Work of Memory

Film is the ‘art of time’, and film and memory’s
generative affiliation is founded in this relationship.
This paper will examine how this mnemonic facility is
invoked through practice and how this in turn creates
memories.

The tension between narrative interests
and memory’s imperatives can form an axis of
experimentation and exploration. All films reference
memory, one way or another, however not all are
works of memory. Some films would evoke the idea
of memory but do not risk structural and psychological
instability whereas others consciously suggest
memory’s presence through offering more than one
temporal plain and other related signifiers.

The latter categorisation includes the films suchas
Muriel ou le temps d’un retour (Resnais, 1963), Tren
de sombras (Guerín, 1997) and Appearances (Meter,
2000). In this work the correspondence of history and
form, narrative and memory relates and develops
subjective and cultural recollection.

These films relate a form of filmic hybridity that
emphasizes conceptual potentiality and will be the
focus of this study. This examination will consider how
these films’ account of memory’s evolving resonances
is an act of writing and re-writing, and how these works
produce new ways of seeing and thinking.