How Recent Films ask us to Think about the Relation of the Image to Memory - Essay Example

French Film 7 May How recent films ask us to think about the relation of the image to memory Night and Fog “Nuit et brouillard” also known as Night and Fog is a heart-rending masterful French Documentary portraying prison camps during the Nazi Regime. Although only thirty-three minute long, it remarkably depicted the shortcomings of imperfect humanity. Released after a span of ten years, the movie primarily featured the forsaken camps at Auschwitz and Maidanek. Despite being non-fictional and succinct, Francois Truffant declared this the best film of all times. Director, Alian Resnais adopted a stylistic approach to impart a history lesson of critical significance by portraying concentration camps in Nazi Germany. Perhaps, this documentary is most difficult to watch due to the appalling and gruesome footage (Barsam). The movie is unlike the usual films based on Holocaust, which accentuated the sheer size of one the greatest inhumanity or personalized the story by depicting affected individuals. It concedes how futile it is to assess the scale of the tragedy and does not count on sentiments. Rather, it presents complex queries about memory and responsibility in relation to denial, and eventually how current and prospective recurrences are linked with denial. The prime focus is analysis instead of statistics and facts. HISTORY An exhibition in 1954 by the Institut Pedagogigue National inspired the conception of Night and Fog. It was unanimously decided by the chief of the Comite and Antaole Dauman to document a film for the preservation of chronicles of Holocaust. Renais was approached to direct the project. However, he initially declined as he feared that the realism and genuineness of the film might not be up to the mark. On Dauman’s insistence, Renais agreed on the condition that Jean Cayrol who had spent time at the concentration camps should serve as the scriptwriter. Unfortunately, Cayrol rejected the offer as he did not wish to revisit the horrible memories; but, finally the script produced was an unparalleled lamentation of the Holocaust (Hirsch). PRODUCTION APPROACH Cayrol followed a unimpassioned and solemn style. He put forward extremely challenging questions instead of arousing sentiments by using text. Micel Bouquet narrated the lucid and seductively calm script in such a detached and unflustered way, that viewers were able to assimilate the tragic circumstances. Renais and Cayrol recognized that excessive shock ensues in amnesia and denial; and therefore aimed at creating a collective memory. The images stood out due to their disturbing nature. It is quite impressive how Renais covers the background and creation of concentration camps, deliberate genocide, freedom of survivors and deserted camps within a span of only thirty-one minutes. The documentary depicts how leading German companies bid for the contracts, presented design and profited enormously from the construction of internment camps. In addition, it highlights how gas chambers and crematoriums served to exterminate prisoners. The ingenuity behind making practical use of the dead bodies for: parchment, soap, wigs, fertilizers etc. Similarly, proof of investigational operations, castration, and phosphorus burns are shown. Possessions of the prisoner are piled in warehouses. Then, an appalling scene hits the screen as heaps of heads and decomposed bodies are dumped in a pit by bulldozers. Withered and shrunken survivors are filled with consternation as allied forces arrive. The pieces of German, British, and French footage were juxtaposed with the novel footage of 1955 (Van der Knaap). The bland colours and lengthy, smooth tracking shots stand out against the black and white images of the war period. Now the land is covered with grass, fences are free from current and crematorium have reduced to rubble, this portrays the fading of memories as time passes by into history. This brilliantly presented contrast overpowers the viewers. SUBJECT MATTER The purpose of the documentary was not only to illustrate the inhumanity and atrocities committed during World War II. Fundamentally, the goal of the film was to serve as a lesson for future generations to prevent such genocides from re-occurring. Cayrol stated how they hoped that the affliction suffered in these camps was hopefully the first and last event of its kind in world history. However, humanity failed to learn its lesson, over the years bloodshed and massacres raged through Sudan, Rawanda, Yugoslavia. The sole purpose was not only for the film to act as a memoir to the desist victims but to remind humankind of its darkest impulses. In the end, clippings of trials are shown in which everybody; from the guards to the commanders deny accusations of war crimes (Rashkin). The theme becomes explicit that “it’s you, it’s me, it’s all of humanity” which is responsible. The screenplay and dexterity in direction rank Night and Fog as a top-notch documentary. The colourful footage shot in 1955 is merged with the genuine black and white footage of the concentration camps. The contrast presented by juxtaposing color images of the abandoned sites of Auschwitz and Maidenek against the monochrome stills adds a nerve-jangling element to the film. This lays emphasis on the recurrent topic of memory and how difficult it is to look back at horrors in the past. Magnificent editing of the sequences and a seductively bizarre music of flutes and strings make it a masterpiece. The scenes appear categorically unique with the help of music. Lines of naked emaciated prisoners and sequences of motionless victims with empty eyes looking straight in the camera overwhelm viewers with pity. These scenes are followed by footage of innumerable dead bodies being thrown in burials. Another sequence features the remnants of burnt bodies when no more space was available in the crematorium. It is particularly hard to shake off such appalling and horrific images from