Bringing the Psychological Past into the Physical Present: The Formal and Narrative Emergence of Traumatic Memory in Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker

Abstract

This article argues that temporal conflation is central to the traumatic legacy left by the Holocaust on Sol Nazerman, a survivor and central figure in Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker (1965). While the film’s juxtaposition of Holocaust-era Europe and 1960s Harlem may invite comparative cultural analysis of these two sites, its consideration of trauma functions through its treatment of time rather than space. By combining stylistic devices such as graphic matches and flashbacks with a narrative focused on the re-emergence of unwanted memories, Lumet’s film emphasises the collapse between Nazerman’s Holocaust past — which he strives to keep at bay in his psyche — and his present in Harlem as the essential catalyst for traumatic return. This return manifests itself as Nazennan’s memories progress — via both formal and narrative techniques — from the partially-repressed realm of his psyche into the physicality of his present.