Postmodern Views of History/Memory and Identity

1
Postmodern Views of History/Memory and Identity

• Ararat Slaughterhouse V

2
Outline

• Postmodernism, History and Identity General
  Issues Questions
• Ararat and SL-V
• Ararat
• General Introduction and Question
• Two Major Themes the Lack the Need to find or
  tell the historical truth. BUT . . .
• The Objective Official the Personal.
• The Metafictional Truth Problematized but
  Reconstruction Confirmed.
• Atom Egoyans Home-Coming
• References

3
What did we discuss last week?

• Definitions of Postmodernism and Postmodernity
• Flatness (collage pastiche), de-subjectivization
  , waning of affect, schizophrenia
• lack of history vs. constant presence of
  history
• Image Society (music video) and Society as
  Spectacle (The Living Mall)

4
Identity

• Identity as a Process of Identification (of
  social conditioning and individual choices).
• Two Kinds Individual and collective
• Individual defined through mind, body, writing,
  clothing and other social actions.
• Collective gender, race, national, etc.

5
HISTORY
6
History and Identity General Questions

• In the process of identification, the past
  (individual memory and collective history) always
  plays a role.
• How does trauma impact on individual victims and
  their survivors? (e.g. obsession, escape,
  silence repression, repetition compulsion,
  creative reconstruction)
• What is History (grand narrative)? How is it
  connected with personal histories (small
  narratives)?
• Is historical truth to be known? Can it be
  re-presented realistically? (e.g. ??????)
• Are we (survivors or readers) numb to tragedies,
  historical or present?
• ? Part of the debate between Realism vs.
  Postmodernism

7
The Two Texts vs. Traumatic History

• Why? Egoyan as a descendant
• His separation from Armenian tradition
• went to Canada in 1962 at the age of two from
  Egypt.
• -- Lived in BC, separated from Armenian
  community, church, or language.
• 2. Gradual recognition of Armenian roots in
  college and awareness of this genocide.
• -- His father's mother was an orphan of Armenian
  genocide and his grandfather narrowly escaped
  from it.
• 3. Burdenlack of general recognition
• -- a remote area not known to his audience
• -- a history denied by the Turkish government.

8
Vonnegut as a Survivor

• When I got home from the Second World War
  twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be
  easy for me to write about the destruction of
• Dresden, since all I would have to do would be
  to report what I had seen ....
• But not many words about Dresden came from my
  mind then. ...
• And not many words come now, either .... (2)

9
Metafictional Styles

• A response to ones/human inability to fully know
  and represent history, or to make it meaningful
• (later) literature of exhaustion and
  replenishment.
• Thematically, it expresses ontological
  (existential) insecurity and uncertainties.
• Formally, it exposes and revises traditional
  narrative elements such as plot, narrative frame,
  narrator and characters.
• overplotting (Ararat) vs. underplotting (SL-V)

10
The Two Texts as Historiographic Metafiction

• Metafiction reality fiction
• Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing
  which self-consciously and systematically draws
  attention to its status as an artifact in order
  to pose questions about the relationship between
  fiction and reality.  In providing a critique of
  their own methods of construction, such writings
  not only examine the fundamental structures of
  narrative fiction, they also explore the possible
  fictionality of the world outside the literary
  fictional text.  (Patricia Waugh 2).

11
The Two Texts as Historiographic Metafiction (2)

• Historiographic metafiction history fiction
• rejects grand narratives and asserts the
  specificity and particularity of the individual
  past event. (plural histories)
• both inscribes and undermines the authority and
  objectivity of historical sources and
  explanations (122-123, Linda Hutcheon)

12
Ararat Plotlines

• 1. Missing Protective fathers and mothers
• 1) Gorkys photo taken in Van
• characters Missionary Ussher, the boy Gorky, the
  photographer and his son, Jevdet Bey.

• 2) Raffis Celias (step brother and
  step-sister of different fathers and mothers)
• e.g. chap 5
• 3) David (customs officer) and Philip (his son)
  Ali triangle Philips son

13
Ararat Plotlines (2)

• 2. The need to tell the historical truth or the
  stories.
• Gorky silent -- Cannot get over the past
  (witnessing the brutal killing of his friend, and
  Armenian women)
• 1) Gorky ? her dead husband (a terrorist) ? Ani
• 2) his mother ? Sorayan Rouben // Egoyan
• Different forms of rendering history with
  artifacts photo, painting, book, film, videotape
  and
• Storytelling.
• 3) Raffi ? supplement
• the film with shootings
• of real footage.

