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Christiane Rochefort (1917-1998) | |
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French writer, social critic, and feminist. In her novels Rochefort dealt with the situation of women and children, female sexuality, and struggle for personal freedom. International fame she gained with LE REPOS DU GUERRIER (1958, Warrior's Rest), which was made into a film in 1962, starring Brigitte Bardot. LES PETITS ENFANTS DU CIEL (1961), another widely translated novel, was a sharp examination of the French government-assistance epoch. Rochefort received Prix du Roman Populiste in 1961 and the Medicis Prize in 1988. "Je suis née des Allocations et d'un joun férié dont la matinée s'étirait, bienheureuse, au son de "Je t'aime tu m'aimes", oué àla trompette douce. C'était le début de l'hiver, il faisait bon dans le lit, vien ne pressait." (from Les petits enfants du siécle, 1961) Christiane Rochefort was born in Paris, but the first years she spent in the province of Limousin, before her family moved to Paris where she lived all her life. During Rochefort's carerr as a writer, little biographical information was published about her. After attending the lycée Fénelon, she studied medicine, psychology, and ethnology at Sorbonne, and worked later as a model, actress, and journalist. She also tried her hand as an artist and cooperated at the Cinémathètique Française with Henri Langlois, the legendary film archivist. Langlois' concept of film archiving clashed with professionalism of the Cinémathètique and André Malraux, who was the Minister of Culture, tried to impose a new administrator in 1968. Langlois started with his staff and film personalities a counter attack, which they won. At Cannes film festival Rochefort worked as a press secretary for 15 years. In 1968 she was dismissed from her post at Cannes because of her too liberal views. In the same year the festivals were closed by the events of May 1968. However, writing was Rochefort's calling; she published nine novels. Her first book, CENDRES ET OR, appeared in 1956. At that time she was over 40. Rochefort had divorced – accroding to some sources because she though that a marriage restricts a woman and her creativity. In 1971, with other activists, she lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the name of "the one more unknown than the unknown soldier, his wife." Warrior's Rest, published in 1958, just missed receiving the Prix Fémina – after a battle between women jurors, the prize went to Café Céleste of Françoise Mallet-Jorris. Also the Académie Goncourt squabbled over Rochefort's work, but it won a newly created award, the Prix de la nouvelle vague (Prize of the New Wave). The book was a huge success, sold 600,000 copies, and broke the conventional view that it is impossible for a woman to depict male erotic fantasies. Warrior's Rest is a youthfully anarchistic story, based partly on Orpheus and Eurydice. It concerns Geneviève Le Theil, a young Parisienne, and Renaud Sarti. Renaud is an alcoholic former soldier, he has lost his hope after the bombing of Hiroshima. Ten years later he tries to kill himself in a small-city hotel. Geneviève finds him accidentally, saves his life and becomes Renaud's lover. Renaud is violent, he beats her and separates her from her family and friends. They travel to Switzerland and Italy. She is going to have a child by him and Renaud wants to marry her. He insist on trying to rehabilitate himself by going to the clinic he calls the Great Washing Machine. The story was adapted into screen in 1962 under the title Love on a Pillow and directed by Roger Vadim, starring Vadim's ex-wife Brigitte Bardot in their fourth film. In the comedy Bardot bestows her pleasures on young man, hoping to divert his intended suicide. During the filming Bardot announced that she intends to retire from the screen. Les Petits enfants du Siècle (Children of Heaven) received the Prix du Roman Populiste (the Populist Prize). Rochefort's second novel satirized the French government's post-war policy of providing family allowances in order to increase the national birth-rate. The story started with the words "I was born of the family subsidies..." Rochefort focused on a working-class family living in a huge project on the outskirts of Paris. Philippe is a television-installation man. Josyane