Sexual violence: “Art-house cinema since the New Wave has favored this type of behavior,” believes a specialist

“It’s child criminality, it’s nothing else,” Geneviève Sellier, professor emeritus in film studies at Bordeaux Montaigne University, said Thursday on franceinfo.

“Art-house cinema since the New Wave has favored this type of behavior”, estimated Thursday February 8 on franceinfo Geneviève Sellier, professor emeritus in cinematographic studies at Bordeaux Montaigne University and publishing director of the site “Le genre & l’screen”. Actress Judith Godrèche confided Thursday on France Inter that she was the victim of abuse from director Jacques Doillon on the set of the film. The fifteen year old girl.

She also filed a complaint against the filmmaker Benoît Jacquot for rape of a minor. Auteur cinema puts “at the pinnacle the idea that creation is associated with the expression of masculine desire as something necessarily transgressive”, explained Geneviève Sellier. According to her, it is a French specificity. “People like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are kings in France while they are criminals in Hollywood”she regretted.

franceinfo: Is there something systemic in French cinema?

Geneviève Sellier: I am overwhelmed by all these revelations, in particular by the violent dimension of these perverse relationships. We still need to put words to it. It’s child crime, it’s nothing else. What is very disturbing for us is that French cinema, in particular auteur cinema since the New Wave, has obviously favored this type of behavior by putting at the pinnacle the idea that creation is associated with expression of masculine desire as something necessarily transgressive and therefore original, remarkable, artistic, etc. There is truly a deleterious climate which has established itself in French auteur cinema since the New Wave and which is largely responsible for these abuses.

Did sexual liberation in the 1970s play a role in these serious abuses?

The problem is that the so-called sexual liberation of the 1970s was in reality a blank check for the expression of male desire in a context of totally asymmetrical domination between men and women. In fact, the combination between the cult of the author generated by the myth of the New Wave and this climate of pseudo-sexual liberation which authorized people like Benoît Jacquot to consider that it was transgressive to rape barely pubescent girls. This climate is systemic.

Is this specific to French cinema?

What is specifically French is the cult of the auteur which makes people like Woody Allen and Roman Polanski kings in France while they are criminals in Hollywood. There is a difference. And the difference is the cult of the author, that is to say the idea that the artist is above the law. It developed in France and not elsewhere because the culture is associated both with a sort of cult of Eros as necessarily transgressive. It somehow authorized a form of perversion which is pedocriminality to express itself as something valued aesthetically and artistically.

Why in the 80s did no one in French cinema condemn?

The sexual liberation of the 80s is totally in this denial of male domination. Throughout this period, there is a valorization of the nudity of girls, not of men, and of younger and younger girls. All this is done in the name of the transgressive character of a sexuality which is in the dominant and totally invisible character.

Is there not also something of the order of a myth of the creator and his muse?

It’s Pygmalion. It is the idea that thanks to his genius the artist gives life to his creature. It is no coincidence that these are always extremely young people. But the worm is in the fruit. If you watch Godard’s first films, it’s exactly the same phenomenon. He chooses Anna Karina. She’s 17, she barely speaks French and he’s going to somehow create her. This myth of Pygmalion is at the heart of the New Wave and it will generate the idea that the artist’s inspiration is linked to the expression of his desire for a woman that he creates in some way, that he transforms as an actress. At the same time, we allow him to change it to stimulate his creativity. We are in a totally “donjuanesque” collection perspective. François Truffaut did this all his life. He was a compulsive seducer, everyone knew it.