Gendered Frames, Embodied Cameras

Varda, Akerman, Cabrera, Calle, and Maïwenn

By: Cybelle H. McFadden

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eText | 29 May 2014 | Edition Number 1

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Gendered Frames, Embodied Cameras: Varda, Akerman, Cabrera, Calle, and Maïwenn is the first book to link these five filmmakers together through an analysis of the relationship between filming one’s own body and the creative body. Through engaged artistic practices, these female filmmakers turn the camera to their bodies as a way to show the process of artistic creation and to produce themselves as filmmakers and artists in their work from 1987–2009. By making visible their bodies, they offer a wider range of representation of women in French film. Through avant-garde form, in which tangible corporeal elements are made image, they transform representational content and produce new cinematic bodies with the power to influence signifying practices in contemporary French culture. By rendering visible their artistic practice and praxis and their camera in their work—reflexive practices that also unite these filmmakers—these women also visually claim the role of filmmaker and creative subject. Thus they establish their authority in a film industry in which women’s participation and recognition of their achievements have historically been lower than that of their male counterparts.

Industry Reviews

Chapters function both independently and inter-dependently, which is a great advantage for those who teach French cinema, as chapters can easily be pulled as readings, just as the entire book can be assigned for courses on Contemporary French Cinema or Women’s Filmmaking in France. The book is a welcomed addition to scholarship on all five filmmakers, particularly to the few published explorations on Maïwenn, which tend to focus on Polisse (2011). The book will be of interest to enthusiasts, scholars, and students of French Studies, FilmStudies, and Contemporary Feminist and Gender Studies.