Academic literature on the topic 'Cinéma – France – 1960-1990'

Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)The Screen would light up. They would feel a thrill of satisfaction. But the colours had faded with age, the picture wobbled on the screen, the women were of another age; they would come out they would be sad. It was not the film they had dreamt of. It was not the total film each of them had inside himself, the perfect film they could have enjoyed forever and ever. The film they would have liked to make. Or, more secretly, no doubt, the film they would have liked to live. (Perec 57) Over the years that I have watched and thought about Jean-Luc Godard’s films I have been struck by the idea of him as an artist who works with the moving image and perhaps just as importantly the idea of cinema as an irresolvable series of problems. Most obviously this ‘problematic condition’ of Godard’s practice is evidenced in the series of crises and renunciations that pepper the historical trace of his work. A trace that is often characterised thus: criticism, the Nouvelle Vague, May 1968, the Dziga Vertov group, the adoption of video, the return to narrative form, etc. etc. Of all these events it is the rejection of both the dominant cinematic narrative form and its attendant models of production that so clearly indicated the depth and intensity of Godard’s doubt in the artistic viability of the institution of cinema. Historically and ideologically congruent with the events of May 1968, this turning away from tradition was foreshadowed by the closing titles of his 1967 opus Week End: fin de cinema (the end of cinema). Godard’s relentless application to the task of engaging a more discursive and politically informed mode of operation had implications not only for the films that were made in the wake of his disavowal of cinema but also for those that preceded it. In writing this paper it was my initial intention to selectively consider the vast oeuvre of the filmmaker as a type of conceptual project that has in some way been defined by the condition of doubt. While to certain degree I have followed this remit, I have found it necessary to focus on a small number of historically correspondent filmic instances to make my point. The sheer size and complexity of Godard’s output would effectively doom any other approach to deal in generalities. To this end I am interested in the ways that these films have embodied doubt as both an aesthetic and philosophical position. There is an enduring sense of contentiousness that surrounds both the work and perceived motives of the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard that has never come at the cost of discourse. Through a period of activity that now stretches into its sixth decade Godard has shaped an oeuvre that is as stylistically diverse as it is theoretically challenging. This span of practice is noteworthy not only for its sheer length but for its enduring ability to polarise both audiences and critical opinion. Indeed these opposing critical positions are so well inscribed in our historical understanding of Godard’s practice that they function as a type of secondary narrative. It is a narrative that the artist himself has been more than happy to cultivate and at times even engage. One hardly needs to be reminded that Godard came to making films as a critic. He asserted in the pages of his former employer Cahiers du Cinema in 1962 that “As a critic, I thought of myself as a filmmaker. Today I still think of myself as a critic, and in a sense I am, more than ever before. Instead of writing criticism, I make a film, but the critical dimension is subsumed” (59). If Godard did at this point in time believe that the criticality of practice as a filmmaker was “subsumed”, the ensuing years would see a more overt sense of criticality emerge in his work. By 1968 he was to largely reject both traditional cinematic form and production models in a concerted effort to explore the possibilities of a revolutionary cinema. In the same interview the director went on to extol the virtues of the cine-literacy that to a large part defined the loose alignment of Nouvelle Vague directors (Chabrol, Godard, Rohmer, Rivette, Truffaut) referred to as the Cahiers group claiming that “We were the first directors to know that Griffiths exists” (Godard 60). It is a statement that is as persuasive as it is dramatic, foregrounding the hitherto obscured history of cinema while positioning the group firmly within its master narrative. However, given the benefit of hindsight one realises that perhaps the filmmaker’s motives were not as simple as historical posturing. For Godard what is at stake is not just the history of cinema but cinema itself. When he states that “We were thinking cinema and at a certain moment we felt the need to extend that thought” one is struck by how far and for how long he has continued to think about and through cinema. In spite of the hours of strict ideological orthodoxy that accompanied his most politically informed works of the late 1960s and early 1970s or the sustained sense of wilful obtuseness that permeates his most “difficult” work, there is a sense of commitment to extending “that thought” that is without peer. The name “Godard”, in the words of the late critic Serge Daney, “designates an auteur but it is also synonymous with a tenacious passion for that region of the world of images we call the cinema” (Daney 68). It is a passion that is both the crux of his practice as an artist and the source of a restless experimentation and interrogation of the moving image. For Godard the passion of cinema is one that verges on religiosity. This carries with it all the philosophical and spiritual implications that the term implies. Cinema functions here as a system of signs that at once allows us to make sense of and live in the world. But this is a faith for Godard that is nothing if not tested. From the radical formal experimentation of his first feature film À Bout de soufflé (Breathless) onwards Godard has sought to place the idea of cinema in doubt. In this sense doubt becomes a type of critical engine that at once informs the shape of individual works and animates the constantly shifting positions the artist has occupied. Serge Daney's characterisation of the Nouvelle Vague as possessed of a “lucidity tinged with nostalgia” (70) is especially pertinent in understanding the way in which doubt came to animate Godard’s practice across the 1960s and beyond. Daney’s contention that the movement was both essentially nostalgic and saturated with an acute awareness that the past could not be recreated, casts the cinema itself as type of irresolvable proposition. Across the dazzling arc of films (15 features in 8 years) that Godard produced prior to his renunciation of narrative cinematic form in 1967, one can trace an unravelling of faith. During this period we can consider Godard's work and its increasingly complex engagement with the political as being predicated by the condition of doubt. The idea of the cinema as an industrial and social force increasingly permeates this work. For Godard the cinema becomes a site of questioning and ultimately reinvention. In his 1963 short film Le Grand Escroc (The Great Rogue) a character asserts that “cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world”. Indeed it is this sense of the paradoxical that shadows much of his work. The binary of beauty and fraud, like that of faith and doubt, calls forth a questioning of the cinema that stands to this day. It is of no small consequence that so many of Godard’s 1960s works contain scenes of people watching films within the confines of a movie theatre. For Godard and his Nouvelle Vague peers the sale de cinema was both the hallowed site of cinematic reception and the terrain of the everyday. It is perhaps not surprising then he chooses the movie theatre as a site to play out some of his most profound engagements with the cinema. Considered in relation to each other these scenes of cinematic viewing trace a narrative in which an undeniable affection for the cinema is undercut by both a sense of loss and doubt. Perhaps the most famous of Godard’s ‘viewing’ scenes is from the film Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live). Essentially a tale of existential trauma, the film follows the downward spiral of a young woman Nana (played by Anna Karina) into prostitution and then death at the hands of ruthless pimps. Championed (with qualifications) by Susan Sontag as a “perfect film” (207), it garnered just as many detractors, including famously the director Roberto Rosellini, for what was perceived to be its nihilistic content and overly stylised form. Seeking refuge in a cinema after being cast out from her apartment for non payment of rent the increasingly desperate Nana is shown engrossed in the starkly silent images of Carl Dreyer’s 1928 film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc). Godard cuts from the action of his film to quote at length from Dreyer’s classic, returning from the mute intensity of Maria Faloconetti’s portrayal of the condemned Joan of Arc to Karina’s enraptured face. As Falconetti’s tears swell and fall so do Karina’s, the emotional rawness of the performance on the screen mirrored and internalised by the doomed character of Nana. Nana’s identification with that of the screen heroine is at once total and immaculate as her own brutal death at the hands of men is foretold. There is an ominous silence to this sequence that serves not only to foreground the sheer visual intensity of what is being shown but also to separate it from the world outside this purely cinematic space. However, if we are to read this scene as a testament to the power of the cinematic we must also admit to the doubt that resides within it. Godard’s act of separation invites us to consider the scene not only as a meditation on the emotional and existential state of the character of Nana but also on the foreshortened possibilities of the cinema itself. As Godard’s shots mirror those of Dreyer we are presented with a consummate portrait of irrevocable loss. This is a complex system of imagery that places Dreyer’s faith against Godard’s doubt without care for the possibility of resolution. Of all Godard’s 1960s films that feature cinema spectatorship the sequence belonging to Masculin Féminin (Masculine Feminine) from 1966 is perhaps the most confounding and certainly the most digressive. A series of events largely driven by a single character’s inability or unwillingness to surrender to the projected image serve to frustrate, fracture and complexify the cinema-viewing experience. It is however, a viewing experience that articulates the depth of Godard’s doubt in the viability of the cinematic form. The sequence, like much of the film itself, centres on the trials of the character Paul played by Jean-Pierre Léaud. Locked in a struggle against the pop-cultural currents of the day and the attendant culture of consumption and appearances, Paul is positioned within the film as a somewhat conflicted and ultimately doomed romantic. His relationship with Madeleine played by real life yé-yé singer Chantal Goya is a source of constant anxiety. The world that he inhabits, however marginally, of nightclubs, pop records and publicity seems philosophically at odds with the classical music and literature that he avidly devours. If the cinema-viewing scene of Vivre Sa Vie is defined by the enraptured intensity of Anna Karina’s gaze, the corresponding scene in Masculin Féminin stands, at least initially, as the very model of distracted spectatorship. As the film in the theatre starts, Paul who has been squeezed out of his seat next to Madeleine by her jealous girlfriend, declares that he needs to go to the toilet. On entering the bathroom he is confronted by the sight of a pair of men locked in a passionate kiss. It is a strange and disarming turn of events that prompts his hastily composed graffiti response: down with the republic of cowards. For theorist Nicole Brenez the appearance of these male lovers “is practically a fantasmatic image evoked by the amorous situation that Paul is experiencing” (Brenez 174). This quasi-spectral appearance of embracing lovers and grafitti writing is echoed in the following