Les frontieres fuyantes dans le cinema de john cassavetes
Institution:
Paris 3Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
The aim of this research on us film director john cassavetes is to explore the question of "vanishing frontiers" in his films. The uncertain territories of his "vanishing frontiers" lie in a place between cinema, drama and reality. They also lie in individuals whose identities question the very norms of 'normality', 'deviance' and 'marginality'. The real world and that of the theatre leave their imprints on the spatial and temporal frameworks of cassavetes's films and on fiction which, as the actors play their roles, induces a subtle and perverse game of blurred identities, which in their turn induce a change in the perception of the nature of fiction. Cassavetes's way of viewing and using actors brings to light numerous influences and challenges the very idea of a permanent sense of self. This leads his characters to "experience limits", their own limits as well as those of the world. Thus, family influences as well as professional or social ones seem to draw frontiers which delineate marginality and lead these characters to look for liberation. In cassavetes's films, identities are forever fluctuating. The question of truth can only be considered in terms of dislocation and contradiction. The director's cinematographic perspective is rooted in a kaleidoscopic way of viewing time and space. This vision defines the conditions of freedom in an art that is a challenge to the actors, the spectators as well as to the director himself.
Abstract FR:
La reflexion menee dans ce travail de recherche sur le realisateur nord-americain, john cassavetes, se propose d'apporter des elements de reponse a la problematique suivante : entre cinema, theatre et realite, entre norme, deviance et marginalite, peut-on parler de frontieres fuyantes dans le cinema de john cassavetes ? le reel et le theatre marquent de leur empreinte le cadre spatio-temporel de ses films ainsi que la fiction, a travers le jeu de l'acteur, qui se pervertit par un jeu subtil des identites en presence. La conception cassavetienne de l'acteur est marquee par de multiples influences qui mettent en peril la stabilite d'une identite, et permettent aux personnages de faire l'experience des limites. Ainsi, les influences des cellules familiales, professionnelles ou sociales, semblent tracer les frontieres qui delimitent la norme de la marginalite, et motivent, chez les personnages, un desir d'affranchissement. Chez cassavetes, nous sommes, en fait, en presence d'identites mouvantes. La question de la verite se resout en termes de morcellement et de contradiction. La vision cinematographique du realisateur s'inscrit dans une perception kaleidoscopique de l'espace et du temps. Elle pose les conditions d'acces a la liberte d'un art qui met a l'epreuve tant les acteurs, le realisateur que les spectateurs.