14
Starting Questions

• Some reviewers think that the film is
  unfortunately confused and confusing, leaving
  the audience with an unclear message about the
  genocide. Do you agree?
• There are two different kinds of history in
  this film personal history and national history.
  How do they influence or overlap with each other
  in each character?
• Ani and Raffi, Ani and Celia, David and Philip,
  Ali and Raffi, Saroyan, Archile Gorky.
• How is the film within the film different in
  style from the film, Ararat?

15
Topic I Personal Investment in Public History

• The following examples show how whats usually
  considered to be objective history or official
  story invites or involves personal investment.
• Anis History of Arshill Gorky ? Ani, Raffi, and
  Celia over the death of the fathers
• Raffis getting a realistic footage of the film
  ? Raffi and Celia over the meaning of their
  existence
• Sorayans film and getting a Turk to play the
  role of Turkish soldier ? Raffi and Ali over
  their views of history
• Custom Officer Davids investigation of drug
  smuggling ? David and Raffi over honesty and
  truth of smuggling.

16
Personal Public Histories (1) Ani and Celia

• Battle between Ani and Celia
• Celia wants to believe that her father does not
  commit suicide
• Ani uses the story of Gorky and his mother to
  assert the right of a mother she does not feel
  responsible for helping Celia deal with her past
  
• Bottled up, Celia becomes disruptive and even
  destructive.

17
Personal Histories (1) Ani, Raffi, and Celia

• Both children need to understand their fathers
  suicide, its purposes and meanings.

18
Personal Histories Public (2)

• Chap 16
• Different views of history Alis, Sorayans and
  Raffis

19
Personal Histories (2) Sorayan as a Director
Adjusting himself -- pomegranate seeds -- not
angry at Ali. --the film as his tribute to his
mother.
20
Personal Histories (2) Raffi Ali
Raffi resist sentimentalism first. -- feels
it through the film Ali does not care about
history but identifies with his role
21
The Public Personal (3) David Philip

• Unable to accept Ali first (the issues of
  religion and homosexuality)
• I couldnt punish him for being honest.
• Through Raffi, he opens up at the end of his
  career as a custom officer.

22
Personal Histories (2) Raffis Quest

• What does Raffi get in Turkey and near Ararat?
  Images only and drugs.
• Raffi goes in searching and almost destroys
  himself by being implicated in drug-dealing.
• Resolution
• Feels the fathers ghost through an artistic
  image.

23
Personal Histories (4) David, Philip, Ali

• David tries to accept Philip and Ali, but he is
  deeply Christian.
• Philip rejects David out of his sense of
  insecurity.
• David tries to open up more by letting Raffi go
  (not performing his duty in catching him), having
  Philip in mind.

24
Topic II Historical Representation Problematized
and Re-Confirmed

• Frames
• Storytelling
• Artistic Reconstructions

25
2.0. story fictitious but meaningful

• Something made up
• a new twist to the story Ani to Raffi in their
  discussion of Raffi and Celia.
• Celias father pushed off the cliff Ani
• Celia to Raffi you think Im making up a story
  
• For communication and self-discovery Whats the
  story about David to Raffi
• To carry on a tradition Gorkys mother to Gorky
  youll live to tell the story.

26
Ararat as Storytelling against glamour

• Egoyan "Films are by nature a very dubious way
  of presenting history," Mr. Egoyan said. "I'm
  very uneasy with what occurs when you combine
  notions of atrocity and glamour. Every decision
  to light a character in a certain way, to add a
  certain sound effect, to put in musical cue,
  makes a film interpretive. There's no way that
  any dramatic reconstruction is not going to be in
  some way a retelling. That's the nature of
  storytelling. (Egoyan)
• The film pays respect to the realistic
  representation (of Sorayan) and problematizes it
  by
• 1) exposing and/or puncturing its frames
• 2) confirming the functions of story-telling and
  fictitious representation.

27
Realism

• Sorayans film
• 1. What do you think about the showing of all the
  killings and rape and heroism?
• E.g. the women burned the photographers
  suicidal heroism the last scene with a woman
  raped? shown in the theatre.
• Realism can make a strong impact on us with its
  immediacy and accessible story.

28
Atom Egoyan on Ararat the Film

• I do not want to make those images ironic. I do,
  however, want to underline the limitations of
  that kind of representation.
• What are the limitations of repeating histories
  of sadness?

