Beyond Eurocentrism: Manuel Poirier’s Breton Road-film Western

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Helene Catherine Sicard-Cowan

Abstract

In this paper on Manuel Poirier’s 1998 film Western, I explore the Peruvian-born director’s construction of Europe as a ‘home’ for non-European immigrants and Europeans alike. Through his appropriation and creative re-signification of the conventions pertaining to the genre of the American western, Poirier projects an image of the French equivalent of the American Far West, i.e. the region of Brittany, as a micro-version of an idealized Europe in which non-European male immigrants turn into friends, lovers and hosts for their homeless, jobless and/or loveless European counterparts.

Article Details

Section
Contesting Euro Visions Special Issue July 2007 (Peer Reviewed)
Author Biography

Helene Catherine Sicard-Cowan, McGill University

I received my Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies from the University of California at Berkeley in Dec. 2004. I am currently a Faculty Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at McGill University. My current research interests include: narratives and films produced by immigrants and children of immigrants, representations of the Brittany region in French and Francophone literatures and visual cultures, as well as German and Austrian identity in contemporary French literature.