Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

Audiovisual Post-colonial Narratives: Dealing with the Past in Dundo, Colonial MemoryIsabel Macedo, Rosa Cabecinhas & Lilia Abadiawho are presented to us just as they are conveying a plausible proposal or a perspective onlives, situations and events portrayed”.The past has left many traces, sometimes visible in the expressions of our faces andin the aspect of the places we recall. Even the way we think and feel are unconsciouslyreproduced. In this sense, “is the lived past, far more than the past seized by written history,in which will later rely on our memory” (Halbwachs, 1950/1997, p. 71). The documentary filmcan be closely related to cultural memory. Besides seeking to reconstruct historical narratives,the documentary film can also be a historical document itself.According to Rabinowitz (1993), the documentary film encourages the audience toparticipate in cultural memory by presenting a unique vision of reality. By means of cinematographictools such as editing, voice-overs and long takes, the documentary brings theaudience to new understandings of historical past and consequently new representationscan emerge. Besides, it leads the audience to think about their place in the meanings of thefilms, as well as their responsibility towards the past and its interpretations.Reflecting on the role that documentary films have in preserving cultural memory, theauthor states that Flaherty manipulated reality to create and convey a certain perspectiveabout the world. Considered the fathers of the documentary film, the Lumière brothers werealready practicing a type of direct cinema, before its institutionalised practice. Back in the1890s, they sent teams across continents to document and display their inventions, filmingthe everyday lives of ordinary people. The Lumière brothers’ films represent an importantmoment in the relationship between image and experience (Rabinowitz, 1993).Because it is a cinematographic genre that seeks greater approximation to reality, thestarting point for the production of documentary films is true stories, real situations. Thisidea is supported by Diana Andringa in an autobiographical interview (2011). She claimsthat the film and especially the documentary provide information about who we are. In herwords, “the documentary is something that treats the noble part in people”. Andringa (2011)adds that “the documentary is what presents people in all their dignity”. She considers thatthis is a record that can give “voice to the other and you need to hear it, because you havenever heard it, you have only heard [our] theories about the other”.In this regard Martins (2011, p.75) also considers that the film teaches us to look atthe reality that constitutes us. It enables our access to “(...) a legion of images with which weidentify ourselves (actually, it is the legion of images that constitutes us, it is the multiplicityof what we are made)”.Thus, the role of film in preserving memories as historical evidence is central. Thistype of document sets up a performative act which generates its own meanings and whichrequires a connection with an audience. As Miranda (2008, p.63) states, these memories,and the stories disseminated “provide to those who listen, see or feel the opportunity tounderstand fragmented parts of themselves, evoking memories, concerns and expectations”.The media has a powerful influence on who we are, how we see ourselves and how wesee others, helping us build our representations of the world (Hesmondhalgh, 2007). Indeed,the documentary can take as its starting point the record of these real stories witnessed inthe recent past and simultaneously these records of reality can also be the point of arrival,an instrument of transformation of our representations about that same reality.Narratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches163