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Caroline Eades

Caroline Eades headshot on a brown background

Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Professor, French
Professor, Cinema and Media Studies
Affiliate Professor, Classics

(301) 405-4029

4120 Jiménez Hall
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Research Expertise

Film Studies and Cultural Studies
French and Francophone Studies
Postcolonialism

Curriculum Vitae

Caroline Eades specializes in Film Studies and Contemporary French Culture. She received her PhD in Film Studies from the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III and has taught at the University of Grenoble, France, the University of Southern California, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her main fields of research are European Cinema, Post-Colonial Studies, Film Feminist Theory, Film and Myth. She published Le Cinéma post-colonial français in 2006 (Paris: Collections 7eArt, Editions du Cerf) and The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia, co-edited with Elizabeth Papazian (New York: Wallflower Press, 2016), and Cinéma et Mythologie: Varda, Resnais, Honoré, Annaud in 2021 (Paris: L'Harmattan, Collection Champs visuels) as well as numerous book-chapters and articles on French cinema, culture, and literature in American, Canadian, French, Greek, Brazilian, Swiss, Belgian, and Italian scholarly series and journals, including The French Review, Revue de Littérature Comparée, and CinémAction.


Book Chapters (authored)

  • “Wolf Totem by Jean-Jacques Annaud (2015): Turning a Chinese Novel into a Transnational Film”, ed. Allen Redmon, Jackson: Minneapolis: University Press of Mississippi, 2021: 108-125.
  • “Les Métamorphoses dans le cinéma de Christophe Honoré,” in Les Métamorphoses, entre fiction et notion. Littérature et sciences (XVIe-XXIe siècles), ed. Juliette Azoulai, Azélie Fayolle et Gisèle Séginger (Paris: Laboratoire LISAA, 2019): 315-332.
  • “The Art of Silence: From Documentary to Fiction”, in The Cinema of Louis Malle,Transatlantic Auteur, ed. Philippe Met, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-18870-8): 34-48.
  • "Verbal Discourse and Graphic Discourse on Film: Examples of Critical Navigation", in Comparative Literature as a Critical Approach / Literature, the Arts, and the Social Sciences, ed. Anne Tomiche (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2017): 453-470.
  • "Au fil d'Ariane: les femmes du port chez Robert Guédiguian" (Following Ariadne: Women of the Port in Robert Guédiguian's Films), Sur le port, ed. René Prédal (Condésur-Noireau: CinémAction, 2017): 71-81.
  • "The Narrative Imperative in the Films of Angelopoulos", Theo Angelopoulos (1935-2012), eds. Angelos Koutsourakis and Mark Steven (Edinburgh: University ofEdinburgh Press, 2015): 175-190.
  • "Neo-Realismo: Another “Cinéma de Papa” for the French New Wave", in Global Neorealism 1930-1970. The Transnational History of a Film Style, eds. Robert Sklar and Saverio Giovacchini (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011): 103-124.
  • "Les rites de passage au cinéma : représentation, substitution, irréalisation" (Rites of passage: representation, substitution, implementation), in Les Rites de passage. De la Grèce d’Homère à notre XXIème siècle, ed. Philippe Hameau, (Grenoble: Musée Dauphinois, 2010): 101-109.
  • "La Première Guerre mondiale vue par le cinéma français aujourd'hui" (World War I in Contemporary French Films), in Mémoires et antimémoires littéraires du XXème siècle : la Première Guerre mondiale, eds. Annamaria Laserra and Marc Quaghebeur, (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2008): 229-252.
  • "Perspective post-coloniale sur quelques films français après 1945" (A Post-Colonial Perspective on Postwar French Films), in La Fiction éclatée, vol. 1, eds. Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit and Geneviève Sellier (Paris : INA-L’Harmattan, 2007) : 211-229.
