phil guy transgressive cinema extremity

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Gaspar No

Sensation, Provocation and Exploitation

In discussions of contempo rary French cinema, Gaspar No has generated much

debate regarding his abrasive treatment of controversial subject matter.

Described as both a fearless boundary pusher and a shallow, irresponsible

publicity hound (Romney 2009:32), his three feature films Seul Contre Tous

[1998], Irrv ersible [2002] and Enter The Void [200 9] have wo rked to polarise

critical audiences, consistently demonstrating a desire to offend, to provoke,

and to affect the audience in a primal way (Bailey 2 003). This inve stigation seeks

to appro ach Nos work and discuss its relation to c inemas supposed low genres

- or in Linda Williams words, the body genres (1991:12) while considering

Nos simultaneous alignment with French cinemas history of canonised art

cinema and counter-cinematic traditions. Working through film analysis and

v arious discourses surro unding the films, we shall discuss this negot iation

betwe en high and low cinema before addressing the topic of progressiv ity ,

which shall be used as a cataly st for discussing Nos highly c ontrov ersial filmictransgressions.

New French Extremity

Nos affiliation with the New French Extremity is of particular significance to

our discussion, as he is frequently cited as a prominent figurehead to this

moveme nt. The New French Extremity has garnered attention both in academic

and journalistic circles and is defined as the related projects of certain French

contemporaries who collectively embody filmmaking at the cutting edge:

incisive, unflinching [and] uncompromising (Palmer 2006:22). Quandt outlinesthe New French Extremity as a cinema suddenly determined to break every

taboo, to wade in rivers of viscera and spumes of sperm, to fill each frame with

flesh, nubile or gnarled, and subject it to all manner of penetration, mutilation,

and defilement (2004). Such a description aptly conveys the New French

Extremitys dedication to a cinema of confrontation, where low cinematic

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techniques which we shall discuss in due co urse are employ ed to push screen

depictions of physicality to unwelcome limits, raising basic issues of what is

acce ptable on-screen (Palmer 2006:22).

Hagman has suggested that such traits demonstrate a certain pragmatism on

behalf of the mov ement . He suggests that we must consider the ex tent to which

sensationalism is put to work in order to facilitate media exposure and break

through the noise of the world cinema market. He argues that the New French

Extremity seek to gain international recognition and circulation by way of an

affect economy [and] good old shock tactics. Whats more, Hagmancontinues, there is already a market in place, namely the international festival

circuit, for the film that dares to be provocative and transgressive. In this way,

the sensational and controversial techniques utilised by the New French

Extremity operate as a method for gaining international exposure and

guaranteeing a presence on the international festival circuit, which Hagman

locates as the primary market for European art film. Naturally, such strategies

align the mov ement with exploitation cinema and its desire to exploit a subject

for its commerc ial advantage, and this is a topic we will address with relation to

Gaspar No spec ifically (Hagman 200 7 :33). Before addressing these co nnections

with low cinema and ex plo itation, however, we can begin by addressing

discourses of high cinema generated in relation to Nos body of work.

No and the Academys Legitimate Film Culture

French cu lture ha s alway s taken pride in a national cinem a of a certain a rt ist ic

m erit . From th e technical breakthr ough of the Lum ires via the pioneering realism of

Jean Renoir to the monta ge-aesthet ics of Jean-Luc Godard and the y outhfu l v igour of

the Nouv elle Vag ue, the na tional can on of fi lm is upheld by individua l innova tors and

strong artist ic visions (Hagm an 20 07 :33).

Historically, French c inema is of significant relation to discourses o f art cinemaand counter-cinema, and this is best represented by the legacy left by the

Nouvelle Vague and Cahiers du Cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. James

Monaco suggests that the Nouvelle Vague demonstrated a fascination with the

forms and structures o f the film medium that sets their films apart from those

that proce eded them and marks a turning point in film history (1 97 6:9). Such

manipulation of classical cinematic form has seen the era become critically

v alo rised in accordance with film aesthetes and ac ademics champio ning [of]

counter-cinemas that break with the conventions of Hollywood production and

representation (Sconce 1 995:381).

In relation to the New French Extremity, Palmer argues that the subversive

practices that European art cinema of the 1950s and 1960s once deployedagainst classical norms are, in certain secto rs o f twenty-first-century filmmaking,

being meticulo usly reviv ed (20 06:22). His quotatio n formulates a discursiv e

connection between the New French Extremity and the Nouve lle Vague, which is

generated by the more recent movements equally disruptive approach to the

conventions of filmmaking, as well as its ability to once again return French

cinema to a position of renewed academic and critical attention. As Palmer

summarises: forty years on from the New Wave, French cinema is once more in

the global c ritical spotlight (200 6:22).

