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[NABOKOV-L] Bernanos' "Mouchette" and Nabokov's "Juanita Dark":
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A friend sent me a link to the trailer of a movie by Robert Bresson titled "Mouchette." ( a rustic, foul-mouthed girl aged 14). When I watched the trailer (my first contact with Bresson and Bernano, btw) there were certain, very tenuous, images which suggested me a few moments related to the metaphorical aspects present in the relationship between Nabokov's Humbert Humbert and Lolita.
I would not have posed the question to the list (ie: "Was Nabokov, known for his knowledge about movies, in any interested in Bresson, or, in George Bernanos?"), were it not that Nabokov had initially considered naming his Dolores/Lo/Lolita, "Juanita," after the French monarchist woman-warrior St. Jeanne d'Arc,* and this French/Latin double connection remains unclear for me.
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*The original writer of "Mouchette", George Bernanos, descends from Jeanne D'Arc through a brother of hers. Bernanos was a monarchist, fought in and helped to create the French resistance, was an exile ( to Brazil, but he kept writing in French), and a fervent nationalist Catholic.
His "La Nouvelle Histoire de Mouchette" is unrelated to his former novel about "Mouchette" ("little fly").
Another novel of his was made into a movie in 1987, by M. Pialat, and won the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Festival, with young Gerard Depardieu as a priest, and Sandrine Bonnaire in the role of Brenano's first "Mouchette" (aged 16). This first Mouchette kills herself and is saved by "heavenly grace".
The miracles presented by Bernanos/Bresson don't present a classic religious of a saving grace, but their miracles are closer to something "Unheimlich," as the intrusion of the imponderable, the absurd and the impossible into human lives.
Bresson was also inspired by Dostoevsky ("Pickpocket", "Une Femme Douce", "Nuits Blanches") and Tolstoy. He filmed "Au Hasard, Balthasar" in 1966, a year before "Mouchette." His "Process of Jeanne d'Arc" dates from 1962. Later he filmed something related to the Graal legend ("Lancelot du Lac") and his vision is more sadistic than religious.
The information above was informally passed to me by Luiz F.Gallego Soares.
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I would not have posed the question to the list (ie: "Was Nabokov, known for his knowledge about movies, in any interested in Bresson, or, in George Bernanos?"), were it not that Nabokov had initially considered naming his Dolores/Lo/Lolita, "Juanita," after the French monarchist woman-warrior St. Jeanne d'Arc,* and this French/Latin double connection remains unclear for me.
........................................................................................
*The original writer of "Mouchette", George Bernanos, descends from Jeanne D'Arc through a brother of hers. Bernanos was a monarchist, fought in and helped to create the French resistance, was an exile ( to Brazil, but he kept writing in French), and a fervent nationalist Catholic.
His "La Nouvelle Histoire de Mouchette" is unrelated to his former novel about "Mouchette" ("little fly").
Another novel of his was made into a movie in 1987, by M. Pialat, and won the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Festival, with young Gerard Depardieu as a priest, and Sandrine Bonnaire in the role of Brenano's first "Mouchette" (aged 16). This first Mouchette kills herself and is saved by "heavenly grace".
The miracles presented by Bernanos/Bresson don't present a classic religious of a saving grace, but their miracles are closer to something "Unheimlich," as the intrusion of the imponderable, the absurd and the impossible into human lives.
Bresson was also inspired by Dostoevsky ("Pickpocket", "Une Femme Douce", "Nuits Blanches") and Tolstoy. He filmed "Au Hasard, Balthasar" in 1966, a year before "Mouchette." His "Process of Jeanne d'Arc" dates from 1962. Later he filmed something related to the Graal legend ("Lancelot du Lac") and his vision is more sadistic than religious.
The information above was informally passed to me by Luiz F.Gallego Soares.
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/