Road to authenticity and stability

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the discourse on travel and tourism in the films of one of the most famous French directors and co-creator of the French New Wave, Eric Rohmer, by looking at the holiday aspect of the lives of Rohmer’s characters, and the wider problem of the significance of geographical change in their lives. What interests me in particular is the opinion articulated in Rohmer’s films of what constitutes an enjoyable and morally valuable tourist experience and, more broadly, a satisfactory transition from one place to another.

Rather than adopting a rigid definition of tourism and holiday-making, I attempt to reconstruct Rohmer’s own discourse on tourism. However, in my work I will refer to the work of several authors, such as Zygmunt Bauman and John Urry, who discuss tourism both as an actual experience and as a metaphor of the modern/postmodern condition.