Cinematic sociology vis-Ã -vis social change: The American response to film maker F. Truffaut

Abstract

This article investigates the evolution of the theories of the audiovisual and cinematographical reception in the twentieth century and raises several prospective questions in regard to the study of reception and the sociology of cinema. From the perspective of this research tradition, the example of Truffaut's international appeal and more precisely his success in the United States shows how cinema constitutes an important tool to understand, and even anticipate, socio-cultural developments. The character of Truffaut's success in the United States is based on a double feeling of proximity and distance, as much cinematographical as sociological, that forces us to reflect on very current questions such as identity-alterity or the proliferation of micro-receptions. Finally, Truffaut's work meets the difficult challenge of controlling its reception while confronting social, political and artistic realities. Thus, his international success questions how much freedom of interpretation the audience possesses, an increasingly pertinent issue in a wortd more and more ruled by the media. But Truffaut's universality and posterity question social rationalization and defend a differentialist sociology perfectly adapted to our postmodern societies. Therefore, this study allows us to develop several major prospective points about the studies of reception with regards to what will be at stake in the twenty-first century.