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Post-Crisis
European Cinema
White Men in Off-Modern Landscapes

György Kalmár
Post-Crisis European Cinema
 György Kalmár

Post-Crisis European
Cinema
White Men in Off-Modern Landscapes
György Kalmár
Inst English & American Studies
University of Debrecen
Debrecen, Hungary

ISBN 978-3-030-45034-2    ISBN 978-3-030-45035-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45035-9

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 To my intellectual heroes and heroines, for whom true thinking means
risking everything we used to know for the sake of what we need to know.
 Preface: Living the State of Crisis

Towards the end of 2016 several newspapers declared 2016 to be the

“worst year ever”. Apparently, every self-respecting (and less self-­
respecting) newspaper and magazine, from The Guardian to The New York
Times, from The Evening Standard to The New Yorker felt the need to run
something on the subject, be those dramatic declarations, sad lists of loss,
fact-based corrections or half-joking, champagne-in-hand, end-of-the-­
year pieces. Penguin even published a whole book, entitled F∗ck You 2016:
A Look Back on the Worst Year Ever, and, needless to say, social media was
teeming with memes demonstrating how terrible the year was. Just for the
record, or for the sake of those who forgot during the Tsunami of equally
terrible later years, 2016 was the year that David Bowie, Prince and
Leonard Cohen died, and (more importantly for this book) also the year
of the Brexit vote, Trump’s election, Aleppo’s siege and destruction in
Syria, an unprecedented series of terrorist attacks throughout Europe, and
the Zyka outbreak, to mention only a few. Even if one takes away the
effects of end-of-the-year-champagne-by-the-laptop journalism and
Twitter-crazes, one can sense the overall feeling of a cultural shock-wave
going through first-world societies, a general sentiment that this is not just
the usual terrible stuff, that what we are living through is bad in historical
proportions. It seems as if this feeling kept haunting us, as if we were living
through a series of terrible events that probably started with 9/11 in
2001, got even worse with the 2008 global financial crisis, led to Brexit,
Trump and who knows what else. To make things worse, the post-crisis
analyses indicated time after time that these were not mere accidents, but
rather symptoms of much wider and more fundamental issues concerning

vii
viii PREFACE: LIVING THE STATE OF CRISIS

democracy, liberalism, technology, environmental change or the late 20th

century forms of neoliberal capitalism. Thus our time is that of shock,
bewilderment, cognitive disorder, regressive escape from reality and the
painful task of readjusting one’s sense of normalcy year after year.
Oftentimes, the general sentiment is that there is something wrong with
the twenty-first century, this is not what history was meant to be, there is
something awfully off.
Though the first wave of the financial crisis seems to be behind us, and the
most catastrophic economic scenarios have been avoided so far, I would
argue (in agreement with the picture painted by most of the films to be dis-
cussed in this book) that the crisis is definitely not comfortably behind us.
Thus, when I refer to “post-crisis” Europe in this book, it should not be
understood as a period simply after the crisis, when the crisis is over, but
rather as the time when the effects of previous critical breakdowns are played
out (in a manner similar to how post-modernity stands for a peculiar form of
modernity). The chain reaction that the security and financial crises set in
motion in the first decade of the new century is still very much rolling on:
contemporary Europe is very much defined by political instability, social
inequality, polarisation and unrest—all in front of the background of an ever
more frightening global environmental crisis. At the time of finalizing this
manuscript, when the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic is still raging throughout
Europe, it is clear that there is no way of looking at this time of crisis from an
outside vantage point: we do not know where it will lead us, there is no final-
ity about this. We are in this state of crisis, living through it, living it, every day.
This state of crisis is also a time of confusion, when understanding the
world can be quite a challenge. Most of our master-plans and grand narratives
that we used to rely on for decades have been shaken or seriously damaged in
the first two decades of the new millennium. Our previous ideas about prog-
ress, liberal democracy, neoliberal capitalism, multiculturalism or our notion
of history as a gradual evolution of societies towards more and more affluence,
justice and human happiness have all been seriously questioned. We must
realise that the twenty-first century has a completely different cultural logic
than the previous one had: most of our social, ideological, political, financial
and ecological paradigms are either changing or will (or must) change soon.
As most of our critical concepts, intellectual tools and ideological frameworks
were made during the boom years of the late twentieth century, they are
clearly outdated and inadequate today. Now we cannot escape the feeling that
at some point in the past we got it really wrong, and our blindness has a high
price to pay. Suddenly we do not know where we are and where we should be
 PREFACE: LIVING THE STATE OF CRISIS ix

going. Since the general cultural logic of the previous decades is changing,
which affects all aspects of life and all academic disciplines, arguably there is no
intellectually relevant academic approach in the human and social sciences
today that should not also include the critical re-examination of our inherited,
pre-crisis intellectual and ideological tool-boxes.
In this book I wish to look at how European art cinema makes sense of
our present loss of sense, what narratives it constructs out of our contem-
porary loss of grand narratives, and what identities it constructs at a time
of the dramatic realignment of opinions, social affiliations and identities.
It uses cinema and its representation of changing white masculinities to
dive into the heart of the present socio-cultural transformations, and it
analyses cinema’s responses to these “hot” issues, as well as the solutions
it may offer. What I propose to do, therefore, is thinking through cinema
in both senses of this expression: on the one hand, I try to think through
the different qualities, shifts and effects of twenty-first-century European
cinema in an effort to understand it and make critical observations about
it; and on the other hand, I try to use cinema as a critical tool itself that
allows for making observations about the world around us, as a means of
asking questions about the new century. The idea is to perform a critical
analysis of cinema’s explorations of a rapidly changing world, in which
process we do not only comprehend our world better, but also come
closer to understanding our own patterns of understanding, together,
needless to say, with its possible strengths and shortcomings, insights and
blind spots.
At this point a quick note is due on the politics of representation and
the representation of politics. From the above passages it may have already
transpired that this book will necessarily have to reflect on political issues
as well: there is simply no exploring the socio-cultural rearrangements of
the twenty-first century (on- and off-screen) without keeping the idea of
the political (in a general sense) in mind. Thus, in this book, while analys-
ing and contextualising European art films, I critically explore the implica-
tions, strengths and drawbacks of all ideological constructs that I discover
in them. And since a majority of European quality films are shaped by
Enlightenment humanism and the progressive-liberal political paradigm,
my critical remarks about these films may give readers the idea that I, like
the “bad” politicians of our time (Le Pen, Orbán, Trump) have serious
issues with twenty-first-century liberalism, democracy, the “political main-
stream” or the values and practices of the European cultural establish-
ment. Ironically, this is not so far from the truth: some of the criticism I
x PREFACE: LIVING THE STATE OF CRISIS