sequence where Paul once again leaves the theatre, this time to fervently inform the largely indifferent theatre projectionist about the correct projection ratio of the film being shown. On his graffiti strewn journey back inside Paul encounters an embracing man and woman nestled in an outer corner of the theatre building. Silent and motionless the presence of this intertwined couple is at once unsettling and prescient providing “a background real for what is being projected inside on the screen” (Brenez 174). On returning to the theatre Paul asks Madeleine to fill him in on what he has missed to which she replies, “It is about a man and woman in a foreign city who…”. Shot in Stockholm to appease the Swedish co-producers that stipulated that part of the production be made in Sweden, the film within a film occupies a fine line between restrained formal artfulness and pornographic violence. What could have been a creatively stifling demand on the part of his financial backers was inverted by Godard to become a complex exploration of power relations played out through an unsettling sexual encounter. When questioned on set by a Swedish television reporter what the film was about the filmmaker curtly replied, “The film has a lot to do with sex and the Swedish are known for that” (Masculin Féminin). The film possesses a barely concealed undertow of violence. A drama of resistance and submission is played out within the confines of a starkly decorated apartment. The apartment itself is a zone in which language ceases to operate or at the least is reduced to its barest components. The man’s imploring grunts are met with the woman’s repeated reply of “no”. What seemingly begins as a homage to the contemporaneous work of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman quickly slides into a chronicle of coercion. As the final scene of seduction/debasement is played out on the screen the camera pulls away to reveal the captivated gazes of Madeleine and her friends. It finally rests on Paul who then shuts his eyes, unable to bear what is being shown on the screen. It is a moment of refusal that marks a turning away not only from this projected image but from cinema itself. A point made all the clearer by Paul’s voiceover that accompanies the scene: We went to the movies often. The screen would light up and we would feel a thrill. But Madeleine and I were usually disappointed. The images were dated and jumpy. Marilyn Monroe had aged badly. We felt sad. It wasn't the movie of our dreams. It wasn't that total film we carried inside ourselves. That film we would have liked to make. Or, more secretly, no doubt the film we wanted to live. (Masculin Féminin) There was a dogged relentlessness to Godard’s interrogation of the cinema through the very space of its display. 1963’s Le Mépris (Contempt) swapped the public movie theatre for the private screening room; a theatrette emblazoned with the words Il cinema é un’invenzione senza avvenire. The phrase, presented in a style that recalled Soviet revolutionary graphics, is an Italian translation of Louis Lumiere’s 1895 appraisal of his new creation: “The cinema is an invention without a future.” The words have an almost physical presence in the space providing a fatalistic backdrop to the ensuing scene of conflict and commerce. As an exercise in self reflexivity it at once serves to remind us that even at its inception the cinema was cast in doubt. In Le Mépris the pleasures of spectatorship are played against the commercial demands of the cinema as industry. Following a screening of rushes for a troubled production of Homer’s Odyssey a tempestuous exchange ensues between a hot-headed producer (Jeremy Prokosch played by Jack Palance) and a calmly philosophical director (Fritz Lang as himself). It is a scene that attests to Godard’s view of the cinema as an art form that is creatively compromised by its own modes of production. In a film that plays the disintegration of a relationship against the production of a movie and that features a cast of Germans, Italians and French it is of no small consequence that the movie producer is played by an American. An American who, when faced with a creative impasse, utters the phrase “when I hear the word culture I bring out my checkbook”. It is one of Godard’s most acerbic and doubt filled sequences pitting as he does the implied genius of Lang against the tantrum throwing demands of the rapacious movie producer. We are presented with a model of industrial relations that is both creatively stifling and practically unworkable. Certainly it was no coincidence that Le Mépris had the biggest budget ($1 million) that Godard has ever worked with. In Godard’s 1965 film Une Femme Mariée (A Married Woman), he would once again use the movie theatre as a location. The film, which dealt with the philosophical implications of an adulterous affair, is also notable for its examination of the Holocaust and that defining event’s relationship to personal and collective memory. Biographer Richard Brody has observed that, “Godard introduced the Auschwitz trial into The Married Woman (sic) as a way of inserting his view of another sort of forgetting that he suggested had taken hold of France—the conjoined failures of historical and personal memory that resulted from the world of mass media and the ideology of gratification” (Brody 196-7). Whatever the causes, there is a pervading sense of amnesia that surrounds the Holocaust in the film. In one exchange the character of Charlotte, the married woman in question, momentarily confuses Auschwitz with thalidomide going on to later exclaim that “the past isn’t fun”. But like the barely repressed memories of her past indiscretions, the Holocaust returns at the most unexpected juncture in the film. In what starts out as Godard’s most overt reference to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, Charlotte and her lover secretly meet under the cover of darkness in a movie theatre. Each arriving separately and kitted out in dark sunglasses, there is breezy energy to this clandestine rendezvous highly reminiscent of the work of the great director. It is a stylistic point that is underscored in the film by the inclusion of a full-frame shot of Hitchcock’s portrait in the theatre’s foyer. However, as the lovers embrace the curtain rises on Alain Resnais’s 1955 documentary Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog). The screen is filled with images of barbed wire as the voice of narrator Jean Cayrol informs the audience that “even a vacation village with a fair and a steeple can lead very simply to a concentration camp.” It is an incredibly shocking moment, in which the repressed returns to confirm that while memory “isn’t fun”, it is indeed necessary. An uncanny sense of recognition pervades the scene as the two lovers are faced with the horrendous evidence of a past that refuses to stay subsumed. The scene is all the more powerful for the seemingly casual manner it is relayed. There is no suspenseful unveiling or affected gauging of the viewers’ reactions. What is simply is. In this moment of recognition the Hitchcockian mood of the anticipation of an illicit rendezvous is supplanted by a numbness as swift as it is complete. Needless to say the couple make a swift retreat from the now forever compromised space of the theatre. Indeed this scene is one of the most complex and historically layered of any that Godard had produced up to this point in his career. By making overt reference to Hitchcock he intimates that the cinema itself is deeply implicated in this perceived crisis of memory. What begins as a homage to the work of one of the most valorised influences of the Nouvelle Vague ends as a doubt filled meditation on the shortcomings of a system of representation. The question stands: how do we remember through the cinema? In this regard the scene signposts a line of investigation that would become a defining obsession of Godard’s expansive Histoire(s) du cinéma, a project that was to occupy him throughout the 1990s. Across four chapters and four and half hours Histoire(s) du cinéma examines the inextricable relationship between the history of the twentieth century and the cinema. Comprised almost completely of filmic quotations, images and text, the work employs a video-based visual language that unremittingly layers image upon image to dissolve and realign the past. In the words of theorist Junji Hori “Godard's historiography in Histoire(s) du cinéma is based principally on the concept of montage in his idiosyncratic sense of the term” (336). In identifying montage as the key strategy in Histoire(s) du cinéma Hori implicates the cinema itself as central to both Godard’s process of retelling history and remembering it. However, it is a process of remembering that is essentially compromised. Just as the relationship of the cinema to the Holocaust is bought into question in Une Femme Mariée, so too it becomes a central concern of Histoire(s) du cinéma. It is Godard’s assertion “that the cinema failed to honour its ethical commitment to presenting the unthinkable barbarity of the Nazi extermination camps” (Temple 332). This was a failure that for Godard moved beyond the realm of doubt to represent “nothing less than the end of cinema” (Brody 512). In October 1976 the New Yorker magazine published a profile of Jean Luc Godard by Penelope Gilliatt a writer who shared the post of film critic at the magazine with Pauline Kael. The article was based on an interview that took place at Godard’s production studio in Grenoble Switzerland. It was notable for two things: Namely, the most succinct statement that Godard has made regarding the enduring sense of criticality that pervades his work: “A good film is a matter of questions properly put.” (74) And secondly, surely the shortest sentence ever written about the filmmaker: “Doubt stands.” (77)ReferencesÀ Bout de soufflé. Dir. Jean Luc Godard. 1960. DVD. Criterion, 2007. Brenez, Nicole. “The Forms of the Question.” For Ever Godard. Eds. Michael Temple, James S. Williams, and Michael Witt. London: Black Dog, 2004. Brody, Richard. Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard. New York: Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt & Co., 2008. Daney, Serge. “The Godard Paradox.” For Ever Godard. Eds. Michael Temple, James S. Williams, and Michael Witt. London: Black Dog, 2004. Gilliat, Penelope. “The Urgent Whisper.” Jean-Luc Godard Interviews. Ed. David Sterritt. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998. Godard, Jean-Luc. “Jean-Luc Godard: 'From Critic to Film-Maker': Godard in Interview (extracts). ('Entretien', Cahiers du Cinema 138, December 1962).” Cahiers du Cinéma: 1960-1968 New Wave, New Cinema, Reevaluating Hollywood. Ed. Jim Hillier. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986. Histoires du Cinema. Dir. and writ. Jean Luc Godard. 1988-98. DVD, Artificial Eye, 2008. Hori, Junji. “Godard’s Two Histiographies.” For Ever Godard. Eds. Michael Temple, James S. Williams, and Michael Witt. London: Black Dog, 2004. Le Grand Escroc. Dir. Jean Luc Godard. Perf. Jean Seberg. Film. Ulysse Productions, 1963. Le Mépris. Dir. Jean Luc Godard. Perf. Jack Palance, Fritz Lang. 1964. DVD. Criterion, 2002. La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc. Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer. Film. Janus films, 1928. MacCabe, Colin. Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at 70. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. Masculin Féminin. Dir. and writ. Jean Luc Godard. Perf. Jean-Pierre Léaud. 1966. DVD. Criterion, 2005. Nuit et Brouillard. Dir Alain Resnais. Film. Janus Films, 1958. Perec, Georges. Things: A Story of the Sixties. Trans. David Bellos. London: Collins Harvill, 1990. (Originally published 1965.) Sontag, Susan. “Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie.” Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Picador, 2001. Temple, Michael, James S. Williams, and Michael Witt, eds. For Ever Godard. London: Black Dog, 2004. Une Femme Mariée. Dir. and writ. Jean Luc Godard. Perf. Macha Meril. 1964. DVD. Eureka, 2009. Vivre Sa Vie. Dir. and writ. Jean Luc Godard. Perf. Anna Karina. 1962. DVD. Criterion, 2005. Week End, Dir. and writ. Jean Luc Godard. 1967. DVD. Distinction Series, 2005.

