Krytyczne retro a kształtowanie pamięci zbiorowej w kinie amerykańskim XXI wieku
Critical Retro and Collective Memory in the American Cinema of the 21st Century

Summary/Abstract: Among others, retromania means bringing back the past eras and constructing the memory of them in contemporary popculture. The critical retro is considered here as a set of cinematic devices used in order to manage collective memory and create a certain imagery of the relatively recent past. The critical retro of the 21st century American cinema “aesthetically colonizes” the past, yet in doing so, it does not reflect any nostalgic vision of collective memory. Movies analysed in the article are characteristic for their careful use of the retro fashion and their employment of such devices as extreme or excessive stylization, particular narration, and familiar narrative patterns (family melodrama) in order to influence collective memory of the past. At the same time, what they offer in terms of the story, character, and the perception of the depicted era, is highly subversive because they openly address issues that were either omitted or ignored in the previous years for a number of reasons.

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