Memory and Movies What Films Can Teach Us About Me... - (Epilogue Memory in Hollywood and Real Life)

Epilogue: Memory in Hollywood and Real Life
We spend a good deal of time watching movies. Once thought

of only as entertainment, films are increasingly used—formally
and informally—for education. However, caution is needed
when films serve as a primary source of historical information.
Films such as Spartacus, Gandhi, and Malcolm X, for example,
offer generally accurate accounts of historical events, but in
adopting a narrative structure, they also embellish their stories
about these figures.1 Similar to the autobiographical stories we
tell of our past, historical stories in movies can introduce inac-
curacies, and studies show that people remember the misinfor-
mation in films.2
Copyright © 2015. MIT Press. All rights reserved.
In the same vein, filmmakers have taken liberties in their

depictions of memory since the silent film era. For the forty
films used to illustrate different memory phenomena in this
book, memory has been variously portrayed—oftentimes accu-
rately, other times not—making it risky to rely solely on mov-
ies for knowledge. Filmmakers have stories to tell and they are
not obligated to present memory accurately. But it should be
clear to both filmmakers and viewers when movies are bending
the rules.
Seamon, John. Memory and Movies : What Films Can Teach Us about Memory, MIT Press, 2015. ProQuest
Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bibpucp-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3433798.
Created from bibpucp-ebooks on 2019-04-08 15:55:57.
216 Epilogue
Bending the Rules
The idea of losing memory has long fascinated filmmakers

because it gives their characters the opportunity for a life do-
over, starting with a clean slate. We see Roberta Glass in Des-
perately Seeking Susan suffering amnesia from a concussion and
assuming an exciting new identity until cured by a second con-
cussion. Of course, real-life concussions never lead to memory
recovery. I suspect that filmmakers have concocted fanciful tales
about amnesia, in part, because stories involving true amnesic
patients—people such as Clive Wearing or Henry Molaison—
would be terribly depressing to watch. These memory-impaired
people do not run off seeking adventure and romance.
Equally nonsensical is Christine Lucas’s amnesia in Rowan
Joffé’s thriller Before I Go to Sleep. Her memory functions nor-
mally each day, but she remembers nothing from one day to the
next. Inexplicably, she still possesses the wits to search for the
villain who attacked her. Her nightly forgetting—like Lucy Whit-
more’s in 50 First Dates—stems from a brutal knock to the head.
But memory does not have a built-in timer, turning it on and off.
If a head injury disrupts our ability to make lasting memories, it
does so day and night.

Memento offers a more realistic glimpse of amnesia with Leon-
ard Shelby pursuing his wife’s killer—using tattoos and photos
as permanent reminders because he no longer makes lasting
memories. His narration about memory is often spot-on, and by
telling his story backward—showing effects before causes—this
film cleverly simulates Leonard’s dysfunction in viewers, render-
ing them as memory addled as him. But, as I previously noted,
even Memento bends the truth about amnesia—this man who
cannot make new memories never forgets his way around town,
Epilogue 217
where he parked his car, or that the Jaguar he drives is not his.
These mundane acts of remembering—a necessary plot device
for telling the film’s story—are easily overlooked because we take
them for granted—acts that would befuddle anyone with Leon-
ard’s condition.
Following the Rules
Yet many popular films have provided characters that depict

memory phenomena accurately, even if accuracy was not the
filmmaker’s primary intention. Movies get memory right, for
example, when characters describe their autobiographical rec-
ollections—using narrative flashbacks to show how their pres-
ent circumstance was shaped by the past. When Jamal Malik in
Slumdog Millionaire repeatedly travels back in time, explaining
to skeptical police how he learned the answers to questions on
a televised game show, he journeys back to his childhood—each
time remembering a lifetime period, a general event, and a spe-
cific memory—the same three types of knowledge that occurs
when people recall their autobiographical past.
Studies have also shown that transformative events experi-
enced during adolescence and early adulthood produce espe-

cially long-lasting memories. The primary characters in Stand by
Me, Out of Africa, and The English Patient all recall earlier trans-
formative times—much like centenarian Rose Calvert in Titanic,
who, after seeing a long-lost drawing of herself, describes in inti-
mate detail a life-altering love affair that occurred when she was
seventeen. Some memories really do last a lifetime.
Although remembering is more reconstructive than repro-
ductive in nature, our personal memory remains a generally
faithful guide to the past, especially for emotional experiences.
218 Epilogue
When former slaves recalled their time in bondage, decades after

