Everyday life and mnemonic gestures
Family records and personal analogue artefacts such as home movies and snapshots have continually become noticeable through practices of repurposing and appropriation, particularly in documentary films that have utilised archives either as an illustration, a storytelling device, or historical evidence.[1] Following this perspective, in documentary practices, domestic footage is not just viewed as stale or nostalgic; it is also fostered as materials of memory that may be displaced and recontextualised into diverse narratives.
The book Filming History from Below: Microhistorical Documentaries (Wallflower, 2022) by Efrén Cuevas delves into the media landscape of private memories (snapshots, home movies, and amateur films) and reflects on memory, historiography, and documentary film, highlighting historical, social, and cultural ramifications beyond the private sphere. From the ‘domestic ethnography[2] realm, Efrén Cuevas engages primarily with how archival footage is repurposed in a heterogeneous selection of documentary films with a microhistorical perspective, exploring the mnemonic gestures that reproduce individual and collective experiences. The author follows the established scholarly work on everyday life studies and archival appropriation in documentary films, which implies a thread of autobiographical gestures and performative ramifications, to concentrate on the specificities and sources of the microhistorical documentary. Beyond looking at family archives such as home movies, the realm has been moving from ‘individual and/or familial practices of visual recording of intimate events’[3] to the intersection between history and memory to embrace the translation of ‘film-souvenir’ as a ‘specific filmic consciousness’[4] dealing with phantoms and the act of remembering.
Between mnemonic gestures and documentary practices, Cuevas situates his research within a volume that, while granting a deeper reflection on microhistory as a multi-perspective approach to nonfiction filmmaking and other forms, rests and focuses its textual nuances in the tension between macro and microhistory and autobiographical discourses. In this context, home movies dwell in narratives with mixed resonances of domestic, self-portrayal, and diaristic features, inevitably permeating the discourse with essayistic and documentary elements that resurface from the inherent subjectivity of mnemonic encounters and the self.
Filming history from below
Cuevas proposes the concept of ‘microhistorical documentary’, drawing attention to individual gestures of remembering and mnemonic appropriations to place intimate and traumatic experiences in contrast to macrohistorical narratives. According to Cuevas, ‘Microhistorical documentaries’ allow for the specificity of reading family and personal archives from a perspective that renders critical and affective insights. The author argues that exploring historiography through juxtaposing the archival footage calls attention to ‘parallel histories ignored by the grand narratives’ (p. 72). This complex audiovisual interaction opens private and personal layers to collective comprehension, breaching different readings of historical events through personal, familial, autobiographical, and diaristic modes, prompting a thorough reflection on the intersection of documentary film, archival footage, and microhistory. On the other hand, this topic could also have provided an opportunity to explore the intersection between family archives and ‘historical memory’[5] , a problematic concept, as it involves the collective remembrance and interpretation of the past that is influenced by constructed memories, most of the times reinforced by the dominant narratives, and shaped by cultural norms within societies. Such a perspective, however, remains beyond the scope of Cuevas’ book, which focuses more on how archives broaden history instead of inquiring into it.
Within the same field of studies, Jaimie Baron[6] explored the ethics of appropriating home movies in her research, providing further insight into the subject, while Cuevas’ book takes a different perspective. It proposes a framework to ‘work with archival materials to expand their meaning’ (p. 43), carrying this affordance to archival appropriation in documentary films. Moreover, what is dissimilar in Cuevas’ theoretical approach is the pursuit of a microhistorical perspective in the strategies that filmmakers adopt when appropriating audiovisual family archives ‘quite distinct from those of conventional historiographical practices’ (p. 58). The author also reflects on the fragmentary nature of archival sources and their dual purpose, examining types of archival documents belonging to family archives and their creative repurposing in contemporary documentaries. In addition, Cuevas suggests a typology of modes of appropriation (naturalisation, contrast, and historicisation) based on the work developed by Rebecca Swender,[7] which he examines through a set of films considering the original meaning and further resignification of home movies within the context of montage. After setting the field and delving into the theoretical framework in the first two chapters, the following five chapters are devoted to a detailed and inclusive filmic analysis through the lenses of the author’s proposed concept of ‘microhistorical documentaries’.
Microhistorical documentaries
Within the volume, Cuevas analyses a body of films by a manifold of filmmakers from different countries and cultural contexts, such as Péter Forgács, Robert A. Nakamura, Satsuki Ina, Lise Yasui, Rea Tajiri, Rithy Panh, Michal Aviad, Yulie Cohen, Mahdi Fleifel, Eliav Lilti & Arik Bernstein, and Jonas Mekas. This group of filmmakers adopts different filmic practices and allows looking at ‘history from below’ from various approaches, even though all the films present a personal and distinct perspective throughout the book. The selected filmography embraces affordances that fall under the concept of microhistory documentary, ranging from personal and family histories to collective memories and autobiographical approaches. It also includes films that shift focus to think of archival documents as catalysts for testimonies (Rithy Panh, S-21 [2003]) and ‘memory as an active process’ (p. 135), which includes autobiographical and personal experiences (Rithy Panh, The Missing Picture [2014]). Through these case studies, Cuevas underlines the tensions between microhistorical vs macrohistorical perspectives and family documents vs historical documents (Michal Aviad, For My Children [2002]).