Because No and the New French Extremity are discursively aligned with the

Nouvelle Vague in this way primarily due to their shared desire to subvert

cinematic conventions they can be said to belong to the same world, orcultural domain, as those provocateurs of 1950s and 1960s French cinema. As

such, c ritical discourse aligns No with filmmakers rich in cultural pedigree and

canonized in areas of art cinema and counter-cinema. Here, Sconce argues that

the critical programme of academics, film aesthetes and the critical press the

academy proceeds both artistically, by valorizing a body of art films over


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the mainstream, commercial cinema, and politically, by celebrating those

filmmakers who seem to disrupt the conventional narrative machinery of

Hollywood (1995 :381). By this, we can understand that art cinema and co unter-

cinema represent the academy s legitimate film culture and Nos inclusion into

their discourses renders him a filmmaker operating in the interests of high

cinema.

We can proc eed from this discourse and begin to inv estigate the textual

attributes of Nos work to see how they align with this legitimate film culture.

In accordance with Quandts definition of anticlassical filmmaking amanipulation of style as a form of systematic artistic experimentation and

technical virtuosity (2004) - No can certainly be said to manipulate the

traditional forms of dominant cinema. Described as formidably intense (Cowan

2002:49), No employs a radical, innovative use of film style and an

ingeniously crafted barrage of visual and aural techniques (Palmer 2006:23)

that subvert dominant cinemas pragmatic normalized options of telling the

story and manipulating composition (Bordwell 1 986:17 ). In Carne and Seul

Contre Tous both films detailing the same protagonist and similar cinematic

characteristics No utilises an aggressive style of abrupt cuts, extreme close-

ups, and preposterous intertitles, of seismic sounds and hard-driving music

(Quandt 2006). Such prominent stylisation contradicts dominant cinemas

desire to conceal its artifice through techniques of continuity and invisiblestory telling (Bordwell, Staiger & Thompson 1985 :3).

An equally anticlassic al tec hnique is found in Nos detac hed-c ame ra technique

used prominently in recent films Irrversible and Enter The Void. Utilising a

lightweight Minima camera for both films, No sought to capture 360-degree

regions of space around his characters, in vertiginous swoops, whirls, and

gyroscopic spins (Palmer 2006:22). Hailed since as a virtuoso of camera

movement (Bradshaw 2012), these films aim to disorient the viewer in tandem

with the emot ional or physic al intensity of the scene s played out in front of the

camera. A particularly notable example is the opening scenes of Irrversible,

whe re the came ra spins wildly through the gay nightclub The Rectum with

punishing intensity to mirror the narratives supremely violent conclusion.Equally, for much of Enter The Void, the camera floats over Tokyo as the

protagonists spirit, capturing narratively irrelevant visual events almost as

often as scenes relevant to the films progression. Vogul argues that fluidity of

camera, its elaborate, choreographic movement within the frame, have

become sy mbols of creative cinema, offering a sense of phy sic al participation

which the immob ile camera could not match. He suggests that kinetic

camerawork is characteristic of visual filmmakers and the avant-garde, also

noting that to move the camera is a revolutionary act [which] introduces an

element of ho tness, instability , emotional entanglement, and implicit anarchy

(197 4:98). Such a suggestion falls directly in line with Nos style, the wild spirals

of camerawork in Irrversible aiming to reflect the vengeful fury of the

protagonists as they hunt their way through the debauchery and extreme

sadomasochism of The Rectum.

Conventional narrative storytelling is also manipulated in Nos films. If the

classical Hollywood tradition is causal and linear narrative logic (Bordwell,

Staiger & Thompson 1986:4), then No frequently upsets this formula.

Irrversible directly contradicts its title and displays twelve scenes in reverse

chronological order, where the final climactic encounter of its rape-revenge

narrative is presented as the first scene, before working backwards through the

film. Equally, the final scenes of Seul Contre Tous play out an imagined ending,

whe re an unpro mpted flash-forward sho ws the Butcher its embittered, deeply

misogynistic protagonist having sex with and murdering his adolescent

daughter before skipping back to the Butcher in real-time, where a different

ending plays o ut (albeit one that similarly ends in incest). Such manipulations of

linear storytelling aim to disorient the viewer in tandem with Nos explosive

v isual techniques and jarring industrial soundtracks.

