any attempt at sketching down history, becomes a ... ·...
TRANSCRIPT
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Any attempt at sketching down history, becomes a topography over a battlefield.
* Hungarian Lullaby
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SENSORY ETHNOGRAPHY & THE SELF: NEW MODELS FOR PERSONAL JOURNEYS
MASTER THESIS
VISUAL AND MEDIA ANTHROPOLOGY Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology Department of Political and Social Sciences
FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN
Pia Ilonka Schenk Jensen | October 2015
Supervisor | Steffen Köhn
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INDEX
I. Introduction 4
II. Research question 5
III. Research methodology: methods, research design and data 5
a. Phenomenology: embodying the space and light 8
IV. Ethical considerations and challenges: the interview 9
V. Research context and review 11
a. Autoethnography 12
b. Accented and diasporic cinema 14
c. Memory and history 14
d. Haptic cinema 16
VI. Introducing Hungarian Lullaby 17
a. The indirect image 19
b. The invented image 20
c. Autofiction 23
d. Intentions concerning sound and music 25
VII. The narrative toolbox 26
a. Epistolarity 26
VIII. Conclusion 27
IX. Filmography 29
X. Bibliography 32
XI. Still images from Hungarian Lullaby
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“One often gets the sense that the filmmaker has no memory and is salvaging their own past through the recording of family memory”
(Russel,1999, p. 278)
I. INTRODUCTION
My motivation for the master thesis project, arose from a curiosity to explore
possibilities within new directions in documentary filmmaking. Some recent films,
such as Mia Engbergs Belleville Baby (Engberg, 2013), are examples of hybrid
documentaries that borrow from experimental works, accented cinema and sensory
visuality, to tell personal stories. The challenge in many of these works, lies in the
impossibility of representing a country, a memory, a lost lover, when these images
no longer exist. As a result, they rely on visual material of another sort, often
abstract. Images that only allude to the narrative, and make reference to the story
indirectly. The spectator thus becomes an interpreter, and must utilize his or her
imagination to fill in the gaps.
The works that I have explored in the process, ranging from Chris Marker’s Sans
Soleil (Marker, 1982) to Petra Costas Elena (Costa, 2014), are not confined into one
particular category. What they share is, however, a fresh approach to documentary
and autoethnography, from a formal and conceptual point of view. As part of my
investigation into new ways of storytelling, I discovered various recurrent themes
shared by these films, as well as narrative tools that are helpful when creating from
a limited position.
In this essay, I will give account for the sensory direction in some works within
contemporary personal cinema, their shared concerns and stylistic devices. Finally, I
will elaborate on how I have employed these in the reflexive filmessay Hungarian
Lullaby.
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II. RESEARCH QUESTION AND OBJECTIVE
How do you create a film about an abstract theme within the limitations of the
audiovisual image, when visual material is unavailable?
To create an audiovisual work, departing from a position where no visual material is
available. Thus, creating a synaesthetic and narrative universe for the spectator,
utilizing various stylistic devices that allude to the senses and to memory.
III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Methods
My main objective has been to understand and experience the process of creating a
sensory autoethnography, and to draw knowledge from this process. I wanted to
understand my own experience in the process of filmmaking, and in relation to
others in terms of universal themes such as displacement and the fragmentation of
post-‐modern identities. I aimed for a practice based and experiential research
method, reliant on experimentation with narrative, sound and image. The process of
production and final film, work as method of research and object of research.
In a constructivist methodology the researcher is allowed to follow hunches, and
therefore it lends itself well when departing from an artistic and experimental
standpoint. This approach does not seek truth – single, universal, lasting, but
addresses human realities, which are not unidimensional (Charmaz, 2000, p. 523).
In the end the researcher can only claim to have interpreted a reality, one
interpretation among multiple interpretations, of a shared or individual reality
(Charmaz, 2000, p. 523).
As in Ruth Behars Adio Kerida, a reflexive work within narrative anthropology,
Behar searches for sephardic memories, and delves into her own jewish family’s
history in Cuba. She stresses that “ethnographers need to be more active players in
debates about identity and culture” (Behar, 2003, p. 33). I strived to achieve a
personal narrative that would tell my truth, from the periphery of anthropology,
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leaning on a constructivist, reflexive and subjective approach.
Research design
Research took place within various lines of investigation. Firstly, I gathered
information about my maternal lineage, through interviews of family members and
archival research. Eventually I received a few documents that supported the
information from interviews with my mother and aunt. In the end, I had hard facts
as a foundation to the storyline that had initially been based on intuition, oral
stories and fluctuating memory. The research process and findings would become
the basis for my script and voice-‐over.
A second line of investigation that is more phenomenological, emphasized on the
corporeal experience of embodying the women in my close lineage, and the spaces
were my grandmother had lived. I will look into this more in depth, in upcoming the
chapters on phenomenology and autofiction.
Furthermore, and in regards to the practice of filmmaking, I researched and
analysed works that touched upon the sensory and experimental, within personal
documentary and accented cinema. Inspiring myself on their methods for
visualizing abstract themes, I began developing a visual and narrative language for
Hungarian Lullaby. I conducted researchas data recopilation, by gathering my own
images and some sounds, intuitively, along the process of investigation, on my
journey across Europe and during the visit to my grandmothers spaces.
Finally, practice based research culminated in the editing of the film, and the
experimentation between voice-‐over, stylistic devices and images. At this final stage,
the collected material was assembled on the timeline, where a different and
intuitive process began, in the yuxtaposition of the various elements at hand.
Data recopilation
I interviewed family members to collect information about our family history.
Semistructured interviews and conversations were conducted with my father,
mother, sister and aunt on various ocassions. Some interviews were made in person,
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and recorded on camera, while others were conducted on skype. I opted for a
semistructured technique, because it was a natural way to conduct interviews of
close family members. With this method, the interviewees were relaxed, and
possibilities were left open for new information to arise far from the constrictions of
a structured interview (Bernhard, 1995, p. 208-‐236).