formulate in this book is driven by my disappointment with our cultural

and political establishment, and the way we uncritically try to rely on our
much-cherished twentieth-century ideas, ideologies and policies, and still
regard them as the last bastions of civilisation, our only protection against
resurgent barbarity. My disappointment and ensuing criticism, however,
does not stem from a deeply felt love for populism or autocracy. Quite the
contrary: it is motivated by the dismay felt over the way our cultural, finan-
cial and political establishments let the hard-earned results of the last 50
years of socio-cultural development be gradually undone.
As I will argue in more detail in the Introduction (Chap. 1), the twenty-­
first-­century crisis of the modern international liberal order is to a large
extent caused by its own shortcomings, mistaken assumptions, unforeseen
weaknesses, unpublicised compromises, unchecked corruption as well as
the intellectual laziness that comes so easily with decades of peace, pros-
perity and unchallenged dominance. Orbán, the AFD, the UKIP and Le
Pen are not the primary causes, but rather the symptomatic consequences
of this social, intellectual and political crisis. One of my basic assumptions
in this book is that with 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis (and a whole
number of other symptomatic events) the dominant cultural paradigm of
the last 50 years reached its tipping-point, and became counterproductive
with regards to its original goals. What used to be brave, intelligent, anti-­
establishment, eye-opening, subversive and progressive in the 1970s, have
become, by the time the crisis hit, established, rigid, dogmatic, hyper-­
normative, status quo, averse to self-correction, and often little more than
a bunch of empty commonplaces reiterated by professors, politicians and
journalists in the echo-chambers of their ivory towers. I think the new
century requires the renewal of this old paradigm. It is high time to take
into account everything that has gone wrong with these ideas, face their
weaknesses, hypocrisy, false assumptions or the ways they were corrupted
by those who appropriated them for the protection of the status quo. The
sooner we do it, the less painful this intellectual and political transition will
be. And the more time we waste by desperately defending them, denying
our old mistakes and the new conditions of the twenty-first century, the
more ground we give over to demagogues and autocrats, who happily take
advantage of the quick self-discrediting of the mainstream. The time of
denial should be over. It is time to rethink and sort out our intellectual,
political and artistic heritage, so as to be ready for the new challenges of
the new century.
 PREFACE: LIVING THE STATE OF CRISIS xi

If one wishes to understand the true causes and nature of the present
crisis, one must look beyond the obvious symptoms, the scandals of the
day, the all-too-comfortable left wing / right wing or democratic / popu-
list dichotomies, and explore the socio-cultural field in depth. The most
important art form providing such depth of field is, I would argue, cin-
ema, especially the European arthouse kind, influenced by the aesthetics
of realism and the ethos of social responsibility. Thus, exploring the cin-
ema of these turbulent years may have ramifications beyond film history or
the studies of masculinity. Reading films is a valuable way of looking
behind the scenes, behind the spectacular symptoms, and seeing the social
matrix in its complexity. Films connect with the social conditions of their
times in a million ways. Narratives, the problems they show and the reso-
lutions they provide may reveal deeply hidden assumptions about a whole
community’s sense of history. Characters and their struggles and destinies
reveal concepts about identity, human values or gender. Films, especially
the ones shot on real locations, connect with the life-worlds of the times
and the practicalities of everyday life in countless ways. Simple cinematic
vehicles, such as setting, lighting or camera communicate the atmosphere
associated with certain situations, opinions on social issues, or value-­
judgements about geographical locations or character types. Thus, cinema
simultaneously depicts social conditions, records human responses and
concepts about its challenges, and shapes our communities’ sense of
history.
Fans of European cinema will not be shocked when I claim that reading
this book may require the willing suspension of one’s beliefs, especially
one’s political and ideological beliefs. It is meant for people who are not
simply looking for an affirmation of their world-view, or ammunition to
use in the culture wars. Rather, it is meant for readers who enjoy when
cinema confronts them with difficult questions or disjoints their comfort-
able beliefs and opinions, for readers who are interested in critical think-
ing, debunking false concepts, pointing out ethical dilemmas, and
unearthing the (cognitive) patterns from which our world (and our films)
are made.
Indeed, one of the most awarding aspects of writing this book was that
I was forced to read and study outside my cognitive echo-chamber. I
wanted to carry out this work with as much intellectual honesty and criti-
cal insight as possible, therefore I had to explore all kinds of views, opin-
ions and theories, which would inevitably take me beyond the confines of
my more or less safe and comfortable academic bubble. In an attempt to
xii PREFACE: LIVING THE STATE OF CRISIS

