Summer 2013 - The Independent Schools' Modern Language ...

angle when treated alongside L’Argent de poche
and two cinematic representations of the Occupation
are portrayed as meetings of ‘the personal’
and ‘the historical’. The bibliographies are exhaustive
but the essays alone provide Sixth Form
teachers with ample material to teach these films.
Pupils will find the essays accessible yet exhaustive
and they could equally use them as a stepping
stone to reading about cinema in French.
Vanderschelden has deliberately picked ‘suitable
set texts for a wide range of academic courses’
that ‘can be studied in different educational contexts’
and there are some exciting choices. Agnès
Varda’s Sans toit ni loi alone explores the themes
of social exclusion, homelessness, social responsibility,
youth and the limits of freedom. Le Grand voyage beautifully depicts
the realities of a second generation immigrant existence through a moving
road trip. Eyebrows might be raised at the prospect of showing scenes from
Christopher Gan’s Le Pacte des loups but boys, especially, love this film and it
might prove an original and engaging way to introduce the concepts of legend,
the Enlightenment or pre-revolution France, for instance, at the end of
term. Certainly, Vanderschelden’s essay demonstrates the film’s potential as
a topic for an A Level or Pre U oral presentation. Equally, the chapter Traits
and Traditions in French Film Comedy suggested to me the value of showing
a film like Le Dîner de cons as a prologue to teaching, say, a Molière text. A
recent Year 10 trip to see Le Bourgeois gentilhomme in Paris demonstrated to
me that although the ‘developed drama conventions for situation comedy,
farce and slapstick’ may have ‘now been written into the specific national
identity’ in France, they need to be taught elsewhere; sadly, for our pupils,
the exaggerated, physical production was simply unsophisticated out of context.
Doubtlessly, a country’s cinematic output is a way into other elements of its
culture and, given the paucity of screenings of French films in Britain outside
of London’s art house venues, it is often up to Languages departments to fill
the void. Serge Kaganski defines French auteur cinema as providing a ‘better
understanding of the world [and] the discovery of its reality’, furnishing
French teachers with the perfect excuse to stock up their library of films.
Vanderschelden’s essays are a great place to find inspiration and, even if you
are not convinced by her choice of titles, following the format of one of her
chapters to build up materials for any film that you are studying will ensure a
successful scheme of work.
Davina Suri North London Collegiate School
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