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The New Extremism: Representation of Violence in the New French Extremism

Asst. Prof. Dr. Metin Colak Faculty of Communication, Cyprus International University, North Cyprus

The concept violence, as a phenomenon, has been intensely discussed since 1970s in various fields of arts and sciences, from literature to communication. The critical and uncritical theories of contemporary societies agree on is the fact that there has been huge transformation. However, while this contemporary transition, in most uncritical theories, is being dealt with in terms of their liberating perspectives, in critical theories, this transition has been evaluated as a social crisis which is influencing the fields of arts and sciences. Critical theorists, especially Fredric Jameson, have pointed out that the symptoms of contemporary social crisis most clearly emerge in visual arts. The new Zeitgeist, Spirit of Time, is a visual and cinematographic age, according to another critical theorist Jean Baudrillard. In this context, cinema surpassed all other forms of art in reflecting contemporary social crisis, violence and chaos. In this era, Baudrillard maintains that the reality tries to repair itself with cinema and creates a false impression of reality, a fictional universe in which characters, subject-matters are eliminated, leaving behind only extreme representations of violence, perverse illusions, shocking and provocative images. This paper takes as a starting point this analysis and focuses extensively on this transformation and its consequences in filmic representations of the new extremity, a term that has been used to describe a growing body of films featuring extreme and graphic representations of violence and sexuality. Within this perspective some of the new French extremists (Franois Ozon, Bruno Dumont, Gaspar No and Catherine Breillant) films will be discussed and analyzed. KEY WORDS: media, cinema, new French extremism.

VI CONGRS INTERNACIONAL COMUNICACI I REALITAT FACULTAT DE COMUNICACI BLANQUERNA - UNIVERSITAT RAMON LLULL TRPODOS EXTRA, BARCELONA 2011 ISBN: 978-84-936959-6-5

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he concept violence has been intensely discussed since the 1970s in various fields of art. In every year since then, especially in cinema, we see more and more violence content that are usually constructed within their extreme limits with other complimentary cinematic constituents. This tendency does not apply in only American and European films, but also in some other countrys films in the world. Especially Asian cinemas, South Korean in particular, produced influential and well-known such kind of films recently. However, when one looks closely into this tendency and the films that are produced within this, one immediately realizes that there is a fundamental distinction of the use of violence among the film directors: (1) the violence that is used only for commercial reasons; thats why it is thought and heavily used as the main complimentary part of the filmic narration and visuality; (2) the violence that is used as the main complimentary part of the filmic narration and visuality for a radical criticism of contemporary advanced industrial societies. Due to the limits of this study, I will exclude the first kind, and will concentrate on the second type. Within the second kind, one, after a while, could discern a vast land or an affluent background full of artistic movements of the last two centuries, from surrealism to avant garde. In this regard, one cinema, or tendency, or a group of high profile directors come into prominence: The New French Extremists. In spite of the discussions about the term among the scholars and film critics nowadays there is enough evidence for us to call them as extremists, or film directors who have special film language, as one of them puts in an interview, as we will see below. This group of directors embody filmmaking at the cutting edge. They push the limits to unwelcome screen depictions. One question to raise here: What were the constituents of their special language for pushing the screen depictions to the extremes? Herein a special taboo-breaking film language is born. They created distinctive, shocking and provoking film style for gaining the spectators attention and for portraying contemporary society as isolating, unpredictably horrific and threatening, a nightmarish series of encounters in which personal relationships families, couples, friendships, partnerships- disintegrate and fail, violently.1 Another important question, though as important as the first one, should be answered at this point: Why have these filmmakers created such kind of filmmaking? Cultural critics Jean Baudrillard and Fredric Jameson have pointed out that the main characteristics of contemporary society are crisis, violence, chaos and uncertainty.2 And these characteristics most clearly emerge in visual arts, particularly in cinema. According to them, the new zeitgeist is a visual and cinematographic age. In this context, cinema surpassed all other forms of art in reflecting contemporary social crisis, violence, chaos and uncertainty. In this era, Baudrillard maintains that cinema creates a false impression of reality, a fictional universe in which characters, subject-matters are eliminated, leaving behind only extreme representations of violence, perverse illusions, shocking and provocative images. This study takes as a starting point this analysis and focuses extensively on this transformation and its consequences in filmic representations in the New

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French Extremism. Within this view we will start to define the new French Extremism and then the representations of violence in the main directors films of this tendency. Under the first heading, some of the new French extremists (Gaspar No, Franois Ozon, Bruno Dumont and Catherine Breillat) films will be discussed and analyzed. After explaining the movement, discussing, analyzing the films, we will focus on the refractions behind the representations within the second heading.

