Memory Narratives: How Audiovisual Archival Footage Assists Filmmakers in Telling Historical Narratives.

(1)

MEMORY-NARRATIVES:

How Audiovisual Archival Footage Assists

Filmmakers in Telling Historical Narratives.

Rebecca O’Connor Thompson

University of Amsterdam

(Graduate School of Humanities)

MA Heritage Studies: Preservation and Presentation of the Moving

Image

Thesis Supervisor: Bas Agterberg

Second Reader: Floris Paalman

Master Thesis submitted by:

Rebecca O’Connor Thompson

June 29th 2018

(2)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to than my fellow P&Pers, especially my library buddies: Hadley Kluber, Kitty Robertson and Laura de Lange for their support. Bas Agterberg for his advice and supervision. And finally my father David O’Connor Thompson for his proof-reading skills.

(3)

0. INTRODUCTION

‘Drama is life with the boring parts left out’1_{. (Alfred Hitchcock)}

In this paper I shall be exploring how the archive is utilised by filmmakers in developing their dramas: how it helps them, in Hitchcock’s words, leave the boring parts out by conveying knowledge and/or emotion to the audience based on the memories contained within the selected archival images. Essentially the archive is a means of signalling a time or a place, a mood or an emotion by triggering specific memories in the viewer. Immediately it is apparent that there are a number of questions that must be addressed: How can archival footage contain memory? Is the archive simply evidence that an event occurred in a particular place at a

particular time, or can it carry an emotional charge? Of course, one key question for the filmmaker is how can they be certain that archive footage will trigger the same response in everyone in the audience: how can archival footage evoke memories that are understood by the collective?

Since its conception cinema has always been interested in depicting history in the form of ‘historical drama’; that is a film or television programme that depicts real events from the past using actors to portray the characters and events. Gary Edgerton states television, and I would argue also cinema, is now the place where most people learn about history2_{. Today it seems the} the trend for historical drama is growing. As I write there are currently numerous historical dramas being shown on TV and in the cinema: The Crown (2016- ), I Tonya (2018), LBJ (2018),

The Finest Hour (2016), The People v O.J. Simpson (2016) and Jackie (2016). Increasingly,

these films and television series are utilising archival footage, which begs the question as to why and how is this footage being used by filmmakers.

Keith Jenkins defines the past and history as two separate entities. The past is

everything that has gone before now and that can never return. History is the work of historians, they create history in the narratives they use to describe the past. Therefore, history is just a narration of the past3_{. Hayden White argued that historians rely heavily on the use of narratives} to give meaning to the past. He states the factual history books of old were formalised in the

1 Rosenstone, Robert A. History on Film. Film on History. (Harlow: Pearson, 2002): 44

2Neiger, Motti, Meyers, Oren & Zandberg, Eyal. “On Media Memory: Editor’s Introduction” On Media Memory:

Collective Memory in a New Media Age. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001): 3

(5)

style of nineteenth century narratives4_{. Robert Rosenstone proposes that the narratives of the} past have evolved and believes that historical drama films and television programmes are possibly the new narrative style, and the creators of these dramas (who I shall refer to collectiely as filmmakers), consequently, are the new historians5_.

The archive and the objects they hold (artifacts, documents, photos, film, etc.) have been used by traditional historians as a primary source of evidence which to build their historical narratives. These archival objects are used to support and prove their versions and analysis of the past. Filmmakers use these objects - in particular audiovisual archival footage - in a similar way. They also use it to add a stamp of authenticity to their narratives. As Jenkins writes: ‘Such objects, which the camera demands in order to make a scene look ‘real’ [. . .] are part of the texture and the factuality of the world on film’6_.

Jamie Baron has looked more closely at the use of archival footage in both fictional and factual programming. She states that the use of this footage can lead an audience to view the programmes as being more ‘authentic’, as they view the footage as evidence of the past - she dubs this the ‘archive effect’7_{. She states that it is not a certainty that the audience will be} affected by the archive in this way as it is dependent on their prior knowledge and

understanding of what they are viewing. She argues that the filmmaker can achieve this ‘effect’ in two ways, through ‘temporal disparity and ‘intentional disparity’. Temporal disparity is when the audience is able to see the footage is from a different time - from then not now8_{. Intentitional}

disparity refers to footage that is shown in a new context - different from when it was originally filmed - as a piece of historical evidence9_{. In this way the ‘footage generates a dominant sense} of coming not from some other time but from a different intent’. 10_{Therefore, filmmakers use} archive footage in different ways in order to achieve this effect and persuade their audience of the authenticity of their historical narrative.

4Rosenstone., 4 5Ibid., 8

6Jenkins., 18-19

7Baron, Jamie. The Archive Effect: Found Footage and the Audiovisual Experience of History. (London: Routledge, 2014): 174

8Baron., 18 9Baron., 18 10Baron., 22

(6)

While I agree with Baron I believe that the use of archive footage by filmmakers - in particular filmmakers of historical dramas - has another purpose. This footage is also used to serve the narrative by allowing filmmakers to convey knowledge and emotion that are

connected to these archival images. In this way they help the filmmaker impart information that will assist the audience in understanding the historical narrative they are being told. I will show that this knowledge and emotion is connected to archival images through an individual’s and collectives’ memories of the events depicted in the footage. Therefore, filmmakers use these images to help the audience understand their historical narratives.

Chapter One will explain how we create memories that allows us to remember learned skills and recollect past events. I shall examine both traditional and contemporary memory theories which concur that visual stimuli is central to the construction and recollection of memories. I have chosen a cognitive approach and adopted Atkinson and Shiffrin’s ‘Modal Model’ to explain the complex processes of memory. This model also allows me to draw

parallels with the way in which archives create and store the memories of the nation - a nation’s collective memories.

Chapter Two will explain the different types of memories an individual and collective holds: non-declarative and declarative (semantic and episodic). I shall demonstrate how we create narratives – ‘memory-narratives’ as I shall call them - that allow us to give meaning to our memories and helps us to share them with others. In order to share these memories with others we create objects - such as audiovisual footage - that serve as ‘memory tools’. The different memories we hold allows us to perceive these memory tools as evidence of the past and allows us to recollect the memory-narratives they represent.

Chapter Three will focus on how the camera image serves as a memory tool - through their indexicality - in providing evidence of the past. I shall explain that these camera images can also be used to trigger collective memory-narratives. I shall go on to explain how some of these images have become imbued with a dominant narrative - an ‘iconic memory-narrative’. This iconic memory-narratives means the archival object not only triggers memories but contains them. I will analyse how the media’s use of the Zapruder footage of President John F. Kennedy’s (JFK) assassination and the Holliday footage of Rodney King has allowed these archival images to hold iconic memory-narratives.

