses may provide an interesting view on the films, but are purely theoretical and hypothetical interpretations. The conscious mind of the maker, or the self-conscious mindscreen, is ungraspable for other conscious minds and will thus be ignored in the upcoming chapters.
However, with the construction of perceptual and mental subjectivity, it is possible to grasp the conscious minds of characters. As stated by Edward Branigan, it should be emphasized that these subjective structures are not natural (1979; 145). This subjectivity is constructed and can’t be compared to real, conscious minds. In his book Esthétique et
psychologie du cinema (1963) Jean Mitry also states that, although it’s an incomplete
translation of a conscious mind, a film can visualize internal views that can’t be seen in real life (Kawin 191). This is precisely why character subjectivities are the only conscious minds that can ever truly be examined. We can access these subjectivities through their constructed nature. As a character’s emotions, thoughts and perception unfold on the screen, its constructed conscious mind appears before the spectator.
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Perceptual and mental subjectivity can be constructed using certain cinematic techniques. As mentioned in Film Art: An Introduction, moments of subjectivity often come in bursts. They are embedded in a framework of objective narration (92). Even though it’s stated that there’s a spectrum between objectivity and subjectivity, the embedding in objective narration shows that Bordwell, Thompson and Smith make a clear distinction between objective and subjective shots. Torben Grodal has questioned this distinction in his article “Subjectivity, Objectivity and Aesthetic Feelings in Film” (2000). Grodal explains that objectivity is mapped as belonging to a real, exterior space, where subjectivity is mapped as belonging to a non-real, interior space (89). The exterior space consists of all the phenomena on which actions can be performed with the use of the body. The interior space, on the other hand, are all the phenomena that impede or block this action (101). However, Grodal argues that it’s actually the viewer’s and protagonist’s control over what takes place in a film that is central to the experience of subjectivity (87). In this sense, techniques that are connected to objective shots, can also be used to elicit subjective feelings (90). In the upcoming chapters, Grodal’s theory will be used to look at objective shots that produce subjective feelings.
As a cognitivist, Grodal is preoccupied with the spectator’s position and the intersubjective connection between the character and the viewer (88). This relation between the representation of character subjectivity and spectator subjectivity has also been discussed in other traditions within Film Studies. The use of subjective narration is often described as a crucial tool filmmakers have to engage the spectator’s thoughts and emotions with characters. An important theory on spectators’ engagement is the structure of sympathy, as formulated by Murray Smith. Smith recognizes three levels of this engagement: recognition (the spectator’s acknowledgement of a character), alignment (the perspective presented on the actions, thoughts or feelings of a certain character) and allegiance (the position of the spectator’s moral approval of a character). The connection between a character’s subjectivity and the conscious mind of the spectator have also been examined in the phenomenological tradition. Scholars within this tradition recognize intersubjectivity in the cinematic practice. They focus on the experience for the entire body, or ‘embodied experience’, which refers to a sensuous, tactile relationship between the body of the film, the bodies of the film’s diegesis and the body of the spectator. Jennifer Barker, for example, uses Merleau-Ponty’s concept of
inspiration as an expression of the reversibility and suffusion between outside and inside and
between self and other, that is at play in the cinematic experience (146).
Although these theories forge an interesting connection between the characters’ subjectivity and the conscious mind of the spectator, this connection is purely theoretical. As
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discussed in the second sub-chapter, it is impossible to describe the thoughts and emotions of the audience. However, it should be noted that the upcoming analyses of Xavier Dolan’s films are written from the subjective perspective of a spectator. Although the main focus will be the construction of character subjectivity, it is insuperable to completely leave out my own personal experiences and interpretations.
As can be concluded from this chapter, there are three conscious minds that are involved in the cinematic practice: that of the filmmaker, the spectators and the characters. As argued in connection to the oeuvre of Xavier Dolan, it’s impossible to ever gain access to the subjectivity of the filmmaker and the spectators. These conscious minds exist in our real world and will always be connected to the subject. To others these are merely objects to their own subjective mind. That’s why these subjectivities will not be examined in the upcoming chapters. On the contrary, the subjectivity of characters can be accessed due to its constructive nature. In the second and third chapter it will be shown that Dolan creates images that express the subjective thoughts and feelings of characters. These characters seem to have control over these images, as they adjust to their inner life-world. It will be argued in chapter three that Dolan uses specific stylizations to subjectivise the objective. But first, the creation of perceptual and mental subjectivity will be discussed.
