UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS, DEPARTMENT OF FILM STUDIES
99 NORTH STREET, ST ANDREWS, FIFE KY16 9AD
Tue 14th October 2008 17:15 to 19:15
Centre for Film Studies Talk:
Prof. Robert Burgoyne: Haunting in the War Film: Flags of our Fathers (Clint
Eastwood, 2006) and Letters From Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood, 2006)
Despite its long-standing reputation for realism and authenticity, the war
film frequently departs from the conventions of verisimilitude to convey the
nightmarish effects of the historical past. Although authenticity and
realism continue to play an important role in representing war, the ghostly
spectral encounter has become a key mode of expressing war and cultural
trauma. Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima are
both centred on the haunting of the present by the past, with artefacts such
as photographs and letters becoming a kind of medium of spectral possession.
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