Reframing Difference: Beur and Banlieue Filmmaking in FranceReframing difference is the first major study of two overlapping strands of contemporary French cinema, cinema beur (films by young directors of Maghrebi immigrant origin) and cinema de banlieue (films set in France's disadvantaged outer-city estates). Carrie Tarr's insightful account draws on a wide range of films, from directors such as Mehdi Charef, Mathieu Kassovitz and Djamel Bensalah. Her analyses compare the work of male and female, majority and minority film-makers, and emphasise the significance of authorship in the representation of gender and ethnicity. Foregrounding such issues as the quest for identity, the negotiation of space and the recourse to memory and history, she argues that these films challenge and reframe the symbolic spaces of French culture, addressing issues of ethnicity and difference which are central to today's debates about what it means to be French. This timely book is essential reading for anyone interested in the relationship between cinema and citizenship in a multicultural society. |
Contents
Questions of identity in beur cinema from Le Thé au harem dArchimède to Cheb | 26 |
Beurz in the hood Le Thé au harem dArchimède and Hexagone | 48 |
Ethnicity and identity in Mathieu Kassovitzs Métisse and La Haine | 62 |
Beur and banlieue cinema in 1995 | 73 |
Beur women in the banlieue Les Histoires damour finissent mal en général and Souvienstoi de moi | 86 |
Masculinity and exclusion in post1995 beur and banlieue films | 98 |
Grrrls in the banlieue Samia and La Squale | 111 |
Memories of immigration Sous les pieds des femmes and Vivre au paradis | 124 |
Beurs in the provinces from LHonneur de ma famille to Drôle de Félix | 136 |
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Common terms and phrases
actors Algerian Arabic audience banlieue films banlieue youths beur and banlieue beur cinema beur filmmakers beur films beur women beur-authored films beurette bidonville Bouchareb's Bye-Bye centre characters Charef Cheb Chibane cinéma français comedy Comme un aimant construction culture demonstrate diegesis Douce France Drôle de Félix ethnic difference father Félix female film's foregrounds France's French cinema French society Front National gender Haine harem d'Archimède Hexagone images integration Islamic Karim Karim Dridi Kassovitz Krim La Haine Madjid Maghrebi descent Maghrebi origin male Malik marginalised Marie-Line masculinity Mathieu Kassovitz Mehdi Mehdi Charef Métisse mixed-race mother multi-ethnic narrative Noémie Paris pieds des femmes police political protagonists Rachid Rachid Bouchareb racism Raï relationship representation Reproduced with permission role Roschdy Zem Sami Bouajila Samia sans-papiers scene sequence sexual shot Smaïn social solidarity Sous les pieds Souviens-toi de moi spaces spectator Squale Thé au harem violence Vivre au paradis Wesh woman young beur
Popular passages
Page 10 - ... practices and representations even after the formal end of colonialism. Although colonialist discourse and Eurocentric discourse are intimately intertwined, the terms have a distinct emphasis. While the former explicitly justifies colonialist practices, the latter embeds, takes for granted, and "normalizes" the hierarchical power relations generated by colonialism and imperialism, without necessarily even thematizing those issues directly.
Page 20 - ... it is the city which provides the space in which emergent identifications and new social movements of the people are played out.