challenge and correct my cognitive, political and academic biases, and to

get to know all that was stirred up by the current crisis, I searched and read
books from authors I never heard of before, listened to podcasts about
issues far from my usual research areas, watched public debates on
YouTube, with as little academic, political or ideological prejudice as pos-
sible. To be honest, in spite of some grim topics, it all turned out to be
joyfully and thrillingly inspiring.
I realised, for example, that in case of such a project one sure sign of
being on the right track is the ability to confuse intelligent algorithms.
When I showed my YouTube profile to my wife one night, that is, what
YouTube would recommend to me, what it thinks about my identity and
interests, she laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes. She also suggested
that I never show this to any psychiatrist if I wanted to keep my teaching
position. Besides the usual and expectable film studies and social theory
stuff, YouTube recommended Scandinavian white supremacist heavy
metal bands next to Maajid Nawaz, the British Muslim counter-extremism
activist, muscular male bodies of urban street-workout culture next to
emaciated hard-drug addicts, ContraPoints next to Jordan Peterson, pod-
casts by BBC Radio 4 and The Guardian next to the troll Sargon of Akkad,
or Christian Picciolini, the 120 kilograms full body tattooed ex-neo-Nazi
next to Yuval Noah Harari, the skinny, vegan, gay, Jewish historian.
I also made a habit of regularly asking the opinions of friends from all
sides of the political spectrum: liberals and conservatives, new Marxists
and alt-right followers, feminists and Orbán-fans, Brexiteers and remain-
ers, university professors and the last forum of old-school democratic pub-
lic discussion, the old ladies at the local flower market. These conversations
also taught me a fair amount of humility, made me understand that I can
always be (painfully) wrong, that others may always have another perspec-
tive that I could in no way foresee, taught me to listen carefully, with as
little preconception as possible, and to presume that the other has under-
stood something that I have not. I realised that this was possibly the only
good thing about the crisis, the opportunity to learn, to reconsider, to see
the world differently, and it would be silly of me to miss it. I also had the
feeling that what really distinguishes between dangerous extremists and
decent people was not that much the ideological content of their ideas,
but rather whether they were open to rational (re)considerations and
respectful dialogue or not. This strategy of respectful listening, the will to
understand differently, and to play the devil’s advocate for the sake of
more complex understanding, was a method that I could use in my work
 PREFACE: LIVING THE STATE OF CRISIS xiii

with the films as well. In this respect, I owe thanks to my university stu-
dents as well for discussing these films with me at various seminars and film
club events. They are of all sorts of cultural backgrounds, identities and
opinions, but invariably people who were raised in this volatile, digital-by-­
default, off-modern, post-crash world. Without them I would not have
had a chance to understand anything about the cultural logic of the
twenty-first century.
I wish to thank all these people on- and off-line, who talked to me,
lectured me, questioned my assumptions, recommended films, documen-
taries, authors. I am most thankful to those people who showed me how
to think outside one’s bubble, how to let go of beliefs for the sake of
knowledge, people who can argue and reason with the sole interest of
understanding, without any secret agenda or resentment. They are my
intellectual heroes and heroines, and I would like to dedicate this book
to them.
Finally, I wish to thank everybody who supported my research or helped
me with the preparation of this book: the János Bolyai Research Grant of
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Research Grant of the New
National Excellency Programme of the Hungarian Ministry of Human
Resources, as well as all the great people at Palgrave Macmillan for their
continuous support and professionalism.

Debrecen, Hungary György Kalmár

 Contents

1 Introduction: Post-Crisis Europe, White Masculinity and

Art Cinema  1
The Post-Crisis and the Off-Modern   2
White Masculinity  10
Post-Crisis European Cinema  22
The Outline of the Book  27
Works Cited  31

2 Rites of Retreat and the Cinematic Resignification of

European Cultural Geography 35
The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner  43
Delta  50
Suntan  56
Conclusions: Men in Retreat  63
Works Cited  65

3 Unprocessed Pasts 67
Amen  77
Days of Glory  85
Cold War  95
Conclusions: Unprocessed Pasts 103
Works Cited 106

xv
xvi CONTENTS

4 Addiction and Escapism109

Billy Elliot 116
T2 Trainspotting 126
Kills on Wheels 136
Conclusions: Addiction and Escapism 145
Works Cited 146

5 Narratives of Migration149
Terraferma 154
Morgen 161
Jupiter’s Moon 167
Conclusions: Narratives of Migration 176
Works Cited 179

6 The Lads of the New Right183

The Wave 191
This Is England 199
July 22 206
Conclusions: Lads of the New Right 215
Works Cited 216

7 Angry Old Men219

Tyrannosaur 225
I, Daniel Blake 231
A Man Called Ove 239
Conclusions: Angry Old Men 249
Works Cited 252

8 Conclusions255
Works Cited 265

Index267
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Film still from The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around
the Corner (Stephan Komandarev 2008) 47
Fig. 2.2 Film still from The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around
the Corner (Stephan Komandarev 2008) 49
Fig. 2.3 Film still from Delta (Kornél Mundruczó 2008) 51
Fig. 2.4 Film still from Delta (Kornél Mundruczó 2008) 55
Fig. 2.5 Film still from Suntan (Argyris Papadimitropoulos 2016) 59
Fig. 2.6 Film still from Suntan (Argyris Papadimitropoulos 2016) 60
Fig. 3.1 Film still from Amen (Costa-Gavras 2002) 80
Fig. 3.2 Film still from Amen (Costa-Gavras 2002) 81
Fig. 3.3 Film still from Days of Glory (Rachid Bouchareb 2006) 88
Fig. 3.4 Film still from Days of Glory (Rachid Bouchareb 2006) 94
Fig. 3.5 Film still from Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski 2018) 98
Fig. 3.6 Film still from Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski 2018) 99
Fig. 4.1 Film still from Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry 2000) 119
Fig. 4.2 Film still from Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry 2000) 125
Fig. 4.3 Film still from T2 Trainspotting (Danny Boyle 2017) 129
Fig. 4.4 Film still from T2 Trainspotting (Danny Boyle 2017) 132
Fig. 4.5 Film still from Kills on Wheels (Attila Till 2016) 138
Fig. 4.6 Film still from Kills on Wheels (Attila Till 2016) 141
Fig. 5.1 Film still from Terraferma (Emanuele Crialese, 2011) 156
Fig. 5.2 Film still from Terraferma (Emanuele Crialese, 2011) 157
Fig. 5.3 Film still from Terraferma (Emanuele Crialese, 2011) 160
Fig. 5.4 Film still from Terraferma (Emanuele Crialese, 2011) 160
Fig. 5.5 Film still from Morgen (Marian Crisan, 2010) 164
Fig. 5.6 Film still from Morgen (Marian Crisan, 2010) 166

xvii
xviii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 5.7 Film still from Jupiter’s Moon (Kornél Mundruczó, 2017) 169
Fig. 5.8 Film still from Jupiter’s Moon (Kornél Mundruczó, 2017) 169
Fig. 6.1 Film still from The Wave (Dennis Gansel, 2008) 192
Fig. 6.2 Film still from The Wave (Dennis Gansel, 2008) 195
Fig. 6.3 Film still from This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2006) 201
Fig. 6.4 Film still from This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2006) 203
Fig. 6.5 Film still from July 22 (Paul Greengrass, 2018) 209
Fig. 6.6 Film still from July 22 (Paul Greengrass, 2018) 210
Fig. 7.1 Film still from Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011) 229
Fig. 7.2 Film still from Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011) 230
Fig. 7.3 Film still from I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach, 2016) 236
Fig. 7.4 Film still from I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach, 2016) 236
Fig. 7.5 Film still from A Man Called Ove (Hannes Holm, 2015) 241
Fig. 7.6 Film still from A Man Called Ove (Hannes Holm, 2015) 245
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Post-Crisis Europe, White

Masculinity and Art Cinema

This book explores the cinematic representations of the pervasive socio-­

cultural change that the twenty-first century brought to Europe and the
world. Its main assumption is that the series of crises that started with the
9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 changed some of our fundamental expecta-
tions about history, debunked some of our grand narratives, and thus
changed the cultural logic of our (thoroughly globalised) civilisation.
Thus, the book focuses on the ways cinema reflects (and interprets and
shapes) a rapidly changing world: the hot new issues of the times, the new
formations of identity and the shifts in cinematic representation. The book
mostly focuses on films featuring white heterosexual men, mostly because
I tend to agree with the statistics suggesting that the recent changes in
(typically less privileged) white male communities lie at the heart of the
new century’s most dramatic ideological and political changes. The book’s
main goal is to put these markedly gendered representations in a complex,
theoretically informed and socially committed interdisciplinary perspec-
tive that is capable of mapping the newly emerging formations of mascu-
linity at a time of rapid socio-economic transitions reshaping the continent.
Thus, this is an interdisciplinary research that combines the perspectives
and results provided by such academic fields as sociology, film studies,
masculinity studies and white studies. I am equally interested in what new
the twenty-first century brought about, most specifically to Europe and to
its white men, as in film and the cinematic responses to these socio-­cultural
changes. The book is also clearly defined by its historicity, that is, by its

© The Author(s) 2020 1

G. Kalmár, Post-Crisis European Cinema,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45035-9_1
2 G. KALMÁR

locatedness at a very specific moment in time: through its discussion of

motifs and themes running through the European art cinema of the new
millennium, it explores the most burning issues of post-crisis Europe at a
time when we are still very much affected by that crisis.
In this chapter I am going to lay out some of the basic socio-cultural
conditions, key concepts and academic interests informing this book. This
will effectively contextualise the studies of films and social phenomena of
the later chapters.
Let us start with time.

The Post-Crisis and the Off-Modern

One does not need to be a social scientist to note that since the beginning
of the new millennium the developed societies of the so-called Western
World have been going through dramatic changes. These are usually
attributed to a set of crises that these societies have recently gone through.
The sweet dream of “the end of history” and the victory of global neolib-
eral capitalism seems to be over. Today it may be painfully awkward to
recall to what extent public and academic thinking as well as public poli-
cies in the 1990s were defined by Francis Fukuyama’s vision of a united,
happy global human community. In his 1992 book, The End of History
and the Last Man (which was an elaboration of an 1989 article), Fukuyama
contended that with the fall of the Eastern European communist regimes,
“liberal democracy as a system of government … conquered rival ideolo-
gies” and therefore it “may constitute the endpoint of humankind’s ideo-
logical evolution and the final form of human government” and as such
brings about “the end of history” (xi). He claimed that “the twin princi-
ples of liberty and equality” are flawless, and thus “the ideal of liberal
democracy could not be improved on” (xi). In The End of History and his
few following books, Fukuyama envisioned a future in which stable politi-
cal formations, thriving liberal democracies, uninterrupted economic and
technological progress would lead to a “posthuman future” where most
traditional causes of human suffering would be eventually overcome.
According to Fukuyama’s vision, liberal democracies are close to the mate-
rialisation of a global utopia, in which people live for centuries, artificial
intelligence and robots provide for all needs, a self-regulating neoliberal
economy runs perfectly, everybody agrees on human rights and core dem-
ocratic principles, and in the ever more integrated, happy and rich global
village there is simply no reason for war anymore.
 1 INTRODUCTION: POST-CRISIS EUROPE, WHITE MASCULINITY AND ART… 3

In defence of Fukuyama, one must note that the 1990s produced sev-
eral “best years ever” of human history: not only did the Eastern European
communist dictatorships collapse, bringing about the end of the cold war
and its continuous nuclear threat, but neoliberal capitalism coupled with a
postmodern ethos seemed to produce unprecedented material and cul-
tural affluence. Such outstanding works of the decade as Arjun Appadurai’s
Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (1996),
Zygmunt Bauman’s Globalization: The Human Consequences (1998) and
his Liquid Modernity (1999) or Jean Baudrillard’s writing from the 1980s
and 1990s all try to make sense of this rapidly growing and globalising
world where the spread of democracy, financial affluence, technological
development, dropping violence statistics and growing social justice were
almost unquestionable elements of any vision about the future. As the
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek once noted, we were all Fukuyamaists
for a decade. The end of the twentieth century apparently made (a consid-
erable part of) humankind intoxicated by the fruits and promises of late
modernity. It seemed that for the first time in history, we were on the
brink of transcending the human condition.
This utopian tone was much in line with the general spirit of modernity.
By modernity, I refer to that long historical period which started sometime
in the Renaissance, and is characterised by a secular, rational, scientific
world-view; a future-oriented, anti-traditionalist approach; the constant
seek for the new; the pursuit of worldly happiness and material wealth;
individualism; the belief in freedom, human agency and progress; the idea
that human beings and human societies can be improved with the help of
rationality and science; and the values of Enlightenment humanism. As
this brief list may also imply, the utopian idea of transcending the present
condition (of our society or humanity in general) is a logical part of the
cultural logic of modernity as such. As the industrial revolution, the French
revolution or the communist revolutions have shown, modernity has a
weak spot for both utopia (that it regards as the natural result of progress)
and the revolutions necessary to take us there. Unfortunately, modernity
likes to imagine one clear path towards its progressive goal, and it has little
patience with those who stand in its way, thus (in spite of its fondness of
democracy and egalitarianism) it has a distinctively dogmatic and totalitar-
ian potential (Foucault 1977; Bauman 1989, 2000). As I will argue
through several socially contextualised film analyses of this book, this dog-
matic aspect of modernity, which has regularly distorted the social imple-
mentation of its own core principles, may have to do with its often
4 G. KALMÁR

