Cinema and Social Memory

21215 Words85 Pages
Re-envisioning Identity: Cinema and Social Memory in Northern Ireland Rachel Naomi Holmes B.A., University of Victoria, 2002 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Interdisciplinary O Rachel Naomi Holmes, 2005 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. Co-Supervisors: Dr. Andrea Walsh Dr. Oliver Schmidtke ABSTRACT This paper examines the ways in which visual culture, through the medium of film, navigates and constructs social memory, and consequently identity in Northern Ireland. I question how Irish history is evoked in the present in a way that influences socio-cultural boundaries in Northern Irish society, and why visual images in particular become so effective. Northern Ireland is a place where the past is purposehlly and ritually evoked in the present as a means of maintaining polarization between Catholic and Protestant communities and strengthening support for this polarization on the one hand, while conversely, preventing against a loss of recognition on the other. Integral to this relationship is the way in which Ireland's history remains active in the lives of those who reside in Northern Ireland through their interaction with cinematic re-presentations of their collective past. In essence, the ability to re-create or re-present an act or theme of historical importance is essential to creating contemporary witnesses to this history, and thereby enabling a form of recollection and memory. While consumers are not uncritical of the re-presentation of their society on screen, I do argue that they layer onto the film the social contexts in which they live. In the case of Northern Ireland, these contexts have been shaped by segregation, animosity, and in some cases
Open Document