  • "Un chemin tout tracé : espace politique et itinéraires symboliques dans Le Regard d’Ulysse et L’Eternité et un jour" (A Path To Follow: Political Space and Symbolic Itineraries in Ulysses’ Gaze and The Eternity and One Day), in Théo Angelopoulos au fil du temps, ed. Sylvie Rollet (Paris : Théorème 9, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2007): 53-63.
  • "Mainstreaming the margins in France: Three Films au Féminin", in Women Filmmakers: Refocusing, eds. Valerie Raoul, Jacqueline Levitin, and Judith Plessis (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2003): 138-151.
  • "L'Evocation des Enfers : mythe et cinéma" (The Evocation of the Underworld: Myth and Cinema), in La Mythologie et l'Odyssée. Hommage à Gabriel Germain, eds. André Hurst and Françoise Létoublon (Genève: Droz, 2002): 231-245.
  • "Roger Caillois : rencontres furtives avec le cinéma" (Roger Caillois: Furtive Encounters with Cinema), in Roger Caillois, fragments, fractures, réfractions d'une oeuvre, ed. Annamaria Laserra (Padova: Unipress, 2002): 99-112.
  • "La Star de cinéma" (The Film Star), in Dictionnaire des mythes féminins, ed. Pierre Brunel (Paris: Editions du Rocher, 2002): 1756-1769.
  • “L’Ombre du 11 septembre sur les images contemporaines” (The Shadow of 09/11 on Contemporary Images), in Midia, Comunicaçao e Cultura, eds. Anna Maria Balogh, Antonio Adami, Juan Droguett, and Haydée Dourado de Faria Cardoso (Sao Paulo: Arte e Ciência, 2002): 57-75.
  • "Le Cinéma", in Français Première. Textes, Mouvements culturels, Genres, Méthodes, eds. Maryse Aviérinos, Denis Labouret, Marie-Hélène Prat (Paris: Bordas/VUEF, 2001): 474-489.
  • "Le Cinéaste et le Duce : l’héritage mussolinien dans le monde de Fellini" (The Filmmaker and Il Duce: Mussolini’s Heritage in Fellini’s World), in Devenir roi, Essais sur la littérature adressée au Prince, eds. Francis Goyet and Isabelle Cogitore (Grenoble: ELLUG, 2001): 135-148.
  • "La représentation de la montagne au cinéma : une très résistible ascension" (Filming Mountains: A Very Resistible Ascent), in Montagnes imaginées, montagnes représentées, eds. André Siganos and Simone Vierne (Grenoble: ELLUG, 2000): 231-241.
  • "Prophoriki aphigisi, poiesi kai logotechnia sto ergo tou Thodorou Angelopoulou" (Narrative, Poetry, and Literature in the Films of Theo Angelopoulos) in Vlemma stou kosmo tou Thodorou Angelopolou, transl. A. Ioannou, eds. Irini Stathi and A Kuriakidis (Thessaloniki: Thessaloniki International Film Festival, 2000): 23-29.
  • "Les Perspectives de l'enseignement du cinéma et de l'audiovisuel dans le cadre des réformes de l'université" (Perspectives on Film and Media Studies in Light of Recent University Policy Reforms), in Cinéma et audiovisuel. Nouvelles images, approches nouvelles (Paris: BIFI/L'Harmattan, 2000): 243-253.
  • "L'Eternel Retour dans le cinéma post-colonial français" (The Eternal Return in French Post-Colonial Cinema), in L'Emigration : le retour, eds. Rose Duroux and Alain Montandon (Clermont-Ferrand: Cahiers de recherches du CRLMC, 1999): 405-416.
  • "La Pierre et la croix : figures filmiques de Marie-Madeleine" (The Stone and the Cross: Filmic Figures of Mary Magdeleine), in Marie-Madeleine : figure mythique dans la littérature et les arts, ed. Alain Montandon (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 1999): 339-352.
  • "Le Téléspectateur des émissions réflexives" (Watching Self-Reflexive Programs), in La Télévision au miroir, ed. Pierre Beylot (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1998): 175-183.
  • "La Réflexivité télévisuelle aux Etats-Unis" (Self-Referentiality in American Television Programming), in La Télévision au miroir, ed. Pierre Beylot (Paris : L’Harmattan, 1998): 61-71.
  • "Le Cinéma européen: un art d'exceptions culturelles?" (European Cinema: an Art of Cultural Exceptions?), in Démarcations, Contacts (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l'Université de Provence, 1995): 169-179.
  • "Ex-position post-coloniale, d'Orsenna à Le Clézio" (Post-Colonial Ex-Position, from Orsenna to Le Clézio), in Regards sur la France des années 1980. Le Roman, eds. Joseph Brami, Madeleine Hage and Pierre Verdaguer (Stanford: Anma Libri, 1994): 59-66.