Information from some interviews was incoherent when matched, for example
interviews of my mother and aunt. My mother has given me different versions of
family stories, which makes it difficult for me to process and make sense of our
family past. When subjects reinvent themselves and their reality, it becomes part of
the research and methodology. The fluctuating memories of my mother, are her
versions of past events, and must be understood as her reality alone. Nevertheless,
this unpredictability is disconcerning as one tries to assemble the fragments from a
dispersed identity, to create meaning.
I conducted research in Auschwitz Bureau for Former Prisoners, the International
Tracing Service, Yad Vashem, The Hungarian National Archives, The Hungarian
Jewish Archives (Family research), and local hungarian archives, by searching their
online archives by visiting them, and also contacting them directly. Eventually
documents such as an identity card with photo, a deportation list with my
grandmothers name, and a note from the Auschwitz infirmary were found, and
copies are now in my posession.
I held a written diary were I noted down ideas, questions, outlined the line of
investigation, annotated poems and text that could be used for the script and voice-‐
over of the film. On occasion, and with the intention of incorporating this in the
audiovisual work, I took audio notes on my cellphone. All in all, this gathering of
information was dispersed and not as systematic as I had wished for.
Another method for gathering a more sensory type of knowledge, took place when I
visited and embodied the motherland. I traveled to my grandmothers last city of
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residence, Vienna, and to her native country Hungary, were I also visited the towns
were she grew up, Debrecen and Vamospercs. By traveling and walking, enveloped
in all my senses, in the place, in the light (i.e. the weather) and in the material
context, I was able to better understand were she and I came from.
III. a. Phenomenology
Phenomenology studies the structures of sensory and bodily experience and
consciousness, and makes room for the study of the subjective experience through
perception. Maurice Merleau-‐Ponty elaborated on phenomenology as a
philosophical theory in his book Phenomenology of perception (Merleau-‐Ponty,
1945). He encourages us to see things as they are, the body in direct relationship to
its environment, devoid of social and cultural noise (Merleau-‐Ponty, 1962, p. 8-‐25).
As I began to work with the investigation for Hungarian Lullaby, information about
my subject of study, my grandmother, was scarce. She had grown up in Hungary, a
geographical space and culture I was ignorant about. In my creative process, I
searched for experiences and images that could support my script. At an early stage
I recognized the importance of visiting her country, the places she had inhabited and
where she grew up. By not having any objects, photographs or documents to
analyse, which could have brought me closer to her, I decided I would travel to these
spaces and experience them at first hand.
When approaching this experience from the senses and the body, engaging through
a bodily experience, it becomes phenomenological. Knowledge becomes embodied
through inhabiting the spaces, walking, the perception of the light. Like light and
sound, feeling is an experience of being – of a body that is open and alive to the
world, immersed in the soil of the sensible (Ingold, 2005, p. 100).
Often so, experiencing space is closely connected to the experience of light. Light is
fundamentally an experience of being in the world that is ontologically prior to the
sight of things (Merleau Ponty in Ingold, 2005, p. 97). Ingold who works with
perception and space, and says that our experience of the weather, when out of
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doors, is invariably multisensory. Weather enters our awareness as an experience of
light, as we become bathed in light and enveloped in sound (Ingold, 2005, p. 98). It is
just as much auditory, haptic and olfactory as it is visual (Ingold, 2005, p. 97).
It becomes a challenge to reinterpret this experience for an audience on screen. I
collected various moving images that captured the light, the space and the colors.
Superimposed with narration, in the film, I intended to transmit if only partly, the
sensation of being there and embodying these spaces. For example, the immediacy
and excitement of the journey in the travel montage, or the harsh midday light and
emptyness in Vamospercs captured on 8mm footage.
IV. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND CHALLENGES
The interview
I asked my subjects for persmission to interview and record them. This was
unproblematic with my father and sister. My aunt said she felt uncomfortable in
front of the camera, and expressed that the information she had was not relevant
(and that my mother knew more). I made it clear to her that I would not put any
pressure on her, and that our relationship would not change depending on if the
interview went through or not. She later came back to me and allowed me to
interview her, and because I knew she was uncomfortable in front of the camera, I
did not bring this up again and decided to only record the audio.
On my first approach at her, my mother first replied that she might not want to be
interviewed. On my second attempt at talking to her, she asked to have the
questions for the interview up front. When I started to investigate my family past, I
was aware of the fact that something was bothering my mother. I would later come
to the conclusion that she felt uncomfortable opening up about a painful childhood. I
spoke to my mother and told her that the interview would only be conducted with
her consent, and that whatever she said could be taken back or deleted in
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retrospection. I stressed the fact that she could trust me and that we would only go
through with it if she felt comfortable. In the end she decided to participate.
The point I want to make when elaborating about the pre-‐interview process, is to
emphasize that interview subjects must be approached with openness and respect,
and have the opportunity to take back information if what has been disclosed in
retrospective makes them feel uncomfortable. “The right to privacy is the right to
decide how much, to whom, and when disclosures about one’s self are to be made”
(Pryluck, 1995, p. 198). “A basic postulate in social research is that subjects should
not be humiliated by the experience, they should not leave with lowered self esteem
and social respect” (Pryluck, 1995, p. 202).
How does this affect disclosing information about disceased persons, such as my
grandmother? In Hungarian Lullaby I discover during the interview with my aunt,
that my grandmother suffered severe traumas after the war, had seasures and panic
attacks. After the camera has been turned off, my aunt Annette tells me that my
grandmother would have been in a psychiatric institution if it wasn’t for my
grandfather’s efforts to keep this from happening. This information had not been
shared with my siblings and I, until now.
Psychiatric disorders are taboo. Am I obliged to tell the full truth, with the
consequences it may implicate? Do I have the right to disclose information that
might cause harm? What happens if I chose to share intimate knowledge that might
be defamatory to my disceased grandmother? How much of my grandmother, of my
family past, belongs to me and is information for me to disclose? My grandmother is
not longer with us. Would she have felt ashamed about her condition? These are
questions with no standard answers.
