In this paper I have examined how the structure of society affects the characters in the movies of Gus Van Sant, and what there is that characterizes Van Sant as an auteur. I have also looked at the thematics and how the characters develop throughout from his first movie Mala Noche (US 1985) until one of his latest Milk (US 2008). Van Sant is open with his Homosexuality and those perspectives are of major importance for this study. He presents how his characters try to live a normal life in a society that is not made for them. I have chosen to analyze five different movies. I discuss more closely about problems and how the characters develop when they are not in an outsider position to the society. It is the homosexual perspective that makes Van Sant an auteur. I will also use queer theory because Van Sant movies show homosexuals are struggling against society and are fighting to find an Acceptance of their own identities.

nÃo hà / A presente pesquisa propÃe fazer uma anÃlise iconolÃgica de parte da obra do cineasta norte- americano Gus Van Sant, utilizando para tanto dois conceitos fundamentais, a saber, PÃs- ProduÃÃo (BOURRIAUD, 2009) e SobrevivÃncia (WARBURG, 2013; DIDI- HUBERMAN, 2013). Selecionamos, para isso, cinco de seus principais filmes, sendo eles respectivamente: Psicose (1998), Gerry (2002), Elefante (2003), Last Days(2005) e Paranoid Park(2007), por acreditar que eles dÃo fÃlego as anÃlises e os conceitos supracitados. Noprimeiro momento tentamos pensar essa filmografia a partir de procedimentos artÃsticos como:apropriaÃÃo, remake, remix, releitura; procedimentos estes relacionados com a arte contemporÃnea, cujo modus operandi pode ser sintetizado pelo termo pÃs-produÃÃo. No segundo momento da pesquisa tentamos pensar essa filmografia em relaÃÃo com a histÃria da arte, analisando essa obra a partir da ideia de sobrevivÃncia (nachleben), um conceito derivado da singular iconologia criada pelo historiador da arte Aby Warburg, que tentou pensar a imagem pelo prisma das sobrevivÃncias das formas antigas em manifestaÃÃes culturais e artÃsticas diversas. Por fim, propomos um ensaio visual acerca dessas obras cinematogrÃficas, utilizando como inspiraÃÃo o âAtlas Mnemosyneâ - matlas de imagens que sintetiza o mÃtodo warburguiano de investigaÃÃo â privilegiando, portanto, a potÃncia imagÃtica em detrimento da historiografia tradicional calcada na palavra. / The present research proposes to make an iconological analysis of part of the work of the American filmmaker Gus Van Sant, using two fundamental concepts, namely Post-Production (BOURRIAUD, 2009) and Survival (WARBURG, 2013; DIDI- HUBERMAN, 2013). We chose five of their main films, respectively: Psycho (1998), Gerry (2002), Elefante (2003), Last Days (2005) and Paranoid Park (2007), for believing they give breaths to the analyzes and the above-mentioned concepts. At first we try to think of this filmography based on artistic procedures such as: appropriation, remake, remix, rereading; procedures related to contemporary art, whose modus operandi can be synthesized by the term post-production. In the second moment of the research we try to think about this filmography in relation to the history of art, analyzing this work from the idea of ​​survival (nachleben), a concept derived from the singular iconology created by the historian of art Aby Warburg, who tried to think the image by prism of the survival of ancient forms in diverse cultural and artistic manifestations. Finally, we propose a visual essay about these cinematographic works, using as inspiration the "Atlas Mnemosyne" - matlas of images that synthesize the Warburguian method of investigation - thus favoring the imagery power to the detriment of the traditional historiography based on the word

A presente pesquisa analisa três filmes do diretor norte-americano Gus Van Sant: Elefante (2003), Últimos dias (2005) e Paranoid Park (2007). Esses três filmes, muitas vezes pensados como uma trilogia, não se igualam apenas no campo estético, mas também em sua proposta política, já que os três apresentam fatos sociais e acontecimentos (mais próximos à esfera do jornalismo). Assim, a pesquisa desenvolve sua argumentação tendo como ponto de partida a realidade concreta e os modos de construção de suas possíveis representações. Não se trata, nesse caso, precisamente de um tipo de realismo enquanto gênero, mas, sobretudo, um modo realista imbricado na forma ficcional dos filmes em função das questões políticas e de sociabilidade que eles suscitam. A pesquisa aborda, dessa forma, três pontos a partir dos quais pensar o cinema contemporâneo, apontando algumas de suas escolhas no campo da visibilidade e em sua política. No trabalho, são três as dimensões do olhar que