Quand le cafard fait son cinéma : la mise en scène du cafard colonial dans les films français des années 1930

Abstract

During the 1930s, colonial movies often included a cafard (blues) scene. The cafard colonial affected female characters, played at times by realistic singers, as well as male roles, such as those played by the French star Jean Gabin. But this nostalgic feeling corresponded to different emotions according to gender : sadness for women, anger for men. Film music was a key element for staging the cafard. Just as with other pro-nostalgic props, music allowed the audience to share the character’s memories and emotional experience, if not the catharsis, which concluded these experiences. Aestheticized in and by these movies, the cafard became a performance. Staging the cafard did not necessarily imply criticizing colonization, and may paradoxically have comforted the audience in its exoticism. Nevertheless, the cafard scenes presented this emotion as legitimate, and may have helped spread it among French colonists. At the same time, these scenes testified that life in the Empire was not easy, and may have lured some spectators away from colonial aspirations.

Keywords

• colonization
• Jean Gabin
• film music
• nostalgia
• Pépé le Moko