Guests, Hosts, Strangers: Far From Men and Camus' Algerians. Issue 3 (October 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sharpe, Matthew
• Is Part Of: Film-philosophy. Volume 21:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 326
• Page End: 348
• Publication Date: 2017-10
• Subjects: Camus -- Oelhoffen -- The Guest/Host -- Loin des Hommes/Far From Men -- Algerian crisis -- The First Man; Cinematography -- Periodicals; Cinematography -- Study and teaching; Journalism -- Philosophy; 791.4305
• DOI: 10.3366/film.2017.0054
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1466-4615

Abstract

Abstract : I argue that David Oelhoffen's 2014 film Far From Men ( Loin des Hommes ), while departing from the letter of Camus' 1957 story, "The Guest/Host", does remarkable cinematic justice to its spirit. Oelhoffen's Daru and the Arab character Mohamed, it is suggested, represent embodiments of Camus' idealised Algerian "first men", in the vision Camus was developing in Le Premier Homme at the time of his death in January 1960. Part 1 frames the film in light of Camus' "The Guest/Host", and Part 2 frames Camus' story in light of Camus' agnonised struggle to come to terms with the Algerian situation. Part 3 makes the case that Oelhoffen's departures from Camus' original story present in cinematic form Camus' ideal of a post-colonial, post-ethnic solidarity between people, predicated on the overcoming of all arche-ideological fantasies of untained prelapsarian community.