[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Morrey refers to an episodein which Madame Bayard reminisces about a time when she spoke inthe United States about her war experiences, reflecting that:  Peoplereacted then the same way they do now in front of their television sets(ibid.).Godard thus criticises Americans for treating European historyas tourists, beautifying, simplifying, homogenising and detextualisingit (on  tourist gaze see Albers and James 1988; Urry 1990; Wang 2000),thus hiding the ideology of historical discourse.Another argument usedin the film against Americans making a history film is the claim thatthey have no history of their own, which is reflected in their lack of acorrect name.The name  United States of America is wrong, becauseit is too grandiose (the USA do not cover the whole of America, hencethe name suggests unfulfilled colonial ambition) and lacks individuality34 European Cinema and Intertextuality(there are other  united states than those  of America ).There is also amismatch between making a film about suffering and political resist-ance by a country which itself is known for thwarting resistance andcausing pain in other nations.The idea of America as heir to fascistregimes (strongly espoused by the 1960s and 1970s terrorists groups,such as the RAF, see Chapter 3) is conveyed by evoking the Vietnam warand the need to resist American dominance in France, for example bydubbing American films into the local language.Yet, Godard also betrays a touristic approach to American history andculture, by paying no attention to its complexity, but instead reducingit to a  Steven Spielberg  Julia Roberts paradigm.Equally, he does notponder on the fact that his attack is made from a specific position: thatof a European and non-mainstream director, and a representative of acountry which lost its colonies and worldwide cultural influence, assignified by the French language being overtaken by English in globalcommunication.The virulence of Godard s criticism might be regardedas a way of drawing our attention to the fact that each assessment isideological.The fact that Godard s anti-Americanism did not go unno-ticed by critics (for example Bradshaw 2001; Morrey 2003), confirmsthat Godard s strategy (if it was a conscious strategy) has worked.The very fact that memories in In Praise of Love are presented as anobject of monetary exchange points to two contemporary phenomena.One is the heritage industry, which repackages history, including suchgruesome events as acts of genocide, to be accessible for mass tourism.The phenomenon, known as dark tourism or grief tourism, began withAuschwitz (Cole 1999: 97 120), but now constitutes a large part of thetourism industry (Lennon and Foley 2009; Sharpley and Stone 2009).The second phenomenon is the growing distrust of  ordinary history asbased on the authority of the historian, no doubt undermined by thepostmodern/deconstructionist historians (see Introduction), and hencethe need to replace the authority of the historian with that of a wit-ness.Godard himself points to the superiority of the (direct) testimonyand memory of the witness in the contemporary part of the film, in anepisode set in a bookshop, where there is a public meeting about thewar in Kosovo.We hear an American voice retelling histories of atroci-ties committed during this conflict and, even if we believe their factualtruth, their transmission through the soft American voice attempting toinculcate in the listener specific emotions renders the story fake.The Bayards themselves are not too keen to entrust their memories tothe Spielberg Associates, as demonstrated by their seeking advice fromBerthe and feeling obliged to explain their decision, but they have littleDealing with Historic Trauma 35choice  they need the money the American firm is willing to pay themto save their business and simply to survive.It raises questions aboutwhy the French and Europeans at large cannot ensure that memoriesof people such as the Bayards stay  at home and how they should betransmitted in order to avoid the fiasco (according to Godard s criteria)of Schindler s List and similar products.This first question is not answereddirectly, but the references to the complicated history of the FrenchResistance and anti-Semitism in postwar France point to possible rea-sons for French unwillingness to deal with its wartime past.Having saidthat, it should be added that In Praise of Love immediately precedes anew phenomenon in European commemorating practices: mourningvictims of crimes perpetrated by the nations themselves, of which theMonument for the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermor-deten Juden Europas) in Berlin, opened in May 2005, and the Wall ofNames (Mur des Noms) in Paris are crucial examples (Carrier 2004: 207).Such monuments suggests that the  call from the past was answered, butwith a delay and, perhaps, by the wrong people.Such an idea is also sug-gested in the film by the motif of a telephone call, which is either unan-swered or answered with a delay.The ringing of the telephone can also beviewed more positively, as an appeal to open up a debate about the past,to communicate one s views in an unrestrained way (Sofair 2004 5: 41).The second question: how to make a  successful Holocaust film and,by extension, how to create a successful history of the Holocaust, canbe answered in two contrasting ways by the viewer of In Praise of Love.One answer is that Europeans are unable to resist American versions ofhistory.Such an answer is suggested by the fact that Edgar is unable tofinish his film, therefore it does not enter into the public domain, whilethe films of  Spielbergs and their associates, for better or for worse, aremade and preserve the past, even if in an incomplete and problematicform.7 The second answer, which Douglas Morrey suggests, is that sucha film is possible  it is the Godard film we are watching (one of manyof Godard s films about unfinished films), and in which history  talksmore through material traces of the past: the past ingrained in build-ings, monuments, posters, and less through a narrative (Morrey 2003).Such a film will itself resist the passage of time, as did his earlier films,Le mépris and Passion.However, Godard s idea of a historical film is alsoelitist; it is addressed to people who already know much about historyand therefore are able to make sense of and gain pleasure from whatthey see and hear [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]