Running in REM Cycles: Escapism in the French Postwar Films Le Silence de la Mer and la Vache et le Prisonier

This thesis compares two postwar critiques of escapist entertainment that appear in Jean-Pierre Melville\u27s Le Silence de La Mer (1949), and Henri Verneuil\u27s La Vache et le Prisonnier (1959). Their directorial choices acknowledge the power, even shortcomings of escapism through entertainment. Overall, Melville and Verneuil\u27s films argue that escapism creates a dream cycle in which the audience, in an attempt to escape reality through entertainment. The films\u27 cyclical narrative structures symbolize their characters\u27 psychology, a tactic that frames Le Silence and La Vache into France\u27s postwar culture. In a side-by-side comparison, the repetitive narrative structure of Le Silence and La Vache demonstrates that there was no escape from the war, mentally or physically. In addition to the films\u27 structures, their inverted genre conventions are also didactic. They send a message to the audience that a story\u27s resolution does not translate to reality, and sometimes, after much effort, resolution cannot be attained. The unfulfilling character arcs for each main character, Werner and Charles, are evidence of this grounded commentary on escapist entertainment. In addition to being similar, these character arcs reflect a continuation of one narrative. Despite being in two different genres, Charles\u27s struggle is a sequel to Werner\u27s. This comprehensive examination of the two films describes the several different layers of escapism that French postwar cinema either presented or critiqued