ANTHROPOLOGY OF MEMORY AND THE TRIUMPHAL NARRATIVE OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WAR FILM

Abstract

In this paper, the subject of the research is defined as anthropology of memory and the triumphal narrative of contemporary American war film. Films like Saving Private Ryan (1998), Lions for Lambs (2007), The Manchurian Candidate (2004) etc. use narrative of (character) memory in order to examine the narrative structure. My hypothesis is that on one level contemporary American war film manipulates the memory in order to create a national narrative, and on the second level, the film itself represents memory that is through a different media strategies transformed into cultural memory. The starting point of this paper is that the film is a broader frame of reference in which people think; film provides a model for understanding general social values, solidifies content related to race, sex, religion, nationality, social roles etc. The aim is to get a closer insight on how contemporary Hollywood war movie uses memory to create the triumphal narrative and to analyze the relationship of memory and identity in war narratives of memories.