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2. Subjective Techniques in Xavier Dolan’s films
This chapter is concerned with the representation of characters’ subjective relation to the ‘real’. The real hereby refers to what is represented as real in the film; the diegetic life-world that is constructed and displayed. As stated in the previous chapter, a character’s subjective relation to this reality can be created to unfold a story in the filmic space and time. Bruce Kawin has noted this subjectivity can include distortion, meaning a character can give a distorted interpretation of the film’s reality (10-11). When the story unfolds through an individual conscious mind, the reality of this mind is portrayed. Here it should again be noted that the subjective structures in film are not natural and can’t be compared to real conscious minds. A film can construct internal views that would be invisible in real life. It’s through this constructed nature that the subjectivity of characters becomes accessible.
In the introduction of this thesis, it’s shown that Xavier Dolan values characters, their story and inner life-world as the most important elements in narrative cinema. But, the construction of these characters and their conscious mind are hardly ever discussed in connection to his films. Critics and scholars often discuss these characters in connection to Queer theory5, as the main characters in five of Dolan’s films do not conform to heteronormative gender codes. As mentioned in the first chapter, the LGBT characters have often been related to Dolan’s own mentation. Dolan himself despises the term Queer cinema and the connection that is made with his own identity. Moreover, he has repeatedly stated that the sexuality of his characters is never a central element in his films. In an interview with the
Huffington Post in 2015, Dolan said: “I feel like in my movies, I’ve always made characters’
sexuality secondary. It is a trait of your personality. It is part of who you are, but it isn’t how a film should be defined and how a story should be defined”.
Although sexuality and queerness are reoccurring elements in Dolan’s films, it can indeed be stated that it’s always just one aspect of a character’s identity and never the central theme or story element. The divergence from heteronormative gender codes is often an indication or motive for the characters’ position in the film’s reality. Although the word “queer” often refers to non-normative sexualities, originally it means “strange” or “displaced”. All main characters in Dolan’s films feel displaced in the film’s reality and society, as they experience feelings of loneliness and isolation. It’s this experience of loneliness and isolation that is the central theme in all of Dolan’s films. Besides sexuality, there are other underlying themes in Dolan’s films that construct this marginalized position,
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The drama film J’ai tué ma mère tells the story of a difficult relationship between a single mother and her son. This relationship is seen through the perspective of the son, Hubert (Xavier Dolan), who often misbehaves as he feels misunderstood and unwanted. As he has fluctuating feelings of love and hatred toward his mother Chantale (Anne Dorval), it’s revealed that he desires to be accepted and loved by her. The fractured relationship makes him feel displaced and isolated. Hubert’s sexuality emphasizes this isolated position, as he deviates from the heteronormative gender codes in society. His sexuality also enhances the alienation between him and his mother, who discovers her son’s sexuality by accident. However, it’s the already existing incomprehension Hubert feels that is central in this film. As Dolan himself has stated in an interview with Flavorwire: “Is this movie about a gay son or about a son? Is it about a son fighting for his homosexuality? Is that what it is, his homosexuality, his burning secret is making him be an asshole to his mom? No, not at all. It’s a mother-son dynamic and it has nothing to do with homosexuality”.
In Dolan’s second film Les amours imaginaires, that can be categorized as a romantic drama, the desire for love and the fear of rejection are important themes. The main characters Marie (Monia Chokri) and Francis (Xavier Dolan) become obsessed with Nicolas (Niels Schneider), the new boy in town. Their competition for his love causes them to drift apart. But, Nicolas only seems to be an objectification of their desire to be loved. They become isolated from the film’s reality, as they completely indulge themselves in their imaginary love. Francis’ homosexuality seems to be an additional indication of his isolated position. His deviation from heteronormative gender codes cause him to be rejected more often.