se colocam a partir do discurso cinematográfico: 1. o olhar do autor, que intenciona uma enunciação; 2. o olhar da cena e a performatividade das imagens, que tensionam o lugar de intenção da autoria; 3. o olhar da cena social, que encontra o lugar político das imagens e do espectador em relação à circulação delas. A esse processo foi dado o nome de dialética do olhar, pois ele constrói a todo instante os espaços de alteridade, ou do Mesmo e do Outro, na imagem. / This research analysis three films directed by Gus Van Sant, from United States, were selected: Elephant (2003), Last Days (2005) and Paranoid Park (2007) These three movies, often studied as a trilogy, are not only connected by a common aesthetical field, but also in its propositional politics, since the three movies present social facts and events (more like how events are brought up in the field of journalism). Therefore, the research considers as its starting point the factual reality and the construction of its possible representations. We are not specifically talking about Realism, as it\'s approached as a gender, but, most of all, according to the political questions and sociability evoked by our object. This research aims to point three parameters in order to discuss the contemporary cinema and its option into the political and visibility\'s fields. We\'re focused in three dimensions of the gaze posed considering the cinematographic discourse: 1) the author\'s gaze, that aims to create a tendency in an enunciation, 2. the scene\'s gaze and the images\' performativity, that stress the position of the authorship\'s intentionality; 3. the gaze of the social scene, that meets the images\' political position, from the spectator to its circulation. This process was named as gaze dialectic, since it is capable of constructing at every moment spaces of alterity, or, Itself and the Other in the image.

A presente pesquisa analisa três filmes do diretor norte-americano Gus Van Sant: Elefante (2003), Últimos dias (2005) e Paranoid Park (2007). Esses três filmes, muitas vezes pensados como uma trilogia, não se igualam apenas no campo estético, mas também em sua proposta política, já que os três apresentam fatos sociais e acontecimentos (mais próximos à esfera do jornalismo). Assim, a pesquisa desenvolve sua argumentação tendo como ponto de partida a realidade concreta e os modos de construção de suas possíveis representações. Não se trata, nesse caso, precisamente de um tipo de realismo enquanto gênero, mas, sobretudo, um modo realista imbricado na forma ficcional dos filmes em função das questões políticas e de sociabilidade que eles suscitam. A pesquisa aborda, dessa forma, três pontos a partir dos quais pensar o cinema contemporâneo, apontando algumas de suas escolhas no campo da visibilidade e em sua política. No trabalho, são três as dimensões do olhar que se colocam a partir do discurso cinematográfico: 1. o olhar do autor, que intenciona uma enunciação; 2. o olhar da cena e a performatividade das imagens, que tensionam o lugar de intenção da autoria; 3. o olhar da cena social, que encontra o lugar político das imagens e do espectador em relação à circulação delas. A esse processo foi dado o nome de dialética do olhar, pois ele constrói a todo instante os espaços de alteridade, ou do Mesmo e do Outro, na imagem. / This research analysis three films directed by Gus Van Sant, from United States, were selected: Elephant (2003), Last Days (2005) and Paranoid Park (2007) These three movies, often studied as a trilogy, are not only connected by a common aesthetical field, but also in its propositional politics, since the three movies present social facts and events (more like how events are brought up in the field of journalism). Therefore, the research considers as its starting point the factual reality and the construction of its possible representations. We are not specifically talking about Realism, as it\'s approached as a gender, but, most of all, according to the political questions and sociability evoked by our object. This research aims to point three parameters in order to discuss the contemporary cinema and its option into the political and visibility\'s fields. We\'re focused in three dimensions of the gaze posed considering the cinematographic discourse: 1) the author\'s gaze, that aims to create a tendency in an enunciation, 2. the scene\'s gaze and the images\' performativity, that stress the position of the authorship\'s intentionality; 3. the gaze of the social scene, that meets the images\' political position, from the spectator to its circulation. This process was named as gaze dialectic, since it is capable of constructing at every moment spaces of alterity, or, Itself and the Other in the image.