This variable describes what kind of concept of culture underlies the cultural coverage at a certain point of time or across time. The variable dissects the concept of culture into cultural forms that are being journalistically covered. It presupposes that each article predominantly focuses on one cultural genre or discipline, such as literature, music, or film, which is the case in most articles in the cultural beat that are written according to cultural journalists’ areas of specialization. By identifying the cultural forms covered, the variable delivers an answer to the question of what kind of culture has been covered, or what kind of culture has been represented. Forms of culture are sometimes also called artistic or cultural disciplines (Jaakkola, 2015) or cultural genres (Purhonen et al., 2019), and cultural classification (Janssen et al., 2011) or cultural hierarchy (Schmutz, 2009). The level of detail varies from study to study, according to the need of knowledge, with some scholars tracing forms of subculture (Schmutz et al., 2010), while others just identify the overall development of major cultural forms (Purhonen et al., 2019; Jaakkola, 2015a).
 The concepts of culture can roughly be defined as being dominated by high cultural, popular cultural, or everyday cultural forms (Kristensen, 2019). While most culture sections in newspapers are dominated by high culture, and the question is rather about which disciplines, in the operationalization it is not always easy to draw lines between high and popular forms in the postmodern cultural landscape where boundaries are being blurred. Nevertheless, the major forms of culture in the journalistic operationalization of culture are literature, classical music, theatre, and fine arts. As certain forms of culture – such as classical music and opera – are focused on classical high culture, and other forms – such as popular music and comics – represent popular forms, distribution of coverage according to cultural forms may indicate changes in the cultural concept.
 Field of application/theoretical foundation
 The question of the concept of culture is a standard question in content analyses on arts and cultural journalism in daily newspapers and cultural magazines, posed by a number of studies conducted in different geographical areas and often with a comparative intent (e.g., Szántó et al., 2004; Janssen, 1999; Reus & Harden, 2005; Janssen et al., 2008; Larsen, 2008; Kõnno et al., 2012; Jaakkola, 2015a, 2015b; Verboord & Janssen, 2015; Purhonen et al., 2019; Widholm et al., 2019). The essence of culture has been theorized in cultural studies, predominantly by Raymond Williams (e.g., 2011), and sociologists of art (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952). In studying journalistic coverage of arts and culture, the concept of culture reveals the anatomy of coverage and whether the content is targeting a broader audience (inclusive concept of culture) or a narrow audience (exclusive or elitist concept of culture). A prevalent motivation to study the ontological dimension of cultural coverage is also to trace cultural change, which means that the concept of culture is longitudinally studied (Purhonen et al., 2019).
 References/combination with other methods of data collection
 Concept of culture often occurs as a variable to trace cultural change. The variable is typically coupled with other variables, mainly with representational means, i.e., the journalistic genre (Jaakkola, 2015), event type (Stegert, 1998), or author gender (Schmutz, 2009; Jaakkola, 2015b). Quantitative content analyses may also be complemented with qualitative analyses (Purhonen et al., 2019).
 Sample operationalization
 Cultural forms are separated according to the production structure (journalists and reviewers specializing in one cultural form typically indicate an increase of coverage for that cultural form). At a general level, the concept of culture can be divided into the following cultural forms: literature, music – which is, according to the newsroom specialization typically roughly categorized into classical and popular music – visual arts, theatre, dance, film, design, architecture and built environment, media, comics, cultural politics, cultural history, arts education, and other. Subcategories can be separated according to the interest and level of knowledge. The variable needs to be sensitive towards local features in journalism and culture.
 