(7)

Chapter Four adopts a Constructivist approach in order to analyse how an audience perceives and understands narratives. Constructivism works from the premise that audiences are active viewers and make sense of the world (and films) through perceptive and cognitive processes. By developing this thought into a framework I shall explain how audiences understand narrative and why filmmakers use archive footage to assist their narrative.

Chapter Five examines the narrative structures employed by filmmakers when creating their films. I shall explain how archive footage is used as a cue to help the audience navigate the temporal and spatial dimensions of the film. By exploring two case studies in detail, Jackie (2016) and the television series The People v O.J. Simpson (2016), I shall show how archival footage is an effective tool in its ability to convey knowledge and emotion to an audience by activating their different memories.

Archive footage is utilised by the filmmaker in a number of ways which I define as ‘original form’, ‘manipulated form’ and ‘recreated form’. Original form is archive footage that depicts the original characters and events as they were filmed at the time the footage was created. Filmmakers may edit the footage by not showing the ‘original’ in its entirety - for example a three minute newsreel may be edited down to one minute - however, the original format or content is not altered. Manipulated form refers to footage that has been manipulated by the filmmaker in different ways either by editing actors into the original film (like Forrest

Gump, 1994) or by revoicing the original commentary. For example, in Madonna’s film W.E.

(2011) she uses original newsreel footage of the funeral of the English king, George V, but chose to revoice the newsreel commentator. Recreated form refers to footage that has been completely recreated. The footage maintains the format, style, location and context of the original footage, but is re-enacted by the actors. For example, in the television series The

Crown (2016- ) the filmmakers have taken the original newsreel footage but re-enacted them

with the series actors. They have not edited them into the footage but rebuilt the sets and scenery where they took place. In some cases the recreated form also changes the dialogue of what was spoken in the original, as in the case of The Crown. However, sometimes the

recreated form will maintain the original dialogue although it will be spoken by the actors, such is the case with Jackie.

Both Jackie (2016) and The People v. O.J. Simpson (2016) use archive in its original form and recreated form. I have selected them as case studies in this thesis as they not only

(8)

gives me a chance to look at different mediums of narrative (television and film), but they both follow different narrative styles. The People v O.J. Simpson, although a television series, follows the Classical Hollywood Style, whereas Jackie adopts an Art House style. I will comment more on what these different styles mean in chapter five. They also use archival footage that is widely known and could be argued has become iconic as well as footage that is less well known. My analysis will allow me to explain the different ways archival footage can serve their narratives. Below is a brief synopsis of both these films and and explanation of the archive footage used.

0.1 The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story: From the Ashes of

Tragedy

The People v O.J. Simpson is a ten-part television series that tells the story of the trial of

O.J. Simpson, an American football star and actor, for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her lover Ron Goldman. The series starts with the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman being discovered on June 12th 1994 and ends with the jury returning a verdict of not guilty against O.J. Simpson on October 3rd 199511_{. Throughout the} series we are given an insight into not only O.J’s. character, but also the characters that make up his defence team, known as the ‘Dream Team’ - Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian and Robert Shapiro - and the State’s Attorney prosecution - Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden.

Through them we are told the story of what was dubbed the ‘trial of the century’ and come to learn of the events that allowed the prosecution to lose a case that seemed to have undeniable evidence that O.J. had committed the crime. This murder case and trial were notable as the key events were played out in the media; from the dramatic white Bronco car chase along the LA freeway in which O.J. attempted to flee from arrest, to the trial itself which was televised for the nation and world to see. The decision to televise the trial was decided by the presiding judge, Judge Ito who had been persuaded by both legal teams, various news agencies and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU said: ‘that whatever mistaken reporting on the case had taken place had happened outside the courtroom, not inside; that rather than encourage irresponsible reporting, cameras could both check and correct it, and that in a case crucial to public faith in courts, television was essential’12_. 11 Linder, Douglas O. “Chronology of the O.J. Simpson Trials”. Famous Trials.

http://famous-trials.com/simpson/1863-chronology

12Margolick, David. “Judge in Simpson Trial Allows TV Cameras in Courtroom”. The New

York Times. November 8th 1994.

(9)

The ‘mistaken reporting’ referred to the attempts of the so-called Dream Team defence to manipulate the television news audiences by playing the ‘race card’. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) had been under fire for years for their racist treatment of African-American civilians. The defence team used this to their advantage and even claimed in the trial that evidence had been planted by the racist LAPD to frame O.J. Throughout the trial, the

programme posits, the State’s Attorney prosecution had to contend with these racist charges and their influence both in and outside the courtroom. Their naivety and underestimation of the savvy defence’s use of the media, is what the show’s creators infer, led to their defeat

As is evident, there is an abundance of archival footage of the murder and trial - images that are used by the filmmaker both in its original format and as recreated content. The original footage most frequently features news presenters providing updates on the trial. The recreated scenes employ actors to re-enact events from O.J.s arrest, press conferences and the

courtroom that were shown on the news at the time. This can be seen in the first episode -

From the Ashes of Tragedy - which I will use for my analysis. The focus of this episode is the

discovery of the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, and of O.J. being notified of the murders and being taken in for questioning. In this scene the archival footage is recreated as we see Cuba Gooding Jr., the actor playing O.J., being briefly handcuffed at his home when the police come to question him. This episode also introduces the main characters that will form the defence and prosecution teams. It ends with O.J., who is waiting at home to be arrested, leaving a suicide note before he is driven off in his white Bronco by his childhood friend, Al Cowlings.

As already mentioned, in this series much of the imagery is recreated, however, the very first images we see are not. The first images to appear on screen are from the original video tape of the officers of the LAPD beating up Rodney King on March 3rd 1991, followed by a number of images of the LA Riots that followed the acquittal of the officers in the King attack. King was pulled over by LAPD officers following a car chase and brutally beaten. The beating was captured on videotape by George Holliday and shown repeatedly on television news as well as being used as evidence in the trial of the officers13_{. On April 29th 1992 the officers were} acquitted. Many who had seen the video where outraged by the acquittal and by what they saw 13Cannon, Lou. “The King Incident: More than Met the Eye on Videotape.” The Washington Post. January 25th 1998.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/01/25/the-king-incident-more-than-met-the-eye-on-videotape/2248e35e-178b-47e9-a8db-0734f88b46e0/?utm_term=.1e69bc37fd3b

(10)

as a corrupt, racist legal system. Their anger erupted on to the streets of LA where widespread looting, arson and civil disturbances lasted for six days and are now known as the LA riots14_.