De son premier film, Mala Noche (1985) jusqu’à Paranoid Park (2007), Gus Van Sant, cinéaste américain, propose une oeuvre protéiforme se divisant en trois périodes. Passant sans transition d’un cinéma foncièrement indépendant à des films de studios hollywoodiens, le cinéaste investit des systèmes de production opposés où il développe différentes approches de l’art cinématographique. Ses premiers films indépendants se caractérisent par une liberté et une prodigalité formelles, notamment portées par un brassage de références artistiques multiples (des auteurs de la contre-culture à Orson Welles en passant par Jean Genet). A cela s’oppose le classicisme de sa deuxième période, induit par le recours à des genres hollywoodiens canoniques, mais cependant troublé par l’étrange remake du Psychose d’Alfred Hitchcock. Après quoi le cinéaste renoue avec le circuit indépendant via des oeuvres proches de l’expérimentation en allant vers une épure de l’expression cinématographique. L’hétérogénéité esthétique de l’oeuvre de Gus Van Sant trouve néanmoins unecohérence grâce à une série de motifs iconographiques récurrents et à un axe thématique fort qui la traverse de bout en bout : l’individu, souvent marginal, dans son rapport aux autres et au monde, troublé par des crises identitaires, une quête des origines et un devenir incertain. Cette problématique s’exprime à travers un cinéma humaniste, entièrement voué auxpersonnages, au point de faire de leur seule présence sa matière même, sa condition d’existence – ou quand Gus Van Sant rejoint le « cinéma des corps » défini par Gilles Deleuze. Tous ses films apparaissent alors comme des variations esthétiques sur le même thème, et sont autant de questions posées au cinéma et par le cinéma, explorant sans cesse ses diverses potentialités. / From his first movie, Mala Noche (1985), until Paranoid Park (2007), Gus Van Sant, American film director, offers a protean body of work which can be divided into three phases. As a director, he gets himself into opposite production systems, smoothly alternating between fundamentally independent productions and Hollywood studios movies, and in doing sodevelops different approaches of the film art. His first independent movies are characterized by formal freedom and abundance which can notably be brought about by the mingling of so many artistic references (from counter-culture authors, to Orson Welles or Jean Genet). To this can be opposed his second phase classicism, consecutive of his resorting to canonic Hollywood genres, but somehow blurred by his strange Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho remake.After that, the director comes back to the independent circuit via close to experimentation works, going towards an uncluttered film expression. There is however coherence in Gus Van Sant’s aesthetics of heterogeneity through aseries of recurring iconographic patterns and a strong thematic axis : the individual in his relations with other people and the world, often a dropout troubled by identity crisis, a quest for his origins and an uncertain becoming. This issue is expressed through a humanistic cinema, entirely devoted to the characters, to the point of making their mere presence its very substance, its condition of existence – Gus Van Sant catches up the “cinéma des corps” that Gilles Deleuze helped define. All of his movies then appear as aesthetic variations on the same theme and they are just as many questions asked to the cinema by itself, unceasingly exploring its various potentialities.