Furthermore, the selected works contribute to reflecting on human agency and the reduced scale of observation in documentaries that weave past and present with archival materials and testimonies. Another valuable aspect of the volume is Cuevas’ exploration of ‘new ways of understanding history’ (p. 190) employing film diaries as sources for microhistory (Jonas Mekas, Lost, Lost, Lost [1976]), opening room for exploring how divergent materials and filmic practices contribute to a nuanced approach to microhistory. Indeed, this last film stretches the concept of microhistorical documentary as proposed by Cuevas. While the author acknowledges the controversy of framing this film within his concept, the fact is that Lost, Lost, Lost uses Mekas’ film diaries solely as opposed to appropriating and repurposing home movies (in the strict sense of familial heritage artefact), varying the degree of its microhistorical status.
Through the microhistorical lens, Filming History from Below grants a varied understanding of microhistorical documentaries and interpretations of family archives juxtaposition (mainly home movies), acknowledging traumatic and historical events from past and present times. In this context, the author places ‘grand narratives’ in dialogue with acts of individual and intimate expression such as appropriation, memory recollection, and family testimonies, which instigate ‘deconstructions of the official narrative’ (p. 96). Films such as From a Silk Cocoon (2005) by Satsuki Ina and A Family Gathering (1989) by Lise Yasui, for instance, combine family archives, stories, and autobiographical interventions with an essayistic nature, blending personal and historical dimensions. These gestures allow us to understand the materials (home movies, amateur films, photographs) as ‘archive-as-subject’[8] and their affective juxtaposition as significant and readily available to multiple interpretations. From the author’s standpoint, placing the filmmaker’s family stories and testimonies (and family archives) at the centre of the argument, such as Rea Tajiri does in the film History and Memory (1991), often underlines their value to public history. Correspondingly, the distinctiveness of this volume stands on the microhistorical filmic approaches that support alternative narratives and discourses, mixing scales of observation and making them visible to different audiences.
Most of these gestures of appropriation and manipulation were already practised before the ‘digital turn’. Still, it is undeniable that digital technologies will continue to affect the use of family archives in microhistorical documentaries. So, how will digital further influence the appropriation and use of archival footage in documentaries? What paradigms can be foreseen for microhistorical documentaries with the introduction of interactivity in the documentary realm? In the afterword, Cuevas briefly renders a future perspective on the pursuit of placing home movies within interactive documentary practices, turning the reader’s attention to the use of domestic footage (and its production) in interactive and immersive fields that extend the discussion concerning the use of public/private archives and the possible reiterations of home movies and microhistorical stances, a perspective that deserves to be extended in future studies.
Overall, in this book, Cuevas elaborates on a comprehensive panorama intersecting ‘history from below’, domestic footage, documentary, and microhistory. Thus, appropriating and recontextualising home movies (and other archival sources) continue to raise different views where personal and familial experiences evoke individual memories and public history. Furthermore, this volume incorporates the ‘archival turn’[9] while creating a ground to expand the notion of what a microhistorical documentary is and what it may translate considering different scales of observation. It also highlights a mapping of microhistorical patterns within the extensive and diversified film selection, critically interweaving history, memory, private, collective, and alternative narratives. The range of films analysed by Cuevas throughout the book provides a comprehensive inquiry into the proposed concept of microhistorical documentaries. From Forgács’ evocative repurposing of home movies, to Panh’s portrayal of the absence of imagery with an autobiographical tone addressing collective traumatic experiences, or Mekas’ gesture of recording everyday life with a diaristic approach, these methods inspire subjective and imaginative ways of engaging with archival materials and history.
However, Cuevas’s suggestion that private memories and family archives could become counter-narratives must be considered with some reservations, namely, as Patricia R. Zimmermann has previously noticed, ‘history from below raises questions about the nature of evidence, conceptual models, and methodology’.[10] Furthermore, while amateur film artefacts and home movies contribute to review and broaden the discourses and representations of the twentieth century, one must acknowledge that, not long ago, access to technology and resources for recording and processing film – both photography and moving images – were restricted to families with economic, social, and cultural capital. Thus, whereas home movies offer a source for new historiography, some narratives still present the biased perspective of an elite who hold the power of controlling the camera and, therefore, constructing the microhistories, leaving aside the low income and working classes, as well as natives in colonial countries and other marginalised populations. It would have been relevant if the author, along with some chapters, had acknowledged the archives as materials that do not always represent a comprehensive range of voices from below, namely the ones that, throughout history, have been silenced. Therefore, it is critical to excavate the home movie archives and gaze at their ‘fissures, silences, vacancies, and elisions’[11] beyond their evidential content.
‘History from below’ could be placed firmly at the centre of polyphonic discourses and creative practices if the author explored the interactive and immersive fields of appropriating home movies, as he mentions in the afterword. While moving towards a digital and ephemeral realm, home movies will continue to gather attention towards their materiality, texture, and disappearance, bringing ghosts and stories to public sight and disrupting intimate and private moments of the quotidian. Hence, these gestures of memory enable multiple meanings and encourage new perspectives on the records of everyday life. Nevertheless, this volume reminds us of ‘archival materials’ openness and prolific interventions that awaken political motions in documentary practices, urging the continuity of such investigations in immersive and interactive fields.
Ana Sofia Almeida (NOVA University of Lisbon & ICNOVA)
Acknowledgements
This research work is supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the fellowship ref. UI/BD/151086/2021.
References
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[1] Haggith 2012, pp. 252-266.
[2] Renov 2004, p. xiii.
[3] Zimmermann 2008, p. 8.
[4] Baronian 2019, p. 218.
[5] Halbwachs 1980, pp. 50-87.
[6] Baron 2020.
[7] Kepley & Swender 2009, pp. 3-10.
[8] Stoler 2009, p. 44.
[9] Bastian 2016, p. 7.
[10] Zimmermann 2008, p. 3.
[11] Zimmermann 2008, p. 20.