0.2 Jackie

Jackie is an historical drama by Chilean director, Pablo Larrain. The film tells the story of

Jackie Kennedy, the wife of JFK in the days following his assassination on November 22nd 1963. The centrepiece of the film is an interview that Jackie K.15_{(Natalie Portman) gave to} journalist Theodore White (Billy Crudup) a week after the assassination. The interview was published in Life magazine on December 6th 1963 along with images from the funeral. While speaking to White about her role as First Lady, her husband’s death and funeral the film

employs flashbacks so the viewer is able to see the events of which she is speaking played out on the screen. The main scenes depicted through these flashbacks are, the assassination of JFK, the funeral, an imaginary conversation between Jackie K. and a priest about her husband’s death, Jackie K. organising the funeral, and her leaving the White House for the last time. Significantly, it also uses archival footage from a television show made in 1961 in which she took the American public on a tour of the White House.

However, Jackie is more than a simple biopic of Jackie Kennedy’s life. Its objective is to show that she was instrumental in creating the myth of Camelot that has come to define her husband’s administration. Camelot, refers to the court of the legendary king, Arthur, and has become a symbol of an ideal of innocence and happiness. It was Jackie K. who first established the connection between JFK and Camelot in the 1963 Life magazine article, with his

assassination being symbolised as the end of Camelot, the end of innocence in America. The myth is sparked with Jackie K. reminiscing on how there was a particular line from the musical

Camelot that her husband loved16_{: ‘For one brief shining moment there was Camelot’}17_{– a line} that White used to end his article. Thus began the Camelot myth.

During the course of the film, we see Jackie K. provide White with intimate anecdotes about her life and her husband’s death. Contrarily, at the same time, she tells him he must not 14 Los Angeles Times Staff. “The L.A. Riots: 25 Years Later”. Los Angeles Times. April 26th 2017

http://timelines.latimes.com/los-angeles-riots/

15Because of possible confusion between Jackie the film, and Jackie the person, I shall always refer to the person as Jackie K.

16‘Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot’. Lerner, Jay Alan. Camelot. (1960)

(11)

publish these intimate memories, instead he must focus on presenting the legacy of her

husband as a martyr of the cause, and his death as the end of Camelot. Scott Macaulay wrote: ‘Jackie is shown here manipulating White, transforming him from a journalist, and interpreter of history, to an artful transcriber’18_{. So clearly, by focusing on the Life interview, the film aims to} dispel the myth by demonstrating how it was first created.

The only piece of archival footage used in Jackie is from a television special called A

Tour of the White House with Mrs John F. Kennedy (1961) that Jackie K. both featured in and

helped script. The programme features Jackie K. taking journalist Charles Collingwood (and through the medium of television, the American public) on a tour around the newly $2 million restored White House, work which had been carried out under the direction of Jackie K. Her aim for this restoration project had been to return some history to the White House and she acquired ‘antiques reflecting the style of past presidents and full of the artistic history of the United States’19_{. The programme was filmed in black and white and originally aired on CBS and NBC} on February 14th 1962; it was shown on ABC a week later. Worldwide, the programme was syndicated to 50 countries and seen by an estimated 80 million people globally20_{. Use of this} footage had not been in the original script, the director, Larrain, decided to add it after seeing it on YouTube as he felt it offered a way to show the happy, glory days of Jackie K.’s life before the assassination. He said: ‘It’s important because those were the days of splendor, and after that came the crisis. It helped us to make an interesting structure’21_.

Most of the imagery from this television programme is recreated and features actors playing Jackie K. and the interviewer, Collingwood, (Natalie Portman and Stephan Hohn). However some of the scenes, such as images of the decor in the White House rooms, and long shots of the characters, are from the original programme. This was one of the reasons why

Jackie was shot in 16mm as the director wished to seamlessly blend the archival footage into

the film. The audio used of Collingwood and JFK speaking are from the original however Natalie Portman is employed to dub Jackie K.’s voice word for word as in the original. Larrain was 18Macaulay, Scott. “A Woman Above Everything Else.” Filmmaker: The Magazine of Independent FIlm 25.1 (Fall 2016): 34

19Emslie, Sarah. “How Jackie Transformed the White House.” The Telegraph. January 6th 2017 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/jackie/how-jackie-kennedy-transformed-white-house/

20Wikipedia. ‘A Tour of the White House with Mrs John F. Kennedy.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Tour_of_the_White_House_with_Mrs._John_F._Kennedy 21Rathe, Adam. “Jackie Director Pablo Larrain on Filming a First Lady.” Town and Country, February 21st 2017.

(12)

meticulous in his recreation of this footage: ‘We built all the sets. We put it in black and white and imitated the texture of the original video . . to present it identically as it was done, shot by shot, in the original documentary’22_{. So he was able to present, ‘Jackie as the first lady of the} televisual age, someone who understands the moving image as well as the printed word and became master of both’23_.

22Lyall, Sarah. “Pablo Larrain on His Latest Films, ‘Jackie’ and ‘Neruda’.” The New York

Times. December 15th 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/movies/pablo-larrain-interview-jackie-neruda.html

23Kermode, Mark. “Jackie Review - A Symphony of Grief at the White House.” The Guardian. January 22nd 2017.

(13)

1. MEMORY AND THE ARCHIVE

Both traditional and contemporary memory theorists maintain that memory is created by interaction with sensory stimuli (visual, aural and olfactory) and that, as individuals, we select which stimuli to store in our long-term memories. This stimuli is also used to help us recollect events and remember skills. I define remembering as the unconscious process that takes place and allows an individual to carry out learned skills such as writing or typing without having to consciously think about them; memory theorists call this non-declarative memory. Recollection will be defined as the process through which we bring to mind events or people from the past, these forming the content of our individual and collective memories; memory theorists call this declarative memory. This chapter will look at different theories of memory that will allow me to demonstrate how the archive uses similar processes when storing archival records and how the selection of these records makes them part of the collective memory of a nation. So in a similar manner, when records are activated in the archive, they enable the collective to recollect historical events.

1.1: Traditional Theories of Memory

The early theorists of memory were the ancient Greeks and Romans who saw memory and reasoning as being interconnected activities. They placed great emphasis on images, believing sight was instrumental in allowing individuals to both retain and retrieve memories. Aristotle asserted that there were two types of memory which he called ‘mneme’ and

‘anamesis’. Mnme was an unconscious memory which could pop into the mind without prompting24_{. I compare mnme to what is known as ‘involuntary memory’. Walter Benjamin} asserts that involuntary memory is not something we consciously recollect, but is a memory that springs into our mind, this ‘involuntary memory’ being triggered by our senses25_{. Esther Leslie} states ‘involuntary memory does not indicate consciously dredged up recollections, but rather overcomes an individual unexpectedly stimulated by sensuous experience’.26_{The archival} record, whether it be a document, object, photograph or moving image, can serve as the sensory triggers for these ‘involuntary memories’.

