Claire Denis

[version]

so what nobody gonna talk about how her movies capture people from minority groups and backgrounds or is that gonna be me again?

Well, I've only seen the one, but yeah, it does jump out at you; lots of shots of the local people watching the legionnaires conducting their strange rituals; not many speaking roles; all those club scenes with the women dancing together and the Frenchmen just walking into the middle of them.

The soldiers are in that odd spot of being a colonial power past its prime, so they're drilling in ruined buildings and training camps for combat situations which never come whilst being treated as a curiosity by the people who come across them.

"If it weren't for fornication and blood, we wouldn't be here."

---

I read an interview with her after watching the film where she talked about growing up in Africa and how she felt stuck between the two worlds as she knows she's French, but she was over there from a couple of months old until around fourteen, so that's where she grew up.

“Desire is violence”: Claire Denis on Beau Travail

In this interview from our July 2000 issue, Chris Darke talks to director Claire Denis about her uniquely sensual films, and the filming of her masterpiece, Beau Travail.

www.bfi.org.uk

 

[wg-]

how come? honestly from the premise of it, it makes total sense that she would take a chance at it

Its just quite a chaotic book and full of mad wandering text and odd mythologising

Ive read everything hes wrote and outside of Fiskadoro (truly unfilmable), its one of his most messy/odd books.

The plot is all over the place as well, outside of structual issues

I still love it but it doesnt scream out to be filmed

 

[wg-]

Actually Train Dreams is probably the most obtuse, i take that back

I'd love someone to take a go at Already Dead

 

[forclosure]

The only film of hers I've seen is White Material, but I don't remember it well enough to have preserved any opinions

what you don't remember the fact that Christopher Lambert of all people delivers a great performance in it?

 

[forclosure]

Its just quite a chaotic book and full of mad wandering text and odd mythologising

Ive read everything hes wrote and outside of Fiskadoro (truly unfilmable), its one of his most messy/odd books.

The plot is all over the place as well, outside of structual issues

I still love it but it doesnt scream out to be filmed

i've never read any Denis Johnson but i hear Jesus Son is really good

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah it is.

 

[IdleRich]

Although there is a film which doesn't capture the magic in the book at all. It's loads of short stories, you can't force it into one over-arching story in the way the film tries.

 

[william_kent]

I'll second @IdleRich ( I read it on his recommendation )

 

[catalog]

Next month shopping list, been on the list for a while. I think I've got it as a PDF somewhere but I'm gonna get it in print.

 

[forclosure]

Although there is a film which doesn't capture the magic in the book at all. It's loads of short stories, you can't force it into one over-arching story in the way the film tries.

i can't think of a movie that's done this where its worked

 

[forclosure]

I think the other thing i like about Denis is like she's a director whose got such a strong voice and is so deeply interrogative within her work that like asking her certain questions about it is tedious.

She doesn't suffer fools and there's an searing intensity in her movies which are 2 qualities that i really dig

 

[wg-]

Jesus Son, Already Dead, Name of The World, Tree of Smoke, Train Dreams

Hell of a run- he's one of the best ever I think

Thats for another thread i guess

 

[version]

I might be sticking my neck out a bit here, but I think the homoeroticism of Beau Travail's somewhat overstated. Obviously it's there, what with all the male bodies on display, the military aspect, the tension and the physical intimacy of some of the training exercises, but I think to read it as a gay film, or primarily a gay film, you'd have to downplay or ignore the fact it's directed by a straight woman.

 

[version]

Although there is a film which doesn't capture the magic in the book at all. It's loads of short stories, you can't force it into one over-arching story in the way the film tries.

i can't think of a movie that's done this where its worked

Cronenberg did a pretty good job of stringing together a bunch of fragments with Naked Lunch. I mean it's nothing like the book, but I like it.

 

[line b]

so what nobody gonna talk about how her movies capture people from minority groups and backgrounds or is that gonna be me again?

what do you mean by captures?

 

[IdleRich]

Cronenberg did a pretty good job of stringing together a bunch of fragments with Naked Lunch. I mean it's nothing like the book, but I like it.

I would agree with actually... better than could have been expected... maybe better than could have been hoped. It's not the book but it feels true to is spirit.

 

[version]

The only film based on a short story collection that comes to mind is The Acid House, but I can't really comment on that as I've seen about five minutes of it and I've never read the book.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I watched Criterion's Beau Travail restoration last night and it's stunning. One of the best looking films I've ever seen.

The ending credits with Denis Lavant dancing to "Rhythm of the Night" is one of my favorite cinematic moments ever, point blank.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I might be sticking my neck out a bit here, but I think the homoeroticism of Beau Travail's somewhat overstated. Obviously it's there, what with all the male bodies on display, the military aspect, the tension and the physical intimacy of some of the training exercises, but I think to read it as a gay film, or primarily a gay film, you'd have to downplay or ignore the fact it's directed by a straight woman.

Well I mean it's a retelling of Billy Budd so I think the homoerotic subtext is complicated qua the original, it's more about repressed homosexual desire interacting with other forces - professional and personal jealousy, as well as in this version a commentary on the absurdity of France trying to maintain imperialism in "Francafrique", and so on.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Also straight people can certainly direct "queer" films, just like queer people can direct "straight" films, and they don't have to be queer to read their films queer. I mean Billy Budd is like, pretty fucking gay. Not as gay as Top Gun maybe, but close.