Page - 9 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

Editorial | 9www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/1, 9–14 have been regarded, according to Derek Summerfield, “not as perpetrators and offenders but as people traumatized by roles thrust on them by the US military”.3 For Summerfield the recognition that traumatic war experiences could cause PTSD legitimized the victimhood of the soldier, and as a result, per- petrators too could identify as, and be seen as, victims. VIOLENCE IN MOVIES Can movies present violence? Where the goal of violence is often to claim re- taliation, vengeance or power, the goal of movie-making is often to provide information, as in documentary films, or entertainment. Sometimes films play an important role in the construction of memory. The portrayal of the Second World War in films like Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, USA 1993), Sophie’s Choice (Alan J. Pakula, USA 1983) or Sara’s Key (Gilles Paquet-Brenner, USA 2010) has contributed significantly to the visual memories of post-war (Ameri- can) generations. According to microsociologist Randall Collins, who has car- ried out extensive research into the escalation of violence in public spaces, vio- lence is not committed easily. Contrary to the message given by entertainment movies that suggest that violence is somehow natural or uncomplicated, “real” violence is disturbing, fear arousing and destabilizing.4 We might wonder if cin- ematic violence has anything to do with real violence. Bessel has observed that contemporary commercial entertainment is saturated with staged violence, and he argues that there is a huge difference between a real death and a staged killing.5 Because many directors see their work as a form of “question” towards their public, the challenge for them is how to bridge the gap between a real death and a staged killing. In other words, the director, and the audience too, must consider how documentary movies like Das radikal Böse or The Look of Silence can implicitly refer to real death by staging death. TRAUMA CULTURE Movies contribute to how a past is remembered in the present and to what past is remembered. Pictures, narratives and impressions all co-construct (popular) memory. In this sense, memory can also function as a strategy to “re-member” an individual into a group, with memory reshuffled, remodelled and re-accom- modated in light of the discourses and material culture (pictures, movies, social media, buildings, places) of the present group to which the individual wishes to 3 Summerfield 2001, 95. 4 Collins 2008, 10–19. 5 Bessel 2015, 35.