This dissertation illustrates the ways cinema intervenes into questions of history, politics, immigration, and national identity and community through the films of contemporary French filmmaker Yamina Benguigui (1957-). This study traces these interventions from her earliest films in the mid-1990s to her most recent productions in 2008. France, and the way it is represented to and by its people, has been undergoing significant transformations in recent decades as a result of an increasingly multicultural population and external pressures due to globalization and European unification. Benguiguis corpus reflects these tranformations and the evolution of these debates while also contributing to them, thereby consolidating her status as a cinéaste engagée.
A range of theoretical texts inform the analyses of Benguiguis films. Colonial theory, as articulated by Frantz Fanon and Albert Memmi, illustrate to what extent the colonial dynamic continues to structure contemporary French society decades after decolonization. Jacques Rancières La mésentente (1995), a rethinking of the concepts of democracy and politics, provides the framework for an examination of Benguiguis cinema as political practice. Benguiguis films intend to open an imaginary space for immigrants and their descendants in French national narratives; Benedict Andersons theory of imagined communities is therefore particularly relevant to her cinematic project.
This dissertation is organized thematically, beginning with an analysis of the ways Benguiguis films address colonial history and its consequences in the latter half of the twentieth century. The second chapter is an examination of her preferred genresthe documentary and tragicomedyand how they serve her cinematic and political project. Her films are situated within the documentary tradition as well as within French and Italian comedic conventions. The relationship between politics and cinema is studied in chapter three. Benguiguis most recent films, treating social unrest and inequalities in French society, have assumed an overt political cast, but a political project can be traced throughout her cinematic corpus.
Yamina Benguigui advocates for a more inclusive and egalitarian society; this study illustrates the role art can and must play in these struggles.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-08142009-114559 |
| Date | 30 September 2009 |
| Creators | Johnson-Evans, Teresa |
| Contributors | Philip Watts, Sabine von Dirke, Giuseppina Mecchia, Roberta Hatcher, Lina Insana |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08142009-114559/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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