Remembering Genocide: The Sacred Madonna and Narrative Closure in Atom Egoyan’s Ararat

Cette étude examine le cadre épistémologique d’ Ararat (Atom Egoyan, 2002) afin de comprendre le génocide arménien. Confronté à une demande de spectacle sensationnel et à l’impossibilité de le visualiser, le film Ararat montre comment narrativiser les traumatismes persistants de ce passé. L’article montre la façon dont ce film utilise la famille comme structure narrative, avec l’image sacrée de la Madone et de l’Enfant en son centre, afin d’articuler les effets moins spectaculaires, et silencieux du traumatisme historique. Traquant des « actions de désir » et leurs moments de catharsis, l’article tente de montrer qu’en renonçant au spectacle sensationnel, le film met en lumière la mélancolie de « sans avenir » produite par une postmémoire de génocide. En mettant en avant-plan l’affiliation étroite de Celia avec la famille, l’article soutient que sa relation tenue fait d’elle un personnage central dans l’articulation et la survie de la mémoire du génocide. Ainsi, l’esthétique postmoderne du film permet de traiter des « outsiders » dans son défi de reconnaissance du génocide arménien.

To Archive Ephemera: The Importance of Atom Egoyan’s Collection at the TIFF Archives

The advantage of a multi-faceted institution like the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is its capacity for connecting different aspects of the film industry to one another. For example, TIFF’s archive houses a large quantity of ephemeral material that correlates to its databases; this binds collections together through metadata. The Atom Egoyan collection is particularly robust; all that stems from the wealth of information can be extracted from the paper ephemera that were donated in 1999. I use this opportunity to detail the general indispensability of ephemera when it comes to treating films as legacy objects and not just forms of entertainment, and by carefully examining and cataloguing the Egoyan collection, in particular. I created a digital catalogue that ties together item level titles, descriptions, dates, physical locations, and other forms of identification; this in turn builds upon the previous finding aid by strengthening the information taken from it.

To Archive Ephemera: The Importance of Atom Egoyan’s Collection at the TIFF Archives

The advantage of a multi-faceted institution like the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is its capacity for connecting different aspects of the film industry to one another. For example, TIFF’s archive houses a large quantity of ephemeral material that correlates to its databases; this binds collections together through metadata. The Atom Egoyan collection is particularly robust; all that stems from the wealth of information can be extracted from the paper ephemera that were donated in 1999. I use this opportunity to detail the general indispensability of ephemera when it comes to treating films as legacy objects and not just forms of entertainment, and by carefully examining and cataloguing the Egoyan collection, in particular. I created a digital catalogue that ties together item level titles, descriptions, dates, physical locations, and other forms of identification; this in turn builds upon the previous finding aid by strengthening the information taken from it.

Canadian Cinema and the Intellectual Milieu

Canadian cinema has evolved precariously between the myth of its encounter with an implacable nature and the sense that it is the product of a deterministic technology. Both positions derive from the Canadian intellectual tradition, particularly as articulated by Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan. Frye stands behind Bruce Elder’s work on film philosophy, which, paired with Frye’s notion that movies derive from melodrama, provides a productive framework for understanding the work of both Guy Maddin and John Greyson. Similarly, McLuhan’s writings on technology inform the work of David Cronenberg and Joyce Wieland, while Atom Egoyan has taken up McLuhan’s notion of the global village. Complicating these influences has been Canada’s proximity to the most powerful film empire on earth, which has tended to push it toward documentary film—as in the work of John Grierson—and away from the commercially oriented products generated south of the border.

Still Here, Still Queer? Rethinking Queer Canadian Cinemas/Canadian Cinemas Queered

This chapter pushes for a broad revision of Canadian national cinemas, arguing for queerness as their privileged mode of expression. The prominence of queerness in the Canadian cinematic imaginary is explored throughout four sections that demonstrate the uniqueness of Canadian cinemas over examples of queer cinema elsewhere. First, the roots of queer cinema/cinema queered in Canada are located in the work of pre-Stonewall pioneers such as Claude Jutra, Norman McLaren, and David Secter. Second, queerness is seen informing the institutional and political structures of Canadian cinema through practices of activism around identities, intersectionality, and serostatus. Third, queerness is recentered in the oeuvre of the nonqueer auteurs Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg, and Denys Arcand, as a synonym for sexual fluidity and a symptom of sexual/national anxiety. Finally, the contributions of Léa Pool, John Greyson, Thirza Cuthand, and Xavier Dolan uncover the intersectional heritage and souls of contemporary queer Canadian cinemas.

Egoyan y Freud: construcciones intermediales en cine

Este trabajo relaciona intermedialidad y psicoanálisis a partir de la película Ararat, del director Atom Egoyan. La película se basa en un cuadro del pintor Arshile Gorki, pintor estadounidense de origen armenio, que intenta reinventarse en Estados Unidos después de haber sobrevivido el genocidio de su pueblo. La autora argumenta que los recursos utilizados por el cineasta para construir la historia detrás del cuadro del pintor y su madre, tienen su paralelo en los recursos que Freud utiliza para reconstruir el origen de las fantasías congeladas de sus pacientes. El arte y el psicoanálisis ambos, entonces, encuentran la necesidad de hechar mano de varios medios, y los espacios donde intersectan, para reconstruir la historia.

La memoria de los verdugos

<span>Lacan sostiene que de nuestra posición como sujetos somos siempre responsables. Y que un acto produce un sujeto nuevo. Un acto criminal también produce un nuevo sujeto. Luego de dicho acto, la pregunta es qué posición asumirá el sujeto que ha sido producido como criminal. Remember de Atom Egoyan nos confronta con este problema. El film trata sobre la justicia y la responsabilidad, el problema de la memoria por actos imperdonables y las decisiones sobre el pasado criminal.</span>