The documentary film Être et avoir profiles Georges Lopez, a teacher at a small rural French primary school, and his students over the course of a school year. While intended as a small documentary about single-teacher village schools, the film became a surprise commercial success. However, Lopez and parents of students argued they were misled about the film's scope and felt the children's privacy and emotional well-being were exploited by their unexpected fame. The court ultimately ruled in favor of the filmmaker, declaring the children were not actors but subjects of a documentary.

1. ÊTRE ET AVOIR
The Construction of Childhood

2. Learning Outcomes
Discuss the representations of Childhood in films
Explore the representation of teaching, childhood &
schooling through documentary
Examine the similarities and distinctions between
fiction and documentary in the representation of
schooling

3. Être et avoir
2002
French
Director –
Nicolas
Philibert
„Starring‟ -
Georges
Lopez

4. Overview
Être et avoir is a charming and intimate portrait of a single-
class primary school in rural France and its inspirational
teacher. Ranging in age from four to ten, the small handful of
pupils are taught by the remarkable and wise Georges
Lopez, whose patient and enlightened methods highlight a
genuine affection for his young charges.
Offering a touching and absorbing look at the heart of a
village community, director Nicolas Philibert‟s film was a
surprise cinema hit which was warmly received by critics and
won numerous awards including a BAFTA and a European
Film Award.

5. Setting
Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-
de-Dôme, Auvergne
Rural France
Single class school
Filmed over a school year
December through June

6. Scenes
School Room
School building & surroundings
Journey to/from School
Homes & Family
Senior School
Trip
Idyllic?

7. French Single Teacher Schools
Image from http://www.ph-ludwigsburg.de/html/2b-frnz-s-01/overmann/baf4/etreetavoir/4o.htm

8. Background
Traditional in rural areas
4- 10 year olds taught together
By mid 1990‟s just over 20% of French schools were registered
single teacher schools
Numbers are declining
Re the idyllic

9. Nicolas Philibert
'There are still, almost everywhere in
France, single-classroom schools that bring
together, under the same schoolteacher, all the
children from the same village, from nursery age
to their last year of primary education.
Whether their individual members are withdrawn
or outgoing, these assorted little groups share
everyday life, for the best and for the worst.
It was in one of these schools, somewhere in the
heart of the Auvergne, that my film was shot.'

10. Genre
Documentary?
• Subgenre?
Fly on the wall
Realist
French Cinema

11. Narrative
What is the story or stories?
How is it told? or
Who tells it?
Who is the film about?
What is the teacher‟s story?
What are the children‟s stories?

12. Characters
Teacher
Pupils
Others?

13. Georges Lopez
A character
• Philibert
Experienced
Authoritarian
Caring
Approaching retirement
Male
• Most teachers are women

14. Lopez‟ story
Deviation of style
Interview with
Lopez
Tells the story of his
becoming a teacher

15. The Children
Key Characters
Minor Characters

16. Children as Protagonists
Can the children be described as heroes?
What mix of characters does the film have?
Do we focus on one or some of the children more
than others?
Why might this be?

17. Jojo

18. Marie

19. Létitia

20. Axel

21. Julien

22. Olivier

23. Nathalie

24. Laura

25. Guillaume

26. Johann

27. Jessie

28. Jonathan

29. Alize

30. Être et avoir as Documentary

31. Conventions of Documentary
Serious, factual content
Relates to reality
Aids our understanding of a topic
Analytical – aims to interpret topic
• Present an alternative view
May have a commentary to aid understanding

32. Nicolas Philibert
French Documentary
Maker
Studied Philosophy
In the land of the deaf (le
pays des sourds) - 1992
Nénette - 2010

33. Fly on the Wall?
The story is told by the Teacher & Pupils
• Is this the case?
Captures the everyday
Unobtrusive
• Natural setting with the camera

34. Cinematic Ethnography?
Appearance of real life
Scenes where nothing appears to happen
Everyday
Intimate moments
• Nathalie
• Olivier

35. Constructed Reality
10 weeks of filming – December – June
100 min film
• Editing
Effects indicate passage of time
• Filmed Landscapes
Camera intimidated some
• E.g. Laura
• Become minor characters

36. Opposition
Indoor Outdoor
Safe Unknown
Protected Vast
Familiar Mystical
Warm Cold
Collective Alone

37. The film maker‟s story
Is the story really the teacher‟s & the children‟s?
The film maker‟s viewpoint
Philibert selected Lopez & the school
The court case
• Affirmed genre of the documentary

38. Être et avoir as constructing childhood

39. Children in Cinema
Relatively few preadolescent children in Cinema
Recent trend for French films with young children
as key characters
Represents a turn, new focus on children
But, these are films for adult viewing

40. Preadolescent Turn
Powrie (2005)
French preadolescent films focus on childhood
Abuse
• L‟Ombre du doute
Death
• Ponette
Exclusion
• Les Choristes

41. Concern over children
Powrie – films reflect a: -
“broader interest in the intersection
between institutions and the role of
the family, with children as potential
victims of the failure of both”

42. Context
Significant increase in French births
Increase in divorce
Increase in single parents
Family breakdown
Damaged children?