unacknowledged eschatological underside: that in spite of all the rational,

enlightened and pragmatic principles, modernity can still be (and is) prac-
ticed as a secular faith-religion.
Today, of course, Fukuyama’s 1990s vision seems as utopian and naïve
(and potentially dangerous) as that of Robespierre or Marx. As Fukuyama
himself also recounts with unparalleled clarity in his 2018 book Identity:
The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, a whole series of
previously unrecognised negative processes came to fruition in the new
century, which brought about a dramatic change of the tide. The terrorist
attacks of 9/11, the ensuing wars in the Middle East and North Africa, the
2008 economic crisis, the subsequent destabilisation of political life, or the
disastrous events of 2016 enlisted in the Preface, have waken us up to the
fact that the historical causes of human suffering, which are responsible for
all the nightmares of history, cannot be erased by simply feeding people
more food, drinks, drugs and internet. To such Eastern European intel-
lectuals as Svetlana Boym (and myself), who experienced the false prom-
ises and eventual downfall of the communist version of the “end of
history” narrative, the fact that history did not have a sublime end-point
(contrary to Hegel, Marx and the early Fukuyama) did not come as much
of a surprise. Instead of Fukuyama’s markedly modern notion of a “coher-
ent development of modern societies” to “liberal democracies and techno-
logically driven capitalism” (Fukuyama 2003, xii), Boym recognised the
utopian wishful thinking underlying the project of modernity, the inevi-
table instability of the modern world, as well as the ways the human thrive
towards progress is regularly compromised by our longing for (the fantasy
of) a home outside (or before) the time of history. A key point that Boym
understood is that this phenomenon of longing (and home-sickness and
nostalgia) is inextricably intertwined with the very idea of progress: in her
view, “the sentiment (of nostalgia) … is at the very core of the modern
condition” (2001, xvi), and “nostalgic manifestations are side-effects of
the teleology of progress” (10).
Reading Boym’s The Future of Nostalgia (2001) alongside with
Fukuyama’s Our Posthuman Future (2003) in the early years of the new
century, one could have the impression that in spite of all the well-­
informed, data-based intellectual power of Fukuyama’s predictions, as well
as the intoxicating possibility of a super-human future, Boym’s analysis of
human beings’ relation to historical time “feels” more right: it is more
sensitive and observant, and it works with a more complex, less head-­
heavy view of the human being. Thus, today we can safely state that after
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Title: En Pénitence chez les Jésuites: Correspondance d'un lycéen

Author: Pierre-Paul Brucker

Release date: July 23, 2022 [eBook #68591]

Language: French

Original publication: France: Pierre Téqui, 1910

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EN

PÉNITENCE CHEZ LES JÉSUITES: CORRESPONDANCE D'UN
LYCÉEN ***
 PAUL KER

En Pénitence chez les Jésuites

CORRESPONDANCE D’UN LYCÉEN

TROISIÈME ÉDITION

PARIS
PIERRE TÉQUI, LIBRAIRE-ÉDITEUR
82, RUE BONAPARTE, 82

1910
Tous droits réservés.
 Ceci n’est pas un roman : c’est une histoire vécue.
Je n’ai pas été élevé sur les genoux de la Compagnie de Jésus.
C’est l’Université qui s’est appliquée la première à dégrossir ma
jeune intelligence et à la former. Je lui sais gré de ses louables
intentions. Mais la vérité m’oblige à dire que, si je vaux quelque
chose, ce n’est pas à elle que je le dois. Je l’ai, bien
qu’involontairement, quittée d’assez bonne heure pour avoir le
temps de faire peau neuve sous une autre influence. Les pages
qu’on va lire marquent les diverses phases de mon évolution.
Elles sont d’un jeune homme qui dit, au jour le jour, ce qu’il a
senti, ce qu’il a vu, et qui le dit sans arrière-pensée. J’aurais pu leur
donner un tour moins juvénile, les corriger : je les aurais gâtées. Je
les livre au public telles que je les ai retrouvées, un peu jaunies déjà
par l’âge, dans des tiroirs longtemps oubliés. A une époque où le
mot d’ordre est de courir sus aux Jésuites, ce témoignage
primesautier d’un lycéen devenu leur élève pourra, sinon guérir les
aveugles volontaires — miracle difficile — du moins ouvrir quelques
yeux qui cherchent sincèrement la lumière.
Il y a de par le monde des égarés intelligents qui, après avoir
reçu chez les Jésuites, quelquefois pour l’amour de Dieu, le pain du
corps et celui de l’âme, le leur ont, depuis, vilainement craché au
visage. J’en appelle à ceux-là : ils ne sont pas sujets à caution.
Qu’ils soient francs, et je les défie de me taxer d’exagération ou de
mensonge.
Néanmoins, on est tellement habitué dans certains milieux à
regarder les Jésuites, qu’on n’a d’ailleurs jamais vus de près,
comme des êtres à part, ténébreux, insaisissables, essentiellement
retors et louches, que je ne me flatte pas outre mesure d’être cru sur
parole. On dira que je suis un jésuite masqué. Il ne me restera
qu’une ressource : c’est de répondre à ces incrédules : « Allez, une
bonne fois, y voir vous-mêmes. »
Il s’en trouvera peut-être qui auront assez de courage et de
loyauté pour faire cet essai, quand les Jésuites seront rentrés chez
eux — ce qui ne peut tarder bien longtemps, s’il est vrai, comme on
le dit volontiers, qu’étant sortis par les portes, ils ont l’habitude de
rentrer par les fenêtres.
En Pénitence chez les Jésuites
 LETTRE 1

A
mon condisciple et ami Louis X., élève de
Rhétorique au lycée de Z.

