Not your typical history movie: films take artistic, cultural approach to Armenian genocide

The average person is exposed to images of violence on a daily basis from news telecasts to video games. For an artist, crafting a creative message from these themes can be a challenge.

According to Richard Hovannisian, professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History, when addressing events of cultural significance such as the Armenian genocide, artists are now adopting a more creative approach toward the tragedy as opposed to merely stating facts.

“In the television age where you are seeing murder and mayhem every day, we have become very thick-skinned and immune. Statistics don’t say anything. You need to put (the Armenian genocide) in a form that is meaningful,” Hovannisian said.

The Hammer Museum’s forthcoming programs attempt to do just that through a series of events that, according to Hovannisian, will take a more artistic and cultural rather than historic approach to the Armenian genocide.

The series will begin tonight with a screening of Academy Award nominee Atom Egoyan’s film “Ararat,” followed by a screening of the documentary “Screamers” on Tuesday, which profiles the efforts of Grammy-winning band System of a Down to promote wider recognition of the difficulties facing those affected by the Armenian genocide.

Egoyan, the director of “Ararat,” said he tried to avoid simply providing a reenactment of historic events.

“A historic adaptation … didn’t seem to deal with what I, as an Armenian, was wrestling with, which … is how its effect ripples through our lives today and how we experience the transmission of trauma from one generation to the next,” Egoyan said.

“Ararat,” which analyzes the relationship of four generations of characters not only with each other but also with their cultural history, does so through its unusual story line: it is a film about the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.

Egoyan explained the significance of the film-within-a-film approach, saying that it was particularly important for him to reconstruct the historical aspects of the genocide in order to examine how the recreation of such scenes of horror and inhumanity can perpetuate anger and hatred. He emphasized, however, that such scenes are not the focus of the film.

“History is not passed through generations in those epic scenes of massacre, but in those intimate moments shared by individuals,” Egoyan said.

“Attempts to amplify the event from the very personal turmoil that its memory provokes somehow for me diminishes, or might not represent, the essential aspect of its meaning.”

Director Carla Garapedian’s documentary “Screamers,” which explores the perpetuation of genocide, features the awareness efforts of System of a Down.

“We were asked to be in (“Screamers”) as a vehicle for talking about genocide and highlighting the fight for recognition around the world,” said Serj Tankian, lead singer of System of a Down.

According to Tankian, Garapedian filmed the band’s various concerts and events, and edited this footage together with footage of protests and interviews to create a film that would address all angles of the meaning of the Armenian genocide and genocides that followed.

Egoyan and Tankian, who said they formed a friendship through their collaboration, will participate in the Hammer Conversations series together on April 22 to further discuss the issues involved.

“We need to tell the story using different tenses ““ using the past tense, using the present tense (and) the future tense (to present) a kaleidoscopic view of what the experience of these atrocities has meant,” Egoyan said.