 Example study
 Jaakkola (2015b)
 
 Information about Jaakkola, 2015
 Author: Maarit Jaakkola
 Research question/research interest: Examination of the cultural concept across time in culture sections of daily newspapers
 Object of analysis: Articles/text items on culture pages of five major daily newspapers in Finland 1978–2008 (Aamulehti, Helsingin Sanomat, Kaleva, Savon Sanomat, Turun Sanomat)
 Timeframe of analysis: 1978–2008, consecutive sample of weeks 7 and 42 in five year intervals (1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008)
 
 Info about variable
 Variable name/definition: Concept of culture
 Unit of analysis: Article/text item
 Values: 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cultural form
 
 
 Description
 
 
 
 
 1. Fiction literature
 
 
 Fiction books: fictional genres such as poetry, literary novels, thrillers, detective novels, children’s literature, etc.
 
 
 
 
 2. Non-fiction literature
 
 
 
 Non-fiction books: non-fictional genres such as textbooks, memoirs, encyclopedias, etc.
 
 
 
 
 3. Classical music
 
 
 Music of more high-cultural character, such as symphonic music, chamber music, opera, etc.
 
 
 
 
 4. Popular music
 
 
 Music of more popular character, such as pop, rock, hip-hop, folk music, etc.
 
 
 
 
 5. Visual arts
 
 
 Fine arts: painting, drawing, graphical art, sculpture, media art, photography, etc.
 
 
 
 
 6. Theatre
 
 
 Scene art, including musicals (if not treated as music, i.e. in coverage of concerts and albums)
 
 
 
 
 7. Dance
 
 
 Scene art, including ballet (if not treated as music, .e. in coverage of concerts and albums)
 
 
 
 
 8. Film
 
 
 Cinema: fiction, documentary, experimental film, etc.
 
 
 
 
 9. Design
 
 
 Design of artefacts, jewelry, fashion, interiors, graphics, etc.
 
 
 
 
 10. Architecture
 
 
 Design, aesthetics, and planning of built environment
 
 
 
 
 11. Media
 
 
 Television, journalism, Internet, games, etc.
 
