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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 4 page paper discusses Walter Benjamin's theory of historical materialism and relates it to the film "Hiroshima Mon Amour." Bibliography lists 3 sources.
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4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVWalBen.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
makes audiences think. One such film is Hiroshima, Mon Amour directed by Alain Resnais. This paper relates the film to Walter Benjamins theory of historical materialism. Discussion In order to
make any sense of this, its probably most useful to define historical materialism and then consider Benjamins theory. After that we can make connections between it and the film. Historical
materialism can be defined as "The concept that social structures derive from economic structures, and these structures are changed through class struggles, each ruling class producing another class that will
eventually supersede it" (Whitefield, 2007). If this sounds familiar, its because the idea of class struggle is one of the basic tenets of Marxism. In essence, this idea is that
changes in society are largely driven by economic forces. Walter Benjamin writes that historians influenced by Marx always see everything as a class struggle, which at its core "is a
fight for the crude and material things without which no refined and spiritual things could exist" (Benjamin). The "spiritual things" that come from this struggle manifest themselves as "courage, humor,
cunning and fortitude" (Benjamin). These traits have "retroactive force" and they "constantly call in question every victory, past and present, of the rulers" (Benjamin). The historical materialists miss all this
because of his insistence on seeing everything from the Marxist perspective. But perhaps most important in a discussion of the film is Benjamins observation that "[T]he past can be seized
only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again" (Benjamin). For him, the past is not a continuous flow
of information, or an unbroken stream of consciousness, but a series of disconnected images. Finally, lets consider this: "To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it the
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