Cette étude a des assises autant dans l’histoire de l’art que dans l’esthétique du cinéma. Son point de départ est une aporie : « Qu’est-ce que le mouvement en image dès lors il s’agit de le chercher en dehors des représentations et de leurs techniques ? ». La substance mobile des images dont nous souhaitons faire ici le cas se situe à l’intérieur même du point de vue et non pas à l’enchaînement entre points de vue. Il s’agit de penser sa construction en termes d’un clivage interne, d’une bifurcation. Il s’agit surtout de placer la construction du point de vue au croisement de deux apprentissages [mathésis] : d’un côté celle de la contemplation du monde à partir d’un point fixe, unique ou changeant, de l’autre celle de la mobilité inhérente qui régit tout aspect de la vie. Dans ce contexte, le mouvement des images ne serait pas seulement le résultat d’une révolution du regard ou l’aboutissement d’une aventure technique, mais également et au même titre qu’eux, le résultat d’un événement conflictuel entre deux configurations du [sa]voir différentes bien que totalement pondérées. « Qu’est-ce qui ne marche pas ? » est la question qui nous guide à travers l’écriture. Les images témoignent d’une forme de [dé]marche transversale, d’un accident de la « marche » tant au niveau structurel du film qu’au niveau diégétique. Elles renvoient à quelque chose comme un trouble, un dissentiment. Chaque partie de ce travail constitue, enfin, une étude de cas. Chaque cas dénonce une aporie de point de vue : pittoresque, elliptique, théorique. Les films analysés, très différents les uns des autres, proviennent du cinéma et de ses pratiques élargies. Mais chacune des trois parties est également conçue autour d’un « metteur-en-scène » au sens large : Robert Smithson, Gus van Sant, Victor Burgin. Issus de la grande famille des artistes et non seulement de celle des cinéastes confirmés, ils nous guident à travers la construction de récits ancrés autant dans l’histoire des arts [peinture, sculpture, architecture] que dans les péripéties du cinéma contemporain. / Both art history and cinema aesthetics lie at the foundations of this study. Our starting point is a perplexing difficulty [an aporia]: “What is an image motion when we think about movement beyond its representations and the techniques that accompany them?”. In this dissertation, we examine the mobile substance of images from within the standpoint itself and what resembles to an internal cleavage. We argue that a particular kind of viewpoint can emerge at the crossroads of two different understandings [mathesis]: on the one hand, the contemplation of the world from a single or interchangeable fixed point; on the other hand, the corporeal mobility inherent to every aspect of life. Within this context, image motion is more than just the consequence of a major change in our “ways of looking”, or the outcome of a technical adventure. We argue that image motion is equally the result of a conflict between two different configurations of knowledge - seeing. The images attest to a way of thinking and unthinking motion, illustrated by a disruption in “the walk of the images” which takes place both in the film’s narrative and in the film’s structure revealing something like a trouble, or a dissent. Each section in this work constitutes an autonomous case study. Each case relates to a particular bifurcation of the standpoint: picturesque; elliptical; theoretical. The films in question, very different from one another, stem from cinema and its expanded practices. These three sections are also articulated around three “metteurs-en-scène”: Robert Smithson, Gus Van Sant, Victor Burgin. Belonging to the larger family of artists [and not only to that of confirmed filmmakers], they guide us through the unfolding of a narrative, whose roots are to be found as much in the history of the arts [painting, sculpture, architecture], as in the vicissitudes of contemporary cinema.

"Realism" is one of the enduring theoretical problems of the cinema. This study aims to broaden the parameters of the term by focusing on an often overlooked strain of thought that flows throughout the work of a number of prominent and seemingly incongruous thinkers such as Bazin, Kracauer, Benjamin, Barthes, Buñuel, and others. Realism, I contend, is undergirded by something far more elusive and irrational than verisimilitude or social commentary. To demonstrate, I will examine a body of contemporary American films that I will cast—perhaps provocatively—as realist. I rely heavily upon Deleuze to discuss how free indirect discourse and the disjunction of sound and image open realism to an oneiric and/or intersubjective realm.

