2 - Virtual Museums and Memory Objects
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
Summary
In the previous chapter I suggested that certain films actively elicit a ‘transversal’ viewing, contrary to Metz's suggestion that as soon as two images are juxtaposed a longitudinal narrativity is born, suppressing any such lateral movement. In this chapter I want to look at recent French films and moving image material that can be seen to summon transversal readings by drawing on an intertextual deployment of objects that resonate with personal and collective memory. To a certain extent all films can be seen to activate cultural memory in this way, especially in the age of DVD and other viewing technologies, where it is easy for the viewer to pause and meditate on any single frame. However, the films and artworks I shall be discussing incorporate these intertextual operations into their very structure, thereby foregrounding the mnemonic possibilities of film and moving image texts. They make use of objects and references to evoke the past, creating a space where the memories of filmmaker and viewer meet in the context of a broader cultural sphere. All of these works in one way or another take memory and history as their subject, engaging with the possibilities and limits of a filmic evocation of the past.
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- Memory and the Moving ImageFrench Film in the Digital Era, pp. 51 - 86Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2010