A death in the family: meditations on mourning in contemporary cinema

This thesis examines cinematic depictions of traumatic loss and mourning, with particular focus on representation. My study merges a theoretical and analytical investigation. I aim to defend cinema against the wider post-structuralist claim that trauma refutes the possibility of representation and argue, instead, that an increasing array of filmic examples demonstrate cinema's potential to provide valuable insights into the complexities of the subject. I use Freud's discussion of trauma as a belated, repetitious experience as an entry point to illustrate the ways in which cinema, a medium bound to temporality, can develop a relationship between linear and traumatic time...

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Centre for Film and Media Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Petousis, Simone

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Marx, Lesley

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12094

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12094