24Samuel, Raphael. Theatres of Memory: Volume 1: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture. (London: Verso, 1994) : vii.

25Leslie, Esther. “Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin: Memory from Weimar to Hitler.” Memory: History,

Theories, Debates, edited by Susannah Radstone & Bill Schwarz. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010):

130-131

(14)

Anameis on the other hand is the deliberate act of recollection27_{. There are numerous} occasions in our life when we need to consciously recollect information, such as people’s names, facts and figures. Anamesis allows us to recollect these memories (or this information) deliberately and consciously. Anamesis can be aided by using the science of ‘mnemonics’. Mnemonics is a memory tool that helps an individual to retain and retrieve memories. They often take the form of images; for example this methodology is used to help children learn the alphabet where each letter is represented by an image, such as A for apple, B for banana, etc. By employing mnemonic techniques, individuals can teach themselves to memorise information and recollect it at will.

One particular mnemonic technique, called the method of loci, was developed by the ancient Roman poet Simonides. He believed that a person could train their memory if they ‘[ . . .] select places and form mental images of the things they wish to remember and store those images in the places, so that the order of the places will preserve the order of the things, and the images of the things [. . .]’28._{. This technique proposed that a person creates a ‘mental place’}

in their minds. This place needed to be complex but familiar. Within this space the person then needs to place images that would trigger what they wished to recollect. So, by searching through the space they would be able to search out the images and these images would trigger the desired memory that need to be recalled29_{. This mnemonic technique was used by ancient}

orators to help them remember their speeches. They would assign phrases and anecdotes to the images they stored and create a route in which to search them out in their mental place so they could recall the phrases in the correct order.

It is evident that these mental places can only belong to a particular individual. That said, it can be argued that the archive serves the same function for the collective – records which a collective has decided they want to memorise - are stored and organised in such a way as to allow that collective to consciously activate these records, or physical memories at will. A collective refers to the different social groups that individuals belong to, such as the family, school, work or the nation. Furthermore, these collectives also have memories - memories created together, or individual memories shared within the group that make them part of the collective’s memory. In this way, the archive serves as a ‘physical mental place’ that allows a 27Samuel., vii

28Cicero. De Oratore. Translated by E.W. Sutton & H. Rackham. (Cambridge,Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1942)

29Thomas, Nigel J.T. “Ancient Imagery Mnemonics”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2014).https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/ancient-imagery-mnemonics.html

(15)

collective to store and actively retrieve their collective memories. Moreover, the archivists themselves regard archives as the storehouse of a nation’s collective memory, as Laura Millar notes: ‘Archivists often draw on the metaphor of memory to explain their mission’30_{. An example} of this can be seen on EYE Filmmuseum’s web page in which they refer to being known as ‘the cinematic memory of the Netherlands’.31_{In doing this the archives themselve purport to store} and manage the memories of a collective.

Both mneme and anamesis highlight the important role that images play in our memory. They can help us trigger unconscious ‘involuntary memories’ as well as serve as devices to allow us to memorise information and retrieve it. This idea of images being a central part of memory storage and retrieval highlights how archival footage can trigger both individual and collective memories - also how they can contain memories in themselves, for the reason that we attribute memories to certain objects in order to deliberately recollect them. These traditional theories of memory still play a role in more contemporary theories which maintain that memories are triggered by sensory cues, sight being the primary. However, these traditional theories tend to regard our minds as passive storage facilities for memory and do not account for the fact that memories can and do change over time. In this next section I shall look at more contemporary theories of memory to set out how we as individuals, and the archives as holders of collective memory of a nation, can and do shape memories.

1.2 Cognition and Memory

Instead of using the metaphor of the ‘mental place’ or house that early memory theorists used, contemporary cognitive theorists like to use the metaphor of a modern day computer. This metaphor allows them to explain how memories are formed in the mind. According to

cognitivists the human memory has three main tasks to carry out: ‘encoding’, ‘storage’ and ‘retrieval’. Encoding is the ability to receive incoming information. Storage is the ability to retain this information. Retrieval is the ability to access the information at a future point32_{. Sutton,} Harris and Barnier state that the basis of most cognitive memory models is the ‘Modal Model’ developed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin in 1968. This model explains how an individual’s creates and stores long-term memories for later retrieval.

30Millar, Laura. “Touchstones: Considering the Relationship between Memory and Archives.” Archivaria. Vol 61.1 (2006): 105

31EYE Filmmuseum. “About”: https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/about-eye

32 Sutton, John, Harris, Celia B. & Barnier, Amanda J. “Memory and Cognition.” Memory: History, Theories,

(16)

The ‘Modal Model’ states that memory has three separate components: a sensory register, a short-term store/memory and a long-term store/memory. The argument is that when a person perceives an exterior event through the senses, a richly detailed image of this

perception is stored in the sensory register, depending on the person, for three to four seconds. After this period much of the sensory information is lost. However, information that stands out, or to which the person pays particular attention, is transferred to the short-term memory. The storage capacity of short-term memory is small, and they argue can hold around seven items (pieces of information or memories) at a time. Neuroscientists refer to these pieces of information as engrams33_{. Without active rehearsal this memory lasts about fifteen to twenty} seconds. While engrams are held in short-term memory they can be immediately recalled or converted into actions. However, with active rehearsal these engrams can be put into a form that allows them to enter long-term memory; encoded. Atkinson and Shiffrin dubbed the processes that take place in short-term memory as ‘working memory’ which acknowledges the main complex tasks previously elaborated34_.

The engrams that are transferred into long-term memory are organized by reference to meaning and made available for retrieval (remembering or recollection) when required. This retrieval involves bringing these items back to ‘working memory’, and from here they can be recollected or remembered (turned into actions).35_{This retrieval is the process we use when we} perceive objects, events or people. It is the retrieval of memories from the long-term memory that allows us to make sense of what we have seen as well as allowing us to carry out actions in relation to what we have seen. Of course, it is not possible to store all these engrams in our minds over a lifetime. Laura Millar argues that one’s mind does not have the mental capacity to store all of these engrams, and, moreover, if they are not activated often enough then over time they are discarded - forgotten.

To summarise, if we concur that memories are created through a cognitive process we understand that our long-term memories are stored not as a whole but as fragments of

information (engrams). Thus, when we recollect these memories ‘[ . . .] we retrieve bits and pieces of data from our minds and reconstruct these into an imagined “whole.”’36_{The ‘whole’ we} reconstruct takes the form of a narrative, or ‘memory-narrative’ as I shall call it. In a way these 33Millar., 105

34Sutton, Harris & Barnier., 212-213 35Ibid., p.211

(17)

engrams work in the same way as the traditional mnemonic techniques developed by Simonides in that the orator would created images in their mind that were organized by reference to meaning, and, when activated together, they create a whole; the speech they wished to retrieve.