The New French Extremity and the Representation of Violence At the turn of the 21st century, a new style filmmaking emerged in cinema with the shocking, provoking, brutal and uncompromising films. This new filmmaking is obvious in some well-known directors, notably Michael Haneke, Lars Von Trier, Francois Ozon, Gaspar No, Bruno Dumont, Catherine Breillat, Philippe Grandrieux, Lukacs Moodysson, Claire Denis and Marina de Van. But especially some of them, the French-language filmmakers, come into prominence. This group embody filmmaking at the cutting edge: incisive, unflinching, uncompromising.3 Their new style was entitled as The New French Extremism. The term was first coined by the film critic James Quandt.4 Although there have still been discussions on the term, Quandts designation has been spreading. In the same article, Quandt found some common characteristics among the film directors, especially the French-language filmmakers, such as Francois Ozon, Gaspar No, Bruno Dumont, Catherine Breillat, Philippe Grandrieux, and calls them transregressive. What Quandt describes as the new extremists produce their films not only under the heavy influence of the well-known extreme literary figures such as Marquis de Sade, Georg Battaile and surrealism and Luis Bunuel, but also classical horror film directors, particularly Mario Bava, and the 1960s French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard in particular. These influences become more obvious especially in Bruno Dumont films than others within the tendency. But what are the common filmic representations, similar themes between the French cinematic extremity and the past tendencies as such? According to Quandt this tendency or filmmaking which wants to break taboos in all filmic representations is a tendency that forces cinematic limits.5 So that themes, filmic representations that the mainstream cinema once excluded for conventional reasons are in the centre of this movement. The film directors featuring extreme and graphic representations of sexuality (including disaffected and emotionless sex), brutal intimacy, violence, male and female rape, sadomasochism, cannibalism, gang rape and incest seemingly designed with the chief aim in mind of shocking and provoking spectator.6 However, an insistence on sexuality and violence is significant. Violence and sexuality predominate in most of the films within the movement. They usually go together.7 Nevertheless some of the directors use such content more effectively than others, especially Gaspar No, Franois Ozon and Bruno Dumont.

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In the sense of corporeal violence among the filmmakers one figure come into prominence: Gaspar No. As the Prince of Darkness he turns his eye to the darkest side of human unconsciousness and weird behaviours and creates a film language full of provocative images.8 He developed an original, stylized, synthesized, shocking film language in which he pushes the audience to the limit. His works as the ne plus ultra of cinematic provocation, and as a sort of macho endurance test designed to test the viewers mettle.9 Corporeal violence in Nos films coincides with sexual, homosexual, rapist and sadomasochist depictions. While these kind of contents are seen as the most important parts of the filmic narration, the filmic narration is transformed into an unfamiliar flow, from the end to the beginning. Thus with the transformation from linear to reverse viewers have to construct the real flow in their mind for comprehension. The psychological motivations for the structure, which tests the spectators response to violence and vengeance, elevates the intensity of the effect.10 Irrevrsible (2002), within this frame, completely sealed Nos brutal aesthetics. It represent a distinctive alternative to both mainstream Hollywood cinema and other films with a single-minded intention to shock.11 This disturbing and controversial film offers to spectator an interesting, though oppressive and dominating visual and temporal analogue containing thirteen scenes presented in reverse chronological order. Within this structure the film concentrates on rape and revenge along with other professionally provocative themes. It starts with the revenge. A man, whom we realize at the end of the film is the villain, is battered to death with a fire extinguisher in a gay S&M club, called The Rectum. As the film goes on, though to the beginning, not to the end, we realise that man was the man who raped Marcuss (Vincent Cassel) girlfriend Alex (Monica Bellucci). Alexs ex-husband Pierre (Albert Dupontel) is also a close friend to her lover, Marcus. So that the last blow, strangely comes from Pierre: He demolished the villain. Two scenes in the film are especially disturbing and controversial: Those famous revenge and rape scenes. When Pierre, along with Marcus, destroys the villain, the rapist in the first scene, the spectator faces a brutal, corporeal violence. As the avenger beats violently with the fire extinguisher the rapist face and as we face the pieces of brain and bloodshed at the end we reach an astonishingly squalid, irredeemable phase. The second disturbing and controversial scene is no less horrific, terrifying, brutish.12 Even more. Within this scene spectator witnesses a nine minute-long cinematic rape, a rape thats duration would be an actual duration of a real rape.13 No cinematic techniques are used in this scene. No camera movement, no cuts, no zoom, even the camera angle is unchanging. The viewing act concentrates on the action and the consequences of the rape. When we watch Alexs tortuous rape, it is itself the rape, now, here, but also always it is the reaction on her lovers face, her battered body, the revenge, the end.14 He continues this filmmaking in his last film, the psychedelic melodrama15 Enter the Void (2009). No, when he assaults the audiences sensibilities in his films, develops a distinctive style in which he catches a chance to show us contemporary social

