The Beck Triad and the Triangulation of Memory: A Hermeneutic Proposal for an Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Representation of the Holocaust in Romanian Film
The Beck Triad and the Triangulation of Memory: A Hermeneutic Proposal for an Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Representation of the Holocaust in Romanian Film

Summary/Abstract: This study proposes an innovative hermeneutic approach to the representation of the Holo­caust in contemporary Romanian cinema, using Aaron T. Beck’s cognitive triad – thought, emotion, behavior – as an interpretative model transposed into an integrative analytical grid: ideational, affective-aesthetic, and contextual-pragmatic. In a context marked by the delay in coming to terms with the traumatic past and the absence of an institutionalized memory, recent Romanian films about the Holocaust become instruments of identity interrogation, ethical pedagogy, and visual counter-memory. The paper analyzes a corpus of films (docu­mentaries and essay fictions) that problematize collective trauma, historical marginalization, and the role of cinema as a space of symbolic reparation. The aesthetics of retention, silence, and fragmentary poetics is put in dialogue with theories of cultural memory, post-memory, and the visual representation of trauma, offering a reflexive, transdisciplinary theoretical framework. Film thus becomes not only an indirect witness of the past, but also a critical actor of the present, capable to restore the visibility of ignored suffering and challenge the collective conscience. The article argues for the recognition of cinema as a legitimate form of active memory and for the need of strategic alliances between artistic creation, humanistic research, and public institutions, with a view to a democratic culture of historical assumption.

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