In the romantic drama film Laurence Anyways, the heteronormative gender codes and their construction are to a greater extent a central theme. The title character Laurence (Melvil Poupaud), who is living as a man, reveals her inner desire to become her true self: a woman. During her transition period, she experiences the social pressure and disapproval of the heteronormative society she lives in. However, the isolated position of the main characters can’t solely be connected to Laurence’s deviation from heteronormative gender codes. As Xavier Dolan has noted in the interview with Flavorwire: “I’ve never thought of it as a story about a trans-person. The story does not revolve around LGBT issues or the hardships of sexual transition — it’s always been a love story from the very beginning”. Laurence’s transformation is merely used as an element that pressurizes the relationship between Laurence and Fred (Suzanne Clément). Their differences and lack of acceptance for each other are central to the story. As Dolan continues in Flavorwire: “Transsexualism seemed like the most promising and rich metaphor to talk about difference amongst a couple”. The central
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theme can thus be recognized as the desire for love and acceptance, that Fred and Laurence both feel. As this seems to be impossible in their relationship, they become isolated in their love for each other.
In the psychological thriller Tom à la ferme, suppression of homosexuality is an important story element. Tom (Xavier Dolan) visits the funeral of his late lover Guillaume and meets Guillaume’s mother Agathe (Lise Roy) and brother Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal). Agathe doesn’t know her son was gay and Francis forces Tom to keep his sexuality a secret. As Francis becomes increasingly violent, Tom begins to succumb to his dominant attitude. Tom is isolated in the film’s reality because he’s not accepted in its heteronormative culture. However, it’s actually Tom’s inner conflict that’s central to the story. His desire to escape from his sadness and the reality that Guillaume has died, cause him to stay at the farm. Although he recognizes this farm life as ‘real life’, which he tells his friend Sarah (Evelyne Brochu), he’s imprisoned at the farm and becomes isolated between two realities.
Dolan’s fifth feature film Mommy has a clear resemblance with his first film. As Peter Knegt states: “In a certain sense, Mommy is a full circle return to his directorial debut, bringing back that film’s primary actress Anne Dorval and once again tackling the dynamic between a mother and son in a titular manner” (33). However, in Mommy, the relationship is exposed through the perspective of the mother, who tries to raise her son Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon). Steve’s ADHD and aggressive outburst cause him to be misunderstood and marginalized in the film’s society. Diane, or Die as she is addressed throughout most of the film, also becomes isolated in the film’s society through her love for Steve and her desire to provide a normal life for him. When Steve and Die meet their neighbor Kyla (Suzanne Clément), who has an isolated position due to her speaking problems, they experience brief moments of freedom and happiness.
In the drama film Juste la fin du monde, Louis (Gaspard Ulliel) visits his family after an absence of 12 years to announce his approaching death. Although his absence is never clarified, it’s shown that he doesn’t really belong with this family and is unable to communicate with them. Two central themes can be recognized: Louis’ desire to be accepted by his family and the fear of losing control over his life in the face of death. These themes connect to Louis’ isolated position in the film’s reality, as he is treated like an outsider and loses control when he can’t share his emotional message. Louis’ homosexuality doesn’t contribute to this isolated position. Rather it’s an additional motive for his displacement in the film’s reality, as he’s the only character that deviates from heteronormative gender codes.
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The central themes that can be recognized in Dolan’s films are often represented through the subjectivity of a character. Dolan constructs these subjectivities to show characters’ isolated position in the film’s reality and their relation to their life-world and other characters. In this chapter the construction of perceptual and mental subjectivity in Dolan’s films will be discussed. By analyzing these subjective images, it will be shown that Dolan has specific techniques to create the conscious minds of his characters. First, the construction of perceptual subjectivity will be investigated. The second sub-chapter will examine mental subjectivity in connection to Kawin’s notion of the mindscreen and Deleuze’s concepts of the recognition-, recollection-, dream- and crystal-image.
