Violating Time: History, Memory, and Nostalgia in Cinema

257 Pages·2008·2.872 MB·English

by  Christina Lee, Michael Pigott

Violating Time
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Violating Time
History, Memory, and
Nostalgia in Cinema
Edited by
Christina Lee
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Continuum International Publishing Group
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
Th e Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
www.continuumbooks.com
© Christina Lee, 2008, 2012
First published 2008
Paperback edition 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the
publishers.
EISBN: 978-1-4411-4296-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in the United States of America
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To my parents,
Gerk Hong and Eng Guan Lee
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Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Christina Lee
1. “Th e Cracks Between”: Cinematic and
Proto-Cinematic Counter-Memories
of the American Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Zoe Trodd
2. Our Impossible Failings: Th e Rhetoric
of Historical Representation, Ideology,
and Subjectivity in Ken Burns’ Jazz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
J. A. Rice
3. “Zero Percent Chance of Rain”: Th e Watergate
History and All Th e President’s Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Pamela L. Kerpius
4. Staying for Time: Th e Holocaust and
Atrocity Footage in American Public Memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Steven Alan Carr
5. Nostalgic Travels through Space and Time:
Good Bye, Lenin!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70
Roger F. Cook
6. Th e Temporal/Spatial Logic of Japanese Nationalism:
Th e Narrative Structure of Film and Memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Michael Sugimoto
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viii Contents
7. Remembering a Film and “Ruining” a Film History: On Tian
Zhuangzhuang’s “Failure” to Remake Spring in a Small Town. . . . .104
Yiman Wang
8. “We’ll Always Have Hong Kong”: Uncanny Spaces
and Disappearing Memories
in the Films of Wong Kar Wai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Christina Lee
9. “No Future for You”: Th e Sex Pistols
and the Politics of Cinematic Reimaginings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Adam Trainer
10. Th e American Family (Film) in Retro: Nostalgia
As Mode in Wes Anderson’s Th e Royal Tenenbaums . . . . . . . . . . . .159
Daniel Cross Turner
11. Manifesting a Mutant Past in
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177
Michael Pigott
12. When People Run in Circles: Structures
of Time and Memory in Donnie Darko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191
James Walters
13. What a Diff erence a Day Made: Database Narratives
and Avatar Subjectivities in the Alternate-Reality Film. . . . . . . . . . 208
Chuck Tryon
List of Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
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Acknowledgments
Th is anthology would not have been possible without the tremendous
eff orts of the contributors: Zoe Trodd, J. A. Rice, Pamela L. Kerpius, Steven
Alan Carr, Roger F. Cook, Michael Sugimoto, Yiman Wang, Adam Trainer,
Daniel Cross Turner, Michael Pigott, James Walters, and Chuck Tryon.
I cannot thank them enough for their passion and energy for innovative
scholarship in Cinema Studies, and their stamina in seeing this project
through from its humble beginnings to its completion. On this journey,
I was always grateful for the company of my fellow-travelers.
I feel extremely fortunate to have had David Barker and Katie Gallof
of Continuum Books guide me through the editing of the anthology and
patiently fi eld my barrage of questions. As it was unthinkable to put together
a book on fi lm without images, I am grateful to Sara Kirby from WireImage;
Philippa Hutson, Adam Gastineau, and Lisa Marie Rae from Getty Images;
and Jeremy Drouin from Kansas City Public Library for assisting in their
acquisition. Th e Humanities Publication Grant from Curtin University of
Technology provided fi nancial assistance to complete the manuscript.
Special mention goes to Wanning Sun, Ron Blaber, Jon Stratton, and my
colleagues at the Department of Communication and Cultural Studies for
their support and advice. Yet again, Denise Woods was invaluable as my
fresh pair of eyes and sounding board. Many thanks go to Miyume Tanji,
Melissa Loh, Alzena D’Costa, Kara-Jane Lombard, Joanne Jones, Tod Jones,
and Zachary Whitely for their words of encouragement and measured
doses of distraction.
I am grateful to my sister, Josephine, for sharing my enthusiasm for good
cinema and entertaining my numerous brainstorming sessions, and to my
brother, Jason, for all things technical.
Heartfelt thanks to Suzanne Galloway, Sergio Rigoletto, and Simonne
Hurse for always reminding me of the beauty of words. Deepest gratitude
to my parents, Gerk Hong and Eng Guan Lee, for their unfailing support,
patience, and understanding that cinema was never just a pastime but a
lifelong passion. I dedicate this anthology to them.
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