In Addition to a Yes and a No, the Answer Contains a Maybe

ENG 201
12 November 2010

In Addition to a Yes and a No, the Answer Contains a Maybe

    After a great human tragedy there is often a mourning period which lasts for an indefinite amount of time before the daily reminders of the tragedy are set aside and, as a modern lyrical proverb says, life goes on. At some point following the tragedy and the mourning period, what temporary memorials that were constructed come down and, depending upon the circumstances of the tragedy, a permanent memorial is sometimes erected. Amidst all of this is an underlying factor that is often overlooked or forgotten, at least until someone takes offense at the words or actions of another. This factor concerns the creation of art based on the tragedy. From some perspectives, such artistic creation raises a dilemma: is it ethical to create art from tragedy?

    The association between art and tragedy dates back to at least the 2100 BCE with the Sumerian text of Sha naqba īmuru (The Epic of Gilgamesh). Perhaps more famously, there is a direct connection between mass death and art with the oral storytelling of The Iliad from around 1190 BCE and several centuries later when most of the Psalms were written. With The Iliad, the mass slaughter incurred between the Trojans and Achaeans inspired the epic poem (and later, another: The Odyssey). With the Psalms, several were written as victory songs following great battles the Hebrews won, as well as several that lamented their exile into Babylon—an event that could be likened to the ethnic cleansing episodes seen in several parts of the world in the last years of the 20th century. For as long as there have been humans, there have been tragedies of mass death. And for as long as there have been records of human endeavors, there has been art made to memorialize, honor, and sometimes to vindictively remind others of such tragedies (this last point calls to mind an epigram etched in stone at Thermopylae, Greece, that translates to read: “O stranger, tell Lacedaemonians that here / We lie to their sayings in obedience”).

    To pay honor to the dead, especially those who have perished in a great and terrible event is a principle reason art is created from tragedy. There is a desire to have an external, tangible thing to go to or to experience in order to remember the deceased or affected. Contrary to this is the idea that victims of a great tragedy become victims a second time when works about their suffering are portrayed as feature films or subject matter of voyeuristic news articles. In a question about making art in the aftermath of tragic events, specific replies were varied. A comment held that art is fine up “to a certain point, then it’s uncalled for,” while another opined that “very little art is from happiness.” One reply stated that such art “can help a person heal,” yet a second considered that art should only be created after “the right amount of time has passed.” A notable pair of comments involved the indefinite borderline between “good” and “bad” art: “there’s a line between tastefully done or going overboard” and “ There is a line but … we wait to set [it] after we are offended” (“Issue Essay Peer Edit”).

    To illustrate these two perspectives, the focus can be made on one specific event and one particular attempt at making art from that event. That focus will be the Bosnian Genocide of the 1990s and the current endeavor by a feature film production company headed by one of the biggest names in modern media to make a movie about that event.

    In August, 2010, actress Angelina Jolie announced he intent to film a movie in Bosnia which was set during the wars of the 1990s. Jolie, who is also a goodwill ambassador for the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), filed for a permit to film in the country. The script, written by Jolie, involves “a romance between a Bosniak woman and a Serb soldier set during the 1992-95 Bosnian war” (“Jolie ‘Plans Film’”), was met with skepticism by some authorities in Bosnia, and was denied a permit to film her movie there. The culture minister of Bosnia’s Croat-Bosniak partition suspended the permit after meeting with representatives of “an association of women who had been raped” during the Bosnia War. The Women Victims of War told the cultural minister that the film’s subject was a Bosnian Muslim woman who falls in love with the Serbian commander of a prison camp who repeatedly rapes her. The Women Victims of War spokesperson stated that such a story was “outrageous and humiliating misrepresentation of our ordeal” (“Bosnia Suspends Permission”). An editor of a Serbian-owned television network had reported she had read the script and “had seen the script and “was ‘disgusted’ by it. ‘It is about a Serbian soldier who rapes a Muslim woman, cuts off one of her breasts and then they fall in love’ (“Serbian Media”). This then is a primary example of an attempt to create art from tragedy which is met with resistance from people who were victims of the tragedy being depicted. The main complaint against the attempted art is a lack of compassion and misrepresentation of the situations involved.

