Sumários

Nathalie Sarraute

22 Abril 2025, 14:00 Chiara Nifosi

Introduction to Nathalie Sarraute and her role within the group of the nouveau roman (Tropismes and L'Ère du soupçon). We discussed the difficulties caused by the reading of Portrait d'un inconnu, namely: distinguishing one character from the other; understanding the perspective through which reality is narrated; the management of time and space; the absence of a real plot for us to follow. All these elements are part of Sarraute's attempt to get rid of conventions associated with the novel (analysis of the title: the "inconnu" suggests that we are not going to have access to a round character nor a round subjectivity). 

We analyzed the first pages of the novel and we discussed the narrator's tendency to undermine his own point of view through the use of "modalisation" (expressions that give specific connotations to the ways in which reality is presented) and by showcasing his hesitation in defining what happens around him. This attitude is the opposite of what we would expect from a traditional, 19th-century-like omniscient narrator.


Alain Robbe-Grillet and the "nouveau roman"

10 Abril 2025, 14:00 Chiara Nifosi

Today I introduced some of the main aspects of the nouveau roman as they were established by Alain Robbe-Grillet in his essays from 1957 to 1963. The main points are: attack to psychology, ethics and metaphysics as cultural products orienting our interpretation of reality; the restoration of reality as the main objective of the nouveau roman; position against the conventions of common novel writing; redefinition of formalism as the inane repetition of preexisting literary forms (Barthes and the awareness that also esthetic forms and writing are cultural products; see quote from Nathalie Sarraute on slides). 


Midterm exam

8 Abril 2025, 14:00 Chiara Nifosi

Midterm exam (in-class).


Agnès Varda, Cléo de 5 à 7 (2)

3 Abril 2025, 14:00 Chiara Nifosi

Continuation of discussion on Cléo de 5 à 7. On the taxi: reference to the War in Algeria, background of Cléo's personal struggle with the illness (and the wait for the doctor's response). At Cléo's apartment: the relationship with Angèle and with her writers/producers; ludic and symbolic aspects of the setting. Turning point of the narrative: after the song, she takes off her wig and goes out by herself. The movie-within-the-movie (Godard and Karina): the Nouvelle Vague and the private joke. Cléo and Antoine's relationship: the illness and the war, both hold a close relationship to death. Cléo de 5 à 7 as a subjective documentary.


Agnès Varda, Cléo de 5 à 7

1 Abril 2025, 14:00 Chiara Nifosi

Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, and the Left-Bank Group. Agnès Varda: her career before becoming a director; her taste for experimentalism and documentary cinema; cinema and political commitment. Cléo de 5 à 7: the representation of illness and the choice of Corinne Marchand for the leading role. Setting in place: the role played by the city in the narrative and Cléo as a flâneuse. The illusion of a continuous narrative with no temporal breaks, based on the correspondence between the time of filming and the time of the action. The first scene at the fortune teller's (use of technicolor to switch to b/w): Antoine as magician. The use of subjective perspective (scene on the stairs). The symbology of mirrors: the relationship between beauty and death. Cléo as a whole vs. Cléo fragmented into multiple pieces.