Rouvier, the narrator, is a tough working-class girl. She has grown up in a housing project and has gone through an adolescent sex affair with an elder man. She becomes pregnant by a nice young man, Philippe, whom she genuinely loves, but plans to produce children in order to acquire consumer goods. Rochefort's view is pessimistic: the novel ends with Josyane succumbing to romantic love and continuing the cycle of child production, following the fate of her mother. "Whether or not one agrees with Miss Rochefort's black-and-white view of the Benevolent State, her talent is unarguable," wrote the Village Voice (September 6, 1962). "In "Children of Heaven" there is bite and sharp satire, and - as M. Rouvier would say about his second-hand Citroen - it holds the road well." LES STANCES À SOPHIE (1963) was about a bourgeois marriage which fails. The narrator, Céline, a bohemian, leaves his old way of life and enters into a lesbian relationship. The book become very popular in France. It borrowed its storyline from an obscene medical students' song, Cats Don't Care for Money, and followed it from a female point of view. In tone Rochefort's novels were simultaneously ironic and confessional. She often depicted the struggles of social outcasts and sexual minorities, and contrasted conventional language and attitudes with innovative use of slang and colloquialisms. Central themes - in the spirit of sexually free 1960s - were repression of female sexuality and creativity in contemporary society. Rochefort also wrote two fantasy books, a dystopian UNE ROSE POUR MORRISON (1966), more experimental in its style than her earlier novels, and an utopia, ARCHAOS OU LE JARDIN ÉTINCELANT (1972). "Rochefort is particularly concerned with the structures society imposes on personal and sexual relationships, and her themes have included marriage, homosexuality, the sexual activity of minors, oral sex, sado-masochism, and incest. There is, however, no hint of pornographic titillation, explicit details being assiduously omitted; Rochefort is much more interested in the roles individuals are required to play." Inevitably, she considers this issue particularly from the standpoint of a woman, and has contributed significantly to the propagation of modern feminist ideas by persistently questioning conventions of gender." (Carys Owen in Contemporary World Writers, ed. by Tracy Chevalier, 1993) Besides novels. Rochefort published short stories and essays, and translated into French writings by her partner, the Israeli artist, columnist, playwrigt and novelist Amos Kenan. She also translated John Lennon's En flagrant délire (In His Own Write) with Rachel Misrahi. MA VIE REVUE ET CORRIGÉE PAR L'AUTEUR (1978) was Rochefort's account of her own life. In LES ENFANTS D'ABORD (1976), a collection of essays, she saw children as the oppressed class. The theme continued in last work, LA PORTE DU FOND (1988), a first-person narrative of incest. The book received Prix Médicis award, and was translated among others into Finnish. Written in confessional style, the writer approached her subject from the feminist point of view. She also appeared in Bernard Pivot's legendary television program, Apostrophes. Rochefort died on April 24, 1998. For further reading: 'What Rest for the Weary' by Joseph H. McMahon, in Yale French Studies, 27 (1961); Christiane Rochefort's Ma Vie revue et corrigée par l'auteur: Autobiography à la dérive' by Helen Bates McDermott, in French Literature Series, 12 (1985); 'Effects of Urbanization in the Novels of Christiane Rochefort' by Anne D. Cordero, in Faith of a (Woman) Writer, ed. by Alice Kessler-Harris and William MxBien (1988); Feminist Utopias by Frances Bartkowski (1989); 'La Fuite ironique comme refus de l'autorité chez Christiane Rochefort' by Lucie Joubert, in Écrits du Canada français, no 77, janvier (1993); 'Rochefort, Christine' by Carys Owen, in Contemporary World Writers, ed. by Tracy Chevalier (1993); Les Mots etincelants de Christiane Rochefort, langages d'utopie by Isabelle Constant (1996); French Women's Writing 1848-1994 by Diana Holmes (1996); Countering the Culture; The Novels of Christiane Rochefort by Margaret-Anne Hutton (1999); Christiane Rochefort and the Dialogic: Voices of Tension and Intention by Pamela Fries Paine (2002) Selected works:
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