Skip to main content
School of Languages, Linguistics and Film

History, Fiction, Memory in French Cinema

Module code: SMLM008

Credits: 30.00

Contact: Dr Libby Saxton

This module will investigate the contribution of cinema to current debates about the interplay of history, fiction and memory. It will begin by examining the aesthetics of films that represent processes of remembrance and forgetting. This initial interrogation of how memory is mediated by the filmmaker will allow us to establish a critical and theoretical framework in which to conceptualise and explore the screen representation of memory. We shall then focus on questions of memory in relation to specific moments of national trauma, concentrating on fiction films and documentaries relating to episodes in recent French history (the Holocaust, the Occupation, Algeria). These will be considered in the context of recent historiographical material; our analysis of these films will focus on understanding what the French filmmaker's contribution has been to acts of commemoration and repression of national memory, as well as to the formation of ideas about the relationship between public events and personal memories.

Level: 7

Back to top