The destinies of the body: corporeity, old age, and signification in contemporary cinema

Contemporary age supports a conception of elderly based on the inherited dichotomy relating a negative representation of old age as bodily and cognitive decay, and a positive one which emphasises the wisdom and experience derived from it. Thereby, this category implicitly omits and, contrarily, runs the risk of supporting an opposition between the biological and the sociocultural dimensions. Instead, through the analysis of 7 films, this contribution aims at emphasising the interdependency between three main domains regulating the semiotic experience of elderly, engaged in a dynamic relationship: the dimension of corporeality, the reflective discourse of a subject upon his or her condition and, eventually, a cultural and intersubjective dimension articulating the forms of representation and relationships between subjects.