Les films de Gus Van Sant peuvent être regroupés selon plusieurs périodes distinctes, où les différents circuits de production qui ont permis leur financement (ceux du cinéma indépendant, des grands studios, de la télévision câblée) ont coïncidé avec des approches spécifiques de la vitesse (dynamique,« classique», lente). La notion de rythme semble pertinente pour appréhender ces écarts formels dans l'œuvre du réalisateur. Les travaux de nombreux théoriciens, comme ceux d'Emile Benveniste ou d'Henri Meschonnic, ont cependant montré que le rythme ne pouvait se réduire à des effets ou impressions de vitesse; une approche esthétique de celui-ci doit permettre de saisir la manière dont les sens (relatifs à la signification, l'orientation et la sensation) peuvent être construits par le discours filmique. Dans les longs métrages de Gus Van Sant, le rythme est lié à la représentation des personnages, à travers leurs déplacements physiques ou la dynamique de leur imagination. Mais le rythme est également une force structurante, aussi bien dans la diégèse (un cadre spatio-temporel précis, un contexte, qui s'impose aux personnages) que pour le texte filmique lui-même. Indissociable du sujet qui le provoque ou de celui qui le perçoit, le rythme dépend d'une certaine subjectivité: l'analyse des motifs dans l'œuvre de Gus Van Sant peut permettre de cerner une poétique du réalisateur et d'envisager les possibilités, pour le spectateur, de ressentir ou de définir l'image dans une expérience rythmique personnelle. / Gus Van Sant's films can be classified in three main periods : the various production methods used to finance the films (independent cinema, majors, cable TV), coincide with specific approaches of the speed (rapid, classic cinema, slow). The notion of rhythm seems appropriate to study the different times in Gus Van Sant's filmography. The work of many theorists, Emile Benveniste or Henry Meschonnic for instance, showed however that the rhythm cannot be reduced to effects or feeling of speed ; an aesthetic approach of rhythm enables to understand how the senses (related to meaning, orientation and feeling) can be built by the movie telling. ln Gus Van Sant's full-length film, rhythm is tied to the way the characters appear, through their physical moving but also through their imagination at work. Beyond, rhythm is also a structural part of films, in the fiction story (a specific place and temporality, a context the characters have to deal with), as well as in the film in itself. Rhythm depends on subjectivity as it is related to the character who acts or to the spectator who watches: motifs' analysis in Gus Van Sant's films enables to identify a poetic from the movie director and to explore the different ways the spectator can feel or interpret the image in a persona! rhythmic experience.

Cette thèse est une étude approfondie du rapport de William S. Burroughs au cinéma. William S. Burroughs, en collaboration avec Antony Balch, a produit entre 1961 et 1972 des courts-métrages expérimentaux aux formes de montage et de figuration radicales. Ces films, largement ignorés, constituent un pan essentiel du cinéma expérimental. Leur étude met en lumière l'évolution d'une pensée politico-esthétique de l'image chez Burroughs, une pensée voisine de celle de Guy Debord et qui influencera celle de Gilles Deleuze .Burroughs a également travaillé en tant qu'acteur : l'analyse de ses apparitions est ici pensée en fonction de leur rapport à l’œuvre écrite de Burroughs et à son versant biographique, l'écrivain déconstruisant les personnages qu'il joue de la même manière qu'il déconstruisait le cinéma. Un ensemble de films, répondant plus ou moins fidèlement à l’appellation d'adaptations, constituent un aspect important de notre corpus. Ces œuvres, qu'elles travaillent les écrits dans un rapport fondé sur la reproduction, le décalage, ou l'éclatement, produisent des formes inédites. Cette étude est complétée par un retour sur l'influence de Burroughs sur trois auteurs majeurs du cinéma nord-américain contemporain, Cronenberg, Van Sant et Lynch. Tous trois réinvestissent l’œuvre et la pensée de Burroughs dans le cadre de leur propre production, que ce retour se concentre sur l'apparition de la voix, le lien entre signature visuelle et présence ou la fragmentation de la narration classique. En mettant en relation expérimentations, présences et contaminations de l'écrivain au cinéma, ce travail vise la réhabilitation de ce versant de l’œuvre de William S. Burroughs. / This work is an exhaustive study of William S. Burroughs' interest in cinema. Burroughs, in collaboration with Antony Balch, produced between 1961 and 1972 a series of experimental short films with radical editing and visual styles. These widely ignored films are an essential part of experimental cinema. Their study highlights the evolution of the author's political and aesthetic vision, close to those of Guy Debord or Gilles Deleuze. Burroughs also worked as an actor. The analysis of his cinematographic apparitions is linked to their relation to Burroughs' written work and its biographical aspects: the writer deconstructs the characters he plays in the same way as he deconstructs the mise-en-scène.A set of films, which can loosely be said to be adaptations, are another important part of the corpus of this study. These works, in a relation to the written word based on reproduction, shift or blow-out, produce original cinematographic images.This study is completed with a flash-forward to Burroughs' influence on three important north-american filmmakers: David Cronenberg, Gus Van Sant and David Lynch. These three authors reinvest Burroughs' work within the framework of their own production, focusing on the apparition of the voice, the link between visual signature and the notion of presence or the shattering of a conventional narrative.Linking experimentations, presences and contaminations of the writer in the cinematographic art, this thesis aims to rehabilitate this part of Burroughs' work.

Ce mémoire vise à explorer le lien étroit unissant le scepticisme philosophique, le dispositif cinématographique et la tétralogie de Gus Van Sant : Gerry, Elephant, Last days et Paranoid Park. À partir de la philosophie de Stanley Cavell, il sera d’abord question de développer le scepticisme comme condition d’existence et non plus comme doctrine philosophique. Stanley Cavell fait bifurquer le problème sceptique de la cognition vers l’éthique et nous verrons comment Gus Van Sant, en proposant un cinéma du désoeuvrement et de la mélancolie où l’individu est en rupture avec le monde, rejoint cette dimension éthique du scepticisme par le cinéma. Ensuite, il s’agira de voir comment le dispositif cinématographique est l’expression même du scepticisme cavellien et comment il permet de tendre vers le perfectionnisme moral en imposant la reconnaissance de son existence à travers la décision morale. Enfin, nous verrons comment Gus Van Sant, en réinventant le plan-séquence et le ralenti, répond singulièrement au problème posé par le scepticisme en réintégrant l’individu dans le monde à force de manipulations formelles qui sont autant de réponses au désoeuvrement contemporain comme condition existentielle. Ces réponses trouvées par Gus Van Sant ne sont pas des solutions, mais une exploration des dimensions d’un problème qu’il renouvèle : le scepticisme. / This thesis aims to explore the close ties between philosophical skepticism, the cinematic apparatus and Gus Van Sant's tetralogy of films: Gerry, Elephant, Last Days and Paranoid Park. From Stanley Cavell’s philosophical perspective, we will first address the question of skepticism as a condition of existence rather than a philosophical doctrine. Stanley Cavell redirects the skepticism problem of cognition towards ethics and we will look at how Gus Van Sant meets the ethical dimension of skepticism by offering a cinema of idleness and melancholia in which individuals are at odds with the world. Furthermore, we will study how the cinematic apparatus is the very expression of Cavellian skepticism and how it moves toward moral perfectionism by forcing the recognition of our existence through moral decision-making. Finally, we will look at how Gus Van Sant, in a singular manner, addresses the problem raised by skepticism by reinventing the sequence shot and the slow motion, and therefore reinstates the individual to the world through formal manipulations that respond to modern idleness as an existential condition. The answers Gus Van Sant has found are not solutions, but rather the exploration of the dimensions of a problem he is restating: skepticism.