Nacimiento y evolución de las redes sociales

follow a time frame that corresponds closely to these directorsÕ common period of professional activity. In this regard, the year of TruffautÕs death, October 1984, becomes the major landmark that prevents us from moving beyond the late 1980s. The exceptional case of La Belle Noiseuse is preserved in the benefit of a stronger and more complete argument on RivetteÕs approach to BalzacÕs discourses on myths.

In terms of structure, this thesis dedicates a chapter each to Rohmer, Rivette, Truffaut and Godard. This particular order follows a certain logic. Opening chapter two with Rohmer strategically develops some core ideas of the politique des auteurs through the directorÕs uninterrupted engagement with Balzac. The consistent and harmonious dimension of RohmerÕs lifework therefore becomes the aesthetic nucleus against which Rivette, Truffaut and Godard diverge, in their specific ways. Far from isolating each director from one other, this individual arrangement allows for comparisons that support, during the reading process, the creation of a wider and comprehensive portrait of their positioning towards the nineteenth-century legacy.

1.5. Outline of chapters

This thesis is organised into five broad chapters. Chapter one has set the background and motivations of this thesis by addressing these directorsÕ complex relationship with the nineteenth-century legacy since the early days of Cahiers du cinŽma and the ways in which the political tensions of the 1960s modified their views on filmmaking. In the light of a moment of extraordinary developments in France (from the late 1960s to the 1980s), scrutinising their respective approaches to nineteenth-century art and literary culture aims at an unprecedented study of the Nouvelle Vague tradition and the late works of these four directors. The schematisation of the existing scholarship has demonstrated the absence of literature examining these four filmographies as an ensemble. The belief in a common denominator that moves beyond Cahiers du cinŽma and the tight and indefinite Nouvelle Vague time frame is the very motor of the following chapters.

Chapter two sets the grounds of RohmerÕs ontological realism, a theory that shaped, throughout the decades, the aesthetic principles of the directorÕs filmmaking. It argues that RohmerÕs re-appropriation of neoclassical aesthetic values derived from the

idea of cinema as the successor of the nineteenth-century realist novel. To develop this claim, I bring into dialogue the scholastic dimension of RohmerÕs body of work and the Aristotelian principles of BalzacÕs rhetoric. In a further stage, I demonstrate the political implications of RohmerÕs reclaiming of the classical canon in the context of the 1970s.

The textual analysis of Die Marquise von OÉ allows me to situate RohmerÕs adaptation in a decade in which scholars, critics and directors reassessed the cultural authority of GoetheÕs classicism as a response to the surge of interest for KleistÕs romantic legacy.

In contrast with counter-discursive aesthetic practices, RohmerÕs neoclassical approach to Kleist, I suggest, revives the syntactic ambiguity and contradictions of the novella through a harmonious, sober and clear narrative that reveals in the subtlest manner the epistemological breach between language and nature.

Chapter three is structured around underlying myths of La comŽdie humaine: the myths of Icarus, Prometheus and Pygmalion. These myths, I argue, are at the heart of RivetteÕs reflection on the aesthetic possibilities of cinema and become the most fruitful means to read Out 1: Noli me tangere and La Belle Noiseuse. These two films provide alternative readings of Balzac that significantly differ from RohmerÕs. Whereas Rohmer affiliates Balzac with the classical literary tradition, Rivette reclaims BalzacÕs romanticism by transposing the authorÕs melancholic quest for heroic actions and metaphysical powers in Out 1. RivetteÕs avant-garde cinematic practices compete with BalzacÕs ambition to create a work of art that transcends traditional genres and reunites mythical stories with reflections on modern society. La Belle Noiseuse completes this mythological cycle through RivetteÕs engagement with the romantic myth of Frenhofer and his unknown masterpiece. Comparisons with the source text, Le chef-dÕoeuvre inconnu (1831), demonstrate that Rivette remained faithful to BalzacÕs theory of painting through an approach of filmic space that emulates the romantic search for the Absolute. While Rivette kept intact the mystical imagery surrounding the creative act, his mise-en-sc•ne challenges nonetheless the patriarchal value of the novella by re-introducing the collective and egalitarian methods of Out 1.

Chapter four demonstrates that TruffautÕs association of authorship with the literary culture of the nineteenth century contributed to isolate him from the modernist experimentations of French cinema in the late 1960s. To give an account of TruffautÕs aesthetic evolution, the textual analysis of Fahrenheit 451 crystallises the directorÕs concern to preserve an idealised vision of authorship, which understands biography as the most illuminating tool to read a literary work. Situating this science-fiction film in

the context of GodardÕs Alphaville allows me to highlight TruffautÕs political contradictions and growing conservatism. To further develop this claim, I scrutinise the ways in which nineteenth-century novels and memoirs become TruffautÕs tool of choice for the exploration of autobiographical themes. In this regard, Truffaut reflected on his personal journey through the stories of LÕenfant sauvage, Les deux anglaises et le continent, LÕhistoire dÕAd•le H. and La chambre verte and consolidated, in the most politicised decade of French cinema, the problematic idea of film as a result of a dominant, creative and truthful entity.

Chapter five argues that, contrary to Truffaut, Godard expressed romantic themes and patterns through a pictorialist bias, which privileges space, form and light over storytelling. GodardÕs interpretation of MŽrimŽeÕs novella in PrŽnom Carmen, I argue, shows his desire to get rid of the mythical ornaments and flourishes established by the opera and to focus, instead, on bringing forth the paradox at the foundation of the tragedy. Like MŽrimŽe, GodardÕs narrative interrogates CarmenÕs identity by creating a complex network of storylines which intersect and blur the steady and Bizetian image of Carmen as a glamorous, threatening and exotic mythical figure. Comparisons with the source text reveal that Godard, like MŽrimŽe, decentralises the Carmen story by alternating narrators and storylines and reviving, as such, the romantic conflict between moments of reverie and disenchantment. GodardÕs unprecedented interest in the romantic association of nature with the sublime points at a new form of melancholy, which differs from his previous works. I therefore explore GodardÕs aesthetic evolution to highlight the ways in which modernist imagery collides with evanescent quests for unity in Passion, a film that reflects on the romantic aesthetics of chiaroscuro.

The conclusion summarises the convergences and breaking points between these four different ways of approaching the nineteenth-century artistic and literary heritage.

This final section addresses the importance of reconsidering these directorsÕ relationship with romantic and realist heritage so as to gain deeper insight into the Nouvelle Vague legacy Ð a pressing, problematic and often-misconceived component of contemporary French cinema. I conclude by proposing new areas of research that may contribute in strengthening the findings of this thesis. Further research on the chauvinistic and western-centric background within which their aesthetic and theoretical beliefs arose should indeed demonstrate that the Nouvelle Vague carried, throughout their careers, an obsession with the richness and complexity of nineteenth-century western culture.