Memory and Identity in the Emotive Map of Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)
Holmqvist, Jytte LU
(2014)
In NANO journal
1(6).
- Abstract
- The focus of this article is Alain Resnais’ representation of collective and individual memory and identity in Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959). The film is based on Marguerite Duras’ script from 1958 and remains faithful to this original text. With partial reference to Giuliana Bruno’s views on imaginary cities and urban cartography, the screened urban space will here be read as an emotive map in which the individual love story between the protagonists unfolds against the backdrop of their almost equally intimate relationship with the historically abused city of Hiroshima. This, in Bruno’s words helps create an affective “map of love” (243) or a “body-city on a tender map” (242). Discourses on memory and forgetting, individual and collective... (More)
- The focus of this article is Alain Resnais’ representation of collective and individual memory and identity in Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959). The film is based on Marguerite Duras’ script from 1958 and remains faithful to this original text. With partial reference to Giuliana Bruno’s views on imaginary cities and urban cartography, the screened urban space will here be read as an emotive map in which the individual love story between the protagonists unfolds against the backdrop of their almost equally intimate relationship with the historically abused city of Hiroshima. This, in Bruno’s words helps create an affective “map of love” (243) or a “body-city on a tender map” (242). Discourses on memory and forgetting, individual and collective memory will also frame a filmic analysis where Paul Ricoeur is given particular theoretical attention. In a film partly dealing with the traumas of the 1945 atomic bomb and its aftermath, Resnais visually and narratively juxtaposes wartime Hiroshima and the city twelve years after the event: as stated in Duras’ original filmscript, “[t]he time is summer, 1957-August-at Hiroshima” (8). In doing so, he unveils the many layers of historical unease that dwell behind Hiroshima’s currently peaceful condition. The paper highlights the fluid relationship between the protagonists and their environment, as well as the semi-documentary aspects of a film that establishes an effective dialogue between past and present.
(Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/19fd3095-61f7-48c5-bff7-45fcc6afea5e
- author
- Holmqvist, Jytte
LU
- publishing date
- 2014
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- in
- NANO journal
- volume
- 1
- issue
- 6
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- 19fd3095-61f7-48c5-bff7-45fcc6afea5e
- alternative location
- https://nanocrit.com/index.php/issues/issue6/memory-identity-emotive-map-alain-resnais-hiroshima-mon-amour
- date added to LUP
- 2025-03-20 02:19:55
- date last changed
- 2025-04-08 13:57:40
@article{19fd3095-61f7-48c5-bff7-45fcc6afea5e,
abstract = {{The focus of this article is Alain Resnais’ representation of collective and individual memory and identity in Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959). The film is based on Marguerite Duras’ script from 1958 and remains faithful to this original text. With partial reference to Giuliana Bruno’s views on imaginary cities and urban cartography, the screened urban space will here be read as an emotive map in which the individual love story between the protagonists unfolds against the backdrop of their almost equally intimate relationship with the historically abused city of Hiroshima. This, in Bruno’s words helps create an affective “map of love” (243) or a “body-city on a tender map” (242). Discourses on memory and forgetting, individual and collective memory will also frame a filmic analysis where Paul Ricoeur is given particular theoretical attention. In a film partly dealing with the traumas of the 1945 atomic bomb and its aftermath, Resnais visually and narratively juxtaposes wartime Hiroshima and the city twelve years after the event: as stated in Duras’ original filmscript, “[t]he time is summer, 1957-August-at Hiroshima” (8). In doing so, he unveils the many layers of historical unease that dwell behind Hiroshima’s currently peaceful condition. The paper highlights the fluid relationship between the protagonists and their environment, as well as the semi-documentary aspects of a film that establishes an effective dialogue between past and present.<br/><br/>}},
author = {{Holmqvist, Jytte}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{6}},
series = {{NANO journal}},
title = {{Memory and Identity in the Emotive Map of Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)}},
url = {{https://nanocrit.com/index.php/issues/issue6/memory-identity-emotive-map-alain-resnais-hiroshima-mon-amour}},
volume = {{1}},
year = {{2014}},
}