Territoires du cinéma by Jean-René Morice, Jean-Claude Taddei et Isabelle Van Peteghem-Tréard (review)

The result of a colloquium that took place in 2014 at the Premiers Plans festival in Angers, this collection of stimulating interdisciplinary essays examines the creative, industrial, geographical, and theoretical links between cinema and territoire. Recognizing the polysemic richness of territoire (defined inter alia as a form of cultural identity, human geography, symbolic space, and the 'Frontier' in the Hollywood western), the editors pose an early question: 'Comment le cinéma se saisit-il des territoires et vice-versa?' (p. 11). The fifteen essays that follow seek in one form or another to offer a response, moving across the globe, from Vietnam to Israel to India to Cuba; its contributors are drawn from sociology, urban design, literature, geography, and history. Films analysed include Henri Verneuil's drama Un singe en hiver (1962), Debra Granik's Winter's Bone (2010), and the docufiction works of Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa. Not all French, of course, but nonetheless, as the editors note in a nod to Jacques Rancière, a diverse grouping that reflects how cinema is 'un art en tension constante, redevable de l'idéologie dominante mais également capable de la mettre à distance' (p. 12). The Introduction proposes three strategic intersections between cinema and territoire: economic (how co-financing arrangements and multiple distribution networks allow cinema to proliferate and prosper); cultural (how film is an essential vector of cultural heritage and identity); and aesthetic (how film constructs real or mythologized territoires). Some of the more incisive essays include Soraya Hamache's revealing study of Bollywood cinema and its mutating role as the epitome of popular genre cinema within a globalized film culture, and Florence Dravet and Gustavo de Castro's Kristeva-inspired take on abjection and colonial oppression in three contemporary Brazilian films. Jean-Pierre Noblet and Jean-Claude Taddei look at the increasing popularity of mobile cinemas in France since the 1980s to highlight the robustness of differing modes of exhibition in the Hexagon. They also touch on the importance of social capital and volunteer networks to boost disenfranchised communities; here, mobile cinemas give back to marginalized territoires 'la similitude, la confiance et la contribution' (p. 85). Sébastien Fevry's study of the cultural impact on the Belgian city of Mons when it was named a European Capital of Culture in 2015 demonstrates how film 'peut être mobilisé dans un sens plus promotionnel' (p. 140). Patrimoine and publicity is also interrogated in Christel Taillibert's exploration of film festivals in France. In an era of digital downloads and the so-called 'death of cinema', Taillibert's reading of territoire is inherently utopian — the festival circuit 'peut constituer l'interface idéale pour […] perpétuer une modalité de rencontre avec les films qui a fait ses preuves et qui continue de rallier les masses' (p. 35). While the collection is generally light on theory — Deleuze, Guattari, and Certeau, all of whom have deployed the notion of territoire in their work, are mentioned only in passing — the editors are to be congratulated for marshalling such an eclectic collection of films into a coherent, highly readable study in an emerging area of film studies.