Chiseling and Sexuality in Films d’amour (1968-89), by Maurice Lemaître

Abstract

Based on the set of short films Films d’amour, made by Maurice Lemaître, we try to question their main narrative traces, focusing on the questions about chiseling and sexuality in them. To do so, we start from the theoretical debate about filmic, extra filmic and lyric dimensions of chiseling, such as the sexuality, in the context of the lettrist vanguard. In a second moment, the films are approached by a commented description, focused on the announced key issues, as well on the lettrist counterpoint to hegemonic patterns of sexuality, commons to classic and porn cinema. Finally, it is identified the existence of a particular sexuality, associated with lyricism, as well as the tensions between visual freedom and the rationalization of sound/ written elements. Among the developments, in relation to the theories about the construction of sexuality in cinema, we argue that Films d’amour will have a propitious conceptual field from authors like Laura Mulvey, Mary Ann Doane and Yann Lardeau, that, in the 1970s, distrusted visual pleasure and sexuality heirs to classic naturalism and the fragmentation of porn.