Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
Cinema's AlchemistThe Films of Péter Forgács$
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content.
Cinema's Alchemist: The Films of Péter Forgács

Bill Nichols and Michael Renov

Print publication date: 2011

Print ISBN-13: 9780816648740

Published to Minnesota Scholarship Online: August 2015

DOI: 10.5749/minnesota/9780816648740.001.0001

Show Summary Details
Page of

PRINTED FROM MINNESOTA SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.minnesota.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright University of Minnesota Press, 2022. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in MNSO for personal use.date: 27 June 2022

Waiting, Hoping, among the Ruins of All the Rest

Waiting, Hoping, among the Ruins of All the Rest

Chapter:
(p.96) 6 Waiting, Hoping, among the Ruins of All the Rest
Source:
Cinema's Alchemist
Author(s):

Kaja Silverman

Publisher:
University of Minnesota Press
DOI:10.5749/minnesota/9780816648740.003.0006

This chapter focuses on Péter Forgács’s video films. Forgács’s video films concentrate on periods of extraordinary upheaval and cultural loss—World War II and the establishment of east-bloc Communism. His video films are structured almost entirely of home-movie footage shot by amateur photographers between 1929 and 1969. A home movie focuses on emotionally charged moments, and with the exception of occasions like weddings, it is more concerned with personal than with social events. Forgács uses home movies because he is not interested in recounting history in any of the usual ways. The significant moments of the twentieth century are always present in his films. Forgács marginalizes official history because he wants us to understand that time does not unfold through a collective narrative.

Keywords:   Péter Forgács, video films, World War II, Communism, home-movie footage, amateur photographers, home movies, history

Minnesota Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.

Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.

To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.