2.1 Perceptual Subjectivity
Perceptual subjectivity can be recognized when a film shows its reality through the perspective of a character’s senses. Because film is an audiovisual medium, this perspective can only be shown through the vision and hearing of a character. The character whose perspective is shown, has control on these images and sounds of the film. This control is constructed through the use of different techniques.
The archetypal device of this sort is the point-of-view shot (POV), where the camera assumes the spatial position of a character to show what this character sees. The camera lens seems to become the eye of the character. In general, this technique is based on the physical conditions of human eye-sight. The camera assumes an angle and distance that correspond with the anatomy of the human eye and the position of the character’s body. Here it should be noted that camera movements are often slower than actual eye movements, as the filmic images have to appear clear on screen. Following the characteristics of human eye-sight, a POV shot can also portray how a character sees objects. For example, by showing objects out-of-focus, myopia or drunkenness can be suggested. In this sense, as noted by Bruce Kawin, the vision of a character can show a distorted reality. Through a character’s perspective, objects can be seen that appear differently to other characters. In these moments, the POV shot, which Kawin refers to as subjective camera (8), has a close connection to a character’s mind’s eye. Besides looking at shots that imitate the physical eye of characters, the images that relate to the mind’s eye will also be discussed in connection to Dolan’s films.
A POV shot is often preceded or followed by a shot of a character, to confirm whose perspective is shown. This construction will from now on be referred to as a point-of-view
sequence. In his book Narrative Comprehension and Film (1992), Edward Branigan
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implicit or explicit. In the subjective shot from the character’s perspective, this character can’t
be seen and is implicitly present. The character can become explicit in the objective shot that shows the character looking (162). Several other scholars have analyzed the construction of the POV sequence purely as a formal parameter. In his book from 1973, for example, Noël Burch valued these sequences for their potential to bring shot transition to the spectator’s attention7 (79-80). In the upcoming analyses of Dolan’s films, the formal aspects of POV shots will be addressed. The main focus in these analyses will be the construction of the characters’ subjectivity through the use of the POV sequence.
The subjective nature of the POV sequence has also been discussed by several scholars. An important theory was formulated by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who coined the term perception-image in Cinéma 1: L'Image-Mouvement (1983)8. This term refers to what is perceived, before a character reacts and acts (61-65). It encompasses POV shots and shots that are external to a character (71). However, Deleuze notes that the POV shot itself also is external to the character, as it is an external representation of what a character sees. A combination of shots can create the illusion that we’re seeing from a character’s perspective, but actually the ability to perceive the perception of a character is created. The perception-image thus collapses the distinction between subjective and objective and creates a perception of perception itself (71-85). Deleuze argues that the camera here acquires internal vision, which he terms as the consciousness of the camera. This camera, in combination with the human brain, manages to simulate the way a character sees things (Pisters 2003; 32).
In this thesis, a connection to Deleuze’s theory can be found. It’s stated that subjectivity and perception of characters are constructed; meaning the conscious minds of characters are a representation, external to these characters. In this sense, these conscious minds are always objective. However, the co-operation that Deleuze recognizes between the human brain and the camera causes insuperable problems that relate to findings in the first chapter. A theoretical description of the subjectivities that are involved in cinema can be given, but it’s impossible to grasp the actual perception of conscious minds other than our own. That’s why the main focus in this thesis is the construction of subjectivity in the diegesis. The terms ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ will be used in connection to the constructed reality in film, not to the actual reality and structure of the world that Deleuze is trying to examine. POV sequences will thus be discussed as the constructed subjectivity of characters that show a certain perspective on the reality of the film.
During a POV sequence, films often also portray what a character hears from its point in space. The visual and audial elements are aligned in the character’s point-of-view, creating
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a mono-directional consciousness (Rabiger 471). However, films can also display an aural POV shot, where the microphone assumes the position of a character’s ears, without showing what this character sees. In these instances bi-directional consciousness, where eyes and ears are on different sources, is created (Rabiger 471). In his dissertation, Edward Branigan notes that the aural POV is problematic in the construction of character subjectivity. According to him, the subjective modality “I hear” bears a close relation to the subjective “I see” (194). When the visuals of a shot are neutral and objective, but the sounds are subjective, the spectator gets confused and the gap between this viewer and the character widens (194). In the analyses of aural POV shots in Dolan’s films the spectator will be ignored. However, the subjective sounds will be connected to the visuals that are simultaneously shown.
