Céline Sciamma’s screenwriting: ‘building an architecture of multiple desires’

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article focuses on how Céline Sciamma uses screenwriting to underpin her rigorous and uncompromising approach to independent filmmaking. She blends writing and mise en scène in the development stages to repeatedly subvert familiar generic conventions and calls into question what she calls the art of conflict through her distinctive gaze on relationships, femininity, sisterhood, coming of age and gender fluidity. Taking as starting point Sciamma’s own analysis of her method of film development in preproduction, the article explores the centrality of screenwriting to her subjective and political approach to artistic creation. The second part of the article explores to what extent her screenwriting for other directors – especially her collaborations with Claude Barras, André Téchiné and Jacques Audiard – has reinforced her method or revealed new facets of her artistic and screenwriting signature.