Adapting the Rhetoric of Authentication of Riad Sattouf’s La Vie secrète des jeunes
in European Comic ArtSearch for other papers by Guillaume Lecomte in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
All currencies in US Dollar
Abstract
The comic book series La Vie secrète des jeunes is a sardonic account of French young people’s behaviours witnessed from the voyeuristic viewpoint of its author-illustrator, Riad Sattouf. Despite its caricatural and non-photorealistic visual style, the work conveys a strong sense of authenticity, mixing truth claims borrowed from established non-fiction traditions (journalism, autobiography and documentary). It is also a rare example of a non-fiction comic turned into live action. This article considers the comic and its TV adaptation, and discusses film’s ability to adapt an account of truth rooted in comics ontology. The article first provides a theoretical structure that details the intricacy of repeating the truth from comic to film. Second, it highlights the way in which the comic develops its authenticity by constantly reaffirming Sattouf’s presence and subjectivity. The article aims to show that the adaptation anonymises this viewpoint in order to re-construct the authenticity of its reality.
Contributor Notes
Guillaume Lecomte is a PhD candidate in text/image studies at the University of Glasgow. His research started by focusing on the concept of the unfilmable novel and has now been extended to encompass other media in order to question the issue of unadaptability in the culture industry. He is expected to submit in September 2017. He is also a graduate teaching assistant in the French Department at the University of Glasgow, where he teaches various language courses, as well as culture, film and comics modules. His research interests include intermediality and adaptation, and repetition in/by the culture industry.