World Cinema and Cultural Memory

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Inez Hedges

   Pages 1-10

3. Living Memory: Representations of Drancy

   • Inez Hedges

   Pages 11-30

4. Amnesiac Memory: Hiroshima in Japanese Film

   • Inez Hedges

   Pages 31-49

5. Convulsive Memory: The Spanish Civil War and Post-Franco Spain

   • Inez Hedges

   Pages 50-64

6. Performative Memory: The Nakba and the Construction of Identity in Palestinian Film

   • Inez Hedges

   Pages 65-82

7. Radical Memory: Négritude, Anti-colonial Struggles, and Cabral’s Return to the Source

   • Inez Hedges

   Pages 83-106

8. Obstinate Memory: Chris Marker’s and Patricio Guzmán’s Pictures for a Revolution

   • Inez Hedges

   Pages 107-122

9. Productive Memory: “Forward Dreaming” in Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Cuban Films

   • Inez Hedges

   Pages 123-138

10. Reclaimed Memory: Worker Culture in the Former GDR and Peter Weiss’s The Aesthetics of Resistance

    • Inez Hedges

    Pages 139-153

11. Conclusion

    • Inez Hedges

    Pages 154-159

12. Back Matter

    Pages 160-190

    PDF

Cinema has long played a crucial role in the way that societies represent themselves. Hedges discusses the role of cinema in creating cultural memory within a global perspective that spans five continents. The book's innovative approach and approachable style should transform the way that we think of film and its social effects.

• cinema
• Cultural Memory
• film
• identity
• memory

“World Cinema and Cultural Memory is a treasure trove of evidence and analysis, providing a vital resource for anyone interested in changing the world. Its rich compendium of films from many parts of the world – some well known, others, undeservedly obscure – would alone make this book essential reading. … Hedges deploys eight typologies of memory, each one associated with particular countries, bodies of cinematic or literary work, and those filmmakers, writers and political actors involved in carrying them out.” (Mat Callahan, Socialism and Democracy, October, 2016)

"Inez Hedges' book is a fascinating excursion on the multiple oppositional uses of memory in world cinema. It shows, in a lively and insightful way, how movies bring the memory of past struggles forward into the present, to serve as an inspiration for the future. The spirit of Surrealism - the movement that according to Walter Benjamin was able to "win the energies of intoxication for the revolution" - haunts the pages of this beautiful essay." - Michael Löwy, Emeritus Research Director, CNRS, France.

"With memory and memorialization shaping a range of struggles for personal and collective self-definition, this book's focus on global oppositional cinema as a repository and shaper of memory makes a unique contribution to both memory and cinema studies. Its generously inclusive sweep lays out a useful comparative overview that illuminates cinema's powerful ability to shape collective awareness with far-reaching consequences." - Linda Dittmar, Professor Emerita of Literature and Film Studies and author of From Hanoi to Hollywood and Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism.

• Northeastern University, USA

  Inez Hedges

Inez Hedges is the author of several books on cinema and culture that cover a wide range of 20th- and 21st-century issues, including the legacy of surrealism, the transformations of the Faust legend, and the role of cinema in peoples' on-going struggles for dignity and identity. She is Professor of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Northeastern University.

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