Loghorrée, aphasie, lettres : les états de la parole dans le cinéma d’Arnaud Desplechin
This present study’s aim is suggesting a linguistic analysis throughout different scenes in a medley of four films by the french director Arnaud Desplechin: Comment je me suis disputé… (« ma vie sexuelle ») (1996); Rois et reine (2004); Un conte de Noël (Roubaix!) (2008) et Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse (nos arcadies) (2015). First of all, it looks into the qualifications of long periods of time granted to a very talkative character. The definition of soliloquy, such as described previously cannot be applied to these long speeches since they cannot be included in the dialogue logic. There is almost no real oral exchange. Communication cannot be established. Then this study will also analyze the different soliloques and their influence on the narration, according to the character’s physical or mental state together with his credibility. His disability to talk depends on different causes for the film maker : sickness, insomnia, aphonia, death, intoxication, drugs, neurosis, even psychosis. After exploring the different restrictions to the character’s communication, this essay will shortly focus on the comical side effects of these speeches. Then we will examine the special importance of letters which are essential in this film corpus. This essay also deals with the writing of these important words. They are separated from the rest of the story. They have a different temporality, their speech delivery is close to theatrical reciting. The production chooses filming front the front, explaining the reasons of rising the means of correspondance, pondering over the danger of silence which is, at times, either undergone or induced by the character through the speech. Since this analysis concerns the linguistic writing, both oral and filmed, the complexity of filming speech appears. As a conclusion, numerous new paths need to be explored when studying film making as far as filming speech is concerned.
Arnaud Desplechin Mathieu Amalric French cinema Words Speech Soluloquy Long speeches Letters Correspondance Neurosis