43. Concern in Être et avoir
Olivier
• Father is dying from cancer
• See him breaking down
• Lopez discussion on work moves to concern about
his father
Nathalie
• Quiet, shy
• Transition to middle school is worrying
• Lopez tries to address fears

44. Concern about leaving –
discontinuities
Older children are leaving
• Difficult transitions
• Moving up to school
• Leaving preadolescence – loss of innocence?
Lopez‟ retirement
• But will you still live above the school
Coupled with continuities
• New intake

45. Retrospection
Nostalgic view of childhood
Innocence, purity, freedom, distance from the adult
world
Romantic view of childhood – natural world - rural
setting
Landscapes - Aitken

46. Heterospection
Film presents a heterotopic view
Utopian site of child represented along other sites
Space of the child (school) alongside contested spaces
(ref – spaces & opposition)
Viewer inhabits a heterotopic space
• Viewing the child from outside (we are not there)
• We empathise because we with the child (fly on the wall)

47. Contested Spaces
Utopian small school vs Middle School
School vs Home
School vs Outside
Collective space vs Intimate space

48. Construction of the Teacher
Vocation
Lives above the school
Dedicated his life to teaching
Physical closeness to the children
• Male
Relationship is not sexualised
• preadolescent

49. Être et avoir as exploitation

50. Intrusion?
Viewers view highly personal moments
Image of the children
• Jojo is the face of the movie
Yet sympathetic to characters?
Believe it is their story

51. Unanticipated Success
Consent for documentary given by Lopez and
parents
Lopez became a „star‟
Represented the ideal teacher
But...

52. Lopez
“We were misled. The production company told me
and the children's families that they were making a
small documentary about the phenomenon of the
one-teacher village school and that the film would
be used primarily for educational purposes...they
said it would have a restricted screening and never
discussed marketing the film to make it such a
commercial venture”

53. Impact on the Children
“We had no idea that it would be in cinemas all over
the country, released on DVD or distributed abroad.
One child, who had been very stable and happy
until the film's release, was so distressed by his
unexpected fame, that he started wetting the
bed, and became afraid of the dark....Other children
have been teased at their new secondary schools
because of their involvement. All have been
subjected to a great deal of stress as a direct
consequence of the film”

54. Court Case
Lopez attempted to sue film's producers for a share in the €2 million
(£1.4m) profits
• Failed
Parents attempted to sue on behalf of their children
Claimed of misleading, exploitation and harm to children
Lopez‟ fall from grace
Court ruled in favour of Philibert – „stars‟ of the movie were not actors
– it is a documentary

55. Does it exploit?
Nostalgic view of childhood
Idolising of the School teacher
• Suggest a sympathetic view
Yet the impact on the children
• Emotional harm
• Use of their image

56. Bibliography
 Aitken, S. C. (2007) 'Poetic child realism: Scottish film and the
construction of childhood', Scottish Geographical Journal, Vol.
123:, No.1, pp. 68-86
 Gentleman, A (2004) „Film‟s fallen hero fights on for his class‟, The
Guardian, [Online] Available at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/03/film.france [Accessed
10th March 2011]
 Overmann, M (2011) Être et avoir: un film de Nicolas Philibert
, [Online] Available at http://www.ph-ludwigsburg.de/html/2b-frnz-s-
01/overmann/baf4/etreetavoir/4o.htm [Accessed 10th March, 2011]
 Philibert, N (2011) Nicolss Philibert [Online] Available at
http://www.nicolasphilibert.fr/ [Accessed 10th March 2011]
 Powrie , P (2005) „Unfamiliar places: 'heterospection'and recent
French films on children‟, Screen, Vol. 46, No.3, pp. 342-352
 Tobin, J. And Hsueh, Y (2007) „The Poetics and Pleasures of Video
Ethnography of Education‟, in In R. Goldman (Ed). Video Research
in the Learning Sciences. NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates