Representations of Women in Germaine Dulac's Visual Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study about representations of women in movies by the French filmmaker Germaine Dulac in the 1920s. Based on articles written by the director and the analyze of two of her films, namely La souriente madame Beudet (1922) and L'Invitation au Voyage (1927), the aesthetic options that guided her visual pedagogy are described and analyzed. In this perspective, it is taken into account the controversy around the aesthetic/political configuration of cinema as art and the struggle for the emancipation of women, of which she actively participated. The arguments highlight the role of education by/for the cinema within the framework of the relations between movies, memory and formative processes.