Abstract
‘titrebSummary’/titrebIn a generic way, we have called ‘memory entrepreneurs’ the individuals who aim to change the ‘collective memory’ of a social entity such as a nation. Starting from the case of the memory of the Vietnam war in the United States, we have tried to show that this company of constructing or altering collective memory can take place not only through traditional political discourse and action, but also through artistic works. An attempt has therefore been made to reconstruct the motivations of those entrepreneurs and the meaning of the works created in order to ‘change the collective memory’. In particular, details have been given of the process of constructing Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a national monument dedicated to the American Americans of the Vietnam War, as well as the interaction between this monument and certain fiction films relating to the Vietnamese conflict. In that sense, we have used the expression ‘films-monuments’ in order to refer to fictions whose meaning is as commemorative as fun or ‘aesthetic’.