André Téchiné’s 'Shakespearean Trilogy'
Frédéric Delord
Abstract
Why do characters so often read or perform Shakespeare in French films? Why is Hamlet as a book or a play (and almost as a character per se) so frequently featured on the French screen? Why does the young hero in Téchiné's J'embrasse pas (I don't kiss, 1991) happen to be preparing for Hamlet when he attends acting classes? What does this mean within the context of the script and of the whole film? Similarly, in Téchiné's Rendez-vous (1985), why does Nina (Juliette Binoche) end up playing Juliet? Has the ghost who comes back to scorn and haunt her anything to do with Shakespeare? My purpose is to study references to Hamlet in French films, particularly when the allusions appear through the staging of the play: this analysis may shed light on the meaning of intertextual allusion to "Shakespearean plays within French films". In this paper, I propose to study a recent period (1980s-2000s) and mainly one director's—André Téchiné's—body of work.
This article was first published in Shakespeare on Screen: Hamlet. Ed. Sarah Hatchuel & Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin. Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2011. 277-90 <http://purh.univ-rouen.fr/node/176>. It is reproduced here as a clickable PDF document with kind permission from the PURH.
How to cite
DELORD, Frédéric. "André Téchiné 'Shakespearean Trilogy'." In Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin & Patricia Dorval (eds). Shakespeare on Screen in Francophonia: The Shakscreen Collection 1. Montpellier (France): IRCL, Université Paul-Valéry/Montpellier 3, 2012. Online: http://shakscreen.org/analysis/analysis_shakespearean_trilogy/. Originally published in Shakespeare on Screen: Hamlet. Ed. Sarah Hatchuel & Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin. Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2011. 277-90.
Contributed by Frédéric DELORD
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