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crisis, chaos and uncertainty, or better words, contemporary decadence. Therefore the rapists are drug dealers and heavy users, as well as bisexuals, at the same time in his films. The streets of the modern metropolis are dark, gloomy, full of pain, cruelty, unidentifiable sexual objects and decadent relationships. Particularly in case of Franois Ozon, we encounter a slightly different cinema style. His style, under the influence of Luis Bunuel and Ranier Werner Fassbinder, seemingly combines brutality and violence, a fact that influence other filmmakers within the group heavily, with comedy, and recently silence. He heads his camera on these facts in familial, personal close relationships, including hetero and homosexual relationships and the competitions about the power among genders. His films are a simultaneously playful and caustic critique of the hypocrisy of contemporary French social relations. 16 These facts are especially significant in his early feature films, Sitcom (1998) and Criminal Lover (1999). This style was developed and united with an emphasis on silence in his later films, such as Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000) and Under the Sand (2000). In these late films Ozon used common characteristics of the French new extremism, particularly, as we mentioned above, brutality and sexual violence, but combined them with a new feeling of silence for showing contemporary loneliness, isolation and emptiness. He continued this filmmaking in Swimming Pool (2003) and 5x2 (2004). In an interview he expressed that he, along with other new extremists in French cinema, Catherine Breillat in particular, created a new distinctive filmmaking.17 Another filmmaker among the group, Bruno Dumont, produced a film style mostly under the effects of great European film directors and writers, from Robert Bresson to Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman and from Marquis de Sade, George Bataille to Pier Paolo Pasolini. He, under the influence of Antonioni, deepened the view of eclipse of Eros within modern society. He goes further in this sense and stresses in his films that there is not any eclipse of eros nowadays, but sickness/nothingness that every individual in contemporary societies must overcome. Thats because his finales are usually become shocking and annoying and give us a sense of nihilism. His films are very pessimist, even hopeless considerations on humanity and human beings. Within this frame one of his films should be considered: Twentynine Palms (2003). In Twentynine Palms, he shows us the characters mostly seeking sexual intercourse, irredeemable orgasm. The film is set in an American desert town, Twentynine Palms. But this desert is not only the desert of the physical world, as a metaphor, it is the desert of human being, his degradation, dissolution, alienation and reification. Another element constitutes this metaphor in this regard: Red Hummer SUV. The desert is seen through this Hummer in some of the scenes. And when the climax comes, in the final sequence, the audience face an insecure, reified, destructive world with a shock. It is not possible to be secure, and to live life as human being within a reified capitalist world. One thing remains after all: Death. As life dead human being dead. Sexual pleasure seeking and orgasm within this reified world cannot answer what psychoanalysts once

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called catharsis from deadly loads18 any more. This film style can be seen in all his films, from Life of Jesus (1997), to Hadewijch (2009). One director who certainly does intend to be confrontational is Catherine Breillat.19 Breillat starts a journey to a film aesthetics full of brutal intimacy motifs and male and female sexualities. She pushes the limits of cinematic representations to pornography. After starting film career with a 1976 film A Real Young Girl, Catherine Breillat enjoyed a sudden cultural renaissance with her influential film, Romance at the end of the last century. Romance is the most widely discussed French film of the 1990s, a feminist landmark. It became a landmark, because of its explicit representation of sado-masochistic activities, especially with the activities that represent of a more politically troubling female masochism.20 She continued her ascend with another shocking film Anatomy of Hell in 2004. She cast leading European porn star Rocco Siffredi in both films. Where Romance, with its ironically sheened images, played with the aesthetics of softcore, Anatomy of Hell is intentionally grimmer, and grimier, its images designed to be unpalatable both to art-house audiences and to seasoned porn consumers.21

