Ceren Yildirim 
Minor Cinema. Chantal Akerman’s ‘Je, Tu, Il, Elle’ [PDF ebook] 

Essay from the year 2019 in the subject Film Science, grade: keine Note, University of Frankfurt (Main), language: English, abstract: Chantal Akerman was one of the filmmakers who paved the way for future feminist and experimental filmmakers by experimenting with common notions and forms of cinema. In films like Je, Tu, Il, Elle Akerman blurs the lines between reality and fiction, director and actress, as well as the particular and the universal. Lesbianism and girlhood for example are prevalent themes in Akerman’s films but they are depicted in an unfinished, fluctuating state.
This paper tries to outline how Akerman experiments with cinematic forms in one of her most known films Je, Tu, Il, Elle and in which way this film can be seen as a part of minor cinema. The idea of minor being a reference to Gillez Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s work on minor literature and Kafka.
The first part of this paper roughly summarizes Akerman’s Je, Tu, Il, Elle, the second part outlines the concept of minor literature and the last part connects film and theory through the works of Veronica Pravadelli, Patricia White and Ivone Margulies.