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Life Arts    H4'ed 9/18/18

"Nelly""---"- New Film Looks at Life and Work of Canadian Writer

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The most brutal scene relates an encounter with a well-dressed businessman, Patrick. Is he real, or is he a metaphor for those respectable men who engage prostitutes to act out their rage and violent urges? At first, Arcan tries to soothe him with the revelation that she too "likes it rough." This time, her submission doesn't work. He continues to viciously attack her. Fighting back, she escapes to the balcony, where she infers that she will jump to her death.

Later, a magazine interviewer asks Arcan about the episode in her book where a prostitute leaps from a twentieth-floor balcony to escape a sinister client.

"Did I write that?" she replies.

In her role as an author, Arcan noted that she "wrote with passion." Yet, digging into her psyche was painful for her. Though she said, "Apart from writing, I am nothing," she doubted her talents and was aware of the toll her self-examination took on her. She questioned if people only bought her book because of her face on the cover. Arcan's qualms encompassed whether her other works would sell, and what the literary world would think of her -- neither of which she could influence.

As portrayed, even in the solid connections Arcan had with her publisher, Mathieu, and during the work she did with her therapist, she still resorted to the use of sexual seduction as a means to struggle for dominance.

Unsurprisingly, Arcan spends time in a "rest home." Recurring thoughts of suicide, failure, aging, and losing her ability to write, haunt her. She finishes the edits on what would be her final book, days before she dies.

Arcan was both appreciated and reviled. She was a finalist for the revered French literary awards, the Prix Me'dicis and the Prix Fe'mina. Perhaps the public couldn't forgive her for living the life that she wrote about. Putain was a huge success, just as Ã"degreesmile Zola's Nana was. Yet, his work was considered a naturalistic observation of French life in the decade from 1860-1870. Zola was the narrator of Nana's life as a prostitute. Arcan was both observer and subject.

Using her writing to dissect her own neuroses and angst, Arcan delved into territory that was both raw and ugly. She explained to her therapist that she saw herself from outside herself. "It's not really me. I watch her"I play that woman well. I need to be seen, but it's not me I reveal."

"Nelly" is an opportunity to ignite a larger discussion about the cultural conundrums Arcan sought to understand and define in her books.

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Marcia G. Yerman is a writer, activist, and artist based in New York City. Her articles--profiles, interviews, reporting and essays--focus on women's issues, the environment, human rights, the arts and culture. Her writing has been published by (more...)
 

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