LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES OU LES INDISCRÉTIONS DU LECTEUR/SPECTATEUR

Abstract

Our comparative reading of Laclos's epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the two film adaptations chosen, Frears's Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and Forman's Valmont (1989), will focus on the study of the indiscreet reader/spectator. To this end, we have divided our thinking into three complementary strands: reading, the letter and the indiscreet reader/spectator. Reading or seeing a work always involves an interpretative appropriation. The letter, at the heart of the novel and the films, becomes a vehicle for manipulation and a mirror of the social world. In both Laclos and Frears, it allows the reader/spectator access to a hidden truth, nurturing a voyeuristic posture. The staging, camera glances, mirrors and on-screen reading scenes reinforce this complicity with the reader/spectator. Forman, for his part, offers a bucolic reading. Indiscretion, the common thread running through the analysis, reveals the richness of the dialogue between Literature and Cinema, but also between reading, vision and interpretation.