Cette thèse explore les ramifications et les enjeux de l’exotisme lorsqu’il prend forme au cinéma. Elle pose pour hypothèse de départ que le cinéma a non seulement participé à forger et à consolider un imaginaire occidental par le biais de l’exotisme, mais qu’il continue de le faire dans le contexte actuel sous de nouvelles formes. À partir d’une lecture postcoloniale de différentes œuvres, nous nous posons deux questions principales. La première : selon quelles modalités le cinéma peut-il être pensé conjointement avec l’exotisme ? La seconde : quelles sont les dynamiques à l’œuvre dans les films pour construire/déconstruire les « autres » et les « ailleurs » non occidentaux ? Suivant ces interrogations, nous revisitons certaines périodes clés de la production cinématographique occidentale (à la fois anglaise, européenne et nord-américaine). La thèse se divise en quatre parties retraçant chacune différentes variations de l’exotisme au cinéma : émergence, instrumentalisation, critique et retour. La première aborde les travelogues à partir de l’œuvre d’Elias Burton Holmes, les archives géo-ethnographiques et l’œuvre d’Albert Kahn, les films d’expéditions polaires et l’œuvre d’Herbet G. Ponting, et les films de chasses et de safaris à partir de l’œuvre du couple d’aventuriers Martin et Osa Johnson. La seconde interroge l’instrumentalisation de ces premiers films à des fins narratives. Nous y analysons succinctement les films d’aventures hollywoodiens dans la jungle, les drames nordiques, les romances océaniques, les westerns et les drames psychologiques dans les colonies du Maghreb. La troisième partie pose les bases des tendances critiques de l’exotisme colonial et occidentalocentré. Nous y abordons d’une part les rapprochements entre la critique de l’exotisme et l’idée du « contre-exotisme » (Christin 2000 ; Urbain 2002 ; Staszak 2008 ; Gauthier 2008). Y sont analysés les films Les statues meurent aussi (1953, Marker, Resnais, Cloquet) et Les maitres fous (1955, Rouch). Nous interrogeons d’autre part l’œuvre de Sembene Ousmane et particulièrement son film La noire de… (1966), en la rapprochant des mouvements des cinémas nationaux et à ce qui a été identifié en littérature comme l’« autre par lui-même » (Moura 1998). Finalement, la quatrième partie interroge les enjeux de la mondialisation et des nouvelles technologies suggérant qu’ils mettent de l’avant un retour de l’exotisme occidental au cinéma. En analysant quelques films sortis depuis les années 1980 et en offrant une analyse approfondie du film Avatar (2009, Cameron), nous cherchons à démontrer que les Blockbusters états-uniens renouent avec une longue tradition de l’exotisme comme mise en spectacle de l’altérité pour et par les Occidentaux. / This thesis explores the ramifications and issues of exoticism when it takes shape in cinema. It posits the starting hypothesis that cinema has not only participated in forging and consolidating a Western imagination through exoticism, but that it continues to do so in the current context in new forms. From a post-colonial reading of different works, we ask ourselves two main questions. The first: how can cinema be thought of together with exoticism? The second: what are the dynamics at work in the films to construct/deconstruct non-Western "others" and "elsewhere"? Following these questions, we revisit certain key periods of Western film production (both English, European and North American). The thesis is divided into four parts, each retracing different variations of exoticism in cinema: emergence, instrumentalization, criticism and return. The first deals with travelogues based on the work of Elias Burton Holmes, the geo-ethnographic archives and the work of Albert Kahn, the films of polar expeditions and the work of Herbet G. Ponting, and the films of hunts and safaris from the work of the couple of adventurers Martin and Osa Johnson. The second questions the instrumentalization of these first films for narrative purposes. We briefly analyze Hollywood jungle adventure films, Nordic dramas, ocean romances, westerns and psychological dramas in the colonies of the Maghreb.The third part lays the foundations of the critical tendencies of colonial and Western-centric exoticism. On the one hand, we address the connections between the critique of exoticism and the idea of "counter-exoticism" (Christin 2000; Urbain 2002; Staszak 2008; Gauthier 2008). The films The Statues Also Die (1953, Marker, Resnais, Cloquet) and The Crazy Masters (1955, Rouch) are analyzed there. We also examine the work of Sembene Ousmane and particularly his film La noire de… (1966), by bringing it closer to the movements of national cinemas and to what has been identified in literature as the “other by itself (Moura 1998). Finally, the fourth part questions the issues of globalization and new technologies, suggesting that they put forward a return of Western exoticism to cinema. By analyzing a few films released since the 1980s and by offering an in-depth analysis of the film Avatar (2009, Cameron), we seek to demonstrate that American Blockbusters are reviving a long tradition of exoticism as a spectacle of otherness for and by Westerners.