1er octobre 187…

Mon cher Louis,

Je t’annonce une nouvelle que tu ne voudras pas croire. J’y crois

à peine moi-même… Hélas !
Tu me connais de longue date et tu sais que, si je ne suis pas un
mauvais cœur, sans me vanter, je n’ai jamais été un modèle de
travail, de discipline et de sérieux. Ah, le sérieux ! Voilà un mot qui
m’horripile ! On me le répète le matin, on me le répète le soir, on me
le fait manger à toutes les sauces : j’en étouffe. Que diable ! Je ne
suis pas un bénédictin pour sécher sur des bouquins savants, ni un
chartreux pour moisir en cellule et me nourrir de silence, d’eau claire
et de pénitence. Je vais avoir seize ans ; j’ai dans les veines du sang
qui bout, dans la cervelle quelques idées pas plus sottes que
d’autres, dans le cœur… Ma foi, est-ce qu’on sait, à nos âges, ce
qu’on a dans le cœur ? Tout, par le désir ; en réalité, rien, rien que le
vide, la faim, la soif d’un idéal qui est dans les étoiles, à des milliers
de lieues… Oh ! j’en pleurerais une journée !
Mais tout cela ne t’apprend pas la chose étonnante, stupéfiante.
La voici toute crue. Mon père vient de me déclarer qu’il me retire du
lycée pour me mettre chez les Jésuites.
Tu as bien entendu : CHEZ LES JÉSUITES. En pénitence,
naturellement.
A première vue, ça paraît monstrueux, n’est-ce pas ? A la
seconde, à la troisième, à la vingtième fois, c’est toujours pire. A la
fin, c’est comme dans les romans, tu sais ? — un tel saisissement de
douleur inattendue que, ne pouvant pleurer, on se met à rire, comme
à Charenton.
J’en suis là, mon ami. Je n’ai fait aucune objection à mon père :
ce qu’il veut, je sais qu’il le veut. Ma mère le regarde, me regarde et
ne dit rien : je vois qu’elle attend l’œuvre du temps.
A demain. Plains-moi.

Ton malheureux ami,

Paul.

2. Au même.

2 octobre.

Mon cher Louis,

La nuit porte conseil, dit-on : je ne m’en aperçois guère. J’en ai

passé une horrible. Un cauchemar continu. Sur mon estomac je
sentais les deux larges pieds d’un Jésuite, énorme comme un saint
Christophe, qui avec la hampe pointue de sa lourde croix de
procession me fouillait le cœur. Un autre m’étranglait avec un
immense chapelet, roulé en forme de serpent autour de mon cou.
Un troisième me grillait les pieds, comme au temps de l’Inquisition,
pendant qu’une douzaine d’autres, jeunes et vieux, avec des
grimaces de démon, dansaient autour de mon lit une sarabande
insensée.
Il paraît que j’ai crié au secours : ma mère est venue et, me
trouvant la tête en feu, m’a mis des compresses qui ont peu à peu
calmé la fièvre. Alors j’ai dormi tranquillement jusqu’à dix heures du
matin. Au déjeuner, mon père me dit : « Tu as eu trop d’appétit hier
soir ; le régime des Jésuites te fera du bien : ils mangent peu au
souper. C’est de l’hygiène bien comprise. »
Remarque, mon ami, comme les résolutions arrêtées d’un
homme changent ses opinions. Mon père n’aime pas plus que moi
les Jésuites et, s’il les connaît, c’est par ouï-dire, sans être sûr de
rien. Néanmoins, depuis qu’il a résolu de me livrer à eux, tu vas voir
qu’il leur prêtera toutes les qualités qu’il désire trouver chez eux pour
ma correction. Il entre dans l’aveuglement incurable — et moi, par le
fait, j’entre dans la fatalité…

J’ai été interrompu dans ma chambre. Deux coups discrets à la

porte. C’était ma sœur Jeanne, qui a ton âge, un an de plus que moi.
Elle m’embrassa plus fort que d’habitude, en m’appelant son petit
Paul. Cela me mit en défiance :
« C’est maman qui t’envoie ?
— Non, c’est moi qui viens te consoler.
— Vrai ?
— Vrai. »
Une petite larme perla au coin de ses yeux parfaitement limpides.
Mon cœur fit un bond. Après un silence :
« Tu as gros cœur, dit-elle, de ne pas rentrer au lycée ?
— Oui, répondis-je péniblement.
 — Tu avais là des amis ?
— Plusieurs, un surtout : je lui écrivais, quand tu es entrée.
— Celui-là, je le connais ; il est bon. Mais, les autres, l’étaient-ils
tous ? »
Je la regardai avec quelque surprise : elle ne m’avait jamais
encore fait cette question. Elle la répéta de sa voix la plus douce, et
son œil scrutateur plongeait au fond du mien : il fallut répondre :
« Bons… comme moi », fis-je un peu troublé. « Pourquoi cette
question ?
— Parce que, s’ils avaient été tout à fait bons, notre père n’aurait
pas eu besoin de chercher pour toi un autre milieu. C’est leur faute,
si l’on t’envoie chez les Jésuites.
— Mes amis actuels valent peut-être bien ceux que j’aurai.
— Peut-être est le vrai mot ; car nous n’en savons rien encore, ni
toi ni moi. Tu vas en faire l’expérience, mon petit Paul, dans
quelques jours : si elle réussit, tu seras moins malheureux.
— Et si elle ne réussit pas ?
— Tu reviendras.
— Mais les élèves ne sont pas tout, repris-je. Il y a surtout les
maîtres, que j’ai la tentation d’en voyer promener à tous les…
— Chut ! Les connais-tu ?
— Je les vois d’ici :

Hommes noirs, d’où sortez-vous ?

Nous sortons de dessous terre…

Si je te chantais le reste, tu serais édifiée sur leur compte.

