Re-viewing the margins: Peripheral memory and remnants of war in the East German DEFA film, Carbide and Sorrel (Frank Beyer, 1963)

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Based on a close reading of Frank Beyer's Carbide and Sorrel (1963), this essay explores cinematic peripheries as sites where the cultural memory of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath was negotiated in East German DEFA films of the 1960s. Rather than construing the sonic, narrative and visual margins as incessantly haunted by traumatic losses related to the war, Beyer's film foregrounds the spectator's participatory engagement in the production of memory. As the film draws the viewer's attention to residues of catastrophic experiences in the limits of cinematic space, the periphery also enables an affective and perceptual reframing of the past that underscores the reparative and life-affirming force of selective remembering, if not forgetting.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)23-45
JournalHagar: Studies in Culture Polity and Identity
Volume12
Issue number1
StatePublished - 2014

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Re-viewing the margins: Peripheral memory and remnants of war in the East German DEFA film, Carbide and Sorrel (Frank Beyer, 1963)'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this