World Cinema and Cultural Memory

Cinema has long played a crucial role in the way that societies remember and represent themselves. In the last quarter century, film has been an important medium in the public debate around the memory of the Holocaust and of Hiroshima; of the Algerian war for independence and of the Spanish Civil War; of the Allende legacy in Chile, the utopian dreams of 1968, and the aborted project of the German Democratic Republic; in identity formation in Palestine and in the African diaspora. Hedges discusses the role of cinema within a global perspective that spans five continents, and proposes an original typology of cultural memory. In the process, she re-evaluates the contributions of major directors and uncovers hitherto neglected yet important works. The author develops her arguments in an approachable style that will encourage readers to rethink their own memories of films and to reflect on the way that cinema contributes to collective and cultural memory. The book's innovative approach should transform the way that we think of film and its social effects.

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.

Introduction
1. Living Memory: Representations Of Drancy
2. Amnesiac Memory: Hiroshima In Japanese Film
3. Convulsive Memory: The Spanish Civil War And Post-Franco Spain
4. Performative Memory: The Nakba And The Construction Of Identity In Palestinian Film
5. Radical Memory: Négritude, Anti-Colonial Struggles, And Cabral's 'Return To The Source'
6. Obstinate Memory: Chris Marker's And Patricio Guzmán's Pictures For A Revolution
7. Productive Memory: 'Forward Dreaming' In Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Cuban Films
8. Reclaimed Memory: Worker Culture In The Former GDR And Peter Weiss's The Aesthetics Of Resistance
Conclusion
Bibliography