L’homme politique comme figure paternelle dans les films français des années 2000

Résumé Fr En

Depuis la fin du xixe siècle, la nation produit un imaginaire vivace dont l’illusion tient à la dimension a-historique qu’on lui confère, comme si elle existait de toute éternité. À cet égard, les figurations du pouvoir national sont aussi importantes que son action réelle. La figure du père en tant que souverain aimant, protecteur, sécurisant, est l’une des images les plus éculées des propagandes politiques (les grands dictateurs sont souvent des pères pour la nation). Ainsi l’un des attributs masculins modélisant le plus synthétiquement ce que le peuple peut attendre d’un politicien semble-t-il être celui de la paternité.Cet article se propose de questionner la représentation récente de la figure paternelle dans les films présentant des politiciens. Le corpus proposé est le suivant : Le Promeneur du Champ-de-Mars (Robert Guédiguian, 2005), Le Candidat (Niels Arestrup, 2006), Coluche l’histoire d’un mec (Antoine de Caunes, 2008), La Conquête (Xavier Durringer, 2011), Pater (Alain Cavalier, 2011), L’Exercice de l’État (Pierre Schoeller, 2011), Les Saveurs du Palais (Christian Vincent, 2012) et Quai d’Orsay (Bertrand Tavernier, 2013). L’objectif sera de révéler la persistance d’une représentation du père en politique, tout en discutant l’ambivalence qui conduit certains films à reproduire l’analogie entre bon père et bon chef quand d’autres la discutent, la moquent, pour en présenter l’inanité.

Since the end of the nineteenth century, the nation produces a long-lived imaginary of whom the illusion holds thanks to the a-historical dimension we confer to it, as if it existed from time immemorial. In that regard, the characterizations of its political power are as important as its genuine actions. The Father figure as a loving, protective, and reassuring sovereign is political propagandas’ most worn off icons (great dictators are often Fathers for, and of, the nation). Thereby, the male attribute which most concisely modelizes what the people may expect from a politician is that of paternity.Recently, in French films focusing on politicians (as characters), this paternalistic postulate evicts almost systematically female characters from political representation. Women are invisible (Pater), or characterizing the male figure (in domestic boundaries), or even serving the benefit of his public image (within professional boundaries). They are never the bearers of power. The absence of a female representation of power questions on the persistence of this paternal ideal, which we associate to national political power.In the films under scrutiny, representing political power representation by the Father figure may be read in two ways: on the one hand, some films present a settled politician, both in the private and public sphere (Coluche, La Conquête, Le Candidat); on the other hand, some films show a character as a beginner in the political world, in search of tutelary figures (L’Exercice de l’État, Pater, Quai d’Orsay). The former films tend to show the character as a paternal figure in his inner circle, in domestic boundaries: they use relationships between characters belonging to his domestic circle (father/children, husband/wife) in order to properly craft a father figure which is supposed to expand itself outside of his private sphere (into the public sphere). In other words, a good father portrays a good statesman; a bad father, a bad leader. On the contrary, films which use an initiatory logic to represent the father figure do not characterize the latter by his private sphere but rather by his position of a point of contact regarding a new comer in the political world. Here, the paternal figure is therefore not revealed straightaway, neither is it associated to the private sphere. The figure is rather a mere fact that is constructed in the course of the initiation story, and that films often tend to mock.This article aims a questioning endeavours to question the paternal figure’s recent representation in French films focusing on politicians as characters. The film corpus used in this study is as follows: Le Promeneur du Champ-de-Mars (Robert Guédiguian, 2005), Le Candidat (Niels Arestrup, 2006), Coluche l’histoire d’un mec (Antoine de Caunes, 2008), La Conquête (Xavier Durringer, 2011), Pater (Alain Cavalier, 2011), L’Exercice de l’État (Pierre Schoeller, 2011), Les Saveurs du Palais (Christian Vincent, 2012), Quai d’Orsay (Bertrand Tavernier, 2013) et Gaz de France (Benoît Forgeard, 2015). The goal will be to reveal the persistence of a representation of paternity in politics, while discussing the ambivalence aforementioned: some films renew the analogy between “good father” and “good leader,” some put it to a test, they mock it, to show its futility.