mind after watching the documentary. It directs the viewer’s attention to the apparently peaceful grassy landscape now and ponders how they once were centres of genocides and the greatest inhumanity witnessed. The differences between stylistic Hollywood varieties of Holocaust and the grave realities depicted in Night and Fog become evident. The amalgamation of color photography with black and white adds an extra dimension. Resnias attempts to recapture the long gone and forgotten horrors of concentration camps in the modern footage. In his own words, his primary focus was to present “the most realistic color, the most faithful reproduction of the actual place”. A gloomy and menacing link is shown between the site and history, architecture and extermination; the film emphasizes how ordinary companies constructed the buildings of the concentration camps. A dreadful shot of a ceiling appears as the narrator speaks” the only sign—but you have to know—is this ceiling, dug into by fingernails. Even the concrete was torn”. At this moment, past and present meet and the importance of realizing the truth is stressed. Generally, movies present wars as glamorous and a chance to prove strength in the name of patriotism. However, through a reflection of past, this documentary offers an insight of the practical disasters and afflictions of a war, “when there is nothing but ruins and desolation”., in the end, we are made to ponder if we can devote efforts for the prevention of such atrocities and genocides, the impassioned tone of the narrator turns into didactic passion. 2. HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR Another hit drama directed by Alain Resnais, based on a series of flashbacks. This emotion stirring drama explores history by focusing on an affair between a French actress in Hiroshima and a Japanese architect. Their similar pasts are a huge influence on their present as both have survived through wars. This drama was an adaptation of the novel authored by Marguerite Duras. This was seen as a first modern picture as it revolved around consciousness, bias, and experience based on memory in contrary to superficial concept of time. Hiroshima Mon Mour initiated the French New wave by replacing conventional cinematic norms. The films introductory scene portrays snowy ashes after the nuclear bombing, evidence of sweat on lovers, victims of the war. Eventually, the voice of a French woman is heard who recalls memories of her Japanese lover telling her that she had not witnessed anything of Hiroshima. She puts in great effort in order to comprehend as she says, “I longed for a memory beyond consolation, a memory of shadows and stones”. She desperately yearns for a recollection of Hiroshima, with a ray of hope to put behind her past due to the common affliction encountered as by the victims of the nuclear bombing. As opposed to this, the visit to Hiroshima and the momentary love game only inflate her gloom (Lanzoni). “The memory of an unrecapturable feeling becomes the subject of feeling,” as Sontang puts it. In a struggle to come to terms with her sorrow, Hiroshima Mon Armour reflects the hardship in recalling past and is less concerned with memories. The flashbacks correspond to reality as she walks through the dark streets of Hiroshima with neon signs, streetlights, and buildings. In her mind, both places co-exist; time and space have merged. Resnais had been essentially famous for innovation; and this formal experiment won the praise of the Cahiers. What makes this movie a modern classic is the depiction of a particular fragmentation of sorrow and distress, which was an inevitable consequence of the World War. Although, Hiroshima Mon Amour is a fictionalized story yet the lesson in history and anti-nuclear, pacifist topic is evident. The hero personifies this concept. Hiroshima has not been able to deal with the devastation of the war. The city is laden with ash due to the nuclear tragedy and rebuilt primarily for tourists. The appalling past still haunts the minds of the citizens near the Ota River. The A-Dome above which the bomb exploded is a symbol of their atrocious and cruel suffering. The heroine is a symbol of the modernist subject matter of human seclusion. She realises the need for facing her past; however, looking and then abandoning memories is quite agonizing. She is unable to derive sentimental or physical pleasure out of her relationship as she still feels guilty and remorseful. To wrap it all up, Hiroshima Mon Amour delineates how two people remain indifferent, not because of cultural norms or marriage but due to the pressure of memories. The script is structured and the recurring dialogues and majorly narration by the heroine. Though the hero repeatedly intervenes to negate her, “You are not endowed with memory” even though he does not accede to majority of the things she says yet he consistently goes after her. The film comprises of several small flashbacks of her life, youth town Nevers. She punishes herself for falling in love with a German soldier and shaves her hair “which the women of Hiroshima will find has fallen out in the morning”. The fundamental themes consist of memory and forgetfulness, portrayed through an extremely personal discourse between the French actress and the Japanese architect. This movie served as a vehicle for Nouvelle Vague since it constituted of brief flashbacks to produce a rare nonlinear theme. Bibliography Barsam, Richard Meran. Nonfiction film: a critical history. Indiana University Press, 1992. Hirsch, Joshua Francis. Afterimage: film, trauma, and the Holocaust. Temple: Temple University Press, 2004. Lanzoni, Remi Fournier. French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. London: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2004. Rashkin, Esther. Unspeakable Secrets and the Psychoanalysis of Culture. New York: SUNY Press, 2008. Van der Knaap, Ewout. Uncovering the Holocaust: The International Reception of Night and Fog. Chicago: Wallflower Press, 2006. Read More