Jean-Pierre Jeunet (review)

Jean-Pierre Jeunet by Elizabeth Ezra is the first full book published on the contemporary French film director. Part of the reputable Contemporary Film Directors series, the book proposes engaging commentaries of Jeunet's short and full-length films. Thematic chapters follow a brief introduction, and the book closes with a translation and transcription of a 2005 French television interview with Jeunet. A complete bibliography of secondary sources in both French and English finishes the book; Isabelle Vandershelden's French Film Guide: Amélie (U. of Illinois Press, 2007) just missed inclusion. Images from the director's features and the 1981 short, Le Bunker de la dernière rafale, parcel the book; the rare film images, from L'Évasion and Le Manège, the ones aficionados hanker to see, are disappointingly absent. To compensate, the author puts forth full descriptions and partial analyses of these early shorts.

The author studies numerous threads woven through Jeunet's cinema over the years while supplying enough film detail for those who have yet to see the films. Her brief synopses are clear and well situated in developed analyses. The strong point of this project is the in-depth cultural content and context which the author provides. For example, situating into French History Jeunet's earlier films, Delicatessen and La Cité des enfants perdus, allows Ezra to present some convincing correlations between film narratives and their contemporaneous contexts, evoking the Klaus Barbie trial, the French colonial project, and the conflict in Algeria. She takes risks which lead to original thought-provoking readings; at times, however, her analyses stop short which is the case when discussing Jeunet's earlier works alongside cinéma du look directors, without delving into the director's career in commercial filmmaking. Uncovering Jeunet's approach to cinema as a director of music clips and television advertisements would have brought about an interesting discussion of his passion for mise-en-scène, pre-production methods and post-production techniques.

Rather than providing full monographs, chapters focus around one feature film while reactivating inquiry into themes such as prosthesis and corporeal mutation, codes, reproduction and cloning, collecting, the transnational as well as French idiosyncrasies. Commentaries are rich in film and national literary history: Montaigne, Hugo, Perec, Gance, Carné, Kassovitz have all found a proper place. Chapters build from Ezra's rich publication history: "Resurrecting the Alien Filmmaker: Jean-Pierre Jeunet in Hollywood," Journal of Contemporary Film, 2002; "Death of an Icon: Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain," French Cultural Studies, 2004; and her edited European Cinema and Transnational Cinema: the Film Reader (2004 and 2006, respectively). Updates from her previous publications flow well into book form, although one does notice a change in focus between chapters on La Cité, Alien Resurrection and then Amélie, as "Uncanny Resemblances: Alien Resurrection" is the only chapter to include a clear study of the film's Anglo-American reception, leading to an understanding of cultural anxieties and differences.

Earlier chapters contain the strongest film analysis, detail and historical film context. They focus most on instances of mutilation and mutations of the human form throughout Jeunet's cinema. Here, Ezra impresses or challenges the reader with insight and the keen ability to connect manifestations of "historical trauma." Nonetheless, little mention is made of the films' budgets and box-office numbers. Even more surprising is the absence of his films' musical scores. Few pages, if any, are devoted to graphic artist, musician, character builder and filmmaker Marc Caro, with whom Jeunet collaborated from the early 1970's to Alien Resurrection (1997). The seeming dismissal of Caro, in attributing most of what makes Jeunet's cinema so unique, is a missed opportunity to work through a more complex chain of artistic media and cultural influences marking this filmic period. Skirting any inquiry into Caro's contributions in Jeunet's artistic career allows Ezra to easily put forth an authoritative study of Jeunet's projects, without ever developing the symbiotic relationship of the two directors she mentions in the first pages of the...