Realised Recordings: How Documentary Structures Question the Communication, Construction and Memory of the Real of Past Occurrences
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
REALISED RECORDINGS: HOW DOCUMENTARY STRUCTURES QUESTION THE COMMUNICATION, CONSTRUCTION AND MEMORY OF THE REAL OF PAST OCCURRENCES by ANDREW GERRARD LENNON A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of MASTERS BY RESEARCH Department of Drama and Theatre Studies School of English, Drama, American and Canadian Studies College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham October 2014 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This thesis offers a comparison of documentary case studies to explore how moments from reality are recorded and how future representations of them can offer or instigate a parallax to create a new or different way of understanding the occurrence of such moments and how they have been remembered. I postulate that this shift in perspective offers an interaction with reality through a reconfiguration of the Real of these moments. The study will consider this assertion in relation to Žižek’s and Baudrillard’s reflections on the Real as being an excessive moment unable to be assimilated (Žižek) and the veiled encapsulation of what lies beyond the Image-Event (Baudrillard). After exploring the use of images from reality, my thesis will go on to consider the processes of recollecting and communicating past occurrences (and people) to highlight the potential that documenting and revisiting past memories – re-collecting them – can actively impact and evolve the trajectory of personal histories. Utilising LaCapra’s notion of the working through traumatic memories enables my investigation to plot a course which considers the memory narratives of my case studies as subject to a, ‘continual process of retranslation’ (Nicola King) and, as such, explores the subjectivity of the Real of occurrences. II DEDICATION Dedicated to Emma and my family & For everyone who hides something, now and then III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not be possible without the invaluable contribution of Dr Elizabeth Tomlin, for all her influential feedback and positive questioning. Thanks Liz. It has been actively shaped by various conference attendances, notably the IFTR conference in Warwick (2014), Sites of Memory conference in Plymouth (2014) and Seeds of Memory conference in Birmingham (2013). It is indebted to all my colleagues and friends from Trinity College, Dublin, particularly Professor Matthew Causey and Professor Brian Singleton as well as my time spent with friends at the Motley School of Stage Design. IV CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................. VI INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: THE NAUDETS’ 9/11 .............................................................................. 9 i. Representations & 9/11 ................................................................................................... 17 ii. Recollection & 9/11 ........................................................................................................ 32 iii. Perspectives & 9/11 ....................................................................................................... 50 CHAPTER TWO: CLIO BARNARD’S THE ARBOR ...................................................... 67 i. Now and Then / Then and Now: Imploding Timelines in The Arbor ......................... 76 ii. Sounds like Diegesis: Audio Dislocation in The Arbor ............................................... 93 iii. History in the (Re-)Making: Aesthetics and Structure of The Arbor .................... 108 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 127 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 131 V LIST OF FIGURES Chapter One Figure 1: Tony watching the attacks ........................................................................................ 22 Figure 2: The first impact ........................................................................................................ 30 Figure 3: The collapse of the first tower in 9/11 ...................................................................... 40 Figure 4: Jules' camera lit image inside the wreckage ............................................................. 41 Figure 5: The presence and post-occurrence image of Father Judd......................................... 43 Figure 6: The first collapse in Oliver Stone's World Trade Centre ......................................... 44 Figure 7: Jules recalling his entrance into the lobby of the WTC ........................................... 54 Chapter Two Figure 8: David Dunbar ........................................................................................................... 71 Figure 9: Andrea’s Father ........................................................................................................ 72 Figure 10: First theatrical in-scene .......................................................................................... 82 Figure 11: Interaction of Theatrical and Lip-Synching Realms .............................................. 85 Figure 12: The archival presence of Andrea ............................................................................ 92 Figure 13: The description of Harris’ death ........................................................................... 104 Figure 14: The shift of focus and tone during Anne and Steve’s audio accounts ................. 105 Figure 15: The artefacts utilised by Barnard and Lorraine .................................................... 112 Figure 16: Dream / Apparition sequence of Lorraine’s happy memories ............................. 117 Figure 17: Lorraine’s performs her speech from A State Affair ............................................ 121 Figure 18: Lorraine’s family watch from the auditorium ...................................................... 122 VI INTRODUCTION The question of modality is not, ‘Did what we see in this image really happen?’, or ‘Does what we see in this image really exist, but ‘Is it represented as though it really happened or as though it really exists?’ (Van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 396, original emphasis) What is a Realised Recording? Surely through the process of capturing a moment visually or aurally, a recording has come into existence; it has become realised. It follows that through the action of recording and the resultant document, a realisation of the recording process occurs; there is created an artefact to be played and re-played. To that end all recordings are realised recordings in this semantic exploration of the term. I use the term to suggest an enrichment of the presentation of past occurrences that are examined in this thesis through two philosophical frameworks; namely, these are theories of the Real and those concerned with the questioning of memory. I utilise various methodologies within these fields to compare differing representations of processes of recording, recollecting (or re-collecting) and communicating past moments. This thesis explores the way documented reality can be re-presented for a viewer to offer a heightened connection to the first occurrence of these recorded or recollected moments; I call this heightening of presentation a “reconfiguration of the Real”. My objects of analysis are all based in reality; they take real events as their subject matter, either through their visual or aural communication. What will become clear through my discussion is that the concept of “real events” can be considered a contradiction in terms when considered in light of the theories I will examine. Suffice to say for now, read the words “real events” as would be done in a non-philosophically charged sense. The case 1 studies examined in this thesis are two documentary films; 9/11 (2001) by Jules and Gédéon Naudet based on the September 11th attacks, and Clio Barnard’s verbatim documentary The Arbor (2010) based on the life of playwright Andrea Dunbar. Through elements of their structure and their juxtaposition of real-world accounts with recorded accounts, each example is purposefully displaced from creating a sense of a passive “reality” which envelops the viewer. Instead, each example depicts new perspectives of occurrences that conflict with assimilated and accepted notions of past occurrences. This active challenging of accepted notions of the past, their modus operandi, aids the creation of a re-configured Real. There are a number of common strands that I will trace through each case study to help clarify my argument; these include the capturing of moments and the presentation of this “captured reality”, the content and communication of contributors’ recollections, and the influence of the passage of time, other documents and bias upon memory-narratives. I will utilise these strands to explore how the potential