— Mal édifiée, j’imagine. Chanson n’est pas raison. Il faut voir
avant de juger.
— Jeanne, je te trouve aujourd’hui extraordinairement
raisonnable.
 — C’est que je souhaite très vivement, cher petit frère, que tu le
sois toi-même, et que tu prennes du bon côté l’épreuve à laquelle tu
vas être soumis. Dis, le veux-tu, pour faire plaisir à ta grande sœur
qui t’aime bien ? Me promets-tu d’accepter franchement ta situation,
de ne pas donner du chagrin à maman et à moi, et d’être sage chez
les Jésuites ? »
Qu’aurais-tu fait à ma place, mon ami ? Je n’en sais rien. Moi, j’ai
le cœur bête. Je me suis jeté en pleurant dans les bras de ma
grande sœur Jeanne et je lui ai promis tout ce qu’elle a voulu.
A ce propos, je vais te faire une confidence. Vois-tu, moi, avec le
tempérament que j’ai, je ne me marierai jamais. La raison, c’est que,
si j’avais une femme revêche, je la battrais comme plâtre, jusqu’à
extinction ; si j’en avais une comme ma sœur Jeanne, elle
m’enroulerait autour de son petit doigt, et alors, adieu toute dignité !
Or, je tiens à ma dignité.
Il est vrai que j’aime follement ma sœur Jeanne, bien qu’élevée
chez des nonnes par la volonté de ma sainte femme de mère, que
mon père n’a jamais osé contrarier. Elle m’a empêché de faire plus
d’une sottise, depuis que j’en suis capable. Ça vaut un peu de
reconnaissance et je tiendrai la parole donnée : s’ensuivra que
pourra.
Nous partons après-demain pour la jésuitière. J’en ai froid dans
le dos. Tu sauras dans quelques jours mes premières impressions.
Adieu, mon ami ; sois plus heureux que moi.

Paul.

3. Au même.

H., le 7 octobre.
 Mon cher ami,

Eh bien, j’y suis : c’est invraisemblable et pourtant vrai. Mais ce

qui te paraîtra tout à fait drôle, comme à moi, c’est que — je ne sais
comment te dire cela — je ne m’y trouve qu’à moitié mal. J’en suis
furieux : j’espérais autre chose. Ces Jésuites ne sont pas si noirs
que je croyais et je n’en ai pas vu un qui ait des pieds de bouc.
Quant à leurs élèves, dame !… Tu sais que je n’oublierai jamais les
camarades du lycée, et toi, d’abord, tu es hors de pair. Ceux-ci ont
une tournure différente.
Mais commençons par le commencement. Mon nouveau
professeur, entre autres conseils, nous a recommandé hier de ne
jamais torcher nos lettres, quel qu’en soit le destinataire, par respect
pour nous-mêmes et pour notre belle langue française. Je vais
m’appliquer sans me torturer, comme il nous disait encore. Tu vois
que je deviens docile.
Donc, il y a trois jours, mon père conduisit le malheureux mouton
à la boucherie. Une belle boucherie, ma foi, et bien achalandée, à ce
que j’ai vu depuis. Un long frater en redingote noire nous ouvrit, avec
un sourire qui disait clairement : « Encore un de pris au piège ! »
Vaste parloir très gai, sans nul doute pour narguer la tristesse des
rares et courtes entrevues de famille, avec des bustes de grands
hommes et des tableaux d’honneur pour les petits enfants sages…
Mais en voilà un pour la rhétorique ! C’est là-dessus que j’ai à me
faire afficher pour le plaisir de ma sœur ? Tout est prévu : les fiches
blanches sont déjà prêtes dans leurs coulisses en ferblanterie dorée,
qu’ils veulent faire passer pour de l’or.
Arrive le Père Recteur, comme qui dirait le proviseur de l’endroit,
un bel homme, air et tenue graves, rien d’administratif. Quand mon
père me présenta à lui, son regard s’épanouit. Il me prit la main et, la
sentant un peu trembler, il me baisa au front, comme un innocent :
« Soyez le bienvenu, mon enfant, dit-il. Nous tâcherons de faire
de vous, si vous le voulez bien, un élève meilleur encore que vous
ne l’êtes déjà. »
 Rouerie jésuitique, pensai-je. Il sait parfaitement que je suis une
manière de cancre : mon père le lui a écrit et va le répéter devant
moi. C’est en effet ce qui eut lieu.
Quand l’abatage fut fini, le Père Recteur dit simplement :
« Monsieur, le passé est passé ; personne ici ne le reprochera à
votre fils. Il aura la réputation qu’il va se faire par ses actes, et je suis
sûr qu’elle sera bonne : n’est-ce pas, Paul ? »
Ce ton et cette confiance dans ma bonne volonté future
m’entrèrent dans le cœur, malgré moi. Je répondis, sans trop
hésiter :
« Oui, monsieur.
— Dites mon Père », reprit-il en souriant : « c’est le nom qu’on
donne ici aux maîtres et qu’ils tâchent de mériter. »
Je répétai docilement : « Oui, mon Père, » — et je sentis que le
filet m’envahissait.
On me présenta ensuite au Père Préfet (c’est le censeur) : il me
plut moins que l’autre. Celui-ci personnifie le règlement : je m’en
passerais volontiers. Pourtant il fut aimable et nous promena par tout
l’établissement, nous expliquant tous les détails qui pouvaient nous
intéresser, sans le fastidieux boniment auquel je m’attendais.
La boîte n’est vraiment pas vilaine. Il y a de l’air et du jour
partout, même dans les sous-sols, où se trouvent les réfectoires. Les
classes, les études sont spacieuses, les murs peints en couleur
claire. La monotonie des longs corridors est égayée par des statues,
par de jolies gravures historiques, militaires, artistiques, qui en font
de véritables galeries. Dortoirs d’une propreté irréprochable, cirés,
hauts et larges, avec des lavabos et des sommiers perfectionnés.
Mais pas d’alcôves : les lits, à distance convenable, sont en vue les
uns des autres. Le Père Préfet nous dit : « C’est pour apprendre aux
enfants à se respecter, et l’air circule plus librement. » J’aurais
préféré un coin fermé, pour pouvoir pleurer à mon aise » Mais il faut
bien se plier. D’ailleurs, depuis trois jours que je fais comme tout le
monde, l’habitude vient.
 Je sens qu’elle viendra pour bien d’autres choses, dont je n’avais
pas idée jusqu’à présent. C’est comme si j’avais changé de pays. A
plus tard le reste. Je te serre la main.
Ton ami toujours,

Paul.

4. Au même.

9 octobre.

