film-quest-il-arrive-a-baby-jane-2026-11-06

Friday 6 November 19h · conference by Raphaëlle Moine Qu'est-il arrivé à Baby Jane? is the most emblematic film of a horror subgenre, hagsploitation, which appeared in the 1950s and 1960s, featuring stars who were once symbols of Hollywood glamour in roles of ageing women descending into madness. Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson, Katharine Hepburn, are among the stars who embody these 'hags', psychotic madwomen and outcasts, in films that link female ageing and monstrosity. By spectacularising the decay of their characters, they revitalise the traditional figure of the witch. This conference will explore the history and iconography of this subgenre and examine the legacy of these horror divas in more recent films such as La mort vous va si bien or The Substance. 20h · meal by Domaine de Rombeau 21h · screening 'Qu'est-il arrivé à Baby Jane?' WHAT EVER HAPPNED TO BABY JANE? | ROBERT ALDRICH | USA, 1962, 2h14| DCP Performers: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono... This horrific closed-door film by Robert Aldrich, which marks the summit meeting between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in 1962, is rightly considered one of the films that brought an end to the Hays Code, 'code of good conduct' that had prevailed in Hollywood since 1934. The film depicts with cruelty the unhealthy sisterhood between two sisters locked in their manor, consumed by boundless jealousy behind which lurk dark secrets. This duel with grotesque twists is also a bare-faced commentary on a certain image of the cinema woman.