slavery ended, they provided similar accounts—faithfully repro-
duced in the documentary Unchained Memories: Readings from the
Slave Narratives. Over time, details of earlier events can become
fuzzy or forgotten, but the gist of such events is not lost, just as
Holocaust survivors—dramatized in films such as Schindler’s List
and Remembrance—never forgot the horrific conditions inside
the Nazi concentration camps.
Films have been especially adept at showing people haunted
by their past, people who experienced or witnessed life-threat-
ening harm. Dave Boyle in Mystic River always remembers what
happened to him as a boy when he was kidnapped and raped by
two men. Like many actual victims of childhood sexual abuse,
his troubling memory persists. Also long lasting is Kym Buch-
man’s terrible memory of crashing the family car as a teenager
and killing her younger brother in Rachel Getting Married.
In depicting the persistence of traumatic memories, films also
reveal how they can be effectively treated. When Conrad Jarrett
survives a sailing accident that claimed his brother in Ordinary
People, he suffers nightmares and debilitating stress—character-
istics of post-traumatic stress disorder—until a caring psychia-
trist helps him reinterpret his past and realize that his brother’s
drowning was not his fault. With treatment, bad memories can
lead to positive growth and change.
Films have also shown that for seniors, forgetting, not per-
sistent remembering, is the main memory worry. Aware of his
increasing forgetfulness, Norman Thayer becomes terrified in
On Golden Pond after losing his way in the woods, before stum-
bling back to the comforting arms of his wife Ethel. His age-
related memory dysfunction—clinically termed mild cognitive
Epilogue 219
impairment—can progress to dementia, leaving a person with

little or no intellectual ability.
Dementia has often been accurately portrayed in film. After
suffering a stroke in Amour, Anne Laurent rapidly succumbs to
vascular dementia, even with her husband Georges attempting
heroic home care. In Away from Her, Fiona Anderson exhibits
increasing memory loss, descending into Alzheimer’s disease, as
does Iris Murdoch in Iris, and Alice Howland in Still Alice who
experiences early-onset Alzheimer’s. These films provide honest
portrayals of the catastrophic effect of losing memory—both for
the person afflicted and the long-suffering spouse left to carry
on alone.
Occasionally, however, even films involving characters with
Alzheimer’s disease have exaggerated their memory ability for
the sake of a story. Living in a nursing home with advanced
Alzheimer’s, Allie Nelson knowingly follows a story that her hus-
band reads her each day in The Notebook, and Angelo Ledda car-
ries out a final assassination in The Memory of a Killer, even as the
disease is destroying his memory. What could be more deadly
than a fictional killer with Alzheimer’s?
Watching Movies with an Educated Eye
Why are some films consistent with existing memory phenom-

ena, whereas others are merely entertaining fiction? Entertain-
ment is important in movies and not every film genre requires
realism. Reality is not required in comedies like Desperately Seek-
ing Susan with its double-head-bonk view of amnesia and not
expected in science fiction films such as Total Recall—where
memories of an imaginary trip to Mars are implanted—and
220 Epilogue
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—where memories of a for-

mer lover are erased during sleep. Viewers can put reality tem-
porarily aside in these films and accept that memories come and
go, based on each story’s fictional explanation.
But dramas seem different. Viewers expect dramas to reflect
real life, and filmmakers have often portrayed memory phe-
nomena accurately when their stories involve experiences that
are commonly shared. We tell our life stories using storytelling
conventions, just like a narrative flashback in The Kite Runner or
Cinema Paradiso; we remember a first romance long after that
romance has ended, as in Titanic; we know what it is like to
be troubled by something we saw or did, as in Rachel Getting
Married; and many of us have witnessed firsthand the effects of
dementia on relatives, as in Amour or Away from Her.
When filmmakers get memory wrong, it may be that their
personal experience is lacking and their understanding is incom-
plete. Why would anyone imagine that amnesia caused by a
concussion could be resolved by another concussion? A second
concussion only makes things worse. How could memory work
during the day but not overnight? Memory cannot be turned on
and off like a light. Why is amnesia so often misrepresented in
film? Research shows that brain-based amnesia can be temporary

or permanent, often involves difficulty in forming new memo-
ries, and recovery, if it occurs, usually entails a lengthy rehabili-
tation. Psychologically based amnesia tends to be temporary and
involves forgetting a troubling event, and reexperiencing the
emotional trauma can lead to relatively rapid memory recovery.
Mixing up these characteristics can lead to comical or muddled
depictions of amnesia in film.
In many of the dramas that I selected for illustrating different
phenomena in this book, the depictions of memory are generally
Epilogue 221
consistent with scientific knowledge. Even Memento, with its eas-

ily overlooked errors, gets the big picture right in showing the
difficulties experienced by a person with anterograde amnesia,
while providing viewers with an inside glimpse of this confused
state. Christopher Nolan, the writer and director of Memento,
said of his films, “I have a faith that any audience can tell the
difference between something that’s consistent to rules versus
something that’s totally made up and anarchic.”3 This comment
clearly applies to memory’s depiction in the movies and why we
are able to learn about memory from popular films—if we watch
them with an educated eye.

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Epilogue: Memory in Hollywood and Real Life

We spend a good deal of time watching movies. Once thought

In the same vein, filmmakers have taken liberties in their

Bending the Rules

The idea of losing memory has long fascinated filmmakers

does so day and night.

Following the Rules

Yet many popular films have provided characters that depict

enced during adolescence and early adulthood produce espe-

When former slaves recalled their time in bondage, decades after

impairment—can progress to dementia, leaving a person with

Watching Movies with an Educated Eye

Why are some films consistent with existing memory phenom-

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—where memories of a for-

film? Research shows that brain-based amnesia can be temporary

consistent with scientific knowledge. Even Memento, with its eas-

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