Archives work in a similar way in that they have three functions - the acquisition, selection and retention of archival footage, they do this in order for a society to be able to retrieve these materials. Like the mind, they also do not have the capacity to store every record a society produces, so they too must discard records. The three functions an archive performs with regards to collecting and storing materials, can be compared to the cognitive processes of encoding and storing memories. Archival institutes, like individuals or a collective, must make decisions as to which materials to retain in their holdings (or long-term memory). Archives are more conscious than individuals in this selection process and each archival institution sets out what they deem important to store in their collection policies. To demonstrate the parallels between how both individuals and archives create and store memories I will refer to Sound and Visions 2013 Collection Policy.

Sound and Vision is responsible for collecting and preserving the Dutch national television and radio audiovisual heritage37_{. Selection is integral to their archiving process and} allows them to ensure ‘the security of the audiovisual heritage considered to be of long-term cultural-historical value38_{. Today, Sound and Vision have the technical capabilities to digitally} ingest all Dutch programming that is broadcast. All these programmes are ingested and stored. This process is comparable to the sensory register that occurs in our minds. The first stage of selection occurs when the collection is refined during the ‘cataloguing phase’, this is when the programmes deemed most important (either for cultural heritage or re-use) are given ‘a deeper level of description’39_{. This correlates with the ‘Modal Model’ that asserts that we only retain a} detailed image of our perception for a short period of time. The material is then held in the dynamic production archive40_{for five to seven years and at this point it is decided which}

37Sound and Vision. Collection Policy: Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. Ed.

Mieke Lauwers. English translation by Beth Delaney. (Hilversum: Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid, 2013): 12

38Ibid., 12 39Ibid,. 12

40The dynamic production archive holds all programs broadcast in the Netherlands during the past five to seven years. (Sound and Vision Collection Policy 2013)

(18)

materials should be kept and stored in the cultural-heritage archive41_{and which should be} discarded. Here the dynamic production archive acts like short term memory in which the archive system is able to hold these memories for a short period of time before selecting and encoding them into the cultural-heritage archive, which serves as the long-term memory of the Dutch nation. So it can be seen that archives are created in a similar way to the cognitive memory processes at work in an individual.

It is reasonable to argue that the records within the archive can be regarded as engrams themselves; they are selected bits and pieces of physical data (i.e. audiovisual footage)

produced by the collective. As Laura Millar states, ‘just as engrams are formed, stored and retrieved, records are created stored and used’42_{. When the archival records (engrams) are} activated they also create a ‘whole’; a narrative constructed by the individual or individuals who activate them, as can be seen in the use of archival footage in news programmes; the individual moving image clips need to be constructed into a narrative in order to convey the events that took place.

Cognitive theories of memory, like the more traditional theories, highlight the importance of the senses, particularly the visual, in helping us create memories as well as recollect them. They also serve as a more pertinent analogy of the archive, in which archivists encode, store and retrieve our memories. In this analogy the audiovisual footage the archive stores serves to trigger or activate a society’s collective memories. This next chapter will focus more on the different kinds of memories we possess: individual, collective, declarative (semantic and episodic) and non-declarative. It will look at the content of these memories and how we create narratives to construct these engrams into a whole. Furthermore, it will look at the archival documents we create, both as individuals and as a society and how these can be used to both trigger and construct our memory-narratives.

2. MEMORY AND THE ARCHIVAL RECORD

41 The cultural heritage archive holds a selection of content and programs deemed to be representative of Dutch heritage or footage that is likely to be requested by broadcasters for re-use in their future programs. (Sound and Vision Collection Policy 2013)

(19)

This chapter looks at the different types of memory an individual and a collective hold and highlights how the archival record serves to assists us in recollection and so can be regarded both as a trigger for as well as a physical representation of memories. Cognitive scientists have set out that our individual long-term memory stores two distinct types of memory: declarative and non-declarative. Non-declarative memory (also known as procedural memory) is information that cannot be articulated but is expressed through learned behaviour and skills. Therefore, non-declarative memory allows an individual to remember and unconsciously act out skills they have learnt, such as, remembering how to ride a bicycle. Declarative memory is information that can be articulated. Cognitivists, such as Endel Tulving, propose that there are two types of declarative memory: episodic and semantic. Episodic memory (also known as autobiographical memory), is related to the relieving of personal past events, it has been

dubbed ‘mental time-travel’43_{. Episodic memories, when recollected take the form of narratives;} memory-narratives. Semantic memory is related to the ability to recollect facts - it allows us to

know that an apple is an apple, or that the capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam. Semantic

memory is described by Tulving in his article, Memory and Consciousness, as ‘symbolic

knowledge of the world’44_{. These facts relate to everything a person knows about the world and} has been argued is accompanied by a feeling of ‘knowing’ rather than ‘recollecting’’. 45

2.1: Non-declarative Memory

Non-declarative memory allows us to preserve skilled ability46_{. My argument is that it} enables us to immediately understand that archival footage is from the past and depicts ‘real’ or ‘actual’ events based on its visual aesthetics. This non-declarative memory can be attributed to what Jamie Baron dubs ‘the archive effect’ in which she states that the use of archival footage in films and television programmes (both fiction and factual) can lead an audience to view the programmes as being more ‘authentic’ or ‘real’, as it encourages the audience to view the footage as evidence of the past. She explains that the ‘archive effect’ can be created by highlighting the ‘temporal disparity’ of the footage in which the audience is able to see that the archival footage is from a different time.47_{For example, when I see archival footage of an old} black and white newsreel I unconsciously remember this (or perceive this) as being archival as I have learned (or rehearsed) through continued exposure to these types of images that they are 43Sutton, Harris & Barnier., 211

44Ibid., 211 45Ibid., 211 46Ibid., 211 47Baron.,18

(20)

images not from the present, and that they depict events or people that genuinely existed; they depict ‘real’ events and ‘real’ people. In this way my non-declarative memory allows me to experience ‘the archive effect’.

However, as Baron explains, not everyone will experience this effect, or will experience it in different ways. How they do so will depend on there non-declarative memory. For instance, as I work with archival footage I may have more advanced skills in perceiving archival images than others. These skills have been developed through my continued (rehearsed) exposure to these images. That does not meant that one has to work with archival footage to experience this effect, as a modern society we are all more and more exposed to these images (through the news, television and the Internet), and therefore each individual has developed some of these unconscious skills to varying degrees.