Sometimes we cannot fully comprehend the possible harm we are exposing our
selves or our subjects to, as “ethics in ethnography is concerned with making
decisions based on interpretations of the moralities and intentionalities of other
people” (Pink, 2007, p. 39). From my perspective, and as the narrator of this story, I
believe that in the post-‐war and post-‐concentration camp context, it becomes
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legitimate to speak of psychiatric discease, and there is less prejudism towards
psychiatric disorders, especially in relation to trauma. In the end, what I chose to
share with the public, is also highly relevant for the story, as it makes direct
reference to information that travels across. Some information I chose not to
disclose, concerning the gravity of her condition. My aunt will have the opportunity
to watch the completed film, provide feedback and make changes on her
contribution.
V. RESEARCH CONTEXT AND REVIEW
I will hereby give a brief introduction to the various contexts that provided the
foundation for the production of a new sensory documentary and autoethnography.
Then, I will go more in depth in regards to autoethnography, diasporic cinema,
haptic cinema, memory and history, as these subjects have been relevant to
Hungarian Lullaby.
Anthropologists and ethnographers today are familiar with the debate that arose as
a criticism of western ocularcentrism, and which led to the emergence of an
anthropology of the senses. The objective of the anthropology of the senses is
neither to assume that certain senses will be dominant in a particular culture, nor to
assume that they will be marginal, but to investigate the ways in which meanings
are, in fact, invested in and conveyed through each of the senses (Classen, 1997).
Needless to say, the anthropology of the senses created a rise in interest, and
investigation of the sensory aspects of anthropology.
In 2000, Laura Marks wrote The Skin of the film (Marks, 2000), which deals with the
sensorial, synaesthetic and intersubjective qualities of film. She was particularly
intriged by what she describes as intercultural films, those dealing with
displacement and exile. These thematics oblige intercultural films to experiment
with non-‐literal and often poetic footage to recreate the motherland, memory and
the past. Marks was interested in this visual style, naming it haptic visuality, which
she explored in depth in her essay The Memory of Touch (Marks, 2000, p. 127-‐193).
As the haptic image is multisensory, it encourages a bodily relationship between the
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viewer and the image. In comparison to optical cinema, haptic cinema implicitly
suggests the object, and is less explicit and literal.
As an extension and in-‐depth investigation into the realm of the senses, Harvard
University founded the Sensory Ethnography Lab in 2006, a laboratory that works
in the axis between ethnography and aesthetics. Their films are the main references
for sensory ethnographic documentary, within the festival circuit and in an
institutionalized context. However, it is from the marginal documentary circuit
dealing with autoethnographies and the filmessay, that I draw my inspiration.
Examples will be provided in the following chapters.
Many films with sensory qualities, have come from underground movements such
as the experimental video scene, outside of the institution. An example of early
corporeality on celluloid, is the work of Maya Deren, a pioneer in experimental film.
Meshes of the afternoon (Deren, 1943), alludes to some of the basic principles of
haptic visuality. One of the first times autoethnography appeared on film, was in the
work of the avant-‐garde movement in the 1960s’, were Jonas Mekas, exiled in U.S.
from Lithuania, was a central figure. Mekas work exists in the symbiosis between
experimental haptic imagery, and personal storytelling, -‐ his work is a good example
of what I chose to call haptic autoethnography.
The works of various contemporary filmmakers telling personal stories, could be
defined as haptic and autoethnographical at the same time, such as the works by
Sadie Benning, Margreth Olin, Jonathan Caouette, Mona Hatoum, and so on. Much
autoethnography makes use of a tactile rawness to the footage, sometimes
rendering it undiscernable and haptic, in the form of extreme pixelation (Benning),
handheld low-‐resolution DV cameras (George Kuchar and John Smith), and use of
super 8 footage (Jonas Mekas, Chris Marker).
V. a. Autoethnographies
Part of my concern with that which is passed on across generations, stems from an
interest in the construction of identity and the self. The fragmentation of the
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postmodern identity is a recurrent theme in autoethnographies, as if our selves were
constituted by fragments. First-‐person documentary is a response to the necessity of
assembling and creating meaning from these fragments; it is a response to the
challenge of social location in postmodern society (Aufderheide, 1997, p. 1).
According to Renov, the autoethnographical subject is characterized by
incompletion and alienation, never unified (Renov in Lane 2002, p. 22).
This is also a theme and concern in Hungarian Lullaby.
These “new autobiographies” construct a subjectivity as a site of instability – flux,
drift, perpetual revision (Lane 2002, p. 22). The filmmaker does not belong, but is
drifting between cultural conventions, space and time, such as the traveler in
Markers Sans (Marker, 1982). The autoethnographical self is split on a formal and
abstract level, as fragments float across history, in time and space, and become
separated through the editing process and the creation of an onscreen persona. By
turning the camera inward, the filmmakers fluid identity becomes constrained and
manageable even if for a brief moment. And by doing so, we intend to create
meaning and articulate an identity; from ethnicity, gender, memory, history and
social inadequacy.
“One often gets the sense that the filmmaker has no memory and is salvaging their
own past through the recording of family memory”(Russel, 1999, p. 278). Delving
into our ancestral memory becomes a process that enables us to understand history,
broader social patterns and the relationships that constitute us. As in Hungarian
Lullaby, I begin to scratch the surface of an unarticulated Jewish ethnicity in my
lineage, and travel across time, to reveal minor and major events that have shaped
my family today.
Another concern in autoethnographies is creating a cultural connection between the
self and society, of connecting the personal to the cultural (Chang, 2008, p. 2). In
Hungarian Lullaby, I identify myself in the role of a 3rd generation Holocaust
survivor, as a grand-‐daughter curious about an unknown family past, a fragmented
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identity in the debris that is left 70 years after the Second World War.
“Autobiography becomes ethnographic at the point where the film-‐ or videomaker
understands his or her personal history to be implicated in larger social formations
and historical processes” (Russell ,1999, p. 277). The autoethnographical filmmaker
uses herself as the context and point of departure for exploration and reflexion on
broader social themes.
For example, in visual artist Mona Hatoums short film Measures of Distance
(Hatoum, 1988), letters written by her mother in her country of origin, are read out
loud by Hatoum, a migrant to the U.K.. The simplicity of this work alludes to the
universal relationship mother-‐ daughter, and is representative of the liaisons exile-‐
motherland, implicating Hatoum’s work in a broader social and historical context.
