DkIT Researchers Facilitate Guest Talks in An Táin Arts Centre
Dundalk Institute of Technology was delighted to recently facilitate An Táin Arts Centre with guest film research experts who spoke before recent film showings.
DkIT PhD student Terry Creagh spoke about the themes of Traumatic Memory’s Control and The Battle for Agency in the film You Were Never Really Here. Terry is a postgraduate research student specialising in the area of memory portrayal in cinema. He has presented his research at conferences such as the 2022 Irish Screen Studies Seminar and recently taught a module on Film Studies for a semester at DkIT.
He has a BA First-Class Honors degree in Film and Television Production and is currently in the process of acquiring his PhD.
Terry discussed how cinema is the ideal medium through which to portray the intangibility of memory. Terry said
“Through the use of cinematography, sound, acting and other elements of cinematic language, representations of memory are created in cinema in a manner that reflects our perceptions of the workings of our own memories. In this masterclass, Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, I analysed and spoke about its' approach to the portrayal of memory, particularly memories of traumatic incidences. I discussed a series of concepts which address cinematic representations of memory and explored how they relate to Ramsay's film. Further concepts I discussed included flashbulb memory, abstractions in memory and post-traumatic flashback theory”
DkIT PhD student Luke Malone also gave a talk before the showing of The Northman which is an epic revenge thriller about Amleth, a Viking prince, setting out on a quest to avenge the murder of his father. This screening was in association with the Film Department of DkIT. Luke investigated the themes of Fantastical Authenticity and The Collision Between Mythology and History in Robert Eggers’ The Northman which was released in 2022.
The Film The Northman represents the latest iteration of a dark and morbid fantasy that director Robert Eggers specialises in. This epic film depicts a world of carefully constructed historical authenticity combined with elements that are plainly magical, the film echoes Egger’s previous film The Lighthouse (2019) in its unsettling fusion of reality and fiction. Luke said
“From wrathful Norse gods to mysterious seers, mythology seeps into the everyday as if it were natural. It represents an effort by the director to capture not only the lived existence of real Vikings but also to place the viewer in the medieval mindset; to a man like Amleth, gods and witches are far more than mere myth”.
Luke’s talk further explored the ways in which reality and mythology blend in The Northman, where historical accuracy gives way to a narrative that was originally based on Scandinavian legends. In doing so, Luke proposed that, even in historical drama, mythology can play a powerful role in depicting the world as it used to be, serving not to oppose authenticity but enhance it. Luke added:
“Through the construction of fantastical characters and places, embedded in a setting based on genuine Nordic history, a narrative is created that in some ways is truer than reality”.
