When I was 15, my family went on a holiday to America. It was here that we visited the site of the Twin Towers to acknowledge and remember the past. I often look back on this memory, especially around this time of year, and consider how ignorant I was at the time. I remember my father explaining the events of 9/11 to me, and recalling his experiences when he heard the news, while I took photos and looked at the never ending list of the dead. Despite my father trying to explain the significance of those events, I saw it as a statistic because it didn’t affect me directly, and I hadn’t experienced or been introduced to war and conflict until then. In comparison, my father was deeply shaken because he understood the impact of the terrorist attacks, could remember the details of that day.
After listening to Marcus Winter’s lecture on storytelling, I looked at how films have shaped our understanding of war and conflict. Art serves to educate and entertain, allowing creators to connect with their audience in a way that other mediums aren’t easily able to do. Following a character develop throughout a film, and then watching them die has a far greater impact than reading some statistics online. In this sense, films in particular give the audience a personal connection to events that we would otherwise be detached from.
Personally, The Dark Knight directed by Christopher Nolan provided a connection to the events of 9/11, and the impact of terrorism on society. Through the development and characterisation of The Joker, and the interactions between the character and the environment, I was able to look at the past through a different lens. Not only that, but through the incredible acting, and the clever plot development, I was educated on the many layers of conflict within war, and the complexity of these historical events.
If The Dark Knight helped me to look at the past, Eye in The Sky, directed by Gavin Hood, showed me how to look to the future and consider modern warfare, especially the moral dilemma of drone wars. This film was incredible as it showed multiple perspectives around one ethical debate, without directing the audience towards favouring one side. Hence, the film was confronting and personal, as the audience had to engage with the film and consider our own ethics around the moral dilemma of modern warfare.
Art shapes our understanding of the past, and allows us to look to the future, both generally and personally. The way we tell stories is powerful, especially which perspectives are told, and the underlying messages within them. Without films like The Dark Knight to give future generations a personal connection to the past in a modern and engaging manner, we become disconnected from important historical events, and we are at risk of repeating the past. We should pay attention to the stories of war and conflict, especially who and what we choose to remember, how we decide to tell their stories, and who has this privilege.
Samantha I loved this post – the idea of how history and the themes of war, conflict and trauma can be brought into the modern context through film, literature and art is something I’ve been contemplating regarding my memory project 🙂 I think it’s very topical – in our current day and age we are often removed emotionally and spatially from the horrors of warfare and even from tragic events such as 9/11, which happened when most of us were too young to remember, and is conveyed to us through the memories of our parents and grandparents. I think without social media we would be very distant from the wars that are happening currently as well. Film and visual art are such powerful means of communicating history and collective trauma – it is often very emotional and effectively humanises what would otherwise just be statistics that are difficult to grapple with in terms of scale. It also means that as technology evolves, we are able to continue to find new ways of engaging people and keeping fresh events that could otherwise be lost to the past. I really enjoyed visiting the museum because of this and seeing the interactive area – especially in the way that it was suitable for children as well as adults, so they could get an understanding of the timeline of key events of WW1 and WW2. I found the letters incredibly poignant – just one example of many of the power of words and the evolving presentation and commemoration of our past through new technological means. Your post has given me a lot to think about – thank you for writing on your experiences and on the power of these mediums :))