Remembering the Occupation in French film National Identity in Postwar Europe [Hardcover]

When collective memory is a source of national debate, the public representation of history quickly becomes a locus of controversy and ideological struggle. This work shows how French film has allowed for a public airing of current concerns through the lens of memory's recreations of the Occupation.Acknowledgments Film as Memory: A Battleground for Shaping Identity? Transitions before the 'Sorrow': Criticism and Myth in the Late 1950s and Early 1960s? Identity Politics in Films of the 1970s? Occupational Performances in Truffaut's The Last Metro? Ambiguous National Icons in Chabrol's Story of Women?? Love Stories, Real/Cinematic Heroines, the Postmoderns: The 1980s and Beyond In Lieu of a Conclusion? Selective Bibliography Index

This work offers a sweeping, incisive analysis of the problematic ways French national identity in the postwar identity has been portrayed in feature films that dramatize the occupation in WWII. It covers a stunning array of works over six decades and affords a an extraordinarily perceptive cultural and historical examination of the relationships between cinematic representation and a national identity crisis rooted in unresolved conflicts about the meaning of occupation. - Richard J. Golsan, Professor of French and Department Head, Texas A&M University In this era in which moving images reign, this far-reaching and crystal-clear study of post-war film on the Occupation is most timely. Remembering the Occupation addresses the way societies remember what has shaken them; it will surely become a new must-read among the ever-growing body of work that investigates the relationship between memory and history. - Martine Guyot-Bender, author of M?moire en d?rive

Hewitt masterfully tracks the important concept of individual and collective guilt and national responsibility in French films. This significant volume convinces by its originality as it offers new perspectives on a rich and ongoing scholarly discourse ovl1