This paper presents a substantial part of the results from a broader investigation project about three movies by French filmmaker Alain Resnais (1922 – 2014). Here, my interest is to peer into a specific question, namely, how the ways the past is expressed in the present have been constructed in Nuit et brouillard (Night and fog), Hiroshima mon amour (Hiroshima my love) and La guerre est finie (The war is over) – films that in the own way, refer to striking events in the 20th century. Thus raised, the question allows us to elaborate on the temporal dimension found in those films without making it necessary to discuss the issue of memory, and, at the same time, it allows the analyses to start with the films in themselves. Consequently, the method utilized in this study gives priority to the very form of producting meaning in the films. Special highlight is given to the way their expressive elements are combined (for example, images, sounds, dialogues, gestures, etc.).
Sociology; Cinema; Film analysis; Expressions of the past; Alain Resnais