V. b. Accented and diasporic cinema
Laura Marks calls it intercultural cinema, while Nacify Hamid created the term
accented cinema. What they have in common is that their main concerns evolve
around themes such as exile, diaspora, loss and displacement. Also, as Marks has
pointed out, they share a visual style that can be described as sensory or
synaesthetic, and that Marks has articulated as a haptic visuality.
Within diasporic cinema and documentary filmmaking, there is a prominent amount
of first person Jewish films. Jews have been a displaced people since early history,
and it seems as if the dislocation of a culture that has not been geographically placed
(until Israel 1947), has created a necessity to come to terms with Jewish identity.
Alisa Lebow writes extensively on the topic in her book First Person Jewish (Lebow,
2008).
V. c. Memory and history
The construction of knowledge, history and memory has been a recurrent and
popular theme in autoethnographies and filmessays. It is a delicate subject, as
memory positions itself between dream and reality, truth and fantasy, the subjective
and the objective, past and present. Memory is represented as unstable, unreliable,
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and impersonal (Russell, 1999, p. 305). It exists in a space between consciousness
and unconsciousness. Because of their subjective nature, of representing one truth
and one truth only, one could argue that memories are fictive. “Filmed memory
situates the filmmaker-‐subject within a culture of mediation in which the past is
endemically fictional” (Russel, 1999, p. 313).
“I sat down with a notebook and thought. I wanted to describe Time – Memory –
That which has been lost. How do you do such a thing?” (Engberg, 2013, p. 35)
Some of us only know our grandparents, great grandparents and ancestors through
anecdotes, through fragmented information, often mystified. This has been the case
for my generation in my family. There seems to be a greater need to delve into the
family past if this involves a history of exile, conflict and rupture. As Russel points
out, “family histories and political histories unfold as difficult processes of
remembering and struggle (Russel, 1999, p. 278).
It is through memory and travel that the filmmaker explores the ethnically
fragmented self, such as in Jonas Mekas’ diary Reminiscences of a Journey to
Lithuania (Mekas, 1972) and Chantal Akerman in La- Bas (Akerman, 2006).
Ethnicity becomes something for the filmmaker to remember, and the past a
destination to be explored (Russel, 1999, p. 279). The filmmaker salvages her
identity through the recollection of memories.
I wanted to create a memory and a history for my siblings and I, to fill in the blanks,
were no memory or history existed for us upto this moment. I wanted to lift the veil
and disclose that which had been obstructed. In Hungarian Lullaby, this process
began by searching for memories as the only resource available, as there were no
objects, photographs or documents that could disclose anything about my
grandmothers past. I searched my mother and aunts memories for some memories
of my own, which I gathered through interviews. “A prominent theme in
contemporary personal cinema is the staging of an encounter with the filmmaker’s
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parents or grandparents, who embody a particular cultural history of displacement
or tradition (…) An ethnographic distance between the modern and premodern is
dramatized in the encounter” (Russel, 1999, p. 278). An example of this, is Arnon
Goldfingers investigation of his family’s past in the documentary The Flat
(Goldfinger, 2011), where his mother functions as a link to his grandparents and
family history.
Other memories I invented, creating a fictive family history, a partly fictive past for
my grandmother, through visuals and fantasy. This is made explicit in the set-‐
stagings, and in the end sequence of the film, where I imagine my grandmothers life
in descriptive images in the voice-‐over.
Memory also plays an important role in the construction of our cultural and
collective identity. In a different sequence of Hungarian Lullaby, I draw upon seven
eyewitness accounts from various sources, yet for the most part recollected from
the film Shoah (Lanzmann, 1985), to remember the atrocities of the concentration
camps. These eyewitness accounts become, for those who watch either film,
collective memories from this particular chapter in european history.
V. d. Haptic cinema
In The Skin of the Film, Laura Marks reflects on intercultural films, and their distinct
use of what she has named haptic images. Marks makes a distinction between two
opposites, the optical and the haptic image. The first one is an image in high
definition, with information that can easily be read, and where objects are rendered
precisely and explicitly. Because the spectator perceives the image at an optical
distance, he or she is able to discern the objects(s) and project onto it.
Optical visuals give a sense of completeness that lends itself to classical narrative.
Haptic images prevent an easy connection to narrative, as they don’t give the
audience the possibility of immediately discerning the object. Spectators are invited
to interact with the image, and to draw on their own conclusions and subjective
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memories to complete the images (Marks, 2000, p.177).
Haptic cinema pulls the viewer in close, is sensorial and intimate. On ocassions, we
are drawn so close to the object that we have difficulties making sense of it. Then,
gradually we might discover what is in the image, as if “seing it for the first time”.
The image is intended to be experienced through the senses. By employing close-‐
ups of textures, such as a fabric, we perceive the image not only visually, but can
“sense” touching it. In refusing to make images accessible to vision in their entirety,
the viewer must resort to other senses, in order to perceive the image (Marks, 2000,
p. 159).
For David MacDougall, film sets various bodies in relation to each other: the body of
the film, the body of the spectator, the bodies in front of the camera and the body of
the filmmaker (McDougall, 2006). When the foreground and background of an
image are not separated, the spectator may not distinguish objects within the frame,
and he or she must engage in a relationship to the screen as a whole, body to body.
“Our embodied experience of the movies is an experience of seeing, hearing,
touching, moving, tasting, smelling in which our sense of the literal and the figural
may sometimes oscillate, may sometimes be perceived in uncanny discontinuity, but
most usually configure to make sense together-‐ albeit in a quite specific way’
(Sobchack, 2004, p. 76).
VI. INTRODUCING: Hungarian Lullaby
My thesis film, Hungarian Lullaby, touches upon two separate themes and lines of
investigation. One of them, and the subject of this essay, is exploring from a formal
and conceptual point of view, the process of making a film in the spirit of new
personal cinema. The other line is a reflexion, more intuitively than theoretically
based, on the possibility of information traveling across generations. Do we inherit
virtues, traumas and behavioral patterns from our ancestors? What repercusions do
past experiences or behavioral patterns from our ancestors have on how we
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experience our present lives?