    The other side of this stems from the filmmaker herself, Angelina Jolie, as well as the Bosnian actress cast in the lead role of the film. Jolie’s commentary about the content of the film is that it is “an apolitical love story between a Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] woman and a Serb who meet on the eve of the Bosnian war.” The actress involved in the film stated that she was “fascinated” by the manner “ in which Angelina managed to write our story in such a simple and authentic way” (“Bosnia Suspends Permission”). Several months after the request to film in the country—after the permit had been revoked—Jolie held a press conference where she said, “The choice to make a film about this area and set in this time in history was also to remind people of what happened not so long ago and to give attention to the survivors of the war” (Jolie Responds”), which is a direct authorial statement of intent meant to clear away what she perceived as misunderstandings of the project. An attempt to show that the artistic endeavor was meant to be disrespectful in any manner, but to educate others about the atrocity which befell Bosnia 15 years ago.

    This example is specifically narrow, but could be applied to any number of events in recent or distant past. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, several documentaries were made that crossed the line from information to political (and thus, by some measures, a matter of artistic license) commentary. The national and international sympathy for the victims and animosity towards the American government hierarchy placed the majority of opinions on the side of the documentarians in this case. On the other extreme, following the events of September 11, 2001, the majority of the nation not only didn’t want to see their tragedy depicted in art, but many media industries took steps to retroactively protect the feelings of the victims of the tragedy by cutting scenes from television shows and films that showed the World Trade Center Towers.

    Between these extremes is the art created after tragedy which does not directly comment upon the tragic event itself, thus doesn’t fall into the same category as the previous examples. When a viewer looks at Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, which its seemingly unnaturally vivid sunset colors behind the anguished titular character, few of them ever even know they are looking at the product of a tragedy which directly claimed the lives of almost 37,000 people, and indirectly tens—if not hundreds—of thousands of others worldwide. The colors in the skyline of this painting is a result of the massive explosion of the volcanic island Krakatoa, the ash of which colored the sky around the world for almost a decade afterward (“Astronomical Sleuths”).

    With so many degrees of differing opinions, what is the answer? How do we determine what is “tasteful” honorable expression and what is disrespectful? Who makes that determination? When does the moment go from “too soon” to “right time”? Even the infamous quote by critic Theodor Adorno (“to write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric”) was recanted by its author less than two decades after it was written (Harding, 147). Perhaps there is no single answer. The conundrum is further complicated with a recent quote from Sarajevan film director Danis Tanović which plays off of Adorno’s quote: “If there can be no poetry after the Holocaust,” Tanović stated, “then there can be no art of any kind after [the Siege of] Sarajevo” (Tanović). Coming from a filmmaker whose most lauded work is one which focuses specifically upon the Bosnian War, this sort of comment turns the conundrum into a paradox and brings the answer no nearer.

Works Cited

“Angelina Jolie ‘Plans Bosnia Film.’” Balkans Insight. 24 Aug. 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.

“Astronomical Sleuths Link Krakatoa to Edvard Munch’s Painting The Scream.” Sky & Telescope. 9 Dec. 2003. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.

“Bosnia Suspends Permission for Jolie Film.” Balkans Insight. 14 Oct. 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.

Harding, James Martin. Adorno and “A Writing of the Ruins”: Essays on Modern Aesthetics and Anglo-American Literature and Culture. Albany: State University of New York, 1997. Print.

“Issue Essay Peer Edit.” English 201-013. UNCW. 5 Nov 2010.

“Jolie Responds to Critics of Bosnia Film.” Balkans Insight. 15 Oct. 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.

“Serbian Media Accused of Distorting Jolie Film.” Balkans Insight. 14 Oct. 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2010.

Tanović, Danis. Personal interview. 25 June 2010.



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