Amélie Poulain & the cult of details
Posted on February 12, 2007 by organicfrog
I am going to talk about a French controversial subject today: Amélie Poulain… You are French and like this movie? Then you should be one of these people still living in the past and ignoring the future and decline of France! You don’t like the film? Then you probably are an entrepreneur loving challenges! If I am writing this post today, it’s only to say that I love Amélie Poulain and I am interested in the future as well! I’ve always been a bit surprised that many people, especially ‘The déclinologues’ was trashing Amélie and only seeing it as an analogy of France refusing to face challenges. These critics were pointing the fact that the movie was focused on the micro happiness with no perspectives, no big picture… A France more looking at its glorious past than embracing the changes, the social transformations…
Well I have a slightly different vision of Amélie Poulain. I think that this is a movie for planners! After seeing it for the xxx time the other day, I’ve related it to Russell’s post:
‘How to be interesting’. Then everything was crystal clear, the movie isn’t an apology of the past but a guide to start looking at all the tiny details that other people find insignificant. Thus Nino is collecting laughs and picture from photo booth and Amélie is nearly using a transmedia strategy to connect herself with Nino, this was brilliant. I recommend to all of you watching or re-watching this movie. To conclude on that I would say that Amélie is both dealing with micro pleasure and more general theme such as fearing the new, the unknown…I genuinely think that smaller details are as important as the big pictures. By collecting small details and having the patience of putting them together you sometimes have the most relevant thinking.
This reminds me of my studies in historiography and more precisely ‘l’école des annales’. Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch… created a new movement in history focused on the economical, social and cultural sources rather than on the traditional political history. They had to dig dipper and collected lots and lots piece of information but this method gave more insights on the long history than the political history which is more focused on one event.To conclude trust little things, they help to see bigger!
[Pic via]
Wow, I never knew there was such hidden meaning of liking of disliking Amelie…
I love it. For the little things, as you say.
Je partage pour partie ce que tu nous narres au sujet d’Amélie. Quelques réserves néanmoins sur le fond. C’est d’un kitch bobo que je trouve parfois difficile. Belles références que tu donnes de Febvre et Bloch. A ce sujet, je ne saurais trop t’inviter à te pencher sur la théorie de l’histoire de Walter Benjamin (= l’Histoire est écrite par les vainqueurs). Dans un genre différent , j’ai comme toi revu pour la xxxx ème fois “Un air de famille” dont l’Esthétique est top ! Je serai curieux de connaître la perception qu’un étranger peut en avoir, tes potes planneurs anglais par exemple.
A plus
@ Kirsty: Thanks for stopping by. Well I think that Amelie is quite representative of the cult of generalism in France. What I mean by this is deep and complex thinking that directly relates to big picture. It’s maybe a French thing I don’t know, but if you take the example of studying, France is favouring generalist subjects in ‘les grandes ecoles’… It’s for instance better to learn philosophy than sociology…
Check out this article (in French) http://www.levidepoches.fr/weblog/2007/01/socit_il_ny_a_p.html
It’s I think quite representative of the point I was trying to make.
@Cpawam Salut et merci pour ton commentaire, « le kitch bobo » d’Amélie est sans doute vrai en parti, néanmoins ce n’était pas le point que je voulais mettre. Je voulais démontrer à travers l’exemple d’Amélie que l’accès a la complexité et à la pensée n’est pas intrinsèquement lié aux sujets dits nobles et généralistes…
Concernant “Un air de famille” je doute qu’il soit populaire en Angleterre mais je vais demander.
A plus
Je partage totalement ton avis sur les sujets “dits nobles”. Amélie Poulain (mais combien d’autres ?!)nous révèle ce que tu pointes : la vérité est dans le quotidien et l’Histoire n’est qu’une compilation de ceux qui l’écrivent.
Merci de demander pour “Un air de famille” je serais très curieux d’en mesurer la lecture chez des étrangers.
A plus
Salut Cpawam,
Désolé mais ce que je prévoyais a propos d’un air de famille c’est malheureusement avéré être le cas ! Personne ne connaît le film ! Néanmoins, j’ai trouve une revue sur IMDB : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118015/. Y a un commentaire et le film est noté par les utilisateurs du site…