Publication
“What kind of evil you got in there?” Memory and psychological trauma in Jonathan Demme’s Beloved
| dc.contributor.author | Mancelos, João de | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2016-07-11T10:20:53Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2016-07-11T10:20:53Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2012 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In 1998, Jonathan Demme directed the cinematic adaptation of Toni Morrison's masterpiece Beloved (1987). Both the novel and the film narrate the story of Sethe, an African American slave who risked death to escape from Sweet Home plantation, in Kentucky, in 1873. Sethe suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, due to a series of painful events that include separation from her husband, torture and rape, and culminated with an attempt to kill her children to prevent them from being enslaved again. As a consequence of this ordeal, and like any other PTSD patient, Sethe experiences difficulties in remembering and narrating her memories. She tells her story by altering the chronological order of the events; strategically omitting some relevant facts; distorting others; establishing a hierarchy of importance to the episodes. The goal of this paper is to identify and analyse the film devices used by Demme to recreate Sethe’s process of dealing with traumatic memories and narrating them. Instead of telling the story according to a logical sequence of actions, the film director manipulates time to provide the viewers with an image of how we remember, a complex and multifaceted process. I analyse the film according to four main aspects: the plot, the setting, the characters and the music. All articulate to give an encompassed vision of Sethe’s past, and of slavery as a part of the History that still haunts the US. | pt_PT |
| dc.identifier.citation | Mancelos, João de. “What kind of evil you got in there?” Memory and psychological trauma in Jonathan Demme’s Beloved. Nada na Linguagem lhe é Estranho: Estudos em Homenagem a Isabel Hub Faria. Org. Armanda Costa, e Luís Duarte. Porto: Afrontamento, 2012. 463-469. 978-972-36-1239-4. | pt_PT |
| dc.identifier.isbn | 978-972-36-1239-4 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/4247 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | pt_PT |
| dc.peerreviewed | no | pt_PT |
| dc.publisher | Afrontamento | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | Toni Morrison | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | Jonathan Demme | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | Beloved | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | Trauma | pt_PT |
| dc.subject | African American History | pt_PT |
| dc.title | “What kind of evil you got in there?” Memory and psychological trauma in Jonathan Demme’s Beloved | pt_PT |
| dc.type | book part | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
| oaire.citation.conferencePlace | Porto | pt_PT |
| oaire.citation.endPage | 469 | pt_PT |
| oaire.citation.issue | 1 | pt_PT |
| oaire.citation.startPage | 463 | pt_PT |
| oaire.citation.title | Nada na linguagem lhe é estranho. Estudos em homenagem a Isabel Hub Faria | pt_PT |
| person.familyName | Mancelos | |
| person.givenName | João de | |
| person.identifier.ciencia-id | 4311-5CF6-585A | |
| person.identifier.orcid | 0000-0001-5867-9376 | |
| rcaap.rights | openAccess | pt_PT |
| rcaap.type | bookPart | pt_PT |
| relation.isAuthorOfPublication | 69e80834-58a2-4218-8463-106c1b4ea2d5 | |
| relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery | 69e80834-58a2-4218-8463-106c1b4ea2d5 |