Film and Forgetting
April 22, 2008 by eldertales
I’ve noticed a ton of traffic searching for info on film and forgetting. I am covering this pretty extensively in the book, so I thought I’d share some of the types/lists of films.
There are films that directly address dementia and aging (Iris, Away From Her, the Notebook, Aurora Borealis, Diminished Capacity etc.). There are films that address forgetting through amnesia or dubious scientific manipulation (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the Bourne trilogy, the Majestic, 50 First Dates etc.) There are films that hover somewhere in between - namely Finding Nemo - one of my all time favorites. The documentaries are in their own category (Pop, Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter, Memory for Max Ida and Clare, etc.)
In all, I find two waves of films - post WWII, and the last 20 years. This last wave has been HUGE - spurred on by (I believe) lots of anxiety around the turning of the century, technological “advances”, and the growing awareness of dementia.
I think all the films dealing with forgetting tap into cultural dis-ease with self/memory, whether its Iris, the Notebook, or the Bourne series. It doesn’t have to have old people in it to address this theme - sometimes the best lessons about how a culture should approach cognitive disability on the scale of alzheimer’s and dementia can come from a film about fish.
