Enfance. . .inspiration littéraire et cinématographique (review)

The phenomenal success of Christophe Barratier’s Les Choristes (2004) demonstrates the enduring appeal of child-centred cinema, the subject taken up by Carol S. Altman with reference to seven much less nostalgic, eau de rose films and their associated texts, all of which were produced between 1952 and 1991. The book is made up of 10 thematic chapters, the scope of which is increasingly broad (beginning with time, characterization, setting and moving on to social critique, the human condition and myth). Altman studies the relationships between the films and their associated texts (novels, scénarios or cinéromans), the relationships between the seven film-texts, and between the film-texts and a diverse range of other texts including works by Maupassant and Rimbaud, as well as (less convincingly) Genesis, Romeo and Juliet and Tristan et Iseult. One of the strengths of this book is that no priority is given to the literary texts and there is, happily, no reference to issues of fidelity, the long-standing bugbear of adaptation studies. Rather, Altman points to the differences between the mediums she discusses, their specificities and relative strengths; a typical phrase is thus: ‘Le film est obligé d’en faire le raccourci. Mais le film nous donne le choc de l’image et le choc des sons aussi’ (p. 217). Altman’s close and detailed analyses lead to broad conclusions, and the study overall is both methodical and exhaustive. In later chapters, the emphasis on the originality of the films and texts can be problematic: the children playing in a cemetery in Jeux interdits can hardly be seen as the first ‘infraction au tabou de la mort’ (p. 282) as Altman argues, given that the Comtesse de Ségur’s Sophie was happily playing at funerals with her friends almost a century before. Originality is also overemphasized since only the stereotype of the angelic child is taken into account. Many of the child heroes of the film-texts discussed conform to the equally prevalent image of the persecuted or victimized child seen in texts (and their visual adaptations) by Malot, Hugo and Dickens for example. Altman argues convincingly that the child serves as a source of inspiration and creativity for the writers and film-makers examined, and the child’s ability to seduce the reader/spectator is also repeatedly posited. Yet the networks of desire in these films and texts (the desire of the child to grow up, of the adult to return to childhood and for the figure of the child) might have been more fully explored. This book will nevertheless clearly appeal to, and be useful for, a wide range of readers interested in film, literature, adaptation or images of childhood in cultural production. Many scholars now working in the field of children’s literature began by examining the figure of the child in literary works more generally; perhaps comprehensive and impressive studies of the child in film such as Altman’s will similarly lead to the opening up of scholarly interest in films for the young.