French Comedy on Screen: A Cinematic History by Rémi Fournier Lanzoni (review)

Those lamenting the absence of a thoroughgoing appraisal of the French cinematic genre of comedy will welcome the publication of Rémi Fournier Lanzoni’s ambitious study. His encyclopaedic work offers a whistlestop tour of Gallic comedies from the earliest days of filmmaking until today, and is commendable for its breadth and energy. Not only does the analysis span a century of cinema; it does not self-consciously privilege any particular comic subgenres. Inevitably, such an approach sacrifices some analytical depth on the altar of sheer material acknowledgement, engendering a sense of missed opportunity about, among other things, the lack of engagement with existing analyses of individual films (such as exegeses of works by Bertrand Blier and Josiane Balasko, both of whose films are singled out for discussion). Yet Lanzoni achieves more than ‘mere’ historical description or canon-tweaking. He is at his best in his unflinching attempt to grapple with the complex mechanisms of comedy as the product of a triangulated relationship between texts and the societies that produce and consume them. His style of textual analysis is at once unapologetically subjective and impressively erudite, especially when it comes to production contexts, broadly defined. This approach is justifiable, and often proves suggestive when applied to mass texts whose address, as this study recognizes, is closely bound up with the social and thus contingent on individual circumstance and historical perspective; yet such justification is not provided, and methodology as a whole is absent as a topic in its own right. So too are conclusions, with the book ending abruptly, not to say in medias res, with a discussion of Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (2008): ‘Dany Boon was able to redirect the plot toward a parade of frenetic and ingenious situations’ (p. 228). This sort of anti-rhetorical non-flourish typifies Lanzoni’s arguments. Some statements are at best banal, at worst unintelligible; unfortunately the text has not been well edited. Thus, on occasion, initially intriguing analyses of the complexities of humour and its social implications are frustratingly hard to follow, for instance: ‘The numerous and ongoing debates regarding the nature of French republicanism emphasize that some of the most effective recent attempts to promote a legacy of critical thinking about comedy/France and its connections to Jewish identity and national identity have been the center of attention for film critics who have provided many interpretations’ (p. 192). However, it is refreshing to see popular but academically sidelined films such as Les Bronzés (1978) or Les Kaïra (2012) accorded substantial critical attention, as well as to find a scholar who integrates a subtle appreciation of the function of dialogue into visual analysis. This book represents a significant and sometimes useful contribution to a neglected field.