My concern grew out of self-‐exploration, as I reflected upon behavioral patterns in
myself, tracing them back to my parents. Some of these patterns are negative. I
discovered that this behavioral conduct was a result from my parents upbringing,
and could be traced directly to events in their childhood and the construction of
their own self-‐esteem and feeling of self. For example, I perceived that my mother
had a complicated relationship to her emotions, and did not give room to her
feelings, a behavior that can be attributed to her mothers blockage and way of
dealing with her experience of trauma.
I came across a recently published article stating that Study of Holocaust survivors
finds trauma passed on to children's genes, presenting findings from a research team
at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital (Study of Holocaust survivors finds trauma
passed on to children's genes, by Helen Thomson, The Guardian, August 21st 2015). In
brief, it states that genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust
survivors, are capable of being passed on to their children, the clearest sign yet that
one person’s life experience can affect subsequent generations (ibid.). “What we’re
getting here is the very beginnings of a understanding of how one generation
responds to the experiences of the previous generation”, says Marcus Pembrey,
emeritus professor at University College London (ibid). The team were specifically
interested in one region of a gene associated with the regulation of stress hormones,
which is known to be affected by trauma. As them, I ask myself: can you inherit a
memory of trauma?
To my knowledge, my grandmother had been interned at Auschwitz – Birkenau
concentration camp, and I was curious to scratch the surface to learn if this major
event in her life, was having repercussions in the present, in the lives of my family.
I wanted to make a documentary about a grandmother I never knew, and from
whom I did not have any documents, objects or photographs. They had lived in
Vienna, and once my mother moved from Austria, objects and documents were lost.
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Not only was my departure point devoid of any visual material to construct the film,
but I also had to open up the flow of information from my mother and my aunt, the
two keepers and only references to information about my grandmother. My siblings
and I knew only a few fragmented anecdotes about her, on which we had built a
myth. Besides, my mothers memory was incoherent, a fluctuating memory that
provided incomplete fragments of information.
VI. a. The indirect image
In 2014 I was introduced to the genre-‐breaking film Belleville Baby (Engberg, 2013),
in which director Mia Elmgren tells the story of a lover who disappeared a decade
ago. Her grief had taken her to delete all photos and footage of their relationship,
and she was left with her memories alone. One day the lover appears again, and she
decides to tell their story. How can you make an audiovisual piece when all you have
at disposition are your memories?
“I had two main characters, Florence Rey and the man who had stood me near, but
none of them wanted to take part in my film. Furthermore I had only myself, my
memories and a slight idea that I wanted to make a film without traditional
documentary scenes” (Mia Engberg, 2013, p. 35)
Elmgren utilizes various narrative means to visualize the story. Solutions that have
come to her after years of trial and error. She revisits places that were important to
them, she re-‐enacts their telephone conversations, she uses 8mm film as a reference
to memory and the past. Some of the images are haptic and sensory, images
deprived of information; yet they convey sensations of space, light, longing, loss. The
creative process is documented extensively in the publishing Belleville Baby:
antekningar från en filmisk process (Engberg, 2013).
As I watched Belleville Baby, I discovered that images and soundscape are not
obliged to be in direct relationship with the story and voice-‐over, in order to create
meaning. Such as in the principles of montage when two separate fragments are
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edited together, what is being said and what is being showed on screen, yuxtapose
and create a third meaning in the imagination of the viewer.
In classical fiction film we see characters in dialogue acting out the storyline
onscreen, and as spectators we are confined to one space and one action at a time. In
traditional documentary, observational, expository, ethnographic and so on, we are
being presented with proof that underlines the argument, documenting reality.
However, in contrast to traditional fiction and documentary filmmaking, the
personal filmessay lends itself to artistic exploration and experimentation, and must
not adhere to a specific set of rules. What you hear and what you see is implicit.
Because of it’s personal, subjective, reflexive nature, it represents only one truth, the
truth of the artist, which is not questioned as long as it is does not claim universal
truth.
In this new and experimental autoethnographic documentary, where image,
soundscape and narration collide and merge, we are as spectators invited to
participate and create our own meaning from the yuxtaposition of various elements.
The director leaves room for interpretation, thus the spectator engages more
profoundly with the work. The audience become active observers, and if what they
see alludes to their bodily knowledge, senses and memory, the experience can be
sensorial and embodied.
VI. b. The invented image
You have decided to tell something. Not as a classical narrative fiction, but departing
from an abstract theme, through a filmessay from a first person perspective. You
also find yourself departing from a point of disadvantage, because at first thought,
there are no images available to dress your story. Perhaps your reflections touch
upon memory, loss, the past, exile or the unreliability of history. You are departing
from a position of (re)creating an impossible image.
How do you construct and audiovisual piece on these grounds? You have the
possibility of utilizing implicit images, those images with a different kind of
21
information, which Laura Marks describes as haptic. Many films, especially in the
tradition of accented exile cinema, have worked extensively with reimagining
memory, loss and the motherland on film. Much of their visual material relies on
images that are haptic, such as in Gariné Torossians Girl from Moush (Torossian,
1993), where she employs a collage of superimposed images from her native
Armenia.
Because of its tactile qualities and graininess, as a result of it’s low resolution, 8mm
film is widely used to create haptic images. Super 8’s graininess can produce a
tactile quality, and the eye may choose between concentrating on figures and
ignoring the points that make them up, or bracketing the figures and dissolving
among the points (Marks, 2000, p. 175). It is also, in collective visual memory, a
reference to the past, childhood and memory.
In Hungarian Lullaby, the film that accompanies this essay, I have employed various
formal means to invent and create haptic images. Early in the process, I decided to
work with 8mm film, because I would be touching upon themes that seemed
relevant to capture with this quality. In the film, I revisit my grandmothers home
country, and her village. Watching the 8mm footage, we might imagine that this was
captured a long time ago. I employ the texture of 8mm film to invite the spectator to
travel inwards and back in time.
I also make use of pixelation, by deteriorating the aspect ratio and resolution of the
black and white skype conversation I have with my sister. The image becomes of
lesser quality, more tactile and organic. In the scene where my sister looks at the
photographs, I have also employed the focus as a stylistic device, pulling the focus in
and out, and eventually also overexposing the image. Also, the images at night of
car-‐lights out of focus, may take the spectator to a variety of places or points on
time, as there is no direct reference as to what, when and where the images were
captured.
