Les films classiques ont créé des images stéréotypées féminines, en fixant des modèles déterministes du caractère féminin, des rôles féminins, de l’ « être femme ». Ces modèles risquent de supplanter la réalité, car ils réduisent la diversité des figures féminines. Depuis longtemps le féminisme a lutté contre tous les stéréotypes sexistes. Cette thèse se propose d’étudier les films d’Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman et Catherine Corsini pour comprendre les devenir-femme(s) à travers des relations intimes et sociales. Dans leurs œuvres cinématographiques, elles rendent compte, chacune à leur manière, d’une nouvelle façon de produire des images du corps de la femme et de sa subjectivité. Les questions de la subjectivité féminine liées aux notions de désir, de jouissance, de plaisir et de sexualité rejoignent la psychanalyse pour comprendre, d’une part, le mécanisme de l’appareil cinématographique suscitant le fantasme des spectateurs, d’autre part, la possibilité d’une objectivation positive de la complexité de la figure féminine. Notre première approche se focalise sur la relation entre femmes telle que la relation mère-fille et la relation homosexuelle féminine. La deuxième envisage le contexte socioculturel dans lequel évoluent les personnages féminins des films de ces cinéastes à travers l’analyse du langage, de la narration et de l’espace cinématographiques, en s’intéressant à leurs styles, leurs esthétiques et leurs choix narratifs de la vie des femmes. Ainsi c’est le regard qui est nouvellement questionné et le maniement du dispositif cinématographique comme capables d’interroger, voire de susciter une autre subjectivité des femmes. Nous intégrons différentes approches théoriques dans l’analyse des films. Ainsi, la psychanalyse, le féminisme, la théorie queer, la sémiologie, l’esthétique vont enrichir notre réflexion sur le regard des femmes chez nos trois femmes cinéastes. / Classic films have created a stereotypical image of women by setting deterministic standards for female personality, her role and what is meant by ‘being a woman’. These standards might supplant reality, as they minimize the diversity of female figures. Feminism has long fought against gender stereotypes. This study examines films by Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman and Catherine Corsini in order to understand the construction of femininity through intimate and social relations. In their films, each filmmaker develops unique approaches to produce images of the female body and its subjectivity. Psychoanalysis sheds light on the questions of female subjectivity related to the notions of desire, pleasure, and sexuality. It allows us to appreciate the mechanism of the camera arousing the viewers’ fantasies, as well as the possibility of a positive objectification of the complex female figure. This study first focuses on the relationships between women, such as the mother-daughter relationship and the homosexual relationship. It then explores the socio-cultural context in which the female characters live through an analysis of language, narration and space in the films, namely the filmmakers’ styles, aesthetics and narrative choices in the life of women. It examines how gender can influence the camera’s perspective and how it can question, or even produce, a new female subjectivity. Psychoanalysis, feminism, queer theory, semiology and aesthetics are all approaches which support and expand the analyses of female perspective as developed by the three women filmmakers.

Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689)--one of the most celebrated, if controversial, converts of all times--settled in the papal city after her abdication in 1654. Her palace--the Palazzo Riario (today Corsini)--became one of Rome's leading cultural institutions: a site where learned, artistic, and elite culture converged. This study examines Christina's practice of collecting, and argues that her ambition was to create a center for learning and the arts in the Palazzo Riario modeled on the ancient Musaeum of Alexandria. While Christina's importance as a patron of art and learning has long been recognized, this dissertation offers the first comprehensive discussion of Christina's practice of collecting, and the architecture and ambience of her Roman palace. Based on both published and unpublished architectural drawings, inventories, household accounts, and contemporary travel descriptions, this dissertation establishes the contents and the display of Christina's collection, and the architectural plan of the Palazzo Riario. This study examines the intersection between objects and their display, issues of etiquette and decorum, and the social use of architecture in seventeenth-century Rome. It aims to contribute to the history of collecting and early museums, and to the broader field of seventeenth-century culture.