Sumários

Godard, À bout de souffle / 2

11 Março 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi

Discussion of Godard's movie À bout de souffle. Short comparison Renoir / Godard: plot, characters, and realism (social commentary). Structural aspects of the movie: fragmentation (the use of jump cuts and the perception of time); the principle of intertextuality (creation of an audience and desacralization of literature); the technique of the collage; the historical relevance of present times. 

Godard, À bout de souffle (aula convidada)

6 Março 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi

Invited speaker - Prof. Ana Bela Morais: an introduction to the Nouvelle Vague and to Godard's movie À bout de souffle.

Cf. José Bertolo, "As origens da Nouvelle Vague".

Jean Renoir, Partie de campagne / 2

27 Fevereiro 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi

We continued our discussion of Renoir's short movie. Gender dynamics: the use of subjective perspective (scene on the boat); how the constraints of society act upon Henriette, both in her short love affair with Henri and in her marriage with Anatole. Comparison between Maupassant's story and Renoir's movie: Analysis of descriptive passages, especially in the beginning (Maupassant's focus on enhancing the differences between an industrialized setting and the countryside); sensuality and the description of the bodies and the experience of nature (the alienation of French middle-class from nature); the finale: Henriette’s reaction to Henri’s kiss; the condensation of the finale in Renoir. 

Jean Renoir, Partie de campagne

25 Fevereiro 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi

Introduction to Partie de campagne (1936), a literary adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story. Literary naturalism and Renoir's conception of determinism (from "How I give life to my characters"). The influence of impressionist painting in Renoir's cinematographic composition: Henriette on the swing, from the painting ("La balançoire" by Pierre-Auguste Renoir) to the deconstruction of the male gaze in its cinematographic rendition. Analysis of characters and the use of nature to stimulate social commentary. 

Jean Renoir, La Règle du jeu

20 Fevereiro 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi

Second class on Jean Renoir's movie La Règle du jeu. Focus on the second half of the movie and some filming strategies aimed at increasing the impression of realism and/or add further complexity by layering to the narrative (long shots and shots in depth: ex. guests' arrival at La Colinière, scene in the kitchen, Christine's "confession" about André). We also discussed André's development and parable, from glorification to death, the primacy of the law of the dominant social group over the Law (i.e., justice), and how Bakhtin's definition of the carnivalesque as literary mode may be applied to the second part of the movie (party scene).