 
 
 
 12. Comics
 
 
 Illustrated periodicals
 
 
 
 
 13. Cultural politics
 
 
 Policies, politics, and administration concerning arts and culture in general
 
 
 
 
 14. Cultural history
 
 
 Historical issues and phenomena
 
 
 
 
 15. Education
 
 
 Educational issues concerning different cultural disciplines
 
 
 
 
 16. Other
 
 
 Miscellaneous minor categories, e.g., lifestyle issues (celebrity, gossip, everyday cultural issues), and larger categories developed from within the material can be separated into values of their own
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Scale: nominal
 Intercoder reliability: Cohen's kappa > 0.76 (two coders)
 
 References
 Jaakkola, M. (2015a). The contested autonomy of arts and journalism: Change and continuity in the dual professionalism of cultural journalism. Tampere: Tampere University Press.
 Jaakkola, M. (2015b). Outsourcing views, developing news: Changes of art criticism in Finnish dailies, 1978–2008. Journalism Studies, 16(3), 383–402.
 Janssen, S. (1999). Art journalism and cultural change: The coverage of the arts in Dutch newspapers 1965–1990. Poetics 26(5–6), 329–348.
 Janssen, S., Kuipers, G., & Verboord, M. (2008). Cultural globalization and arts journalism: The international orientation of arts and culture coverage in Dutch, French, German, and U.S. newspapers, 1955 to 2005. American Sociological Review, 73(5), 719–740.
 Janssen, S., Verboord, M., & Kuipers, G. (2011). Comparing cultural classification: High and popular arts in European and U.S. elite newspapers. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 63(51), 139–168.
 Kõnno, A., Aljas, A., Lõhmus, M., & Kõuts, R. (2012). The centrality of culture in the 20th century Estonian press: A longitudinal study in comparison with Finland and Russia. Nordicom Review, 33(2), 103–117.
 Kristensen, N. N. (2019). Arts, culture and entertainment coverage. In T. P. Vos & F. Hanusch (Eds.), The international encyclopedia of journalism studies. Wiley-Blackwell.
 Kroeber, A. L., & Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture: A critical review of concepts and definitions. Meridian Books.
 Larsen, L. O. (2008). Forskyvninger. Kulturdekningen i norske dagsaviser 1964–2005 [Displacements: Cultural coverage in Norwegian dailies 1964–2005]. In K. Knapskog & L.O. Larsen (Eds.), Kulturjournalistikk: pressen og den kulturelle offentligheten (pp. 283–329). Scandinavian Academic Press.
 Purhonen, S., Heikkilä, R., Karademir Hazir, I., Lauronen, T., Rodríguez, C. F., & Gronow, J. (2019). Enter culture, exit arts? The transformation of cultural hierarchies in European newspaper culture sections, 1960–2010. Routledge.
 Reus, G., & Harden, L. (2005). Politische ”Kultur”: Eine Längsschnittanalyse des Zeitungsfeuilletons von 1983 bis 2003 [Political ‘culture’: A longitudinal analysis of culture pages, 1983–2003]. Publizistik, 50(2), 153–172.
 Schmutz, V. (2009). Social and symbolic boundaries in newspaper coverage of music, 1955–2005: Gender and genre in the US, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Poetics, 37(4), 298–314. 
 Schmutz, V., van Venrooij, A., Janssen, S., & Verboord, M. (2010). Change and continuity in newspaper coverage of popular music since 1955: Evidence from the United States, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Popular Music and Society, 33(4), 505–515.
 Stegert, G. (1998). Feuilleton für alle: Strategien im Kulturjournalismus der Presse [Feuilleton for all: Strategies in cultural journalism of the daily press]. Max Niemeyer Verlag.
 Szántó, A., Levy, D. S., & Tyndall, A. (Eds.). (2004). Reporting the arts II: News coverage of arts and culture in America. National Arts Journalism Program (NAJP).
 Verboord, M., & Janssen, J. (2015). Arts journalism and its packaging in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, 1955–2005. Journalism Practice, 9(6), 829–852.
 Widholm, A., Riegert, K., & Roosvall, A. (2019). Abundance or crisis? Transformations in the media ecology of Swedish cultural journalism over four decades. Journalism. Advance online publication August, 6. Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919866077
 Williams, R. (2011). Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. Routledge. (Original work published 1976).

Cette thèse de science politique se propose d'étudier la représentation de la police dans le cinéma, en fonction de l'importance que présente en cette matière l'imbrication de l'imaginaire et du réel. Il s'agit de voir comment une institution politique fondamentale est représentée à travers le média cinéma, dans la France contemporaine. D'abord, les enjeux de cette production, particulièrement importante d'un point de vue quantitatif, sont analysés du point de vue des fabricants de films policiers et de leurs consommateurs, sans oublier de prendre en compte les contraintes économiques et culturelles qui pèsent sur ce marché. Après cette mise en perspective du film policier, l'ouvrage s'attache à une analyse du produit afin de mieux définir quelle est dans celui-ci la représentation de la police. Pour ce faire, on a adopté une méthode d'investigation adaptée à une perspective de science politique, qui, dans négliger des types d'analyse plus classiques, s'attache notamment à compléter celles-ci par une approche quantitative originale. A partir de là, dans une optique qui emprunte aussi aux recherches poursuivies en matière de communication, l'étude du mode de représentation filmique de la police amène à en souligner le rôle<br>This thesis in political science intends to study the representation of the police in the cinema according to the importance that the interweaving of the imaginary and reality presents in this subject matter. It is a question of studying how a fundamental political institution is portrayed through the cinema in contemporary France. First, the stakes of these productions, which are particularly important from a quantitative point of view, are analysed from the film maker's and viewers’ standpoint, also taking into account the economical and cultural limitations that pressure the market. Following the police film angle, this work deals with analyzing the "product" so as to better define its representation of the police in order to do so, an investigative method adapted to a political science viewpoint that, without neglecting classical and analytical types tries to complete them by using an original quantitative approach. From there, in perspective which borrows from research in the communications field, the study of the method cinematic representation of the police leads to emphasizing it role

Cette thèse propose une histoire des chômeurs à travers la fiction cinématographique considérée comme source d’analyse. La proximité du cinéma avec les « déclassés » et la capacité de la fiction à saisir la dimension vécue permettent d’appréhender le dysfonctionnement majeur qu’est le chômage dans le système capitaliste. Dans des genres qui vont de la fiction documentaire à la farce noire, en passant par le polar social, la fable satirique et le conte contemporain, le cinéma reconstitue avec empathie l’épaisseur psychologique et la vulnérabilité matérielle des « inutiles au monde » et dresse des portraits de héros combatifs qui n’enferment pas les chômeurs dans une identité économique et statistique. L’« écran du chômage » enregistre aussi l’effritement du collectif et des solidarités et décrit les formes de la dépression qui s’empare des « dépossédés » de la civilisation industrielle. Il propose une contre-analyse de la société dans sa représentation, par exemple, de l’A. N. P. E. (Agence nationale pour l’emploi), et dans des œuvres qui recensent les figures persistantes de la précarité : jeunes qui galèrent de petits boulots en petits boulots, chômeurs de longue durée inemployables, femmes isolées, cadres mis au rebut. Il questionne la crise du pouvoir masculin et la place du travail salarié dans nos vies, dans un siècle qui en a fait le principal facteur d’intégration sociale. Enfin, il met en évidence à travers les scènes d’entretien d’embauche, devenues « scènes de genre » du cinéma français, les rapports de pouvoir dans l’entreprise libérale et dissèque les phénomènes de manipulation et de déshumanisation des individus dans un contexte de guerre économique<br>This thesis proposes to trace a history of the unemployed through feature films, considered here as historical documents. The proximity of film to the underclasses and its ability to capture lived experience throws into relief the flaw of the capitalist system represented by unemployment. In a variety of genres – ranging from docufictions, social realist police dramas, and vignettes of contemporary life to satirical parables and black comedies – film empathetically reconstructs the psychological complexity and material vulnerability of “the useless of the world” and sketches portraits of undaunted heroes, which do not reduce the unemployed to a narrowly defined economic or statistical identity. “Unemployment on screen” chronicles the erosion of the labor movement and of workplace solidarity, depicting the resulting forms of depression that affect industrial civilization’s “dispossessed”. It proposes a counter-analysis of society in its representation, for example, of the A. N. P. E. (the French national employment agency) and in films that portray the persistent precarity of its characters: young workers trapped in a succession of minimum wage jobs, the long-term unemployed who have become unemployable, forlorn women, and discarded executives. It probes the crisis of male hegemony and the place of salaried work in our lives, in a century that made salaried work the primary mode of social integration. Lastly, through its depiction of the job interview, which has become an iconic scene-type in French cinema, it displays the power relations in neoliberal corporations and dissects the manipulation and dehumanization of individuals in the context of economic war

Vouloir ressaisir l'evolution du cinema francais des quarante dernieres annees c'est au fond essayer de comprendre un certain nombre de mutations dont on peut situer sinon l'origine du moins la cesure en 1959 avec l'emergence de la nouvelle vague. Rarement mouvement esthetique aura libere un espace de possibles etheliques et economiques ou se sont essayees a sa suite de nombreuses formes cinematographiques. Ce travail jette cependant un regard autre que purement esthetique et theorique sur ce mouvement. Nous avons resitue la nouvelle vague dans son contexte economique, politique et social d'eclosion, contexte indispensable a l'histoire du cinema. L'etude des publics, qui fut longtemps le parent pauvre des etudes cinematographiques, permet de mettre a jour la specificite du public << nouvelle vague >> ainsi que l'implication limitee des reseaux de diffusion alternatifs (cine-clubs. Art & essai. . . ) dans sa distribution commerciale. Mais ce travail s'insurge surtout en faux contre l'idee recue selon laquelle le cinema de la nouvelle vague aurait beneficie des largesses financieres de l'etal ou, au mieux, de sa protection tacite. . . Nous demontrons, grace a des chiffres jusqu'ici ineditscommuniques par le c. N. C,. Que les cineastes de la nouvelle vague ont, au contraire, ete largement exclus des aides publiques, et notamment de la plus celebre de ces aides, l'avance sur recettes, cree en 1959. Poursuivant l'etude economique des films des cineastes jusque dans les annees 1981. 1999. Nous constatons que la tendance s'inversait a la fin du premier septennat mitterrand pour desormaisconferer au cinema de la nouvelle vague une valeur hautement culturelle et inclure une ieune generation de cineastes se revendiquant dans la filiation intellectuelle du mouvement parmi les beneficiaires privilegies de l'avance. Le mythe de l'elat-providence en matiere de cinema deviendra celui de l'etal culturel et l'affirmation d'un << heritage >> suppose de la nouvelle vague ne fera qu'en conforter l'action. Enfin, le role ambigu joue par la critique (notamment les cahiers du cinema, ancien foyer anime de la politique des auteurs) et par l'enseignement universitaire du cinema, d'une part dans la legitimation de la politique de soutien au cinema francais ; d'autre part dans l'elaboration d'une veritable mythologie << auteuriste >> de la nouvelle vague, a ete clairement mis en evidence.

Les films de Bergman de la période postérieure à 1950 relatent le cheminement du cinéaste qui tente de s'affranchir de l'ordre établi. Ce parcours intérieur conduit, selon nous, le spectateur à réfléchir sur l'importance de la Subjectivité au sens kierkegaardien. Initialement méconnu, le pouvoir libérateur de la Subjectivité fait l'objet d'une découverte progressive par les personnages bergmaniens. Trois étapes peuvent être distinguées. Dans les films de la première période (jeux d'Eté 1951 - L'Oeil du Diable 1960), les personnages se révoltent contre la société, ses conventions et le dogmatisme religieux, face auxquels ils demeurent impuissants et éprouvent une souffrance. A l'inverse, dans les fims de la seconde période (A travers le miroir 1961 - Une Passion 1969), les personnages parviennent à échapper à l'emprise de la Vérité objective. Cette liberté conquise rend possible l'introduction du concept de choix, et, donc, d'angoisse dans l'univers bergmanien. De plus, les personnages se trouvent confrontés au phénomène de la perte de sens des valeurs et soumis aux formes de violence les plus variées. Au cours de la troisième période (Le Lien 1971 - Après la Répétition 1984), les personnages tentent d'acquérir la capacité d'assumer leur propre existence". "Etre sujet à part entière" devient une exigence fondamentale. L'atteinte de la reprise, comme continuation et recommencement perpétuels, constituera l'ultime étape de l'affranchissement du sujet<br>Bergman movies belonging to the period directly following 1950 deal with the film director progressive attempt to free herself from commonly accepted values and attitudes. In our opinion, that inward trip leads the spectator to consider the importance of Subjectivity in the Kierkegaardian way. Originally unknown, the freeing power of Subjectivity is gradually discovered by the Bergmanian characters. Three stages can be identified. In the first period movies (Summer Interlude 1951 - The Devil's Eye 1960), the characters rebel against society. Confronted with its conventions and to religious dogmatism they feel powerless and the whole situation hurts them. On the contrary, in the second period (Winter Light 1961 - The Passion of Anna 1969), the characters manage to escape objective truth. This newly conquered freedom opens the way to the concept of choice in the Bergmanian world and consequently to anguish. Moreover the characters are confronted with the experience of losing all reference to common values and they are submitted to various types of violence. During the third period (The Touch 1971 - After the Rehearsal 1984) the characters try to develop the ability to take upon themselves the responsability for their own existence. To be a fully self recognized subject becomes an essential prerequisite. The final stage of the subject freedom is determined by the repetition Gjentagelsen" : endless progression and new beginnings

