Imran Firdaus

Gaspar Noé’s Vortex (2021): Transgressing the Screenplay

University of Technology Sydney, Australia

The French commercial screen development and production model aligns with that of industrial film production and its associated divisions of labour. Across three decades, controversial screenwriter and director Gaspar Noé has managed to transgress the norms of industrial screen development in relation to screenplay forms, ‘scripting’ and inventive approaches to the screenplay in production (Maras, 2009). Noé treats the screenplay as a scaffolding for constructing a visual and aural screen reality.

For Vortex (2021), Noé wrote a 14-page micro scénario d’origine (original micro-scenario), which was a minimal document limited to the characters’ descriptions and Noé’s intention of how he wanted to treat and unfold the cinematic narrative. It avoids traditional scripted dialogue since, during production, Noé guides actors with creative prompts for improvised dialogues. The micro scénario d’origine reveals the work of ‘the screenplay in production’ where Noé ‘scripts’ with the camera, light, and body choreographed across a split screen to represent the isolation of a couple separated by dementia.

Noé followed in the footsteps of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Keisuke Kinoshita with his intensive approach to scripting in production. This paper explores how Noé transgresses the screenplay via alternative screenplay development, screenplay form and scripting in production. With a case study of Vortex (2021), this paper reveals Noé’s improvisational approach to the screenplay via a highly collaborative model, drawing on the research of Steven Maras (2009), Alex Munt (2010), J. J. Murphy (2012), and Kathryn Millard (2014).

Dr Imran Firdaus is a Film Scholar, Filmmaker, and Art Organizer based in Sydney/Dhaka. Imran received his PhD for the dissertation Gaspar Noé: A Poetics of Transgression from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in April 2023 under the supervision of Associate Professor Alex Munt. Imran teaches Media Arts and Production courses as a Casual Academic to undergraduates at UTS. His films and video art have been exhibited in Amsterdam, Caserta, Dhaka, London, Oslo, Sydney, and Yogyakarta. During his undergraduate study at the University of Dhaka, Imran established and organised the International Inter-University Short Film Festival (IIUSFF) in association with the Dhaka University Film Society from 2007 to 2009 and 2015. Imran’s recent article, ‘Sharing is Transgressing: Piracy, Film Societies and Independent Filmmaking in Dhaka’, is available on the Senses of Cinema.