In my own film i really want the narrative to be the main focus. I want to express confusion and interest in the storyline, as well as a close connection to my main character. In order to do this I thought I would do some deeper research into the link between memory and a persons identity, as well as learn about diseases like Alzheimer’s that slowly take away someones ability to remember.
Following on from this research I am also going to watch films that include storylines about Alzheimer’s Disease, and see how different directors present their characters/narratives to make the audience feel a certain way.
Memory and Identity:
Research has shown that memories help to shape a persons identity, and people with memory faults have also started losing aspects of their identity.
Looking closer at Leonard, his untrustworthiness is of course a result of his condition but more fundamentally it's due to a loss of identity. Throughout the film Teddy keeps reminding him of this.
Scene from Memento (2000), Teddy tells Leonard that he doesn’t know who he is anymore.
This question of the difference between what you were and what you are troubled 17th century philosopher John Locke and others, causing him to put the two together.
He claimed that a person is: ‘a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places’.
While defining personal identity as: ‘the sameness of a rational being’.
Together these form an ideal where one's identity is inherently tied to their ability to identify themselves both past and present. The something which links a present object to a past or future object is identity. Leonard has evidently lost this ability, meaning that he has more or less lost his entire identity along with it. He even references something very close to Locke’s words at the very end of the film.
Scene from Memento (2000), the last scene in the film where Leonard is thinking to himself.
This loss of identity means he is completely open to the manipulation from other characters we see in the film.
Dementia and Identity:
As well as amnesia, there are other conditions that cause a person to forget things, including dementia.
People living with dementia keep their essence and spirit, although many will experience major personality changes. Alzheimer’s patients can experience fluctuating personality changes, becoming extremely confused, suspicious, fearful or dependant on a family member.
Some common personality changes include:
Apathy
Loss of interest in activities they previously enjoyed
Insensitivity to others
Paranoia
Delusional thinking
Social withdrawal
Inability to make decisions
As human beings, we need to know that we are who we are. We need to be proud of our abilities and feel respected by other people. These experiences can often be hard for people with dementia, and reports show that people with dementia lose their self.
The Latin root of the term dementia means to be out of ones mind, and dementia has been described as leading to affected people losing their self and becoming non-people. Thus, it seems reasonable that the term dementia has been subject to criticism.
Steven Sabat argues that we should not reduce people to brains but see the people behind the dysfunctional symptoms and remember our shared humanity. Those living with dementia are semiotic people (their behaviour is driven by meaning), as they, for example, have the capacity to show shame and pride and feel concern for other peoples well-being.
Amnesia in patients with dementia effects first the short term memory and later also the long term memory. A decreasing autobiographic memory (memory about specific personal events and names of friends/relatives) affects sense of self.
Sabat and Harré describes self as consisting of three parts: Self 1, Self 2 and Self 3.
Self 1 (the self of personal identity), expresses our embodied experience of being a person in space time and local moral order. Through the use of first-person singular pronouns, we take responsibility for our actions, feelings, and experiences as being our own and tell autobiographical stories. We manifest Self 1 when we speak in first-person pronouns (“I,” “me,” “mine,” “my,” “our”) or indicate Self 1 nonverbally for example by pointing to ourselves.
Self 2 is comprised of how we perceive our physical and mental attributes such as eye colour, height and weight, sense of humour, educational achievements, political views, etc. Self 2 can be restricted and unrestricted. The restricted Self 2 is about how we perceive ourselves to be in the moment, while the unrestricted Self 2 includes both how we are in the present, how we were in the past, and may develop in the future.
People with advanced dementia usually remember past attributes better than recent ones, they may feel proud of already lost attributes.
Self 3 is the display of Selves 1 and 2 to other people. How we display self 3, depends on the situation. Self 3 conveys the idea that ‘a person is a person through others’. When we begin to think about the practical meaning of this idea as it applies to people with dementia, we are confronted with what might appear to be a disjunction in the way in which people and their attributes are viewed socially and the way in which a person's attributes are understood in terms of biomedical approaches to disease.
The effects of the disease are solely understood in terms of the physical and mental changes what have occurred in the person as a result of neuropathology. Thus, by comparing ways in which a person acted in previous years to their present self, we note losses. Our biomedical conceptualisation is further informed by comparing performance to an age-matched, otherwise healthy person.
Little weight is given to the possibility that there might be a psychosocial influences that also affect the person’s actions, (social factors and individual thought and behaviour).
Malignant Positioning:
Most people who are deemed healthy can reject being positioned in ways they find objectionable and can work successfully to reposition themselves. As a result of the inability to reposition themselves efficiently, people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are often the targets of negative story lines.
Often it is those “healthy” others who, at the same time as positioning people with AD in malignant ways and observe the resultant behaviour, feel burdened by the effects of that behaviour, while being blind to their contribution to its origin.
Because of this, with dementia may lose their sense of self-worth and feel depersonalised, depressed and angry when healthy other behave in manners that can be classified as ‘malignant positioning’.
Thus, many people with AD are doubly imprisoned: once by the effect of their neuropathology, which no one can control or reverse, and again by the effects of malignant positions and all that follows in its wake.
Scene from The Father (2020), where Anthony is convinced his old caregiver is stealing from him.
Malignant positioning can be reversed by caregivers, but before they can reduce the effects, they must recognise the existence of malignant positioning in their own thoughts and actions.
If others focus on the dysfunctional Self 2 attributes of people with dementia, their Self 3 is restricted to “the patient”. If other people focus on remaining healthy Self 2 attributes, it is possible for the afflicted person to construct worthy Self 3 that makes them experience pride and satisfaction.
References:
FilmComicsExplained (2021), How Memories Betray us | The Meaning and Philosophy of MEMENTO, Youtube, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPnQw9Amjv4 (Accessed 27/1/22)
Slagel, J, Lloyd Davies Philosophy Prize, How important are our memories for our identity?, Available at: https://www.oriel.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/slagel_j_essay_title_2.pdf (Accessed 2/2/22)
Helm, P (1979), Philosophy vol.54 no.208, Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity, 173-185. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3750072 (Accessed 2/2/22)
Laputz, S, Alzheimer’s association, Caregiver Tips & Tools, Number 30, Available at: https://www.alz.org/media/cacentral/dementia-care-30-personality-changes-in-dementia.pdf (Accessed 2/2/22)
Norberg, A (2019), Alzheimer’s Disease [Online], Sense of Self among Persons with Advanced Dementia, Chapter 13, Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK552152/ (Accessed 2/2/22)
Sabat, S and Harré R (1992), Aging and Society [Online], The Construction and Deconstruction of Self in Alzheimer's Disease, 12(04): 443-461, Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231958819_The_Construction_and_Deconstruction_of_Self_in_Alzheimer's_Disease (Accessed 2/2/22)
Hughes J, Louw S, and Sabat S, (2005), Dementia: Mind, meaning and the person. [Online], Mind, meaning and personhood in dementia: The effects of positioning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 287–302. Available at: https://oxfordmedicine.com/view/10.1093/med/9780198566151.001.0001/med-9780198566151-chapter-018 (Accessed 2/2/22)
Sabat S, Harré R & Moghaddam F (2003), Malignant Positioning and the Predicament of People with Alzheimer's Disease. [Online], The self and others: Positioning individuals and groups in personal, political, and cultural contexts, pp. 85–98, Available at: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-00141-006 (accessed 2/2/22)
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