Mon cher Louis,

Ta lettre de condoléance, qui m’a tortillé le cœur, me prouve que

je n’ai pas encore le pied aussi marin que je croyais. Oui, c’est l’exil ;
oui, c’est une vie nouvelle à apprendre ; oui, c’est rude par moments.
Mais déjà je n’ose plus trop parler de mon malheur. Pourquoi ?
Écoute la suite de mes débuts.
Quand on m’eut indiqué ma place à l’étude et au dortoir, mon
père me dit que j’aurais mauvaise grâce à ne pas être satisfait, qu’il
l’était, lui, pleinement, et qu’il comptait sur moi. Après quoi, il
m’embrassa et partit. La dernière amarre était coupée ; je revins du
parloir le cœur serré à m’étouffer, et je lus devant moi, en l’air, écrite
avec des lettres de feu, la terrible inscription du Dante :

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’ entrate [1] !

[1] Laissez toute espérance, vous qui entrez !

La portion d’enfer où l’on me conduisit d’abord, ce fut la cour de

récréation. Une quinzaine d’élèves déjà rentrés y causaient entre
eux, groupés autour d’un surveillant en soutane. J’eus un frisson, en
me rappelant comment j’avais été accueilli, lors de mon entrée au
lycée, par mes camarades de cinquième : la connaissance s’était
faite à coups de poing et à coups de pied, aussi généreusement
donnés que vivement rendus, et je ne fus sauvé d’une déconfiture
complète que par l’intervention compatissante d’un vieux camarade
dont tu sais le nom. Je t’en reste reconnaissant. Ici, qu’allait-il
m’advenir, à moi lycéen ?
Le surveillant s’avança :
« Paul Ker, élève de rhétorique », lui dit le Père Préfet, qui
m’accompagnait. « Ayez soin de lui ; ce sera un de vos bons
élèves. »
Le surveillant me tendit la main et me mena au groupe :
« Un nouveau rhétoricien », dit-il. « Qui se charge de le piloter ?
— Moi, moi », répondirent deux des plus jeunes, qui me prirent
chacun sous un bras, sans façons. « Allons faire un tour de
promenade. Tu sais, nous en sommes aussi, de la rhéto : une classe
de bons enfants, tu vas voir, et un chic professeur. Tu ne t’ennuieras
pas. »
J’étais ahuri de cet accueil inattendu, mais me laissai aller.
« D’où viens-tu ? » me dit l’un.
— De tel endroit.
— Un collège de prêtres ?
— Non, de laïques.
— Alors, tu seras mieux ici.
— Es-tu fort ? » demanda l’autre.
— Ça dépend. »
Et nous voilà partis à causer, à tort et à travers, de nos études,
de nos espérances, de nos craintes pour l’avenir, comme si nous
nous étions toujours connus. De temps à autre, l’un des deux se
détachait pour aller serrer la main d’un nouvel arrivant, qu’il amenait
ensuite avec lui. En moins d’une heure, j’avais fait vingt-cinq
connaissances et j’étais de la famille.
 J’ai entendu parler quelquefois de l’esprit de corps qui règne
chez les Jésuites : si leurs élèves l’entendent de cette façon-là, je ne
m’en plaindrai point. Tu conviendras qu’elle est plus encourageante
que celle de mes anciens camarades de cinquième.
Le soir de la rentrée, je soupai bien, je ne dormis pas mal, et
comme on se leva tard, ce premier jour scolaire, et que le soleil
entrait à flots joyeux par les grandes fenêtres, je faillis oublier que
j’étais en prison.
Dans la matinée, messe du Saint-Esprit et sermon. J’avais un
peu désappris mes prières et me suis trouvé dépaysé dans un milieu
qui me parut assez dévot, trop dévot. Il y a là un point noir, qui
m’inquiète : les Jésuites respecteront-ils ma liberté de conscience ?
Ce soir-là et le lendemain matin, compositions de passage. J’ai
trimé comme un nègre. Tu comprends que mon honneur est engagé
à ce que, n’ayant pas été tout à fait dernier de classe au lycée, je ne
le sois pas ici. J’ai peur que les études ne soient fortes. Si je dois
être remercié, je ne voudrais pas l’être pour crime de bêtise.
Adieu, Louis.

Ton ami,

Paul.

5. Au même.

10 octobre.

Mon cher Louis,

Je suis définitivement reçu en rhétorique ; c’est un gros pavé de

moins sur le cœur. J’avais une peur bleue de descendre en
humanités : outre l’humiliation, cette dégringolade eût amené un
changement de division et la perte de mes premiers camarades, qui,
décidément, sont de braves garçons.
Ils ne m’ont pas trompé en me disant que j’aurais un chic
professeur. Chic, il l’est, d’abord, parce qu’il a bien voulu me garder
dans sa classe. Il faut que je te raconte, puisque je veux te raconter
tout, comment la chose s’est faite.
Il y a ici, et, paraît-il, dans tous les collèges des Jésuites, un
usage qui n’a rien de correspondant au lycée et qui suffirait à mettre
un abîme entre mes anciens professeurs et ceux-ci. Chaque jour,
pendant l’étude de onze heures à midi, le corridor qui longe les
salles d’étude se transforme en salle des pas-perdus. Les
professeurs viennent frapper à la porte et, par l’entremise de l’élève
portier, gros personnage aimable et discret, appellent tour à tour
leurs élèves, surtout les plus faibles, et, tout en arpentant avec eux
le parquet, revoient les copies, font rendre compte des fautes,
donnent des conseils appropriés à chacun, quelquefois un reproche
qui, fulminé en pleine classe, aurait été trop mortifiant, et puis les
renvoient à leur travail, joyeux ou contrits, toujours encouragés à
mieux faire.
Le lendemain de nos compositions de passage, assis à mon
pupitre, j’observais depuis quelque temps ce va-et-vient, et
cherchais à en lire la signification sur la physionomie diversement
émue de ceux qui rentraient, quand on vint aussi m’appeler. Mon
professeur était là, qui me demanda tout d’abord si je ne m’ennuyais
pas trop, puis si j’étais un travailleur. Comme, à cette dernière
question, je répondais d’un ton que ma conscience rendait assez
mal assuré, il me dit :
« Je ne sais si, dans vos deux compositions de passage, vous
avez donné tout ce que vous pouviez. La composition française
témoigne d’une certaine facilité : les deux autres sont faibles. »
Je me crus perdu ; il le vit dans mes yeux, qui durent se troubler.
Son regard se fixa sur moi durant quelques secondes, comme pour
sonder mes dispositions ; puis il me demanda :
« Seriez-vous content de rester en rhétorique ? »