Le Chronos contaminé dans deux transcréations d‘Erik Canuel – Lac Mystère et Cadavres

Abstract

This article studies the different audio-visual techniques the Québecois director Erik Canuel uses to transcreate the abject procedures, topoï and techniques, from text to film. I will investigate these works in order to account for the span of abjection and the way it can morph from apparently tame texts to Canuel‘s films – Cadavres (François Barcelo, 1998; Canuel, 2008) and Mirror Lake (Andrée Michaud, 2006; Canuel 2013). Though the novels‘ paratexts (their titles) let one presume the intrusion of abjection through the ideas of the mirror and corpse, it is however impossible to imagine what the theme will look like, in Canuel‘s movies, prior to having studied them. The contamination of the chronos, destabilized by the cinematic medium, centers the debate on the protagonists‘ identity crises in order to give to the History of Cinema two movies which are as dangerous as they are thrilling.