In instances of counter-cinema, Sconce argues that the film artist self-


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consciously employs stylistic innovations to differentiate his or her films from

the cultural mainstream (Sconce 1995:384). Nos controversial topicality is

rendered with distinctive cinematic traits that abrasively conv ey Nos rejection

of dominant cinema and will to disorient his viewers to the point of discomfort.

As Ray ns notes, the aim is to gob on what No sees as the social and cultural

complacency of mainstream French cinema and to shock the viewer with a

barrage of v isual and v erbal pro v oc atio ns (1 999). This is an ar tist ic intentio n we

can recognise in a wealth of the academys most valorised filmmakers and

movements, and further the connection between No and the Nouvelle Vague.

Naremore states that the Nouvelle Vague were mounting an attack on the

bo urgeo is traditio n of quality (1990:18-9), or in Quandts words, promoting a

cinema designed to rock the pieties of bourgeois culture (2004). We can

understand, then, that Nos intentions to shock his bourgeois (or art house)

audience are shared with filmmakers who are highly valued in the academys

historical discourses, though we can also consider Hagmans argument that the

New French Extremity employ such politics for reasons of commerce and

increased circulation rather than for artistic purpo ses. If we are to address Nos

desired provocation of his audience, however, it is impossible to do so without

spilling over into discussions of low cinema and those genres typically

denigrated by traditional discourses o f film aesthetes and academics.

No, the Body Genres and Exploitation

Those filmic texts designated low cultural status by film aesthetes and critical

audiences are typically those that concern the body. As Hawkins argues, the

operativ e c riterion here is affect: the ability o f a film to thrill, frighten, gross out,

arouse, or otherwise directly engage the spectators body (2000:4). In her

article, Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess, Williams recognises horror,

pornography and melodrama or weepies as those genres most derided as

low in tandem with their appro priation of the body as a cinematic spectac le. She

suggests that what seems to bracket these particular genres from others is an

apparent lack of proper aesthetic distance, a sense of overinvolvement in

sensation and emotion (1999:144). As William Paul suggests, from the high

perch o f an elitist view, the negative definition of the lower works would hav e it

that they are less subtle than higher genres (1994:32). As such, film forms are

considered low due to their manipulation of the viewer in the way they prov oke

an almost involuntary mimicry of the emotion or sensation of the body on the

screen (Paul 1994:144).

In Nos films, this kind of low provocation manifests itself primarily in scenes

of explicit sex, extreme violence and gore. Take Irrversibles notorious rape

scene, for example, or opening scene where a mans head is pulverized by a

protagonist wielding a fire extinguisher. Or take Enter The Voids Love Hotel

scene, where the characters of the film engage in a near-pornographic orgy in a

neon-lit, psy chedelic ho tel roo m seen in miniature ear lier in the film, co ncluding

with a sho t simulating the inside of a v agina during interc ourse. Equally , Seul

Contre Tous features the Butcher graphically shooting his autistic daughter in the

head at close range, after which the camera hovers over her wound as blood

spills across the frame.

It is worth addressing the nature by which these most graphic or subversive

scenes are highlighted within his texts. To do this we must first establish the

definition of Gunnings cinema of attractions, which seems to hold a significant

relevance to the prominence of low material in Nos work and also provides a

link to exploitation cinema. The term stems from Eisensteins use of the word

attraction to describe the cinematic viewer being subjected to sensual orpsychological impact (197 0:16). Tom Gunnings invention of the term refers to

early cinemas desire to present a series of views to an audience, fascinating

because of their illusory po wer and ex ot icism (20 00:23 0). This tendency in

early cinema is one Schaefer has linked to exploitation cinemas desire for

spectacle. He argues that the exploitation film was closely aligned with the


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cinema of attractions, the early tendency to show or display something in an

exhibitionist fashion a cinema that shows rather than tells (1999:340).

Typically , such spectacles were used to excite the curiosity of the viewer [and

to] exploit the desire of audiences to indulge in guilty cultural pleasures

(Williams 2007 :298).

Nos desire to shock and provoke his audiences utilises this same strategy; to

exhibit material from the low genres in the form of grotesque spectacles

presented with the kind of technical flair championed by high cinematic

discourses. Not only does Nos subject-matter read like a veritable checklist ofexploitation cinemas primary topics drugs, sex, violence, defilement of the

bo dy but the scene s in whic h he deplo y s such material are prese nted in such a

way as to maximise impact on audience s, acting as bo th foc al points within the

films and in discourses surrounding them. Returning to Irrversibles pivotal

scenes the horrific murder in the Rectum and the nine minute rape scene,

whe re a woman is beate n and raped in front of a static camera these features

became the subjec t of much controv ersy in crit ical c irc les and were greeted with

at best b emusement and at wo rst strident disbelief [prompting] mass walk-outs

and lurid dismissals from journalists (Palmer 2006:22). As Wood states, reading

many of the reviews, one might reasonably have concluded that these were the

only two scenes in the film, despite the fact that they occupy only about one-

sixth of the screen time (197 9).

Equally exhibitionist is Enter The Void, described by David Fear as either the

artiest drug movie [or] the druggiest art movie ever made (2010). Its

sensational treatment of drug-use (subjective simulation of DMT-induced trips

being an early feature) and presentation of Toky os societal underbelly as an

acid-soaked phantasmagoria (Tobias 2010) allows for all manner of spectacles,

the aforementioned Love Hotel scene providing perhaps the best example.

Significant too is the fact that the films substantial length hosts only the bare-

bo nes of a narrativ e and very litt le dialogue, its spirit-came ra merely floating

through the films succession of sex-and-drug-fuelled encounters. Romney

perhaps best e ncapsulates this sense of spectac le with his description of the film

as a neo-hippie arthouse theme-ride (2009:32). As Morton states, Drugs havelong been a favourite topic of exploitation films [and] allow the filmmaker to

include the seamiest kinds of sex and violence (1986:148), and this is an

approac h that No employ s unreserv edly in his ode to Tokyos neon-lit nightlife

and all-things narcotic.

In another example of Nos utilisation of exploitation techniques, Seul Contre

Touss finale utilises a technique found in William Castles Homicidal [1961] an

intertitle warning the audience about the graphic material about to appear on

screen and offering the opportunity to leave the cinema. Such a technique

echoes exploitation cinemas square-up reel, where audiences were shown an

intertitle preparing them for shock and to [foster] anticipation for that shoc k or

thrill (Schaefer 1 999:7 1). Nos use, we might suggest, is deploy ed in line withhis desire for prov ocation; a technique utilised in order to titillate and moc k any

audience members who might object to the films incestuous and violent

conclusion.

What we can hope to outline here is the fact that No s cinema dramatically

employs low material to generate spectacles designed to cause the utmost

controversy and titillation, much in the way that Schaffer argues exploitation

cinema does. These confrontational spots are, however, presented with

cinematic techniques often associated with art-house and counter-cinema, thus

making Nos films a supremely blurred negotiation between high and low

aesthetic practices. As Quandt suggests of the New French Extremity, Images

and subjects once the prov enance of splatter films, explo itation flicks, and porn proliferate in the high-art environs of a national cinema whose provocations

have historically be en formal, political, or philosophical (200 4). The suggestion

here is that the ty pically high cultural realm of French independent cinema has

taken to adopting the techniques of low cultures through the New French

Extremity. And yet this is not at all unprecedented among filmmakers typically


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v alo rised by the academy. Indeed, the Nouvelle Vague and Cahiers du Cinema

frequently engaged in an experimental mixing and meshing of high and low

cinematic forms (Huyssan 1990:18-9). Hawkins supports this notion, suggesting

that Cahiers [du Cinema] mixes paeans to what has been regarded as high

cinematic art with equally enthusiastic celebrations of low c ulture (200 0:20).

She argues that the filmmakers of that French era most prominently Jean-Luc

Godard drew inspiration from much-maligned American B movies and

Pov erty Row film culture in order to construct their aesthetic.

Such autodidacticism or [investment] in unsanctioned culture by anindividual who has already gained legitimate cultural and educational capital,

or equally one who is alienated from legitimate culture (Sconc e 1 995:37 9) - is

therefore not isolated to the New French Extremity and has been a feature in

previous academy-approved French cinema. The fundamental point here is that

distinctions between high and low cinematic culture have been historically

entangled, and therefore Gasper Nos employ ment of low techniques from his

position within the high filmic climate of French independent and art house

cinema is the latest in a dialectic between the two domains.

