Roberto Zucco

This dissertation focuses on the role of the fait divers as a site of discursive struggle in France in the 1980's. It illustrates how two sensational crimes, the Paulin and Succo affaires , function as mobile signifiers about crime, insécurité and the Other in contemporary France. Through an analysis of Claire's Denis film, J'ai pas sommeil (1994), and Bernard-Marie Koltès' play, Roberto Zucco (1990), this project demonstrates that these rewritings of the crime story offer alternative, complex readings of the fait divers that effectively subvert the media's sensational coverage. The controversial reception of these works is testimony to these artists' success.

This project employs a context-activated cultural studies model to situate these grandes affaires in the larger cultural and political context of the 1980's; its objective is to underline how media and politicians use the fait divers as a tool for upholding dominant ideology. By emphasizing the immediacy of crime and creating a climate of insécurité , executive authority is constructed, legal control is increased, and alternative politics are quieted.

This dissertation draws on John Fiske's understanding of contemporary discourse as a struggle, Tony Bennett's notion of "the activated text" (as a mobile signifier), and Janet Staiger's distinction between real and imaginary readers. It analyzes the complex processes of production, reception, and literary and cinematic re-articulation that contribute to the representation of crime in contemporary French society. Both Denis' and Koltès' works function to subvert the dominant discourse on crime that contrasts an evil criminal with a sane public. Through characters who seek out the criminal despite the warnings of media and law enforcement, these rewritings empower the individual character by challenging the subjectivity of media and law enforcement. Characters' frequent dismissal of police, guards, and the media (and thus their relative powerlessness over the public) reveals not a passive boredom with the fait divers , as Jean Baudrillard has erroneously claimed, but rather a growing cynicism with the institutions that generate its representations. This project concludes that the fait divers is an important indicator of social and political resistance for readers and artists alike in contemporary France. »

(Résumé joint à la thèse.)

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