Book Chapters (co-authored)

  • "Cinéma-Vérité and Kino-Pravda: Rouch, Vertov and the Essay Form", with Elizabeth Papazian, in The Essay Film (London: Wallflower Press, 2016): 86-124.
  • "Theo Angelopoulos in the Underworld", in collaboration with Françoise Létoublon, in Homer in the Twentieth Century; Between World Literature and the Western Canon, eds Barbara Graziosi and Emily Greenwood (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007): 210-227.
  • "Apo tous archaious stous prosopikous muthous. To proto blemma kai o archegonos logos ston Thodoro Aggelopoulo" (From Ancient Myths to Personal Myths. The First Gaze and Primitive Discourse in Theo Angelopoulos’ Films), with Françoise Létoublon, in Cinemythologia. Oi ellinikoi mythoi ston pagkosmio kinimatographo, ed. Michel Demopoulos (Athens: Poltistiki Olympiada, 2003): 89-113.
  • "Pères et fils : le royaume des ombres chez Théo Angelopoulos" (Fathers and Sons: the Kingdom of Shadows in the Films of Theo Angelopoulos), with Françoise Létoublon and Sylvie Rollet, in L'Ombre de l'image, ed. Muriel Gagnebin (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2003): 177-197.
  • "From Film Analysis to Oral-Formulaic Theory: The Case of the Yellow Oilskins", in Contextualizing Classics: Ideology, Performance, Dialogue, eds. Thomas M. Falkner, Nancy Felson and David Konstan (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999): 301-316. tr. in Italian "Dall'analisi filmica alla teoria orale formulare : il caso delle cerate gialle" in Faces: Theo Angelopoulos, ed. Paola M Minucci (Bologna: Revolver, 2004): 43-59; tr. in Greek in Theo Angelopoulos, ed. Irini Stathi (Athens: Castaniotis, 2000): 145-155.
  • "Les Rituels de l'hospitalité ou le temps retrouvé d'Angelopoulos" (Hospitality Rituals, or Time Regained in Angelopoulos' Films), with Françoise Létoublon, Mythes et représentations de l'hospitalité, ed. Alain Montandon (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, 1999): 251-265.