Cahiers du Cinema and the Nouvelle Vague aimed to ignore or reverse

established cultural hierarchies (Hawkins 200 0:20), but arguably Nos intent is

less a v alorization o f the low genres against established c ritical tastes and more

the employment of body-genre tactics in order to construct the most effectivedisplays of pure and unadulterated provocation possible. On the generation of

controversy, Mathijs suggests that critics look for references that exceed [a

films] textual level, allowing them to construct links to cultural values. When

these links involve cultural values around which much discordance exists

controversy appears (2003:212). Whats more, in agreement with Hagmans

earlier statements, Palmer suggests that in todays film marketplace, a

transgressiv e cinema o ffers the pro spect o f a raised artistic profile, as well as,

more pragmatically , an increased v isibility in the crowded schedules of arthouse

cinemas and international film festivals (2006:23). Thus, No purposefully

includes such socially provocative subjects as rape, incest, racism, misogyny

and drug-use in order to generate co ntrov ersy and publicity .

It is worth addressing Watsons comments at this point in relation to the current

ex istence of exploitation cinema. He states that:

If the concept of exploitation surv iv es today , it does so neith er as a para cinem a, a

be y on d, an ou tside to c in em a , n or as cu lt u r a l detr it u s or th e c in em at ic dr eg s th at

Sconce describes The sign ificance of exploitation cin em a n ow lies precisely in its

proxim ity to the present capital-intensive pattern s of fi lm production. Th at is, if the

concept of the exploitation film can be tran slated into the present at all, it is as a

fram ework for discussing the production a nd m arketing strategies of the m ost

m ainstream m anifestation of cinem a Holly wood (1 99 7 :80).

We can challenge Watsons perspectiv e hav ing established the adoption of

exploitation techniques in Gasper Nos work. Not only does exploitation existoutside of Hollywood, it also features in contemporary film aesthetics and not

purely in production and marketing strategies. Nos films prove that

exploitation cinemas utilisation of controv ersial spectacle (deploy ed in the style

of a cinema of attractions) has a continued existence as the fuel for art films

that dedicate themselves to generating controversy and testing levels of

cinematic acceptability.

We c an summarise that No s films demonstrate a suffic ient array of tec hniques

associated with art cinema to generate a discursive reception that enters him

into the tradition of academy-valorised French provocateurs. No therefore

benefits from the cultural capital and co mmercial advantages (i.e. enhanc ed

critical attention and a presence o n international film festival circ uits) associatedwith suc h discourses, but at the same time, this position is continually

threatened by his autodidactic invasion of the body-genres. His aggressive

employment of low material confuses his alignment with high cinematic

culture, demonstrated in the polarized critical receptions we have witnessed

ov er the c ourse o f this investigation. Both sides of this reception - whether No


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demonstrates unflinching audacity (Bradshaw 2011) or a loud, repetitive

obnoxiousness (Rayns 1999) are established according to subjective critical

perspectives on the issue of progressivity in film and whether or not Nos

subve rsive c ontent can be c onsidered useful in its many transgressions.

No and the Progressive Cinema

Of progressivity in film, Klinger argues that the consistent conceptual basis involves an exclamation of reactive difference from what is classic in classic

Hollywood fare, as well as its insurgent inventional qualities (1995:7 8). It is

important to note at this stage that because every film is part of the economic

system it is also part of the ideological system, for cinema and art are

branc hes of ideology (Comolli & Narbo ni 197 1:29). In order to become a

progressive film, then, the text must show difference as well as make a

spectacle of the dominant ideological system within its internal configuration

by breaking from it or ob jec tify ing it. It is by doing the latter that the film can

then proceed to critique dominant ideology .

We have already recognised how No s films align themselv es with no tio ns o f art

cinema and can be said to oppose Hollywoods dominant forms through

anticlassical formal attributes (Klinger 1 995:7 8) and inflammatory subject

material. Yet, there is more to discuss here in terms of progressivity relating to

Nos critique of ideology within his body of work. Let us briefly summarise the

diegetic worlds in which Nos films take place.

Enter The Void and Irrv ersible depict sordid, nocturnal underworlds operating

as Comolli and Narboni suggest they must under the dominant ideology of

French society (or Japanese society in the case of Enter The Void). The world

conveyed through these films is a tapestry of seedy nightclubs, strip-clubs and

gay-bars, inhabited predominantly by drug-dealers, sadists and hedonists. In the

case of Seul Contre Tous and Carne, the world of 1980s industrial France is

presented only through the warped, bitterly misanthropic subjective of the

Butcher as he navigates his own personal world-as-abattoir (Quandt 2004).

