Let My Lady Drive: Leos Carax’s “Holy Motors” as Feminist Critique of the American Film Industry

Posted on March 14, 2015 Updated on March 14, 2015

(Author’s Note: I wrote this for my spring semester class Film Analysis freshman year. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell.)

Oscar (the chameleonic Denis Lavant) is the consummate thespian, inhabiting his roles so thoroughly that he seems to disappear entirely into them. It seems notable and perhaps problematic that a film like Holy Motors which is so defined by the search for identity, both with regard to the Actor as well as cinema as an art form, that it be so focused on a man and on what that man does, and that it be directed by a man. A larger issue within the film world in general is the lack of female representation behind the scenes, and such a problem would resonate with this film… unless one chooses to read the film as Edith Scob’s driver as the director. Leos Carax may have cleverly and subversively addressed a very serious issue within the film industry with the inclusion of a seemingly innocuous and unnoticeable character. The argument will be made that the entire film exists as a self-aware critique of those industry problems. Read the rest of this entry »