Violating Time History, Memory, and Nostalgia in Cinema

Violating Timeexplores the complexity of nonlinear and disrupted cinematic time - the delayed period between the actual recording of an event and its eventual public viewing; the recreation of an historical event years after it has occurred; a nostalgic return to retro in the postmodern era; and manipulation of the clock in time travel movies to alter the course of events and create new cultural geographies of time, space and experience. This collection investigates the politics of tactical remembering and forgetting - the selective editing of time and narrative - not only as acts of subversion but also of creative potential and empowerment. It argues that representations of the past and projections of the future are not isolated commentaries of a romantic yesterday or grand visions of tomorrow. Rather, they evoke the preoccupations and anxieties of the present, whether it is the skepticism of nostalgic kitsch (The Royal Tenenbaums) or the projected post-millennial fears of disappearing histories and mutating pasts, manufactured memories and loss of identity (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mindand2046).

AcknowledgmentsNotes on ContributorsIntroduction (Christina Lee)1. "The Cracks Between": Cinematic and Proto-Cinematic Counter-Memories of the American Civil War (Zoe Trodd)2. Our Impossible Failings: The Rhetoric of Historical Representation, Ideology, and Subjectivity in Ken Burns' Jazz (J.A. Rice)3. "Zero Percent Chance of Rain": The Watergate History and All The President's Men (Pamela L. Kerpius)4. Staying for Time: The Holocaust and Atrocity Footage in American Public Memory (Steven Alan Carr)5. Nostalgic Travels Through Space and Time: Good Bye, Lenin! (Roger F. Cook)6. The Temporal/Spatial Logic of Japanese Nationalism: The Narrative Structure of Film and Memory (Michael Sugimoto)7. Remembering a Film and "Ruining" a Film History: On Tian Zhuangzhuang's "Failure" to Remake Spring in a Small Town (Yiman Wang)8. "We'll Always Have Hong Kong": Uncanny Spaces and Disappearing Memories in the Films of Wong Kar Wai (Christina Lee)9. "No Future for You": The Sex Pistols and the Politics of Cinematic Reimaginings (Adam Trainer)10. The American Family (Film) in Retro: Nostalgia as Mode in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (Daniel Cross Turner)11. Manifesting a Mutant Past in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michael Pigott)12. When People Run In Circles: Structures of Time and Memory in Donnie Darko (James Walters)13. What a Difference A Day Made: Database Narratives and Avatar Subjectivities in the Alternate-Reality Film (Chuck Tryon)