Cinema and the creation of collective memories
Lees, Dominic (2014) Cinema and the creation of collective memories. In: Journeys across media conference, 25 April 2014, University of Reading, UK. (Unpublished)
- Restricted Access Documents
- Details
![[img]](/style/images/fileicons/application_msword.png)
In 1970, anthropologist Roger Bastide wrote of the chorus of voices that address the issue of memories about the past. Some members of the chorus are closer to the microphone, others have louder voices, but no one orchestrates them in a unified way.
Filmmakers are among the closest to the microphone and have some of the loudest voices in establishing our collective memories of the past. They take us beyond the theoretical discussion of social memory pursued by Maurice Halbswach, and the broad area of scholarship that is sometimes called ‘cultural memory studies’: when narrative filmmakers create images of the past, they are directly contributing to a common visual memory of events before our lifetime.
This paper looks at cinematic imageries of history and how film embeds common visions into the collective perceptions of our past. My interest is in the patterns of visual recreation of the past and how filmmakers choose to reproduce or disrupt collective memories. Issues of authenticity, verisimilitude and pure fiction are explored through studies of filmmaker choices.
The majority of recent writing on memory and film has focussed on the cinema of recent history, in particular those traumas of the twentieth century lying just within the boundaries of oral history. In this sense, these films use actual visual memories, frequently exploiting documentary and archival images to reinforce specific images of the past. My study will look at the filmic recreation of more distant history, examining how a photographic medium establishes shared visual memories of eras pre-dating the advent of photography.
Developing from Stubbs’s 2013 work on ‘Historical Film’, the paper will include close analysis of certain examples of Tudor English costume drama. I incorporate my own practice-as-research into this analysis, looking at the detailed decision-making involved in the pre-production of my forthcoming Short Film, ‘The Burning’, set in 1588. This final element will reveal and challenge some of the choices that cultural producers may make when engaging in the reproduction of cinematic memories.
Actions (login required)
 |
Edit View |