Non-declarative memory also explains how we are able to unconsciously follow the narrative of the different genres of film as we have become more skilled in understanding these genres tropes. In this way, non-declarative memory concurs with David Bordwell’s explanation of how audiences come to understand narratives, specifically those related to genre48_{. We} understand that the guy will always get his girl in a traditional rom-com narrative, and this understanding is based on our non-declarative memory. Therefore, non-declarative memory allows us to unconsciously experience the ‘archive effect’ and to learn unconscious skills related to understanding different film genre narratives.

2.2 Declarative Memory

Tulving proposes there are two types of declarative memory - semantic and episodic - and they can be defined as forms of declarative memory because unlike non-declarative memory they can be articulated - declared49_{. Therefore, declarative memory allows us to add} texture or narratives to the archival images we see; this may occur separately or coincide with semantic memory. Thus, my semantic memory is activated, when I see images of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on 9/11 I know the date the event took place, I

know where it took place and I know that this event led to the War on Terror. Furthermore, these

images will also trigger my episodic memory, as the events of 9/11 also remind me of where I was and who I was with when the attacks took place.

48 Bordwell, David & Thompson, Kristin. Film Art: An Introduction. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004 Seventh Edition):53

(21)

One of the main components of declarative memory is episodic memory. As stated earlier this memory relates to the relieving of past personal events. Theorists such as Steven Rose and Larry Squires argue that emotion is strongly linked to episodic memory. They state that memory involves emotion as well as cognition50_{. Furthermore, the emotion that we link to a} recollection of an episodic memory is not the same emotion we felt when we first formed this memory but is based on how we reconstruct that memory in the present. Rose says, ‘Far from passively recording the past, we in our memories actively reconstruct it’51_.

One reason we reconstruct our memories is to share them. Fredric Bartlett believes one of the key functions of recollection is to share our personal stories and emotions with others52_. He states that we shape these stories as narratives and that the we construct our memory-narratives based on the audience with whom we are sharing them. For example, when telling my mother how I celebrated my 21st birthday I form a different memory-narrative to the

memory-narrative I tell my friends. These two different narratives embellish certain events from the day while down-playing others. Therefore, the present circumstances, and the present audience will determine which episodic memories are accessed and how they are narrated.

Conway in his ‘Self-Memory System’ highlights how the present affects the manner in which we recollect our episodic memories. He believes that motivation is key in how these memories are recollected53_{. Our motivation can be dependent on the audience to whom we are} telling the stories - including ourselves - because sometimes we are our own audience, and when this occurs, how we feel in the present will determine how we recollect our memory-narratives. If I return to the example of my birthday; how I recollect my 21st birthday party to myself will depend on how I feel at the time of recollecting it; if I recollect my 21st party on the eve of my 40th birthday, I may recollect it in a more nostalgic view of lost youth; I will be

motivated by my fear of getting old. However, if I was to recollect my 21st birthday party the day after my 40th birthday party, I may recollect the latter more in comparison to my 21st birthday party; my motivation will be borne more out of the exhilaration or deflation from the days events.

50Rose, Steven. “Memories are Made of This.” Memory: History, Theories, Debates. Eds. Susannah Radstone & Bill Schwarz. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010): 207 51Ibid., 208

52Sutton, Harris & Barnier., 213 53Ibid., 214

(22)

One issue with these theories of memory, is that the reconstructive nature of our memories means they can be disputed as being untruthful. However, I would argue that although episodic memory-narratives are constructed, they are based on semantic memories, which in turn are based on fact. Furthermore, unlike fantastical stories of our imagination, our intention is still to impart the truth about ourselves, or events to our audience and our semantic memory serves the basis of this truth. Therefore, the key events in episodic memory-narratives will be based on events that really took place, with regards to time, location and causality. In fact, the truth value of our memories is so ingrained in us that if we are challenged on them we are likely to become agitated or distressed. Vinitzky-Seroussi supports this view by stating that ‘[. . . ] although memory might distort, schematize, conflate different memories into one, but it has, for the most part, something to do with events, people, feelings which actually occurred [ . . . ] Each social agent, even the most informed and educated, remains persuaded that at some point his/her memory tells the truth [ . . .]’54_{. He also states that the reconstruction process of} memories can be slowed down if the same narrative is continuously used to tell them, then these memories can become less prone to change or even halted. Logically it follows, if some memory-narratives can be halted then the repetitive use of archival footage that serves to represent these memory-narratives can also be halted, so, that the memory-narrative becomes imbued with the archival footage and that the episodic memory becomes part of the image itself. Like the mnemonic devices of the mental place that stored images that contained anecdotes, archival images can do the same.

2.3 Collective Memory

Episodic memory-narratives are both formed by and work alongside collective memory. This view is supported by Maurice Halbwachs, the father of collective memory, who states that each individual memory had social dimensions to it. He suggests that an individual belongs to different ‘social frameworks of memory’, such as the framework of the family, school, workplace, nation, etc. and that our individual memories develop within these social frameworks.

Halbwachs argues that our individual episodic memories are fragmentary and are made complete, reconstructed into memory-narratives, within the social framework55_{. This idea ties} into the cognitive theory of recollection that we memorise information as fragments (engrams)

54Vered, Vinitzky-Seroussi. “‘Round Up the Unusual Suspects’: Banal Commemoration

and the Role of the Media”. On Media Memory: Collective Memory in a New Media Age. Eds. Motti Neiger, Oren Meyers & Eyal Zandberg. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 63

(23)

and we reconstruct these bits and pieces of information into a whole when we recollect56_. Halbwachs theory, states that the whole we reconstruct is ‘guided by the script that collective memory provides.57_{’ This ties into to Conway’s model that argues that part of the motivation for} the construction of our episodic memories is governed by the audience we are relating them to. Therefore how and what we remember is not only determined by the present but also by the groups that helped us construct these memory-narratives. In this way Halbwachs argues that there can be no such thing as individual memory as all memory is constructed within different social frameworks58_.

Fentress and Wickham have criticised Halbwachs’ view that there can be no such thing as individual memory as individual memory allows a person to have unconscious involuntary memories which a collective cannot. They argue that collectives must come together

‘consciously and deliberately’59_{in order to recollect shared memories. Negri, Meyers and} Zandberg concur with this view and argue that unlike individual memories, collective memories cannot exist in the abstract for them to become functional: they must be concretized and

materialised through physical structures and cultural artifacts60_{. This conscious desire to create} shared memories accounts for the different ‘memory tools’ society constructs to help them concretize their memories and allows them to come together to recollect. These memory tools take different forms, such as monuments, museums, archives, photographs and moving images. Marita Sturken calls these objects ‘technologies of memory’ and argues that collective memory is produced through representation and that these objects are the way in which a society or culture represents there collective memories.