Refractions Behind the Representation It seems correct to understand the roots of the new extremism in French cinema, as we partly explained above, in the past two centuries, particularly in the first half of the 20th century. The New French Extremity is the outcome of a long process of transformation in aesthetics and literature of the last two centuries. The films made in the extremity are under the heavy influence of the centuries literary and film figures, aesthetic tendencies and movements. Who and what were the auteurs and tendencies and movements then? Here a rich artistic field including Luis Bunuel and Surrealism, Robert Bresson and minimalism, Jean-Luc Godard and New Wave, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, Marquis de Sade, George Bataille, Jean Genet, even Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett. All these auteurs of the last two centuries recorded the contemporary social crisis, degradation of human beings, isolation and alienation of individuals differently: Bunuel and surrealism focused on the functions and the failures of human unconsciousness; Bresson, on the other hand, produced a new minimalist film language in which he tended to record the fundamental changes for individuals on a micro level-scale; Godard and the New Wave went forward, abolished the conventional narrative styles in cinema and show us the new subversive aesthetics in the new zeitgeist; Bergman and Antonioni centred on non communication and the crisis of Eros within contemporary alienated western societies; Marquis de Sade, George Bataille and Jean Genet, as the other key texts to the extremity, concentrated on the castrations of sexual desires of modern individuals and they created a new dimension on genders, gender roles; Kafka and the ne plus ultra Samuel Becket declared that the human being is dead. A development starting from modernism ends with postmodernist thoughts...

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All these auteurs and movements record the last two centuries fundamental changes. Each of them produced his own language. It can be said that this language became more straight forward, tough annoying in the course of history. As social transformations become harsh and severe for individuals, the reflections of transformation become more tough and provocative in the fields of aesthetics and literature. The most obvious consequences of this fundamental change can be seen in cinema, especially from the 1970s. Ihab Hassan, who first drew the aesthetic boundaries of the postmodernism, has stressed that the new aesthetic tendencies wrapped in the long development of modernism and after a special moment they born.22 He pointed out that the seeds of the late 20th centurys aesthetics are in the 18th and 19th centuries.23 Especially towards the end of 20th century, some forms, structures of feeling and techniques of narration that enforced the limits of aesthetics have became dominant in the fields of art, from literature to cinema, painting to architecture. All these tendencies of thought as the components and expressions of a new moment in art history: Postmodernism. Some filmmakers, David Lynch specifically, produced influential films within this aesthetic. These kind of films, with heavy use violence, sexuality and nostalgia, tended to represent the unpresentable to the spectators. Directors in the movement placed such kind of contents in their films to shock and provoke the audience in mind. Making money is based on this filmmaking, not to be critical to the society, as puts one of the influential American culture critics Fredric Jameson in his seminal work Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.24 Jameson has stressed that, Such kind of aesthetics, without any critical level, justify the rationality of contemporary society at the end. After a break this aesthetic was reborn at the end of the 1990s. In Europe. Some film directors, who accepted the legacy of the auteur cinema of the past, especially in new French cinema, produced a distinctive style in which they intended to push the limits of classical extremism to the outmost.25 These new extremists, what we saw with an affirmative rationality in the post-modern filmmaking in the beginning of the 1980s in America, reshaped this filmmaking with critical dimensions. In this regard, they have a strong European art film and avant garde literature traditions. Consequently, they produced an original, though not so authentic, style based on shocking and provoking. Through this style they criticize contemporary life. These new extremists style is the final outcome of the refraction that started especially at the end of the 19th century. Representations become clear after refractions.

Conclusion We are still in the rise of the new extremism. In this era especially one group of filmmakers become popular: The new French language-extremists. Their films both praised and criticized. Especially in the sense of the extreme and graphic

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representation of violence and sexuality they are criticized. On the other hand, they are praised and rewarded for their distinctive and effective cinematic styles and languages. As a matter of fact, they are awarded prizes in prestigious film festivals in the world. Most of their films symbolize the moment of a particular crisis, chaos, uncertainty of the contemporary post-industrial world. This moment cannot be compared to the previous moments, as the radical thinkers Jean Baudrillard and Fredric Jameson put it. Thats because they produced a suitable film language, a film style that as severe, tough, aggressive and irritating as the post-industrial modern life. It would be correct to say that a strong dystopic vision and a heavy pessimism, even nihilism govern their cinematic language and would be perceivable in nearly all of the finals of the films. For this reason their films are full of strange filmic depictions, full of nightmarish visions, extremities. New French Extremists show us that the radical criticism of the contemporary societies could only be possible within a new avant garde language, a language as decadent as contemporary life experiences.

