Jean-Claude Bernardet and the aging of the intellectual: an allegorical reading of Fome (2015)

Abstract

At around 80 years of age, professor and critic J-C. Bernardet focused on acting in films marked by reflexivity, as well as the questioning of his previous path as an intellectual. This paper presents an allegorical reading (XAVIER, 2019) of the film Fome (2015), which is led by him. It is divided into two parts: firstly, it presents a contextualization of Cristiano Burlan's film, along with the general idea of ​​aging films. These are made by long-lived filmmakers or actors in the early 21st century; are marked by modern echoes such as self-reflexivity and the construction of fragmentary memories; and put themselves as policies of the self and of aging in films. Secondly, it presents an allegorical analysis, which is centered on the relations between present and past, or in the interfaces between Bernardet, the intellectual and the character, as a homeless former teacher. As for the singularities of Fome, dialogues with the proper fragmentation of modern allegory are suggested, centered on the critique of the relations between intellectual and people, under the key of contesting popular national culture, but also, replacing the intellectual's ambiguities, through a game of tensions, which covers the filmic narrative, Bernardet's performance and the positionings in relation to the present.