Laura Millar argues that as individuals we also create memory tools. She states that the act of sharing our individual memories with the group is what moves them from the realm of individual memories to collective memories61_{. ‘It is a move that involves sharing our inner}

thoughts with others, creating stories from memories, and preserving, interpreting and mediating external evidence to create a factual basis for individual memories to communicate those

56Millar,. 112

57Sturken, Marita. Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of

Remembering. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997): 4

58Neiger, Oren & Zandberg., 2 59Millar., 121

60Neiger, Meyer & Zandberg., 5 61 Ibid., 119

(24)

recollections”62_{. The external evidence she refers to are records, which can take the form of} legal documents, diaries, letters, photos, etc. She states that these records are used to help shape our memory-narratives and to communicate information about ourselves to the group. These records allow us to articulate our declarative memory to a wider audience, the record serves as the semantic memory wherein we have evidence to show that we know what took place, and the memory-narrative we construct around the record allows us to share our episodic memories to become part of the collective. In this way we represent our episodic memories to the group. Millar sees that these records serve as ‘touchstones’ for memory63_.

Millar argues that these memory-tools, can only be regarded as toucstones or triggers for memory as they do not contain emotion; they only contain semantic memory which is emotionless. Like Rose, Squires and Bartlett, she argues that emotion is strongly linked to episodic memory and therefore the archival record cannot be regarded as an object that contains episodic memory but only as an object that triggers it. Each individual will have a different emotional response to these records; the record may hold the emotionless semantic memory but they cannot guarantee that each individual within a collective will have the same emotional response. However, Sturken proposes it is possible for these objects to contain emotional episodic memories. She sees these objects are ‘not vessels of memory in which memory passively resides so much as objects through which memories are shared, produced and given meaning.’64_{She believes it is organisations, such as the media and archives, that} hold and reproduce these objects that are the ‘vehicles of memory’65_{. These organisations} imbue the records with meaning - with memory-narratives - and therefore the objects they hold not only trigger the memory but become the memory.

In this chapter I have explained that as individuals we have non-declarative memory that allows us, through repeated exposure, to learn to recognise archival images as being from the past. We also hold declarative memory which allows us to know facts about the past (semantic) and allows us to create memory-narratives about our own pasts based on our motivations in the present and the audience with whom we are sharing them. By sharing them with an audience (or within a social framework) these episodic memory-narratives can then become part of collective memory. Furthermore, both as individuals and collectives, we create and select 62Ibid., 119

63Ibid., 119 64Sturken., 9 65Millar., 121

(25)

objects or records to help us to recollect the past. With regards to collective memory these objects or ‘memory-tools’ take the form of museums, archives, photographs and moving images. These objects serve as triggers of memory-narratives within the collective and some objects through their representation in the media and the archive can also contain memory-narratives imbued with meaning and emotion. I would argue that the archival images that contain memory-narratives, are icons and work in the same way as a mnemonic, which allows the collective to recollect the memory-narrative they hold.

(26)

Collective memories are shared, shaped, represented and triggered by objects; memory-tools. In contemporary culture these objects often take the form of audiovisual footage or

photographs which have been created and shared to become part of the national collective through the medium of television and film. This chapter will look at how the camera image serves as a memory tool in allowing a collective to share in a memory-narrative. It will also set out how camera images serve being more than just a tool for semantic memory based on their indexicality, but, through their use in television and film they are used to create multiple

memory-narratives that can trigger different memories within individuals and the collective. However, these mediums (along with the Internet) have also managed to cross collective boundaries and helped to create dominant memory-narratives or ‘iconic memory-narratives’ as I shall call them. These iconic memory-narratives become imbued in the camera image and in this way the archival footage becomes the memory.

Many iconic memory-narratives relate to historical events that have taken place in the USA. Many of these memory-narratives have become part of the collective memory of the West through the influence and dominance that American television and the Hollywood film industry has in Western societies. Therefore to highlight how these iconic memory-narratives are created and shared I will use examples from American history that have become part of the West’s collective memory – specifically the Zapruder home-movie footage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the Holliday video of the LAPD beating up of Rodney King in 1991.

3.1 Memory and the Camera Image

“Just as memory is thought of as an image, it is also produced by and through images.”66 By creating a sense of shared participation and experience through collective viewing, the camera image helps create shared collective memories of events. Zelizer argues that camera images work in two ways which she calls denotation and connotation. Denotation is related to the indexicality of the image in that it ‘reflects what “is there”’67_{Connotation highlights} that the image can also ‘provide more than what is physically caught by the camera, where, associated with symbolism, generalizability, and universality, the image draws from broad

66Sturken., 11

67Zelizer, Barbie. About to Die: How News Images Move the Public. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010): 3

(27)

symbolic systems in lending meaning to what is depicted’68_{I argue that while denotation relates} to the semantic memory an images holds, connotation relates to the different episodic memories an image can trigger as well as to the fact that iconic images can come to contain these

episodic memories.

Denotation relates to the indexicality of camera images; the proof that they have witnessed the event makes them compelling memory tools. In this way the camera image, like the document, can be said to be a representation of our semantic memory; when we look at it we ‘know’ the event took place as we have evidence to prove it. This knowledge is more certain today as images can be stamped with semantic knowledge, e.g. the date and time, the location as well as the names of the individuals depicted. Like semantic memory, this information is regarded as factual. The indexicality of these images also leads us to regarded them as being more truthful as we understand that they provide physical proof that the event took place. Despite the fact we understand that images can be manipulated, it does little to alter the conviction that ‘the camera image provides evidence of the real.’69 _{In this way they create} Baron’s ‘archive effect’ as audiences perceives them as truthful representations of the past.

Kracauer suggests that photographic image only shows ‘the outer skin of a person’ and therefore, over time, they become meaningless as the image becomes disconnected from the person it depicts, so the memory of the individual fades and the reasons for the image

disappear. In this way the individual memory-narrative is no longer triggered. However, Kracauer goes on to argue that these images may then attain other types of meaning. He states, ‘Photography, in its independence, its distance from personal memory, becomes

significant for detailing social histories’70_{. Therefore, although the photo may slip from individual} memory, it can still retain its memory properties by joining the collective memory. He argues that historians (and filmmakers) use these images to create collective memory-narratives and thus the photo is reborn in the collective. Historians and filmmakers may use the same images to support their historical analysis in different ways, so the photo serves as evidence of different interpretations of the past, thus supporting the thesis that these images can trigger different memory-narratives. However, some images through their use in the media, become so imbued with the collective memory-narrative, they become the physical memory itself. As Zelizer states

