Creole Cinema: Memory Traces - (Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures) by Louise Hardwick (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Creole Cinema: Memory Traces is the first book written in English on Francophone Caribbean cinema. It establishes a postcolonial, Caribbean, and fundamentally Creole theoretical framework for the interpretation of works which the author defines as Creole cinema, through the lens of Patrick Chamoiseau's concept of the Trace-mémoire. In so doing, it examines the remarkable multisensory forms of memory expression performed by Creole cinema, drawing on work on intercultural cinema and haptic visuality by Laura Marks, and on Hamid Naficy's insights into accented cinema. Initially undertaking a general survey which provides the most comprehensive account of Francophone Caribbean cinema to date, the critical framework is then developed in a series of case-studies which analyse Biguine (2004) directed by Guy Deslauriers with a screenplay by Chamoiseau; Nord-Plage (2004) directed by José Hayot, again with Chamoiseau as author of the screenplay; Rue Cases-Nègres (1983, Sugar Cane Alley) directed by Euzhan Palcy; and Nèg maron (2005) directed by Jean-Claude Barny. Each case study establishes how the Trace-mémoire manifests in a complex haptic multisensory set of dynamics which can be discerned both in individual works and across a wider range of films considered, in order to access and retrieve - here with a particular emphasis on processes of creative intuition - subaltern and marginalised memories and histories. The study works in a consistently interdisciplinary manner across areas including Francophone Studies, Film Studies, Postcolonial Studies, World Cinema, and Black Studies, and represents a timely intervention on urgent debates around black representation in cinema.

Review Quotes

"Creole Cinema is a genuinely ground-breaking work, an original and very substantial contribution, and the kind of study that, once realised, makes one wonder why it hasn't been done before... Louise Hardwick has done a service for all scholars of the French Caribbean in this work of excavation, in-depth analysis and sheer breadth of reference." Professor Maeve McCusker, Queen's University Belfast

"Louise Hardwick's book Creole Cinema: Memory Traces is a timely and compelling intervention in francophone post-colonial studies. Hardwick theorizes and analyses for the first time the field of creative practice she names "Creole cinema," in the process delineating a crucial subfield (francophone Caribbean film studies) that has heretofore remained underexplored." Professor Nick Nesbitt, Princeton University