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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Marc Cerisuelo, Fondus enchaînés. Essais de poétique au cinéma, Seuil, Paris 2012, pp. 309
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Reviews / Comptes rendus
2013-03-01
2021-09-06
2013-03-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Valentina Re
2013/03/01
Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia
2036-461X
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Marc Cerisuelo, Fondus enchaînés. Essais de poétique au cinéma, Seuil, Paris 2012, pp. 309
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16284/16852
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Marc Cerisuelo,                                       main features of Genette’s poetics, considered
Fondus enchaînés.                                     as the starting point of the overall project, are
Essais de poétique au cinéma,                         reaffirmed, such as the focus on transcendence,
Seuil, Paris 2012, pp. 309                            the effort of clarification, and the attention to
                                                      how artworks function. And yet, Cerisuelo adds
   As a sort of homage to the “Poétique” series,      something more.
let us start from the paratext and, more precise-        According to the challenging project devel-
ly, from the book’s back cover, where we can          oped into the book, an “expanded poetics of
read: “Avec ces Fondus enchaînés, la collection       films” must also include the classical film theo-
‘Poétique’ s’ouvre au septième art.”                  ry (as becomes evident in the section titled “La
   This evocative claim should be slightly cor-       fin du grand sommeil de l’introuvable dame du
rected: this time, cinema goes through the            Lac,” where Cerisuelo refers to Christian Metz
“main entrance.” This means, of course, that          and Albert Laffay, among others, to discuss the
cinema had already entered the series, although       issues of showing, narrating, and the particular
it passed, if I may say so, through the “service      features of the viewing experience), history (we
entrance.” Indeed, it has been one of book se-        will return to this) and interpretation, which
ries’ founders who has been the one “smuggling        seems to be strictly connected to the fact that
in” cinema from the very beginning, and who is        an “expanded poetics” cannot but interact with
also the first reference we can find in the book’s    philosophy.
“Ouverture,” significantly titled “Un art des re-        Given this aim, the book does not provide
lations” – which also affectionately hints at Gé-     something like a linear, systematic discussion;
rard Genette’s teaching in its concluding lines.      and although it is clearly divided into three main
   Genette’s poetics is one of the main references    parts (“Poétique des films,” “Cinéphilosophie”
of Cerisuelo’s book, and of course this is not        and “Transferts culturels”), the three parts contin-
surprising. On the one hand, it is worth mentioning   uously overlap and intertwine. Thus, rather than
that another book by Cerisuelo, Hollywood à           a linear treatment, what we can find is a series
l’écran (“a study of historical poetics of films”,    of in-depth analyses of individual topics which
2001), guided Genette’s largest “incursion” into      gradually start to appear as profoundly intercon-
the field of cinema – namely Métalepse (2004),        nected and manage to show the overall theoreti-
where the borders between narratology and             cal project of an extended poetics “at work.”
poetics tend to blur. On the other hand, it is           Let me provide some examples. Starting
interesting to note that Genette has recently (see    from the well-known field of film remakes (Part
Figures V, 2002) referred to cinema, to a certain     One), and passing through Douglas Sirk’s All
extent, as the “art of relations” par excellence,     That Heaven Allows (1955), the author comes to
in order to discuss why the question “can             address (Part Three) the wide topic of “cultural
we love a genre?” should be replaced by the           transfers” – that is not a matter of “influence”
more appropriate question “can we really love         and, indeed, explains quite well how poetics
something different from a genre?”                    can cross history. In the more general context
   However, Genette’s poetics is not the only         of the work of European filmmakers based in
reference in Fondus enchaînés – nor, as we will       Hollywood, Cerisuelo discusses how American
see, the main reference. What Cerisuelo is really     Transcendentalism has been imported into films
interested in is, as he defines it, is an “expand-    (see the section “Les cinéastes européens à Hol-
ed poetics” (“poétique élargie”). Of course the       lywood et le transcendantalisme”). And it is in

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this way that we enter the field of “Cinephilos-      and indeed, it is not by chance that both Ce-
ophy” and we meet Stanley Cavell, who had a           risuelo and Casetti refer to Gilles Deleuze (to
broader and fundamental role in regaining the         whom Cerisuelo devotes the section “Deleuze
transcendentalist heritage, and who largely (al-      et la comédie: petite forme et grande santé”)
though not exclusively) based his interpretation      and, of course, Stanley Cavell.
of films on transcendentalist philosophy.                Cavell’s “philosophical criticism” remains
   Stanley Cavell (especially for his well-known      the focus of Cerisuelo’s research, perhaps one
book about the “comedy of remarriage,” Pur-           of the best examples of “cinephilosophy” and,
suits of Happiness, 1981) and poetics (for its        I would add, a “forerunner” of the “expanded
traditional attention to the issue of genre) also     poetics.” As Cerisuelo writes (pp. 196-197),
meet each other in what Cerisuelo defines as          “plutôt que de considérer la philosophie comme
the “seconde comédie américaine,” which has           une activité qui consisterait dans la ‘création’
Preston Sturges as its leading figure and which       de concepts et dont le cinéma montrerait en
particularly interests the author due to its “post-   quelque façon le théâtre des opérations, Cavell
classical” features.                                  semble procéder à rebours en préférant un geste
   As a matter of fact, Stanley Cavell can be re-     plus rigoureux qui aboutit à un gain en terme
garded as the true core of the book – the center      de liberté. Assez proche en cela de la critique,
(the two sections “La philosophie et le cinéma-       Cavell organise une interprétation centrifuge
tographe” and “Stanley Cavell, un philosophe          qui part du film, toujours minutieusement ré-
au cinéma”) of the central part (“Cinephiloso-        sumé, et propose une ‘lecture,’ certes autonome
phie”). It is in this part that we clearly under-     du film en question mais rejoignant inévitable-
stand that the relationships between cinema and       ment des questions qui le dépassent et aussi [...]
philosophy do not consist of a process by which       que le cinéma contribue à régler (ultime tour
cinema would illustrate or provide examples           d’écrou wittgensteinien).”
of philosophical concepts – this is actually the         In this perspective both cinema and poetics,
worst way to conceive these relationships.            besides being (although on different levels)
   In opposition to this perspective, Cerisuelo’s     “arts of relations,” are definitely aimed at be-
proposal is in tune with Francesco Casetti’s idea     coming (p. 197) “un laboratoire inappréciable
(The Eye of the Century, 2008) of considering         pour l’étude de notre relation au monde.”
cinema as a form of thought and a place where                                            [Valentina Re,
philosophical investigation can be developed;                         Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia]



Gertrud Koch, Volker Pantenburg,                 in previous years with the arrival of the digital
Simon Rothöhler (eds.),                          age. The launch of the iPad marks a decisive
Screen Dynamics.                                 step in the delocalisation of audio visual con-
Mapping the Borders of Cinema,                   tents and the relocation of the viewing experi-
Österreichisches Filmmusem/Synema                ences, especially in terms of cinema.
Publikationen, Vienna 2012, pp. 184                Screen Dynamics collects together essays
                                                 from a conference called “Cinema without
  In the history of viewing technologies 2010 Walls,” held towards the beginning of 2010.
was an important year, if not a turning point a It is a valuable document on the way film and
confirmation of a series of processes that began media studies approach the issue of cinema’s

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