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Reviewed by:
  • Proust at the Movies
  • Adam Watt
Proust at the Movies. By Martine Beugnet and Marison Schmid . ( Studies in European Cultural Transition, 31.) Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005. vii + 261 pp., II b&w plates, I colour plate. Hb €50.00.

Marrying literary criticism and film theory, this book provides analyses and insights stimulating for Proustians and cinema specialists alike. The authors' dual task is to [End Page 116] analyse films that take A la recherche du temps perdu as an explicit or implicit point of reference and to build up a picture of contemporary art cinema, whose development is contemporaneous with the writing, reception and continuing critical appraisal of Proust's novel. The innovative plurality of Proust's narrative is posited as a barrier to faithful adaptation yet at the same time as what allies his work with the practice and processes of modern filmmaking. This fruitful duality is sensitively explored by the authors throughout the work and is reflected in their critical approach. They stress the restrictiveness of critical assessments of literary adaptations that are overly concerned with the notion of 'faithfulness' to the source text. Accordingly their own assessments highlight differences in emphasis or detail between film and text ('upgrading' is their preferred term for the re-privileging of source material), always with a view to elucidating the motivation and impact of these differences. Five chapters examine the various adaptations of Proust's novel to date. The chapter on Visconti and Losey's planned but abandoned large-scale productions is a mine of information (Visconti's Odette, we learn, was to be played by Brigitte Bardot) and the difference between the two screenplays is emphasized. Chapters on Schlöndorff, Ruiz and Akerman's partial adaptations provide a vivid sense of the sheer scope of artistic opportunity offered by Proust's novel, opportunity which is always in tension with the need to be selective. Before proceeding with detailed, convincing readings of specific scenes and discussions of issues raised, each chapter helpfully situates the film and director in question within contemporary cinema history and provides a summary of the relevant volume of Proust's novel. The précis of Le Temps retrouvé in the chapter on Ruiz's film is particularly good. The chapter on Schlöndorff's Un amour de Swann explores representations of class, gender and sexuality (dominant themes throughout the book) whilst presenting a nuanced argument about the functioning of heritage cinema, and the impact of this adaptation on it. Beugnet and Schmid emphasize the role of surrealism and illusion in Ruiz's film. They highlight how his techniques and even casting communicate Proust's preoccupation with mutability, time and memory, whilst mirroring his allusiveness and self-reflexivity in creating a 'memorial to cinema' (p. 142). The chapter on Akerman's La Captive poses questions about the filmic representation of obsession, suggesting that, in seeking to depict Proust's concerns with alterity and sexual identity, Akerman creates a 'cinema of différance' (p. 204) which, like sections of Proust's novel, resists fixed readings. Overall, the picture that emerges is of an exceptional work of literary art which has served formally and thematically as a catalyst for films whose diversity and respective challenges reflect the enduring modernity of Proust's achievement. Although Proustian purists might dissent, this valuable study indicates that on screen Proust's novel is still work in progress.

Adam Watt
Royal Holloway, University of London
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