Signifying Trauma in the Post-9/11 Combat Film:The Hurt LockerandIn the Valley of Elah
Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Since the events of 11 September 2001, an extensive range of genres increasingly feature traumatized protagonists. However, there are acknowledged difficulties in trying to recreate the actual experience of trauma on screen [Walker, J. 2005. Trauma Cinema: Documenting Incest and the Holocaust. Berkeley and London: University of California Press]. Slavoj Žižek [2002. Welcome to the Desert of the Real. London and New York: Verso] explores this dilemma through an extension of Lacanian psychoanalysis, and places trauma in a category termed ‘the Real’ as a form that is resistant to symbolization. This article examines the signification of trauma in two post-9/11 combat films and considers how they enable an understanding of war trauma through the insertion of visuals which construct their respective narratives as traumatic memory, thereby bringing the viewer closer to Žižek’s concept of the traumatic Real.
Author: Frances Pheasant-Kelly
Institution: University of Wolverhampton
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2946589386