Ce travail analyse la mise en scène de quelques élites dans les succès du cinéma français depuis 1968. Etudiant la production, le contenu et la réception des films, on évalue leur contribution aux cultures politiques. L'accent est mis sur l'effet de socialisation du film qui situe le citoyen dans la société dont il lui dévoile les règles cachées. L'oeuvre est analysée comme un mythe politique, une fiction conventionnelle, lisible, laissant au spectateur une marge d'interprétation. Le respect des genres établis, des intrigues répétitives, l'omniprésence des stars et des allusions à l'actualité permettent à chacun de s'y orienter. L'étude de la fréquentation débouche sur l'analyse des succès en salles selon une métaphore de contagion sociale. La première partie établit l'influence de la production sur le contenu des films. La censure politique est démantelée entre 1968 et 1975, mais une contrainte économique subsiste: investisseurs et stars ont soin de perpétuer des recettes éprouvées. On obtient des films-concepts dont la trame est peu audacieuse. Les scénarios s'appuient sur des traditions narratives telles que le règne de l'argent, la corruption des élites, l'omniprésence des complots et le fantasme du renversement des hiérarchies. La deuxième partie évoque l'irruption brutale, à partir de 1968, de la politique dans une fiction de gauche ; qui met en scène des scandales récents, et le cinéma dominant qui suit la mode politique et privilégie les héros policiers incarnés par Lino Ventura, Jean-Paul Belmondo et Alain Delon autour de 3 pôles d'identification : le légitimiste, le critique et l'individualiste. La troisième partie montre comment le cinéma décrypte le monde des puissants. On observe le cynisme du pouvoir au sommet de l'Etat (le bon plaisir) et dans l'entreprise (inquiétants patrons, multinationales manipulatrices. . . ). Les chefs sont aussi dévoilés dans leur perversion sexuelle, qui dissimule une peur du pouvoir au féminin. La quatrième partie suit les mutations de la fréquentation et des films au cours des années 1980. La télévision domine les médias, le public des salles se fait plus jeune, urbain et éduque. On écrit des films plus en prise sur la diversité sociale, ou de jeunes héros policiers offrent un nouveau modèle, entre juge de paix et assistante sociale. - c'est le reflux des élites à l'écran<br>This work examines how French box-office hits have depicted social and political elites since 1968 it analyses their production process, the stories they tell and the way they were seen by the public, in order to understand how they have contributed to French political culture. The author emphasises the socialization effect of the movies, which help the citizens to understand the way the society works. The film is seen as a 'political myth', a conventional and simple fiction enabling the moviegoer to elaborate his or her interpretation of the story through genres, stars and allusions to actual events. The way a political film builds its success is analysed as a 'social contagion'. The first part studies the effect of the production process on the scripts. Political censorship disappeared in France between 1968 and 1975, but investors and stars still perpetuated tried and tested concepts and refused innovative stories. That is why so many narrative cliches were perpetuated, such as the power of money, the corruption of elites, conspiracies or the desire to subvert social hierarchies. The second part tells how politics suddenly invaded French movies after 1968, when political scandals were translated to the screen. To this leftist trend, the dominant cinema opposed 3 detective heroes as role models : the conservative Lino Ventura, the critical Jean-Paul Belmondo and the individualist Alain Delon. The third part shows how the cinema paints the world of powerful people. Cynicism is the rule at all levels of the state and in big corporations, especially the multinationals. In their private lives, leaders seem to be both obsessed with sex and afraid of powerful women. The fourth part follows the evolution of movies and their public through the eighties. Television has become the dominant media. Moviegoers are younger, have a higher level of education and live in big cities. New films confront the diversity of society, young cop heroes offer a new role model, a hybrid between a police officer and a social worker. French elites slowly disappear from the screen

L'oeuvre de Jean-Pierre Melville constitue un questionnement important sur la guerre et l'évolution de la société depuis 1945. Tout d'abord, le cinéaste s'inspire principalement des films des années trente, et il connote ses personnages de façon très mélancolique : ils s'identifient à leur fonction, cherchent à être irréprochables et se réfèrent à des codes sociaux périmés. Il s'agit donc d'une tentative de deuil : ces figures du passé ne sont pas des archétypes, mais des " télotypes " : elles représentent un achèvement, après lequel plus rien n'est possible. Melville désigne la guerre comme rupture : ses personnages n'ont pas d'autre passé que celui d'anciens combattants (exactement comme le cinéaste, qui fut un grand Résistant) et se consacrent à la Résistance, qui devient un enjeu de représentation. En effet, en tant que survivant, le personnage melvillien est incapable de s'adapter à la société moderne. Sa relation à l'autre devient alors problématique : elle se définit comme une schize, une rupture avec le monde, qui implique la solitude et l'incommunicabilité. Ces figures restent alors ancrées dans le passé, ou tentent de faire corps avec cette nouvelle ère aseptisée, et perdent une part de leur humanité. Néanmoins, Melville décrit aussi une résistance à cette schize, à travers la subsistance de liens sous-jacents entre les êtres. Pour lui, la relation à l'autre se construit alors selon un processus complexe d'identification. De véritables relations amoureuses se nouent ainsi entre les protagonistes masculins, sentiments dont les femmes deviennent le vecteur. Mais seule la mort peut apporter une solution à ce désir de l'Autre. Dans un ultime combat, les deux figures vont enfin se faire face, et l'une offre à l'autre une mort honorable, qui laisse une image de lui pure dans la mémoire collective, et lui confère ainsi une forme d'éternité.

Dans quelle mesure une société se retrouve-t-elle dans sa cinématographie ? Après une réflexion théorique sur la nature du réel en art (reflet, réfraction, effet de réel, etc. ) et sur l'apport de la sociologie dans ce domaine, l'analyse des données extraites de l'ensemble des films français distribués entre 1975 et 1985 tente d'y répondre. L'évolution des genres permet de dégager les orientations d'une cinématographie surtout dominée commercialement par les films d'humour, les drames, les comédies dramatiques et les films policiers ; les documentaires, les films politiques et les essais perdent au changement de décennie une place relativement importante qui caractérisait en partie les années 1970. Les epoques auxquelles se deroulent les intrigues montrent une réelle préférence pour le XXeme siècle, source de souvenirs intimes et de quelques regards sur l'histoire récente (des années 1930 aux années 1960). Les lieux visités trahissent une nette domination des lieux "attractifs" (Paris, Côte d'Azur, "exotisme", etc. ), un effort d'authenticité étant assez rare. La très forte suprématie des personnages masculins ainsi que certaines tranches d'âge (20/50 ans pour les hommes, 20/30 ans pour les femmes) et la propension au célibat déssinent les constantes diégétiques des fictions. Quant aux activités des personnages principaux, comparées aux proportions observables dans la société, elles révèlent des distorsions stigmatisant des profils stéréotypes souvent valorisants. La nature des films (de l'avant-garde aux films "ringards") et la structure narrative imposent des contraintes récurrentes au sein des données sociales filmiques qui sont parfois perméables à des effets de modes médiatiques (thèmes liés aux moeurs, aux faits divers, etc. ) et laissent une petite place à des points de vue plus originaux qui peuvent s'avérer plus proches d'une certaine réalité sociale<br>To what extent is a society depicted in its cinematography ? After a theoretical reflection over reality in art (reflection, refraction, reality effect, etc. ) and over the contribution of sociology into this field, the analysis of facts taken from all the french movies distributed between the years 1975 and 1985 tries to answer to this question. The evolution of genres allows to say that cinematography is above all commercially dominated by humoristic movies, dramas, dramatic comedies and detective films ; when the decade changed, documentaries, political films and essays lost the rather important place which was the characteristic of the 1970's. The plots take mainly place in the 20th century which is the source of intimate remembrance and of some viewpoints on recent history (from the 1930's to the 1960's). The places where scenes take place show a real domination of "attractive" places (paris, french riviera, "exoticism", etc. ), authenticity being rather rare. The supremacy of male characters and of some age brackets (20/50 years for men, 20/30 years for women) and the propensity for celibacy define the constants in the universe of fictions. The activities of the main characters compared to data found in society reveal differences which show stereotyped profiles, often valorizating. The nature of movies (from avant-garde to third-rate films) and the narrative structure impose constraints within social film data which are sometimes open to media fashion (themes linked to morals, trivial events, etc. ) and leave little room for more original points of view which turn out to be closer to some social reality

Le concept complexite esthetique, qui guide cette recherche, est forge afin d'analyser les films de jean-luc godard, nouvelle vague, helas pour moi, jlg/jlg (1990-1995), trilogie aux correspondances stylistiques nombreuses (figures du double, cartons-citations, unite geographique, etc. ). Ces trois films sont egalement mis en perspective par rapport a l'oeuvre de godard - surtout les films de la decennie 1980-1990 et les essais-video jusqu'en 1995 - et a d'autres cineastes. La complexite esthetique requise pour l'analyse des films eux-memes prenant en consideration la complexite du monde en une esthetique de la complexite - signifie que ni l'ordre pur, ni le desordre chaotique, ne sauraient separement definir leur forme et leur contenu, mais qu'il faut decouvrir une relation nouvelle d'ordre et de desordre pour les comprendre. En effet, l'ordre y tend de plus en plus vers ses limites (territorialisations et cristallisations se complexifiant, s'eloignant de l'equilibre), tandis que le desordre (multiplicites, flux, turbulences naturelles, mythiques, sociales) n'y est plus seulement destructeur mais peut devenir createur. Une complexite organisationnelle spatiale-temporelle (tissu d'interactions) permet, effectivement, a ces forces contradictoires de tenir ensemble, sans pour autant nier l'une ou l'autre (effet reducteur). La complexite esthetique est une approche pluridisciplinaire : philosophie, science; litterature; sociologie, politique, economie; histoire et esthetique des arts - musique, peinture, cinema -, deja presents au sein des films, se retrouvent dans son elaboration.

La recherche interroge la rencontre des cinéastes avec Mai 68. En prenant comme point de départ la mobilisation de mille cinq cent professionnels du cinéma, regroupés alors sous le terme générique de cinéastes, en considérant leur diversité professionnelle, politique, sociale, générationnelle, ainsi que les films produits dans le cadre des Etats Généraux du cinéma, l’intérêt est d’introduire de la complexité dans un événement souvent ramené à ses causes ou à ses effets supposés et en retour, d’élargir le regard sur le cinéma souvent réduit aux seuls réalisateurs et aux films. L’enjeu est d’articuler le temps court de l’événement dans le temps long, en multipliant les jeux d’échelle à partir de trois angles d’approche : entrer dans les façons dont se structure un milieu professionnel, dans les rapprochements et les antagonismes ; questionner leur rapport à l’Etat en ne lissant pas leur ambivalence (comment les liens de dépendance sont acceptés, comment ils génèrent aussi des critiques) ; saisir l’évolution de la légitimité politique des cinéastes et de leur média, les différentes manières d’intervenir dans l’espace public, au regard de leur champ d’expérience et de leur horizon d’attente. À partir de ces trois prismes, il s’agit de remonter à 1956, de « déterritorialiser » Mai 68 en déplaçant la question du pourquoi au comment ; puis de se confronter au déroulé accidenté de l’événement, à son incertitude et à la pluralité des façons de le vivre ; enfin, de filer des parcours qui se construisent en référence à Mai 68 et d’observer les déplacements de sens de l’événement pendant les commémorations décennales à travers le devenir des films des Etats Généraux<br>Our research examines the encounter of cineasts with May 1968. In the context of May 68, the term “cineast” encompasses all professionals that perform an activity related to cinema. The analysis starts from the mobilization of 1500 cineasts and takes into account their professional, political, social and generational diversity. Considering these as well as the films produced during the Etats Généraux du cinema, our interest lies in revealing the complexity of an event often often reduced to a question of cause and effect, and in enlarging the view on cinema often reduced to the directors and the films. The focus resides in articulating the short time of the event in a longer time, at different scales from three angles. The first angle addresses how this professional sphere is structured in affinities and in antagonisms. Then we move into questioning the relations to authority without polishing the ambivalences (how the dependences are accepted and criticized as well). The last angle attempts to capture the political legitimacy of cineasts and of their media while getting into how cineasts consider the different ways of intervening in the public space. From these three perspectives, we go back to 1956 and gain a broader view on May 68 by “deterritorializing” it and asking how instead of the usual why. We then reveal how the event has unfolded, its hectic circumstances, its uncertainty and the various ways it has been subsequently experienced. Finally we show the paths constructed in reference to May 68 and analyze how the meaning of the event has evolved at the decennial commemorations and how the films of the Etats Généraux du cinema have been utilised