Constructing the vision of characters
Xavier Dolan uses optical POV shots in all his feature films. By positioning the camera in the spatial location of a character, these shots provide access to the vision of this character and construct its conscious mind. In these shots, the physical conditions of human sight is simulated with the use of the camera distance, angle and movement. In Dolan’s films, two different types of POV shots can be recognized. First, the shots that merely use the spatial position of a character to expose narrative information will be discussed. Secondly, the shots that show a distorted reality through the perspective of a character will be examined. It will be argued that these distorted shots are related to the character’s mind’s eye, as they show a character’s subjective perspective and position in the film’s reality.
Before analyzing the construction of these two types of POV shots, it should again be noted that POV sequences almost never exclusively consist of shots from the character’s perspective. In Dolan’s films these shots are often preceded or followed by an explicit shot of the character that is looking. These objective shots show whose position the camera assumes, in other words, who has control over the image. Furthermore, the objective shots are used to capture the response from a character.In Dolan’s films subjective and objective shots are thus often combined to create POV sequences. In this sense, it can be stated that ‘objective’ shots contribute to the creation of character subjectivity.
In Dolan’s films, a character’s vision is sometimes solely used to show the film’s reality from a certain angle. A different character situated in this position would see exactly the same. Dolan uses these POV sequences as a formal tool, to unravel narrative information, or, as Noël Burch has stated, to draw the attention of the spectator through shot transition.
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Examples of this construction in Dolan’s films can be found in most sequences that show a written text or a picture. The camera assumes the position of a character by simulating the distance and angle of the eyes that are looking at the object. With this construction the text or picture appears to be looked at through the perspective of this character, giving it control over the images (Fig. 1-3). The text or picture is exposed through a character’s eyes, confirming that he or she perceives the information. But, the main goal of these shots is to show certain information to spectators. Through a character’s vision, access can be provided to information that may not be visible from a different angle. An example of this exposition can be found in Tom à la ferme, where a central plot-element is introduced through a POV shot. From Tom’s perspective, his hand is seen while writing a eulogy on a napkin (Fig. 4). The written words reveal that Tom has lost someone very close to him, his lover Guillaume. This short introduction is necessary, as Agathe doesn’t know that her son was gay. A different example can be found in Mommy, when Steve enters Kyla’s bedroom and sees photographs standing on her nightstand (Fig. 5). Steve looks at pictures of Kyla’s daughter, but also sees photos of a boy who is not featured in the film. Although this isn’t confirmed, the pictures seem to hint at the reason for Kyla’s sabbatical and speaking problems; she lost her son.
Fig. 1 A postcard from Nicolas, read through Fig. 2 A poem written by Laurence, read Marie’s perspective in Les amours imaginaires through Fred’s perspective in Laurence
Anyways
Fig. 3 Steve’s schoolbook, read Fig. 4 Through Tom’s perspective, the eulogy that
through Diane’s perspective in he writes on a napkin is shown
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Fig. 5 The pictures on Kyla’s desk are seen from Steve’s perspective
Other examples of POV sequences that unravel narrative information can be found when characters are watching other characters. Besides simulating the distance of characters’ eyes and their viewing angle, these shots also often follow the eye-movements of these characters. Although these camera movements almost never correspond to actual movements of the human eye, they do follow the vision of the character that has control over the images. In
Laurence Anyways a POV sequence of Laurence’s ex-girlfriend Charlotte (Magalie Lépine
Blondeau), shows that she secretly watches from her car as Laurence and Fred leave for their trip to Île au Noir (Fig. 6). When Charlotte visits Fred’s husband (David Savard) during her absence, it’s evident that she will reveal what she saw, causing trouble for Fred’s marriage. In
Tom à la ferme POV shots are often used to build suspension in the narrative. An example can
be found when Tom tries to flee through a corn field. When Tom frantically looks around the seemingly abandoned field, it’s revealed that he’s expecting to be followed (Fig. 7). In
Mommy a similar POV sequence is used to create suspension. When Steve is no longer behind
Kyla in the supermarket, she looks around to find him (Fig.8). As he’s not in her eye-sight, it becomes clear that something might have happened to Steve.
