Memory and the Moving Image: French Film in the Digital Era by Isabelle McNeill (review)

what has been called la Grande Noirceur of Premier Maurice Duplessis’s authoritarian governance, through the social and economic changes of Quebec’s Révolution tranquille in the sixties, and into the era of social upheavals and disillusionments of the October Crisis of 1970 and the referendums of 1980 and 1995. For nonspecialists , the historical background Loiselle provides in each chapter is quite helpful, and, even for knowledgeable readers, some revelatory connections are made between historical events and cinematic milestones. Loiselle succeeds in demonstrating Brault’s impeccable timing and insight, for he “always recognized the paradoxes that have afflicted his nation and consistently records images that convey these contradictions” (85). This is undoubtedly why “three of the five greatest masterpieces of Quebec cinema” (1) carry Brault’s signature, either as director or cinematographer. The book’s strongest moments are Loiselle’s analyses of Brault’s most famous titles. While received wisdom considers Les raquetteurs (1958) the beginning of cinéma direct, it is surprising to learn that it only includes one short sequence containing the synchronous sound and image that came to define the style. Equally interesting is Brault’s “walking camera” technique that motivated Jean Rouch to invite his collaboration on Chronique d’un été (1961), the first production to exemplify the transatlantic connections between the nascent Quebecois cinema and the French New Wave. In the next chapter, Loiselle deconstructs the notion of Pierre Perrault’s authorship of the landmark documentary Pour la suite du monde, showing how Brault’s images are essential to the film’s effectiveness and fundamental ambivalence. Loiselle similarly reveals Brault’s key role in collaborations with Claude Jutra (with À tout prendre as a prime example), and convinces us of the linguistic and thus cultural importance (notwithstanding its flaws) of Brault’s first feature film, Entre la mer et l’eau douce (1967): “By making what might [...] be Quebec’s first fiction film in joual, Brault once again demonstrated an uncanny ability to capture onscreen issues that most concerned his contemporaries” (98). Loiselle deploys trauma theory in his skillful reading of the masterpiece Les ordres (1974) as an “interrogation of fascism” (113) in all its forms. He also sees Quand je serai parti... vous vivrez encore (1999) within this framework, as an attempt “to suture the traumatic tear in the historical fabric of Quebec” (176) through its nostalgic take on the Patriot Rebellions of 1837–39 and the executions which put an end to the collective affirmation they represented. Although Brault made his final documentary La Manic in 2002, because of the thirty-year gestation of Quand je serai parti, it represents the culmination of Brault’s vision of and for his collectivity. Loiselle’s well-written and well-documented Cinema as History is both an excellent introduction to Quebec film and a landmark in Brault scholarship. Georgetown University (DC) Miléna Santoro MCNEILL, ISABELLE. Memory and the Moving Image: French Film in the Digital Era. Edinburgh : Edinburgh UP, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7486-3891-8. Pp. 181. £60. 1995 marked the centenary of cinema in France. Around that same time, the septième art witnessed the rise of digital technologies for the creation and production as well as the viewing of what is commonly, though no longer always accurately, called film. Isabelle McNeill focuses on this transition and the role of digitalization in her solid, deeply researched study of what she refers to as “moving image 190 FRENCH REVIEW 85.1 media.” Her study includes a number of late twentieth- and early twenty-first century auteurs, both well- and lesser-known, including Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, Yamina Benguigui, Natacha Samuel, Michael Haneke, and Zabou Breitman. Drawing on diverse disciplines such as philosophy, history, historiography, literature, literary criticism, film studies, and neurobiology, McNeill explores the many ways in which film and memory intersect. Her analysis shows that even as some scholars and filmmakers are already proclaiming the death of cinema, some of the most basic questions surrounding it still have not been answered, not even “what is cinema?” Using the aforementioned forms of scholarly inquiry, McNeill addresses these questions and more as she illustrates how cinematic objects, faces, and spaces shape...