"A forest of signs"? Cinema and images in Olivia Rosenthal’s work

Author(s)

  • Fabien Gris UMR CELLF, Sorbonne University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51777/relief13496

Keywords:

Olivia Rosenthal, cinema, pictures, antirealism, symbolism, sign

Abstract

Cinema has had a considerable impact on Olivia Rosenthal's texts in the 2010s. In this article, it is less a question of returning to the themes in themselves, which are carried by these filmic references, than of reflecting on their reflexive dimension within the poetics of the writer. In particular, they bear witness to her refusal of the realistic illusion. But, beyond filmic images alone, we will ask ourselves whether the use of images in general does not make Rosenthal's work a "forest of signs". The suggestive part that they convey disturbs the meanings and nuances the documentary and literalist aspect that tends to be emphasized in the writer's texts.

Author Biography

  • Fabien Gris, UMR CELLF, Sorbonne University

    Fabien Gris is associate professor at Sorbonne University and a member of the UMR CELLF. His work focuses on contemporary French literature and, in particular, on its relationship with cinema. He has co-edited two collective works: Olivia Rosenthal, le dispositif, le monde et l'intime, with Laurent Demanze (2015) and, with Jean-Christophe Igalens, Casanova à l'écran (2021). He is currently working on the literary representations of issues related to rurality in contemporary French texts.

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Published

2022-12-19

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 2 (2022): Olivia Rosenthal: literature on the look-out

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Fabien Gris

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All articles published in RELIEF appear in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). Under this licence, authors retain ownership of the copyright of their article, but they allow its unrestricted use, provided it is properly cited.

How to Cite

“‘A forest of signs’? Cinema and images in Olivia Rosenthal’s work” (2022) RELIEF - REVUE ÉLECTRONIQUE DE LITTÉRATURE FRANÇAISE, 16(2), pp. 50–59. doi:10.51777/relief13496.