Articles in Refereed Journals

  • “Le Comité du Film Ethnographique : de la création au bilan”, in Décadrages 40-42, eds. François Bouvier and Serge Margel, (Lausanne: 2019): 11-36.
  • “Disappearing Images of the Sea in Theo Angelopoulos’ Last Films”, Mediterranean Review, volume 9 number 2 (December 2016): 83-110.
  • "Du cinéaste à l’aède : spécularité et circularité dans l’oeuvre de Théo Angelopoulos" (From Filmmaker to Bard: Reflexivity and Circularity in the Films of Theo Angelopoulos), eds. Odile Lagacherie and Francesca Dell'Oro, Gaia, number 18, (Grenoble: ELLUG, 2015): 359-373.
  • "Noirs et blancs en couleurs. Le passé colonial et le cinéma français contemporain"("Black and White In Color. The Colonial Past and French Contemporary Cinema"),in 'La France en situation coloniale", Mouvements des idées et des luttes (Paris: La Découverte, 2011): 55-66.
  • "Les Visions de Jeanne d’Arc” (“The Visions of Joan of Arc"), Femmes et pouvoir, ed. Penny Starfield, CinemAction, no 129, 2008: 110-119.
  • "Le Regard de Theo Angelopoulos sur le cinéma" (Theo Angelopoulos’ Gaze on Film), Le Cinéma au miroir du cinéma, CinémAction, ed. René Prédal, no 124, 2007: 233-239.
  • "A se tordre de rire : la représentation du corps dans les films comiques américains et français" (Roaring With Laughter: the Image of the Body in American and French Comic Films), with Lauretta. Clough, in "Rire et Littérature", Recherches et Travaux no 66, ed. Bernard Roukhomosky, (Grenoble: ELLUG, 2006): 273-289.
  • "Les personnages féminins de Bertrand Tavernier: entre image et idée" (Female Characters in Bertrand Tavernier’s Films: Between Image and Idea), The French Review, no 79, 2006: 1206-1221.
  • "Godard, l'hommage au XXIème siècle" (Godard: An Homage to the 21st Century), CinémAction, ed. René Prédal, no 109, 2003: 211-218.
  • "La place du cinéma : la survie des salles, la généralisation des vidéo-clubs et l'essor des sites Internet" (Cinema's Spaces Today: the Survival of Movie Theaters, the Expansion of Videostores, and the Development of Web Sites), Le Cinéma contemporain : état des lieux, ed. Jean-Pierre Esquenazi (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2004): 59-71.
  • "Affreux, sales et méchants : de la série B au film-culte" (Ugly, Dirty, and Nasty: from B Movies to Cult Movies), in Compar(a)ison, ed. Mikael Jakob (Berne: Peter Lang, 2002): 243-253.
  • "Trois visions : Bernanos, Bresson, Pialat" (Three Visions: Bernanos, Besson, Pialat), in Recherches et Travaux. Littérature et spiritualité, ed. Jean-François Louette, no 58 (Grenoble: ELLUG, 2000): 149-157.
  • "A propos de Nice : les représentations filmiques de la Côte d'Azur" (On Nice: Film Visions of the French Riviera), in Géocritique, ed. Bertrand Westphal, no 1 (2000): 281-297.
  • "La Théâtralité dans l'oeuvre de Fellini et d'Angelopoulos" (Theater References in the Films of Fellini and Angelopoulos), in CinémAction, ed. René Prédal, no 93 (Winter 1999): 220-228.
  • "Le Regard d'Orphée chez Théo Angelopoulos" (Orpheus' Gaze in Angelopoulos' Films), with Françoise Létoublon, Revue de Littérature Comparée, no 292 (1999): 647-656. transl. in Greek in Theo Angelopoulos, ed. Irini Stathi (Athens: Castaniotis, 2000): 53-61. reprinted in Le Mythe d'Orphée dans les Métamorphoses d'Ovide, ed. Françoise Létoublon (Paris: Adapt, 2001): 109-121.
  • “O telespectador-consumidor: de olho no bolso" (The Viewer-Consumer: From the Eye to the Wallet), transl. and ed. Anna Maria Balogh, Novos Olhares, no 2 (Sao Paulo, 1998): 4-12.
  • "Fellini commentateur de Pétrone" (Fellini Commenting On Petronius), in Recherches et Travaux, ed. Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, no 53 (1997): 215-226.
  • "L'oeil était dans la tombe..." (The Eye Was in the Grave...), in IRIS, ed. Danièle Chauvin, no 16 (1996): 207-217.
  • "Le Colonel Chabert : récits écrit et filmiques" (Colonel Chabert: literary and film narratives), in L'Année Balzacienne (1995): 332-348.
  • "Le Musée de Fellini : le Satyricon de Pétrone à Fellini" (Fellini’s Museum: From Petronius’ to Fellini’s Satyricon), in Rencontres, Croisements, Emprunts :Méthodologies de l'analyse d'images, eds. Jean Arrouye et Marie-Claude Taranger (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l'Université de Provence, 1996): 119-127.

Publications

Le Regard d'Angelopoulos sur l'Odyssée

This article explores the numerous references to the Odyssey and Greek mythology present in "Ulysses' Gaze" directed by Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos in 1995.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Caroline Eades
Dates:

The first part of Theo Angelopoulos' career was dominated by references to the myth of the Atreides with the return of the father betrayed by his wife, the plot hatched with her lover leading to his violent death, the suffering of his children, and Orestes' revenge. The story of Ulysses' return to Ithaka later replaced Agamemnon's in his filmography. "The Suspended Step of the Stork" illustrated this theme by depicting the impossibility of the reunion between the modern Ulysses and his Penelope. This article demonstrates that from "Ulysses' Gaze" on, Angelopoulos' narratives became more and more influenced by the Homeric myth. This return to the oldest source of literature allowed the filmmaker to elaborate and express a personal and intimate myth that were developed in "Eternity and a day" and subsequent films.

