One of my favorite lines in Memento, which so happens to fit with the course, comes when Leonard and Teddy are talking in the diner about memory and facts. Leonard says, “Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts.” The quote brings up two important ideas.
- Memory is subject to interpretation. Time can change a memory and your role in an event drastically influences how you view it. Over time, our memories fade and we are only left to remember vague aspects of events that are important to us. In doing so, we often tend to distort the past and emphasize and exaggerate what we deem as the important aspects. For example, when I remember a funeral I attended, my mind zeros in on the solemn aspects and the fact that it was raining. I tend to forget the pleasant conversations I had with my family and the hopeful speeches that were given. Thus my memory of it today is extremely different from what is was a few hours afterwards. A similar thing occurs when we recount stories. When I try to recount a funny story, I focus on and exaggerate the details that will enhance the punch line. Usually when I finish telling a story, my friends joke, “Ok, so what actually happened?” As for roles, my wisdom teeth post said it all. I will remember that surgery forever, whereas the doctor who performed it has probably already forgotten my name.
As we have seen in the course, almost everything in our lives has been manipulated and mediated. It makes sense that even our own memory does the same thing. Society has taught us how to digest information and typify situations and in doing so we formulate manipulated memories.
- Facts are true...false! Throughout the movie, Leonard holds onto the single idea that facts are always true. However, we see that even the “facts” that he collects are manipulated. For example, the guy who works at the Discount Inn tells him that he is staying in room 304, but Leonard learns that he is actually occupying two rooms. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but this appears in many situations, which will be clear after next class.
The texts of the class explore a similar theme. In Cat’s Cradle, the narrator changes his name, even though I have considered names to be facts. In The Man in the High Castle, Dick changes history and envisions a world where the Allies lost. In doing so, the texts take away certain comforts that I have grown to take for granted, such as reliable narrators, which makes me question everything I am presented with. I find myself constantly asking, where does the truth lie? Because I know it does.
That line in Memento stood out to me, as well. Often we give memory too much credit for being accurate, when in reality, memory is tainted by perspective. Leonard mentioned the low credibility of eyewitness accounts, which makes me think, couldn’t people get caught up in the drama of a trial, actually trick their minds into believing something that didn’t happen, and then testify about it under oath? Pretty risky. Additionally, as you mentioned, we exaggerate the truth in our stories in order to provoke certain reactions from people. At some point, however, if we keep exaggerating, we eventually begin lying to ourselves and believing our own lies. I think Memento did a great job highlighting ways that memory is manipulated. It also pointed out the ways memory can be controlled. I think Leonard’s tattoos represented the ability of humans to actively control what they think; all Leonard knows in life is what he tattooed on himself. However, this thought brings us back to the ever-present ability of memory to be manipulated, because Leonard could have been wrong with his “facts”, thus forcing his memory to believe falsities.
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