Endnotes 1. PALMER, T. Style and Sensation in the Contemporary French Cinema of the Body. Journal of Film and Video. Vol. 58 (2006), Issue 3, p. 22. 2. See especially JAMESON, F. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001; BAUDRILLARD, J. Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: The University of Mishigan Press, 2006. 3. PALMER. Op. cit. 4. QUANDT, J. Flesh & Blood: Sex and Violence in Recent French Cinema [Online]. <http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/ is_6_42/ai_113389507/>. [Access: January 17, 2011]. 5. Ibidem. 6. PALMER. Op. cit. 7. ROMNEY, J. Le Sex and Violence [Online]. <http://www.independent.co.uk/ arts-entertainment/films/features/le-sex-andviolence-546083.html>. [Access: January 20, 2011]. 8. Ibidem. 9. Ibidem. 10. BRITT, Th. R.Lower Depths and Higher Aims: Death, Excess and Discontinuity in Irreversible and Visitor Q [Online]. <http:// cinephile.ca/archives/volume-5-no-1-far-fromhollywood-alternative-world-cinema/lowerdepths-and-higher-aims-death-excess-anddiscontinuity-in-irreversible-and-visitor-q/>. [Access: January 21, 2011]. 11. Ibidem. 12. BRINKEMA, E. Rape and The Rectum: Bersani, Deleuze, No. Camera Obscura. Vol. 20 (2005), no. 1, p. 53. 13. Ibid., p. 54. 14. Ibid., p. 55. 15. SCHMERKIN, N. Interview Gaspar Noe [Online]. <http://www.festival-cannes. com/assets/Image/Direct/029848.pdf>. [Access: January 21, 2011]. 16. ASIBONG, A. Meat, Murder, Metamorphosis the Transfomrational Ethics of Franois Ozon. French Studies. Vol. LIX (2005), no. 2, p. 207. 17. SKLAR, R. Sex, Violence, and Power in the Family: An Interview with Franois Ozon. Cinaeste, Fall. Vol. 30 (2005), no. 4, p. 49. 18. REICH, W. The Functions of Orgasm. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973. 19. ROMNEY. Op. cit. 20. PHILLIP, J. Catherine Breillats Romance: Hard Core and the Female Gaze. Studies in French Cinema. Vol. 1, no. 3, p. 137; Lisa Coulthard. Desublimating Desire: Courtly Love and Catherine Breillat. Journal for Cultural Research. Vol. 14 (2010), no. 1, p. 60.

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21. ROMNEY, J. Op. cit. 22. HASSAN, I. Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture. Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1987, p. 3; Ihab Hassan, The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature. 2nd Edition. Wisconsin & London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1983, p. 265-267. 23. Ibidem. 24. JAMESON, F. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.

25. New extremity has not been influential only in Europe, but also other parts of the world, especially in Asian cinemas, South Korean and Hong Kong in particular. Well-known film directors in the West, Park Chan-wook, and Fruit Chan have become the most influential figures of this new aesthetics in Asia with their particular films, such as Vengeance triology, and Made in Hong Kong.

References ASIBONG, A. Meat, Murder, Metamorphosis the Transfomrational Ethics of Franois Ozon. French Studies. Vol. LIX (2005), no. 2, p. 203-215. BAUDRILLARD, J. Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: The University of Mishigan Press, 2006. BRINKEMA, E. Rape and The Rectum: Bersani, Deleuze, No. Camera Obscura. Vol. 20 (2005), no. 1, p. 33-56. BRITT, Th. R. Lower Depths and Higher Aims: Death, Excess and Discontinuity in Irreversible and Visitor Q [Online]. <http://cinephile.ca/ archives/volume-5-no-1-far-from-hollywoodalternative-world-cinema/lower-depths-andhigher-aims-death-excess-and-discontinuity-inirreversible-and-visitor-q/>. [Access: January 21, 2011]. COULTHARD, L. Desublimating Desire: Courtly Love and Catherine Breillat. Journal for Cultural Research. Vol. 14 (2010), no. 1, p. 57-69. HASSAN, I. Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture. Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1987. . The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature. 2nd Edition. Wisconsin & London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1983. JAMESON, F. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. PALMER, T. Style and Sensation in the Contemporary French Cinema of the Body. Journal of Film and Video. Vol. 58 (2006), Issue 3, p. 22-32. PHILLIP, J. Catherine Breillats Romance: Hard Core and the Female Gaze. Studies in French Cinema. Vol. 1, no. 3, p. 133-140. QUANDT, J. Flesh & Blood: Sex and Violence in Recent French Cinema [Online]. <http:// findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_6_42/ ai_113389507/>. [Access: January 17, 2011]. REICH, W. The Functions of Orgasm. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973. ROMNEY, J. Le Sex and Violence [Online]. <http://www.independent.co.uk/ arts-entertainment/films/features/le-sex-andviolence-546083.html>. [Access: January 20, 2011]. SCHMERKIN, N. Interview Gaspar Noe [Online]. <http://www.festival-cannes.com/ assets/Image/Direct/029848.pdf>. [Access: January 21, 2011]. SKLAR, R. Sex, Violence, and Power in the Family: An Interview with Franois Ozon. Cinaeste. Fall. Vol. 30 (2005), no. 4, p. 48-50.