Cinéma et Mythologie : Varda, Resnais, Honoré, Annaud

This book explores four films directed by major French filmmakers and dedicated to the heritage of Greek mythology in contemporary culture.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Caroline Eades
Dates:

Ulysses, Europe, Orpheus, and Eurydice are among the mythical characters whose adventures have been illustrated since antiquity in the arts, and for over a century now, in cinema. French filmmakers Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, Christophe Honoré, and Jean-Jacques Annaud participated in the transmission and rewriting of these Greek myths, each in their own way. In "Ulysses" (1982), Varda combined an autobiographical commentary on a photograph taken in 1954 with a feminist and political perspective on its context, echoing the works of Roland Barthes and Jacques Rancière on photography. Resnais, in "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" (2012), returned to his passion for theater by revisiting two of Jean Anouilh's plays in light of Jean-Luc Nancy and Mathilde Girard's dialogue on myth and performance. "Métamorphoses" by Honoré (2014) offers a transgender reading of mythological stories, in every sense of the word, under the aegis of Jupiter, Bacchus, and Orpheus in order to articulate a liberated but informed vision of the future for younger generations living in a Mediterranean environment. In "His Majesty Minor" (2007), Annaud presents a parody of "The Odyssey" through a critical reading of Greek mythology by the humanities and social sciences

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WOLF TOTEM by Jean-Jacques Annaud (2015): Turning a Chinese Novel into a Transnational Film

This book focuses on French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud's adaptation of Chinese writer Jiang Rong's novel "Wolf Totem" (2004).

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Caroline Eades
Dates:

This article casts Jean-Jacques Annaud's "Wolf Totem" (2015) as a site of cultural negotiation and focuses on Annaud's adaptational dialogue with Jiang Rong's novel (2004) by the same name to turn a deeply local story into a transnational film. Annaud achieves a more general perspective than the Chinese novel by refusing to make any claims to historical accuracy or documentary objectivity. But, as in most of his previous films, he strives to confront social and political reality from a an independent, informed, and critical position. Annauds thus continues to support and embody a struggle for cinema's independence from any political or material constraint while exposing the shortcomings of any representation of an unknown culture that depends on stereotypes and prejudice.

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Le Comité du Film Ethnographique : de la création au bilan

This article examines the beginnings of the Comité du Film Ethnographique under the aegis of Jean Rouch in the context of the creation and development of the Musée de l'Homme since 1937.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Caroline Eades
Dates:

This article describes the creation of the Comité du Film Ethnographique (CFE) in 1953 at the Musée de l'Homme, Paris, France, as an answer to the need to produce documentaries that would meet both the requirement for scientific rigor and the general public's interest in ethnography and diverse cultures. The CFE aimed to legitimize the use of cinema in a relatively new discipline in the scientific world and to highlight the enthusiasm, professionalization, and autonomy of ethno-cinematographers since the beginning of cinema, while having to address the issues and ambiguities linked to this field of research and its place in society.

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The Art of Silence: From Documentary to Fiction

This chapter examines French filmmaker Louis Malle's first documentary, "The Silent World" (1956), and its impact on key political and stylistic features of the fiction films he subsequently directed.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Caroline Eades
Dates:

Louis Malle's collaboration with oceanographer and environmental activist Jacques Cousteau on "The Silent World" was a training ground and foundational work for the budding French director in 1956. The specific treatment of three elements -the presence of recording technology, the observation of marine life, the use of sound- pervading the film as a documentary feature had a significant influence on Malle's narrative and aesthetic choices as soon as he turned to fiction two years later, with "Elevator to the Gallows" and "The Lovers" (and on to his early 1960s films -"Zazie dans le métro", "A Very Private Affair", "The Fire Within"). Malle's interest in the mediatisation of vision, his 'mechanistic" conception of cinema, his acute perception of the representational and narrational inadequacy of verbal language, his ethnographic concern (shared with Jean Rouch) for "an ethic of looking and listening", his disenchanted gaze on the man-machine, his shift between nature (animals) and mankind (in particular children) -all speak to a constant engagement with issues of realism, truth and objectivity, and, ultimately, to a more assertive political thrust than is ordinarily perceived in his early work.

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