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Fig. 7 Tom is looking through the corn field, to see if he’s being followed by Francis
Fig. 8 Kyla looks around in the supermarket to find Steve
As can be concluded from these examples, Dolan regularly uses POV shots of different characters, that are not necessarily main characters, in the same film. In these sequences the vision of a character is purely constructed to unravel narrative information; the conscious mind that is constructed is only perceptual. The examples all show the film’s reality from the spatial position of a character, but do not seem to distort this reality. The seen objects can also be witnessed by other characters, admittedly from a different spatial position.
Contrary to these POV sequences, Dolan also creates sequences that show a distorted vision of the diegetic world. In these sequences the conscious mind of a character creates its interpretation of reality that can’t be seen by other characters. These sequences portray a character’s thoughts and feelings and have a close connection to the mind’s eye. However, these shots do not solely show an image of a character’s imagination and can’t be categorized as mindscreens. Rather, they show an interpretation of what a character is actually seeing; a character’s interpretative perception. This interpretative perception shows characters’ isolated position in the film’s reality and can be connected to central themes in Dolan’s films.
The use of this technique can already be recognized in Dolan’s first feature film J’ai
tué ma mère, when Chantale is introduced through the eyes of her son Hubert (Fig. 9).
Hubert’s perspective presents a distorted image of the film’s reality and therein shows his view on the relationship with his mother. This distortion is created with the use of slow-motion, that prolongs the action of Chantale’s eating ritual, the use of an extreme close-up,
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that abstracts Chantale’s mouth from the rest of her physical body, and the lack of diegetic sound. This distortion emphasizes Hubert’s focus on his mother’s eating habits. The alternations between the POV shots and close-ups of Huberts eyes, show his averted reaction to his mother; in order to escape this view, Hubert closes his eyes. In this short sequence Hubert’s aversion to his mother is thus exposed, showing his subjective interpretation of their fractured relationship. The act of closing his eyes, that literally separates Hubert from his surroundings, symbolizes his isolation that is caused by this fractured mother-son relationship.
Fig. 9 A point-of-view shot introduces Hubert’s relationship with Chantale
In Les amours imaginaires, POV sequences that show a distorted image of the diegetic world are used to show Marie’s and Francis’ isolated position. The first POV shot in the film shows a distorted image of a group of friends, with Nicolas in the center of the frame. As vertical black lines move across the screen, the image seems to be out of focus, creating a distance between this group and the observer (Fig. 10). The next shot explains this distortion and shows that the scenery at the table is actually being looked at from behind a door curtain (Fig. 11). This view resembles a perspective from behind bars, as if the observer is imprisoned. This ‘imprisonment’ creates a literal distance between this observer and the group of friends. The next shot of Marie standing in the kitchen with Francis, confirms that her perspective was shown (Fig. 12). From this introduction of Marie and Francis, they are thus already portrayed as being isolated from their surroundings. The distance between the main characters and Nicolas also already shows that they can only admire him from a distance.
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Fig. 10 Fig. 11
Fig. 12
The distortion in this sequence is caused by the reality of the room, as the door curtain creates the vertical lines. The following POV sequence ignores this curtain and shows images that present the diegetic world through the distorted perspective of the main characters. Through the perspective of Marie and Francis, several medium shots of Nicolas are shown (Fig. 13). While the diegetic sounds are heard in real-time, the different shots of Nicolas, that are connected with jump cuts, are shown in slow-motion. This contrast between sound and image, reflects that time seems to move slower for Marie and Francis when they meet Nicolas for the first time; they are momentarily detached from the film’s reality. This sequence introduces their immediate affection for this new boy in town and a main theme of the film; their desire to be loved. As Marie and Francis are looking from a distance, it’s shown that they’re separated from the group and from Nicolas. They’re staring at Nicolas without him returning their gaze, which predicts their isolation in the film’s reality due to their unanswered love.