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My intention with the haptic images, is not primarily concerned with the bodily
relationship between the audience and the image. More so, I employed these
techniques in order for the audience to bring their resources, imagination and
associations to complete the image and story. The story I am narrating in Hungarian
Lullaby is a personal one, but also one that can be interpreted universally, as the
term autoethnography implies. An objective for me has been to provide the
spectators with universal images, that evoke sensations, memories and a stream of
thought in relation to their own references. I have tried to accomplish an open visual
universe, without making direct visual reference to my grandmother, so as to avoid
a person fixation, and rather leave for the viewer to fill in the faces. “I wanted to
create an archetypical world of images where a ribbon was the symbol for a ribbon,
and a boy was the representation of a boy – perhaps all boys. This way I wanted the
images together with the sound to listen even to the spectators memories”
(Engberg, 2013, p. 37).
This is also the intention with the use of found footage. The footage was chosen to
accompany certain moments in the film. As with stock footage, these are images that
have no direct relationship with the narrative or voice-‐over. As I mentioned
previously, when the relationship is not direct, the spectator, must use his or her
imagination to create the link. When we involve the audience in such a way, I believe
the experience of watching the film becomes not only more challenging, but also
more rewarding. And the experience becomes personal, as everyone must draw
from their own embodied memory to create meaning. In Chris Markers Sans Soleil
(1982), much interpretation is left over to the spectator, who is presented with
images and sound in discordance, generating an active spectator in interaction with
the filmmaker. “Marker insists that his audience dispense with these structures and
adapt to a different way of reading. The viewer has to respond to shifting modes of
signification, and read the film according to both diachronic and synchronic modes
of reading, constantly referring to what has gone before and reappraising its
significance” (Kear, 1999, p. 7).
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Another powerful tool to evoke memory and imagination in the audience, is the use
of black screen. I do so on various ocassions in Hungarian Lullaby giving audio
presedence. More often than not, in classical cinematic traditions, the image takes
priority over audio. What happens when audio becomes the only narrative
reference for the audience? The images evoked, in voice-‐over, become stronger, the
relationship between the narrative and the internal world of the spectator are
connected on a more profound level, as he or she must actively participate in the
internal creation of the image.
VI. c. Autofiction and docufiction
Autofiction in literature is taken for granted, mixing two paradoxically diverse
genres, namely that of autobiography and fiction. A major reference for Hungarian
Lullaby is the work of Marguerite Duras, for her poetic textual and visual language.
Duras writing is both fictional and autobiographical, such as in her novel L’Amant
(Annaud, 1992).
Some recent documentary films incorporate fictional elements, creating
docufictions, and when these depart from personal narratives they become
autofictions as well. In her personal documentary Stories we tell (ref), Sarah Polley
recreates the life of her disceased mother on 8mm film, without making this explicit
to the audience. In the fiction films Party Girl (Amachoukeli-‐Barsacq, Marie et. al. )
and Family Tour (Torres, 2013) the directors invite their families to act out their
lives and real life relationships, as themselves. In Mia Engbergs Belleville Baby
(2013), she uses her diary notes to reconstruct telephone conversations she had
with her former lover, with an actor. The line between documentary and fiction
becomes blurred.
In editing, after I had finished filming the interviews, my search through the
archives and my journey to my grandmothers motherland, I had an idea. I had not
recorded images of my aunt, and it came to mind to dress up as her and use this
footage to visualize her interview. I developed this idea to include dressing up as my
24
mother, my aunt and my grandmother as young before and after the war. James
Clifford uses the term “self-‐fashioning”, referring to when the documentary subject
represents herself as fiction (Russel, 1999, p. 277). This would become a means to
include myself and my body, in the documentary. This use of my own body is also
very appropriate when working with the memory of the body, multisensoriality,
embodiment and phenomenology.
I decided to recreate an intimate and warm space, that would resemble a theatre
wardrobe, a space for experimentation and imagination, where I could dress up and
play. I wanted to invite the spectator into this fictional personal universe, where I
create my own versions of the women, my own myths, memories and history
through impersonation and invented objects. This would be a powerful and relevant
tool in the lack of images to tell my story.
A subject in Hungarian Lullaby is the information, cultural and biological, that we
carry from our ancestors. By staging and embodying the women protagonists of my
lineage, I symbolically make reference to this point. Furthermore, the experience
proved to be cathartic in my personal process, by becoming conscious of their bodies
and their presence in mine. Becoming “them” becomes a ritual of transcendence.
Mimetics become relevant through roleplay, as I have adopted body language from
my mother, that she adopted from her mother, and that becomes implicit in my
impersonation of these characters. Inspired by the works of Shirin Neshat, Mona
Hatoum, Sophie Calle and Margreth Olin (Olin, My Body, 2003), I played with the
idea of writing on my skin, adjectives that could represent my grandmother and my
own fragmented identities: Jew, woman, hungarian, romanian, mongolian,
norwegian, woman, mother, daughter etc.
I didn’t have any objects from my grandmother through which I could engage in
mimetic encounter body <> object. The french conceptual artist Sophie Calle had
worked with ritual and objects from her disceased mother in her work Mother (A
mother on her deathbed, head on, by Bob Morris, New York Times, May 1st, 2014. ) . It
25
came to mind the possibility, in the spirit of autofiction, to invent these objects. I
decided to curate a series of objects and vestiment that symbolically represented my
grandmother, and my idea of her, and work with these during the staging. Also, I
would not make explicit to the audience the fact that the clothing and objects were
not real (hers).
VI. d. Intentions concerning sound and music
I did not have the time and knowledge to work on a more professional and artistic
level with sound in Hungarian Lullaby. However, I decided to work in a distinct way
in order to incorporate a sensory soundscape when possible. I made notes as to
include organic and unprocessed sounds such as murmurs, whispers, breath and a
capella singing. In her film Apt + Car + Everything I have and own (Bodén, 2014),
Clara Bodén makes explicit the process of soundrecording and editing. She caughs,
interrupts herself, repeats herself. I had worked in a similar manner in my short film
Little Short Film (2014), by incorporating the imperfections of the soundrecording
in the soundtrack. The reason for doing so was to include the texture of the spoken
language, rendering it more organic.