29
2.1 Soroyans Film and its Frames Exposed or
Punctured

• 1. The Frames Exposed
• Van under attack
• ? Film making
• Usher vs. Jevdet Bey over the document of turning
  down Turkish support
• Self-defense in Van in 1915 (e.g. the
  photographer)
• Film making ? presented by Raffi to David

30
Sorayans Film and its Frames Exposed or
Punctured

• Frames Punctured
• Anis intrusion into the set and Ushers
  continued performance chap 21

31
Stories within the story More Frames Exposed

• The Photo-Taking scene
• ? Anils voiceover ? speech by Anil
• Gorkys mothers death
• ? presented by the museum clerk
• Multiple Frames Armenian womens dancing to
  death ? German women ? Ussher ? Us journal ?
  Film ? Raffi ? David

32
Stories within the story2.2 Personal Truth
Confirmed

• 2. Personal Truth
• Sarayan to Raffi What matters is not how many
  people get killed, but how some people could hate
  you so much and still do.
• Raffi David What matters is not . . . , but how
  there is no way of confirming that the things you
  said happened.

33
2.2 Personal Truth Confirmed David believes in
Raffis honesty.
34
2.2 Raffis Truth Origin Confirmed

• Raffis search for meaning

35
2.2 Raffis Truth Origin Confirmed

• What Raffi finds
• 1) the frescothe origin of Gorkys painting
• 2) courage -- I felt it His ghost.

36
2.3 Atom Egoyan on Art in Ararat

• a "meditation on the spiritual role of art in the
  process of struggling for meaning and redemption
  in the aftermath of genocide.(http//www.cdca.ass
  o.fr/cdca/cdca-egoyan_article_theguardian.htm ).
• I wanted more to examine the role and
  consequences of art making how people make
  artifacts of their experience, and what those
  artifacts mean to them. (McSorley)

37
2.3 Imaginative Re-creation Confirmed

• Marty Upon being asked to read Ushers journal,
  etc., he said he has done research and reading.
  Beyond that its pretty much my imagination.
• Sorayan -- with the fake Mt. Ararat in the
  background finds his way of approaching Mt.
  Ararat (making it visible in Van).

38
The Other Artistic Re-Productions in the Film

• Photograph of the Painter and his Mother
• Gorkys painting -- Not just a reproduction of a
  photograph
• ? Remembering
• through human artifacts,
• which includes forms of art
• and storytelling.

39
Ararat Opening and Conclusion

• Opening different forms of art fade into
  Toronto Airport (suggesting of transition and
  immigration)
• Closing a tribute paid to small history, as
  represented by Gorkys mother.
• Anil connects with Gorkys mother
• Apparently realistic representation of Gorkys
  mother, her sewing and singing.

40
Ararat Conclusion

• Closing
• 2. The hands touching and working

41
Atom Egoyans Homecoming with Ararat

• Home-coming in two senses
• Making a Canadian film after the two
  international projects Felicias Journey (shot
  in Britain and Ireland, 1999) Krapps Last Tape
  (Beckett on Film series)
• More and more personal and emotional, less
  cerebral.
• (The Sweethereafter 1997)

42
Atom Egoyan Films with Armenian Connections

• Next of Kin A bored young Canadian, while
  receiving experimental "video therapy", discovers
  tapes of an Armenian family who are missing a
  son. The young man assumes the identity of the
  long-lost boy, and is readily adopted by this new
  "family".
• Calendar An Armenian-Canadian photographer gets
  estranged from his wife, who is closer to
  Armenian culture, during their trip to Armenia,
  and then, back in Toronto, he needs to find a way
  to face this sad memory.

43
Atom Egoyan Films with Armenian Connections

• The Adjuster There are two sisters from Armenia
  who have to burn pictures of the past and forget
  about them.
• The other films
• displacement in a city, dysfunction of family,
  rituals of remembering and survival, etc.
• including Exotica.

44
Personal connections Actors/Actresses

2002 - Miramax Films

• Charles Aznavour an Armenian French singer/star
  
• Eric Bogosian American writer/actor of Armenian
  origin Like Rouben, I a Armenian and I wanted
  to embrace that by being part of this project.
• The others Bruce Greenwood (actor/Clarence
  Ussher), Arsinée Khanjian (Ani) , Elias Koteas
  (Ali/Jevdet Bey )

45
Reference

• Tom McSorley. Far Away, So Close Atom Egoyan
  Returns Home with Ararat. Take One 2002
  (Sept-Nov) 8-13.
• Egoyan, Atom. In Other Words Poetic Licence
  and the Incarnation of History. University of
  Toronto Quarterly 73 (Summer2004) 886-905.