History_and_Memory

History and Memory Speech Literary and non-literary texts reveal the complexities of defining history. The representation of history in art forms and literature exposes the inability of objective facts and records to provide a reliable and accurate representation of past events. It is a amalgamation of personal experience, memory and documented evidence that accurately captures and characterizes past events. Stephen Frears film The Queen reveals the correlation between point of view and history, similarly in Phyllida Lloyd's film The Iron Lady and Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica, the role personal experience has in history is explored. History, as a product of personal experience, point of view and factual evidence is expressed in all three texts. The opening scene of The Queen is a mid shot, presenting Elizabeth II in full ceremonial attire having her portrait painted, this image symbolically emphasises the constructedness of the representation of the Queen. While the narrative is constructed from actual facts and real events the opening scene foregrounds the Queens representation as a personal interpretation and artistic view of the director. Stephen Frears creates an imaginative recreation of the Queen’s personal thoughts and actions towards the events leading up to and following Princess Diana’s death. Frears representation of the Queen expresses the integral role of personal experience and memory in creating and capturing history. The Queen’s portrayal also reveals the inability of purely documented evidence in providing an accurate depiction of past events. The publics’ response to Diana's death is also indicative of the role emotion and personal memory has in shaping history and how facts and dates fail to accurately represent history. Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica depicts the joint relationship of point of view, memory and documented evidence in providing an accurate representation of past events through the medium of production. Picasso’s point of view and personal memory of the bombing is expressed in his painting and has shaped the collective memory of the bombing, the historic event is remembered in association to his painting rather than the historical facts of the event, this highlights the role personal memory and experience has in shaping and representing history. The subject of Picasso’s painting Guernica is also an illustration of how memory and personal experience is essential in capturing and characterizing history. The painting is a representation of suffering and war, in particular the Spanish Civil War, thus the subject of the painting is an example of how documented evidence alone does not accurately depict past events. A profound understanding of war can not be gained through facts and dates alone, albeit rather through a combination of documented evidence, personal experience and memory. The title Guernica gives credibility to Picasso’s evocative portrayal of war as the village of Guernica was bombed during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso uses a symbolist style of painting to represent the bombing of Guernica, the distortion of the faces is Picasso’s interpretation of war, reflecting how personal memory and perception shape the representation of history. Picasso's use of light and lack of colour in the painting amplifies the horror of the bombing. The interplay of archival and film footage in The Queen and The Iron Lady is representative of how collectively, memory, perception and documented evidence enhances an understanding of past events and how history is shaped and represented. The Queen’s address to the public concerning Diana’s death highlights the interplay of archival facts and scripted footage. The speech the Queen delivers in the film is the actual speech that Queen Elizabeth II delivered on the 5 of September 1997 following Diana’s death, thus the speech in the film authentic. The film footage prior to the re-enacted speech concedes the importance of personal memory and perception in defining and understanding history. Prior to the speech is the outburst from Tony Blair, ‘That women gave her whole life in service to her people.. and now we are all paying for her blood, all because she is struggling to lead the world in mourning for someone.. who for the last few years seemed committed twenty-four seven to destroy everything she holds most dear’. Without the scripted footage, of Tony Blair defending the Queen, the audience would not understand the dutiful nature of the act and the Queen’s personal sacrifice of her own memory and experiences of Diana in paying tribute to the princess. In The Iron Lady, Lloyd’s interplay of archival footage and actual facts lends authenticity to the recreated footage. Lloyds’ personal memory and interpretation of Margaret Thatcher expressed in the recreated footage increases the understanding of the obstacles Thatcher endured in becoming Britain’s first female Prime Minister ‘you look and sound like a privileged conservative wife.. your voice it is too high and has no authority’. Lloyd represents Thatcher as a fragile, mentally unstable woman through portraying her imagining her dead husband ‘yes here we are’ referring to her husband. Her dementia creates confusion in her recollection of past events, this represents how memory is essential to understanding history. The importance of memory in shaping the representation and interpretation of history is exemplified in The Iron Lady. Margaret Thatcher’s recollection of past events is prompted by music and physical objects, for example the photograph of her and her husband. Thatchers past is represented through the memories associated with music and physical objects. Similarly the non-diegetic sound of the violin in The Queen during the placement of the flowers outside outside Buckingham Palace reveals how music is a way of capturing and representing past events. Factual information is fundamental to the audiences willingness to accept the composers point of view and interpretation of history. In The Queen, the archival footage lends credibility to the film footage, ultimately enabling the audience to accept the directors point of view and collective memory of the events surrounding Diana’s death. The concept, history is shaped through literary and non literary texts is evident in The Queen. Helen Mirren’s extraordinarily authentic portrayal of the Queen and Frears successful interplay of recreated and archival footage has led to the film shaping the historic opinion of contemporary society. The statement ‘the people’s princess’ embodies the role personal experience and memory has in shaping and thus representing history. Tony Blair’s tribute to Diana ‘she was the peoples princess and that is how she will stay, and how she will remain in our hearts and in our memories’, reveals how the individual memory of the princess was shaped by the collective memory ‘the peoples princess’. History is shaped and represented through literary and non literary texts. It is the expression of personal memory, experiences and individual point of view within a text that exceeds the understanding of history gained from documented evidence alone. The use of personal experiences and subjective point of views to represent the Queen and Margaret Thatcher in The Queen and The Iron Lady depicts the role personal experience has in representing history. Picasso’s painting Guernica expresses the incapability of facts and records in successfully capturing and portraying past events due to the role emotion has in shaping history. Understanding history is a complex process, factual information and statistics and personal experiences and memories must be taken into account to provide an accurate representation of history.