Nos cinema fervently embraces the opportunity for squalor and moral

depravity that such societal niches allow, and does so in order to create a

nightmarish world moments from extre me v iolence (Bell 2008:20) where those

outsiders who trespass into these underworlds such as Irrversibles

bo urgeo is trio, or Enter The Voids Linda endure a dauntless v isio n of hell

(Quandt 2004) that dwells beneath the surface and c omfort of bourgeo is culture,

which No claims to so v iolently oppose.

If Klinger states that progre ssive films possess an ove rall atmosphere [that is]

bleak, cy nical, apocaly ptic and/o r highly iro nic in such a way as to disturb ordisable an unproblematic transmission or affirmative ideology (Klinger

1995:81), then Nos films appear to engage dominant ideology in a highly

confrontational manner. But the question to raise here is where critical

treatment of the dominant ideology ends and where nihilism begins. On his

discussion of nihilism in film, Stoehr suggests that in terms of ev ery day human

experience, nihilism typically indicates a negative attitude or orientation toward

conv entional values, interests, and institutions (200 6:8). There seems to be an

overlap here with traits deemed representative of the progressive film. By

formulating a palette of only the most disturbing, the most wretched content

available under the dominant ideology, we might argue that Nos films convey

what Stoehr reco gnise s as passiv e nihilism. Stemming from Nietzsc hes

definition of pathological or incomplete nihilism (as opposed to active

nihilism, which rises above mere resentment and life-negation (Stoehr 2006:8),Stoehr states that passive or negative nihilism is a rejection of seemingly fixed

v alues and institutions without spiritedness (20 06:22). He co ntinues, [It is]

an ex istential attitude or orientation that is born of resentment and indignation

toward the value of life itself (Stoehr 2006:22). This is perhaps best

encapsulated in Irrversibles mantra, Time destroys everything, though


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acknowledging Nos cast of misanthropes, rapists, sadists and racists, his films

seem to question whether this destruction would actually be such a regrettable

thing. The few sce nes of warmth and human c ompassion that feature in his films

Alex and Marc us tende r bedroo m scene s in Irrversible, for ex ample are

negated in the way that No dooms such relationships to v iolent, tragic ends.

If we consider that Nos threatening, debaucherous underworlds are inhabited

by distinc tly antago nistic or morally dub ious characters, it could be argued that

Nos films do not actually attack dominant ideology so much as castigate those

who ex ist in its darkest recesses and tho se who threaten its stability . Thesuggestion is that, as Cowan argues, the nation seethes in obsessive loathing of

the Other (2002:49). In Nos films, dominant ideology is critiqued in the way

that it has given rise to these Others those inhabitants of the societal

underbellies, the likes of murderers, rapists, hedonists and drug-dealers and

y et simultaneously defended in the way that the films condemn these Others

and their subversions against said ideology. No identifies the collapse of

ideology (Quandt 2004) and yet identifies the source of this collapse on such

people as are typically maligned by dominant ideology (though highly

reprehensively No includes homosexuals in this category). As such, Nos

apparently sc ornful attack on cinematic co nvention beco mes, as Quandt argues,

a grandiose form of passivity (Quandt 2004) that engages in pathological

nihilism to aggressiv ely mourn the break-down of contemporary societies underdominant ideology.

Therefore, tho ugh there are c ertainly traits of progressivity in Nos cinema his

refusal of dominant cinematic convention it is difficult to fully acknowledge

No as a progressive filmmaker despite his tendency for subversion. No has

been called a hip nihilist (Quandt 20 04) , accused of letting his dedic ation to

cutting-edge aesthetics and violently offensive material take precedence over

the troubled interior politics that his films convey. While admirable in their

technical proficiency and in their subversions against dominant cinematic form,

Nos brattish love of sensation (Romney 2009:32) hides a surprisingly

conserv ative ideology that is somewhat paradoxical given his overt intentions to

rebel against established cinematic co nvention.

A ft a b, Ka le en . "Ga spa r Noe" in V ic e Mag azin e. Se pt em be r 2 00 9 . A ccessed on li n e on

March 3 0 at http://ww w.v ice.com /read/gaspar-noe-1 30-v 1 6n 9

Bailey , Matt . Ga spar No in Senses of Cinem a, Issue 28 , 20 03 . Acc essed onlin e on 6 th

March at http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/noe/

Bell , Jam es. Bey ond on the New Wav e in Sight & Soun d, Vol. 1 5 , No. 8. 2 0. Au gust

2 0 0 8 .

Betz, Mark . A rt, Exploitation, Underg roun d in Defining Cu lt Movies: The Cultu ra l

Politics of Oppositional Taste, edited by Mar k Jancov ich. Manc hester Univ ersity Press,

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