I used whispers to tell the fable that is repeated in Hungarian Lullaby, in order to
create a warm and intimate room. Also, I kept the texture of the home-‐recorded
audio, mistakes and the repetitions, which were firstly unintentional, but which I
discovered worked well in editing, for example when you repeat the last words of a
paragraph.
The music in the film was created with a musician, Birch Book, in Leipzig. We
recorded in his room, with accoustic instruments. The songs were composed for this
purpose, inspired by a hungarian and a norwegian lullaby. I collected various
examples from both traditions, and spoke to an expert in Hungarian folk music, who
provided further reference (Arany Zoltán). Using these references we experimented
and created interpretations of songs from my cultures and lineage. The recordings
also keep a home-‐made texture in their imperfections.
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VII. THE NARRATIVE TOOLBOX
This essay has so far emphazised on the analysis of the moving image, however I
will hereby reflect on the process of the narrative structure and tools employed in
the script of the film. In the beginning, the only narrative material I had, were
interviews with my family members. This was not enough to construct a script,
especially since I had decided to work with the filmessay and not in an
observational mode. I had to construct a frame for the story, through a scripted
voice-‐over. As in Alain Resnais Nuit et Brouillard (Resnais, 1956) and Belleville Baby
(2013), the text, the written word, was to be the skeleton of the film and provide
direction (Mia Engberg, 2013, p. 133).
As Mia Engberg elaborates in her essay about the process, I chose to imagine the
story as separate chapters, and work with them individually and independently as
text and on the timeline in editing. This provided me with an overview, while
simultaneously helping me maintain a structure. The script was to weave the
interviews and information into one coherent piece. I also wanted to incorporate
personal and poetic elements to the storyline.
I had a recurring image during the investigation, of my grandmother fleing from the
Nazis at night. When I interviewed my aunt, she told me a story my grandmother
used to tell, about running away and not looking back, because by looking back you
turn to stone. I decided to use this fable to frame the story, firstly as a teaser in the
beginning of the film and later on, more elaborated in the sequence were I meet
with my aunt. The fable makes reference to trauma, and the idea my grandmother
and mother had about moving ofrward and not processing painful emotions.
VII. a. The epistolary form
During my research I came across some films by Marguerite Duras, such as Cesarée
(Duras, 1979) and Les Mains Negatives (Duras, 1978). In the latter, Duras
communicates with and expresses her love to a caveman who left the imprint of his
hands on the french coast 30,000 years ago. I also wanted to communicate with my
27
grandmother, who is no longer with us, and decided to write a love letter to her,
such as Duras had done, as an epilogue for the film. According to Nacify Hamid,
letters stand in for those who are absent and inaccessible (Hamid, 2001, p. 106).
Throughout the script of Hungarian Lullaby I speak to her through short fragmented
letters. For example, before my sister and I look at the photographs, I express that “I
see you for the first time (…) I embrace you and say that everything will be okay”.
The use of letters, in all their possible forms, is called the epistolary form. It has
been widely used in exile cinema and autoethnographies, such as in News from
Home (Akerman, 1976) and Sans Soleil (Marker, 1982). Exile and epistolarity are
constitutively linked because both are driven by distance, separation, absence and
loss and by the desire to bridge the multiple gaps (Hamid, 2001, p. 101). The epistle
becomes a desire to be with an other and to reimagine an elsewhere and other times
(ibid.).
I incorporate the letters me and my mother receive from the archives, in a different
manner. These are official letters, and I have kept the formal language. They are also
read out loud by a man, impersonating the institution, the government and the
archives as masculine and official.
VIII. CONCLUSION
My objective for the thesis project was to execute and investigate the language of, a
personal and sensory filmessay. I have become acquainted with formal and
narrative tools, some of which I incorporated in the film. I have come closer to
developing an independent filmic language, and trained with photo, audio and
editing equipment. As a result, I gained practical and conceptual experience in the
various aspects that entail making such a film.
I was also able to experience for the first time, the opportunity to inhabit and
embody a space, namely my motherland (Hungary: Debrecen and Vamospercs) in
the name of phenomenology and anthropology. Together with the staging and
embodiment of my maternal lineage, it became a personal ritual of catharsis.
28
Along the process, I also discovered that not only our identities, but information
from the archives, history and memory are fragmented and incomplete. I wrote “any
attempt at sketching down history, becomes a topography over a battlefield”. At the
end of Hungarian Lullaby I reach the same conclusion. Documents are missing,
memory is subjective, history books are misleading. As we have understood in
anthropology, we will never be able to gather all information and comprehend
something fully and from all perspectives. It becomes an impossible task to pin
down culture, memory and identity, as it fluctuates. In the end the researcher can
only claim to have interpreted a reality, one interpretation among multiple
interpretations (Charmaz, 2000, 523).
29
IX. Filmography
Akerman, Chantal. La-Bas (Down there). Film. Directed by Chantal Akerman. 2006. Spain: Intermedia, 2006. DVD, 78min. Akerman, Chantal. News from home. Film. Directed by Chantal Akerman. 1976. New York: The Criterion Collection, 2010. DVD, 85min.
Amachoukeli-‐Barsacq, Marie et. al. Party Girl. Directed by Marie Amachoukeli. 2014. Festival screening, Guanajuato International Film Festival, Guanajuato, June 2014, 96 min. Annaud, J. L’Amant. Film. Directed by Jean-‐Jaques Annaud. 1992. Accessed on Netflix Mexico, June 12th 2015. VOD, 115 min. Berliner, Alan. The Family Album. Film. Directed by Alan Berliner. 1988. New York: The Alan Berliner Collection, LORBER Films, 1988. DVD, 60 min. Berliner, Alan. Intimate Stranger. Film. Directed by Alan Berliner. 1991. New York: The Alan Berliner Collection, LORBER Films, 1991. DVD, 60 min. Berliner, Alan. Nobody’s Business. Film. Directed by Alan Berliner. 1996. New York: The Alan Berliner Collection, LORBER Films, 1996. DVD, 60 min. Bodén, Clara. Apt. + car + everything I have and own. Film. Directed by Clara Bodén. 2014. Prague: Doc Alliance Films, 2014. Online streaming (http://dafilms.com/film/9474-‐lgh-‐bil-‐allt-‐jag-‐har-‐och-‐ager/), 48 min. Caouette, Jonathan. Tarnation. Film. Directed by Jonathan Caouette. 2003. United States: Wellspring Media, 2004. DVD, 88min. Castaing-‐Taylor, Lucien and Paravel, Verena. Leviathan. Video. Directed by Castaing-‐Taylor, Lucien and Paravel, Verena. 2012. Dogwoof, 2012. DVD, 87 min.
