French Literature Reviews - 2026

Alexis Lussier, L'obscur objet d'un film. Jean Genet et les images de cinéma
Theatre and Performance

In 1950, Jean Genet secretly directed Un chant d'amour, a film banned from public screening for twenty-five years, which seems haunted by an elusive object buried deep within the work itself—an object of pure poetry, yet entirely cinematic.

This book explores the hidden coherence of cinema within Genet's oeuvre, understanding cinema as a boundary that imposes something distinct from writing. This highlights both its singularity and its uncanny nature for the author of Miracle of the Rose, The Thief's Journal, and The Blacks. Genet never looked at cinema without ambivalence and contradiction. Rather than attempting to resolve these tensions, this study seeks to intensify them, making them the focal point of a comprehensive poetics.

Alexis Lussier is a professor in the Department of Literary Studies at the Université du Québec à Montréal. His research lies at the intersection of literature, psychoanalysis, and philosophy.

The relationship between literature and the cinematic medium has long engaged scholars working within twentieth-century French studies and aesthetic theory, where the emergence of film challenged traditional boundaries of text and representation. Writers of Genet's generation frequently navigated a complex cultural landscape shaped by the rise of visual media, often experiencing cinema as both a profound fascination and a disruptive force that resisted conventional narrative categorization. Within this broader intellectual context, studies addressing the interrelations of poetry, performance, and screen culture seek to illuminate how artistic mediums intersect and diverge.

Alexis Lussier is a professor in the Department of Literary Studies at the Université du Québec à Montréal, and his research lies at the intersection of literature, psychoanalysis, and philosophy. This book explores the hidden coherence of cinema within Jean Genet's oeuvre, understanding cinema as a boundary that imposes something distinct from writing and highlighting both its singularity and its uncanny nature for the author of Miracle of the Rose, The Thief's Journal, and The Blacks. Readers interested in French literature, twentieth-century avant-garde practices, and the intersections between writing and visual arts may find this study relevant.