Backshadowing.Le ombre del futuro nelle immagini del passato

By considering the ways in which the historical past is socially viewed through the lens of the present, the essay aims to apply the narrative device of backshadowing to filmic productions in order to understand the power of the image to merge remembrance and expectation. Backshadowing is different from the pure retrospective storytelling because the past, though interpreted a posteriori, seems to include omens of a - usually dramatic - future. Through the analysis of two films, Remembrance of Things to Come (2001) and The White Ribbon (2009), some reading strategies will be delved into to show which cultural framework is referred to when what is known in the present interferes in the crystallized past.