Cette thèse porte sur les représentations des peuples autochtones du Nord forgées par les films et téléfilms soviétiques de fiction. Mobilisant plusieurs approches — l’analyse filmique, l’histoire culturelle du cinéma, l’histoire des représentations et l’histoire politique soviétique —, elle confronte les films à des sources non-films (presse, archives papier, entretiens), afin de mettre en lumière la construction d’une subjectivité et d’un regard. Il s’agit également de décortiquer la fabrication des représentations, dans ses dimensions à la fois les plus concrètes et les plus symboliques. En ce sens, la question de la participation ou de la non-participation des autochtones à la création de leur image filmique, que ce soit devant ou derrière la caméra, constitue une autre interrogation centrale. Les représentations filmiques des peuples du Nord, tiraillées en permanence entre visions du « progrès » et de l’« authenticité », opèrent à l’écran comme autant d’images qui permettent à l’Union soviétique d’évaluer sa propre perception de la modernité. Des années 1920 aux années 1980, les figures cinématographiques autochtones circulent entre deux pôles d’un continuum, qui va de l’incarnation d’une arriération à éliminer au nom de la soviétisation à celle d’une harmonie avec la nature, désormais perdue ou menacée. Par ailleurs, en prenant en compte la question de la contribution des autochtones à la création de leur propre image, cette thèse s’attache à montrer que le film constitue un espace complexe, où plusieurs lectures et usages sont possibles selon la position des participants. / This thesis focuses on the representations of indigenous peoples of the North in Soviet fiction films and made for TV movies. Mobilizing several approaches — film analysis, the cultural history of cinema, the history of representations and Soviet political history — it confronts films with non-film sources (press, paper archives, interviews) in order to highlight the construction of a subjective point of view. It also studies the production of these representations, in both its most concrete and symbolic dimensions. The issue of the participation or non-participation of indigenous peoples in the creation of their image on film, whether in front of or behind the camera, is another central question. The filmic representations of the peoples of the North, constantly torn between visions of “progress” and “authenticity,” operate on the screen as images that allowed the Soviet Union to evaluate its own perception of modernity. From the 1920s to the 1980s, images of indigenous people shifted along a spectrum ranging from the incarnation of backwardness to be eliminated in the name of Sovietization to the embodiment of harmony with nature, now lost or threatened. Moreover, taking into account the question of the contribution of the indigenous people to the creation of their own image, this thesis demonstrates that cinema became a complex space, where different readings and uses were possible according to the position of the participants.

[pt] No ano de 1965, o cineasta Jorge Prelorán deu início a uma vasta série documental, intitulada Relevamiento Cinematográfico de Expresiones Folklóricas Argentinas, direcionada à pesquisa e ao registro audiovisual de regiões interioranas do país. O projeto, que contou com o patrocínio de instituições como a Universidad Nacional de Tucumán e o Fondo Nacional de las Artes, foi desenvolvido em meio a um pulsante contexto intelectual e artístico, marcado tanto pela emergência das mais diversas propostas de renovação da linguagem cinematográfica, como pelo amplo fenômeno conhecido como boom do movimento folclórico, ocorrido nos anos 1960, na Argentina. Nesse sentido, o objetivo desta tese foi o de investigar de que maneira Jorge Prelorán teria reelaborado, nas películas por ele realizadas para o Relevamiento (1965-1975), um conjunto de temas, tópicas, metodologias, recursos narrativos e procedimentos discursivos provenientes de três amplos domínios, com os quais o diretor manteve os mais estreitos contatos: a larga tradição de ensaios de interpretação da Argentina, dedicada, ao longo do tempo, à tarefa de figuração da nação; os campos do folclore e da antropologia vigorantes no país, em suas múltiplas vertentes; e as correntes do cinema etnográfico com as quais o diretor chegou a estabelecer longevos vínculos. Os diálogos travados entre a obra de Prelorán e as tradições intelectuais e artísticas mencionadas – diálogos esses que estiveram quase sempre pautados nas estratégias de descrição da natureza, nos diferentes modos de figuração do tempo e do espaço e nos modelos de representação da arte e da cultura manejados pelo documentarista – foram concebidos, ao longo da pesquisa, como variações em torno de quatro grandes temas: a cartografia, a viagem, o compêndio e a metodologia empática de filmagem. / [en] In 1965, the filmmaker Jorge Prelorán began to develop a vast documentary series, entitled Relevamiento Cinematográfico de Expresiones Folklóricas Argentinas, dedicated to the study and filming of inlands regions of the country. The project, which was sponsored by Universidad Nacional de Tucumán and Fondo Nacional de las Artes, took place in the midst of an intellectual and artistic context marked both by the emergence of diverse proposals for the renewal of cinematographic language, and by the cultural phenomenon known as boom of the folk movement, which occurred in the 1960s in Argentina. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to investigate how Jorge Prelorán reformulated, in the films he made for the project between 1965 and 1975, a set of themes, topics, methodologies, narrative resources and discursive procedures originated from three broad domains, with which the director maintained close contacts: the long tradition of Argentine essays, dedicated to the interpretation of the nation; the fields of folklore and anthropology prevailing in the country, in its multiple phases; and the modalities of ethnographic cinema with which the director related in those years. The dialogues that were established between Prelorán s work and the intellectual and artistic traditions mentioned previously – dialogues that were almost always based on the strategies of describing nature, on the different modes of representing time and space and on the models of depicting art and culture used by the filmaker – were conceived throughout this research as variations around four major themes: cartography, travel, compendium and empathic filming methodology.