Embodying sense memory: archive image and traumatic experience inSon of Saul,Warsaw UprisingandRegina

Abstract

Recent cinematic evocations and transnational academic interest in the Holocaust and World War II atrocities have raised a sensibility to the affective qualities of historical trauma and generated questions about the mediation of archival sources in a post-witness era. László Nemes' award winning feature film (Saul fia/Son of Saul, 2014), as well as Diána Groó's poetic documentary (Regina, 2013) and Jan Komasa's war documentary (Powstanie Warszawskie/Warsaw Uprising, 2014) were inspired by visual and written archive documents produced by eyewitnesses of the historical events evoked. Associating these three films to the 'empathy mode' of memory transmission, described by Aleida Assmann (2015, 32-37), this article argues that these films use a special strategy of contacting the 'sense memory' (Bennett 2003, 28-29) of traumatic events, preserved in the black and white, silent archival photographic and filmic documents. The author states that the movies perform three different types of 'post memory work' to recall and audiovisually remediate the deep, sensual aspects of these past traumas.

Uncanny Colours of the Past. Phenomenological Notes on Remediation and Colourization of Black-and-White Footage

“…As Beja Margitházi notes in the case of another sharply coloured film (Warsaw Uprising), the post-colouring, noise and synchronous sounds are made "for a contemporary audience, living in a new media environment, marked by speed, never ending entertainment and hyperstimulation on the senses" (Margitházi 2018). Therefore, the audiovisual modifications of these films can be approached as a response to the demands of the contemporary audience.…”

A múlt színei : Megjegyzések a fekete-fehér felvételek színes remedializációjáról

“…E múlt reprezentációs módja pedig a jelenigényeit elégíti ki. Ahogy Margitházi Beja is megjegyzi egy másik, feltűnően színezett film (Powstanie Warszawskie [Jan Komasa, 2014]) esetében: az utólagos színezés, zörejezés,szinkronhangok "kifejezetten egy kortárs, ingergazdag, az érzékek hiperstimulációját nyújtóújmédia-környezetben élő közönség számára" készülnek (Margitházi 2018). Tehát e filmekaudiovizuális módosításait a kortárs befogadói közeg igényeire adott válaszreakcióként ismegközelíthetjük.…”

Stücke: Graphic Vignettes and the Haptic Response in László Nemes’s Saul fia

“…Simplistic, generic representations of the Holocaust may resemble the later stages of the repeatedly copied image: even when closely examined, minute details are no longer made available to those in pursuit of deeper understandings. To combat the loss of nuanced representations of the Holocaust, film studies scholar Beja Margitházi (2020) has argued that postmemory filmmakers centre "new 'frames of memory transmission'" to compensate for the growing lack of connection with living Holocaust survivors (p. 84). To bridge this gap, filmmakers have explored unique topics within Holocaust studies using advanced technologies to emphasize subjective, corporeal experiences over the presentation of narrative stories (pp.…”

“…5 As such, postmillennial Holocaust cinema boasts a unique capacity for engaging with the traumatic legacy of the Holocaust (p. 82). Uniting Bennet's sense memory, Hirsch's postmemory, and Assmann's empathetic mode of memory transmission, Margitházi (2020) has argued that this shift in cinematic focus has resulted in films that bypass viewer cognition by transmitting a "seeing truth" rather than a "thinking truth" (p. 85). Reminiscent of the literary theories of Shklovsky (2015), postmillennial filmmakers have challenged the automatizing symbolism of precursory Holocaust films by attempting to "create the sensation of seeing, and not merely recognizing" (p. 162).…”

“…Indeed, the mise-en-scène of Saul fia consists of a cinescape that bombards the viewer with sensory information to establish a body-to-film connection that enables the transmission of Holocaust postmemory. Since the film's release, scholars Beja Margitházi (2020) and Teréz Vincze (2016) have examined how Nemes renegotiates the boundaries of acceptable Holocaust representation by pushing collective memories toward the unrepresentable experiences of "true witnesses" through haptic visuals and sound (Auerhahn, 2021, p. 453). However, such scholarship tends to centre on the filmic connection between the audience and characters while overlooking the presence of corpses within the film.…”