Costa, Petra. Elena. Film. Directed by Petra Costa. 2012. New York: Variance Films, 2012. DVD, 80 min.
Deren, Maya. Meshes of the afternoon. Film. Directed by Maya Deren. 1943. Accessed online, August 23rd 2015. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSY0TA-‐ttMA
Duras, Marguerite. Les Mains Négatives. Film. Directed by Marguerite Duras. 1978. Accessed online, August 15th 2015. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQCgI-‐QH-‐Uk
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Duras, Marguerite. Cesarée. Film. Directed by Marguerite Duras. 1979. Accessed online, August 15th 2015. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxvjJCOfxHA
Emin, Tracey. Why I didn’t become a dancer. Film. Directed by Tracey Emin. 1995. Accessed online, July 7th 2015. Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/79687251 Engberg, Mia. Belleville Baby. Film. Directed by Mia Engberg. 2013. Sweden: Co-‐production Story AB, Sveriges Television, Ingemar Persson, 2013. Festival screening, Ambulante, Mexico city, February 12, 2014, 76 min.
Goldfinger, Arnon. The Flat. Film. Directed by Arnon Goldfinger. 2011. Israel, Germany: Arnon Gorldfinger Productions, 2012. Accessed on Netflix Mexico, May 24th 2015.
Hatoum, Mona. Measures of Distance. Film. Directed by Mona Hatoum. 1988. Accessed online August 14th 2015. Youtube: http://youtu.be/ZMAU2SfkXD0 and http://youtu.be/PQGnFbzszrg
Kuchar, George. Weather Diaries 1. Video. Directed by George Kuchar. 1986. Accessed online August 14th 2015. Youtube: http://youtu.be/G51Ld5iAK60
Kvedaravicius, Mantas. Barzakh. Directed by Mantas Kvedaravicius. 2011. Lecture screening, MA. 59 min. Lanzmann, Claude. Claude Lanzmann: Specters of Shoah. Film. Directed by Claude Lanzmann. 1985. Accessed online July 11th 2015. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nByrz2iQDP8
Lundin, Malte. 2 or 3 things I know about him. Film. Directed by Malte Lundin. 2005. Accessed online July 5th 2015. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI_OX4kWfOc
Marker, Chris. Sans soleil. Video. Directed by Chris Marker. 1982. New York: The Criterion Collection, 2007. DVD, 103 min.
McElwee, Ross. Shermans March. Video. Directed by Ross McElwee. 1986. New York: First Run Features, 1986. DVD, 155 min.
Mekas, Jonas. Diaries, notes and sketches. Film. Directed by Jonas Mekas. 1969. San Francisco: Microcinema International, 2009. DVD, 180 min.
Mekas, Jonas. Reminiscenses of a Journey to Lithuania. Film. Directed by Jonas Mekas. 1972. Accessed online, Fandor.com. VOD, 88 min.
Olin, Margreth. Kroppen min (My body). Film. Directed by Margreth Olin. 2003. Filmarkivet.no, 2014. VOD, 26 min.
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Oksman, Sergio. A Story for the Modlins. Film. Directed by Sergio Oksman. 2012. Festival screening, The Norwegian Short Film Festival, Grimstad, June 2012, 26 min. Polley, Sarah. Stories we tell. Film. Directed by Sarah Polley. 2012. National Film Board of Canada. Festival screening, Ambulante, Mexico city, February 14, 2013.
Resnais, Alain. Nuit et Brouillard. Directed by Alain Resnais. 1956. Paris: Arte Boutique, 1994. DVD, 32 min. Smith, John. Hotel Diaries: Dirty Pictures. Video. Directed by John Smith. 2007. Accessed on Vimeo, February 20, 2015. http://vimeo.com/11944364
Smith, John. Hotel Diaries: Museum Piece. Video. Directed by John Smith. 2004. Chicago: Video Data Bank, 2005. DVD, 13 min.
Solajes, Panx. Balud (Watersnake). Directed by Panx Solajes. 2013. Accessed online August 10th 2015. Doc Nomads, Vimeo private link, 7 min. Strand, Chick. Fake fruit factory. Film. Directed by Chick Strand. 1986. Accessed online, August 1st 2015. Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/10012466 Tahimik, Kidlat. Perfumed Nightmare. Video. Directed by Kidlat Tahimik. 1977. California: Les Blank Films, 2006. DVD, 91 min.
Torossian, Gariné. Girl from Moush. Film. Directed by Gariné Torossian. 1993. Accessed online June 4th 2015. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNi4DBkXecE
Torres, Liliana. Family Tour. Film. Directed by Liliana Torres. 2013. Festival screening, Guanajuato International Film Festival, Guanajuato, June 2014, 88 min.
Van Lancker, Laurent. Surya. Film. Directed by Laurent van Lancker. 2007. Dafilms.com, 2014. VOD, 76 min.
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Behar, R. 2003. “Ethnography and the book that was lost”. In Ethnography, 4, p.15-‐39.
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Hamid, Nacify. 2001. “Film-‐Letters”. In An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking, p. 101 – 115. N.J: Princeton University Press.
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Marks, Laura. 2000.The skin of the film: Intercultural cinema, embodiment, and the senses. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
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McDougall, David. 2006. The Corporeal Image – Film, Ethnography, and the Senses. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Merleau-‐Ponty, M. 1962. Phenomenology of perception, translated by C. Smith. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Morris, Bob. “A mother on her deathbed, head on”, New York Times, May 1st, 2014. Accessed online September 2015: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/arts/design/sophie-‐calles-‐installation-‐at-‐a-‐church.html?_r=0
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