The lieu factice : performance, identity, and place in French and Italian Queer documentary since 2000
Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This research is motivated by the increased output of Queer documentary film in France and Italy from 2000 onwards, an increase which is seen to form part of a wider committed cinema. The impetus comes from a need to recognise the contribution of this output in marking a shift away from the categorisation of representations within set frameworks and identities to the deployment of the intricacies of documentary performance in creating an alternative and more complex sense of place and identity. In considering this shift I develop the notion of the lieu factice, which I offer as an original way of approaching the complexities of both the process of documentary representation and the context in which this takes place in France and Italy where ‘difference’ is generally subsumed in universal principles. The lieu factice is a temporary site of agency and resistance which allows identity and place to be explored in different ways, reflecting the position of Queer lives in contexts where the universal predominates and the interplay between visibility and invisibility is a complex phenomenon. As I progress through each chapter, providing detailed analysis of the selected films, I appropriate a range of Queer theoretical concepts to support my notion, which draws on the work of Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Leo Bersani and Nicholas de Villiers. The lieu factice is shaped by a range of representational and spatial dynamics in the foregrounding of ‘difference’ and is marked by shifts between local, national, and global spaces, both physical and imagined. The notion of ‘Queer documentary’ in France and Italy is seen to defy definition and centres on a notable challenge to the hegemony of the family as a heteronormative space within national narratives.
Author: Oliver Brett
Language: English
Topic: Gender and Feminist Studies
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: University of Leicester
OpenAlex ID: W812359573