Dutch documentary film as a site of memory

Abstract

This article discusses how documentary film as site of memory has constructed the memory of the Second World War. Its focus is on Dutch documentary films produced by the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s and their relation to both the discourses of memory and of documentary representation. The construction of memory is closely related to the debate on historical representation, centred around the Shoah as an event of extreme importance. This article addresses these debates as well as the interventions made by filmmakers. With the help of several examples from Dutch documentary practice, its aim is to illustrate how representational modes in documentary film are related to the construction of memory.

Keywords

documentary memory representation Shoah The Netherlands

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Burgoyne, R. (1996) `Modernism and the Narrative of Nation in JFK', in V. Sobchack (ed.) The Persistence of History. Cinema, Television and the Modern Event, pp. 113-125. London: Routledge .

Dayand D. and E. Katz (1995) `Political Ceremony and Instant History', in A. Smith (ed.) Television. An International History, pp. 169-188. Oxford: Oxford University Press .

Friedländer, S. (1990) `Some Reflections on the Historicization of National Socialism', in P. Baldwin (ed.) Reworking the Past. Hitler, Holocaust and the Historians' Debate, pp. 88-101. Boston, MA: Beacon Press .

Friedländer, S. (1993) `Trauma, Memory, and Transference', in G. Hartman (ed.) Holocaust Remembrance. The Shapes of Memory, pp. 104-116. Oxford: Blackwell .

Friedländer, S. (1994) Memory, History and the Extermination of the Jews in Europe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press .

Hirsch, J. (2004) Afterimage: Film, Trauma and the Holocaust. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press .

Kaes A. (1989) From Hitler to Heimat. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

Nichols, B. (1991) Representing Reality. Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press .

Rosenstone, R. (1995) Revisioning History. Film and the Construction of a New Past. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .

10.

Rosenstone, R. (1996) `The Future of the Past: Film and the Beginning of Postmodern History', in V. Sobchack (ed.) The Persistence of History. Cinema, Television and the Modern Event, pp. 201-218. London: Routledge .

11.

Staiger, J. (1996) Cinematic Shots: The Narration of Violence, in V. Sobchack (ed.) The Persistence of History. Cinema, Television and the Modern Event, pp. 39-54. London: Routledge .

12.

Vos, C. (1995) Televisie en Bezetting [Television and Occupation]. Hilversum: Verloren .

13.

White, H. (1996) `The Modernist Event', in V. Sobchack (ed.) The Persistence of History. Cinema, Television and the Modern Event, pp. 17-38. London: Routledge .

14.

Winston, B. (1995) Claiming the Real. The Documentary Film Revisited. London: British Film Institute .

15.

Winter, J. and E. Sivan (1999) `Setting the Framework', in J. Winter and E. Sivan (eds) War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, pp. 6-39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

16.

Young, J. (1988) Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust. Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press .