68Zelizer 2010, 3 69Sturken., 21 70Leslie, Esther., 125

(28)

in her definition of connotation, the camera image becomes a symbol that presents more than what is depicted within the image71_{; it becomes an icon.}

Evie Salmon states the the icon works in two ways as an ‘image, person, action or object that carries an obvious meaning while at the same time hinting at another idea which is less obvious, but possibly more significant’72_{. I would argue that this ‘obvious meaning’ can be} related to semantic memory in that we know the person, action or object that the image represents, while the ‘idea’ it hints at relates to the iconic memory-narrative that the image holds. Robert Harriman and John Louis Lucaites state that iconic images are recognisable by different collectives and can trigger ‘complex emotional responses’ in the viewer. They ‘come to represent large swathes of historical experience and acquire their own histories of appropriation and commentary’73_{. Even though these images may be used in different ways ‘they always} seem to stand above the welter of news debates, decisions and investigations’74

Sturken suggests that these photographic and film images work like Freud’s ‘screen memories’ where the original memory is suppressed and the memory-narrative created by the ‘screen images’ becomes the substitute for them. This theory accounts for what has been dubbed ‘synthetic memories’, i.e. when people come to remember cultural and historic events through the image and popular mediums that depicted them. Alison Landsberg states that “Over time (it) becomes difficult to differentiate personal experience from the mediating technologies which have (re) constructed both personal and collective experience of the past: although not directly experienced, the montage of attractions and associations become part of personal memory, related to feelings and emotions connected to particular experiences.”75_Synthetic memories also accounts for our ability to recollect events that we have not personally

witnessed. In addition, we do not just recollect these events as fact and knowledge, but we also recollect emotions connected to them; these emotions have been created from the manner in which the images have been presented to the collective through the mass media.

3.2 Memory and the Media

71 Zelizer 2010, 3

72 Salmon, Evie. “What is Iconic Imagery?” InFocus. Getty Images. http://infocus.gettyimages.com/post/what-is-iconic-imagery#.Wy92qhIzb0E

73Hariman, Robert & Lucaites, John Luis. No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal

Democracy. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007): 1

74Ibid., 1

75Hallam, Julia, and Les Roberts. “Mapping, Memory and the City: Archives, Databases and Film Historiography.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 14.3 (2011): 363

(29)

‘Public events can become part of the collective memory of people who did not attend or witness them through a process of mediation’76_.

There is much debate amongst theorists as to how collective memories are created and mediated. Halbwachs argues that construction is essential in the process of shaping collective memory-narratives77_{. He states that the need for a collective to reconstruct the past is greater} than the need to present the original past events. While other theorists, like Barry Schwartz, see that the main process of creating collective memories is selection, he argues that the past is not as flexible as Halbwachs undertands, neither is it possible to (re)create facts and so collective memory is shaped by the way ‘some events are emphasized and other are conceded78_. Therefore, as a collective we choose ‘the factual elements that fit our larger master-narratives, and ignore or minimize the importance of others’79_{. I would argue that both these processes} work together in helping a society shape their collective memory. In this way the archive can be seen as carrying out the selection process, in which the archive selects which archival images to collect and so decide which factual elements a collective should recollect. The media plays a role in both these process; they select what images to use as well as use these images to construct collective memory-narratives.

As is evident, these two processes of selection and construction are similar to the definitions of semantic and episodic memory. The archive selects images based on historical importance to a society and aims to store them in their original form, therefore, when

cataloguing them, they will focus on factual information or semantic memory. In addition, the indexicality of the camera image (both still and moving images) - in that we know it was present at the event makes – it, the image, a compelling memory tool in representing our semantic memory. These images also serve the media who, in their construction, of memory use them to shape and represent a collective’s episodic memories. Camera images may be used to

construct different memory-narratives based on the present needs and circumstances of the collective and based on the audience they are being shared with. However, as I shall explain, while these camera images can trigger different memory-narratives within different collectives, they are also able to construct narratives that become so imbued in the images that the image itself comes to hold that dominant memory-narrative; the image becomes a symbol of that 76Neiger, Meyers & Zandberg., 12

77

Ibid 78Ibid., 7 79Ibid. 7

(30)

memory-narrative - an icon. As Nichols states: ‘The meaning of footage is altered as it is placed in different “interpretative frameworks,” although the tendency is to imagine that the meaning is inherent in the footage rather than the interpretative framework through which we view it’80_.

Today much of collective memory is transmitted in a manner that allows the media to maintain and manipulate the memory-narratives of a collective for their own shorthand purposes. Barbie Zelizer writes that in the modern world ‘the story of [the] past will remain in part [. . .] a story of how the media’s memories have in turn become [our] own’81_{. Dan Berkowitz} states news journalists drawn on a society’s collective memory to present news events to the public and so help them understand events by making ‘the unfamiliar seem familiar’82_{. Zelizer} concurs: her argument is that the news media ‘cannabilize’ local memory-narratives by presenting events in a simplistic, reductive way to the larger collective in order for them to be able to understand the implications of these events. She argues that news agencies must create ‘mnemonic certainties’ to their audience, so the media must convey news stories within a dominant memory-narrative that can be understood by the masses. She suggests there are four ways in which the media does this; by ‘minimilization’, ‘substitution’, ‘displacement’ and

‘transportation’83_{. By using these different devices the media (in particular the news) are able to} create mnemonic certainty by drawing from or creating iconic memory-narratives.

Minimilization is where local memories are reduced in such a way that the news does not need to relate all the memory-narratives that can be created by the event but instead concentrates on just a few. Substitution describes how an event is connected to other events to which the larger collective can relate more directly, more easily, such as an iconic image. Displacement characterises images that over time have come to be regarded as something more than just the event they depict, in this way the media makes these events iconic. Finally, transportation depicts the process by which the media takes single moments from the event to represent experiences not connected to the event - again such images become iconic84_{. By} analysing the way that the Zapruder, JFK assassination footage and the Holliday, Rodney King 80Baron. 4

81Zelizer, Barbie. Covering the Body: The Kennedy Assassination, the Media, and the

Shaping of Collective Memory. (Chicago: The Chicago University Press, 1992): 214

82Berkowtiz, Dan. “Telling the Unknown through the Familiar: Collective Memory as Journalistic Device in a Changing Media Environment”. On Media Memory: Collective Memory in a New Media Age. Eds. Motti Neiger, Oren Meyers & Eyal Zandberg. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 201-212

83Zelizer, Barbie. “Cannibalizing Memory in the Global Flow of News.” On Media Memory: Collective Memory in a

New Media Age. Eds. Motti Neiger, Oren Meyers & Eyal Zandberg. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 27-36

Memory Narratives: How Audiovisual Archival Footage Assists Filmmakers in Telling Historical Narratives.