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HS 32112: American Cultural Memory ­

Trauma, Collective Imagery, and the

Politics of Remembering

Thema:

Trauma ­ Memento (2001)

Vorgelegt von

Dorothea Kallfass

Fächer (M.A.):

Geschichte und Gesellschaft Südasiens

Anglistik/Amerikanistik

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The movie MEMENTO (2001) by Christopher Nolan introduces a hero torn to pieces:

Leonard lost his wife, and now cannot keep memories about his life after the incident

anymore. While watching the movie, we gather scattered pieces of the protagonist′s

past and his identity bit by bit, trying to make a whole picture out of them by arranging

all the information to a coherent story. In different words: we have to take part in the

creation of the narrative by reconstructing Leonard′s past ourselves, according to the

different testimonies the film offers us. Filmmaker Christopher Nolan thus creates a

somewhat active audience. Since it is Leonard′s defunct memory system which

contains most of the story-fragments making up the movie, the viewer often feels lost

and confused, the way Leonard does: like walking through a maze without a map.

The concept of a map guiding us through life, written by our previous experiences

and the memories thereof is also a concept of psychology and neurology. One of the

early 20th century psychologists called Pierre Janet

actually described stored

memories as forming a map "that guides subsequent interaction with the

environment."1 Leonard evidently lost his map and now cannot find his way around

the world anymore, his interaction with the environment has become either a threat to

himself (that′s why he doesn′t answer the phone anymore) or a threat to the other

person/s involved (several examples for his violent behaviour against others can be

seen in the movie). We learn early in the film that Leonard can′t remember anything

new after the trauma he experienced when his wife died. We don′t know when

exactly it happened, but we know that someone invaded her and Leonard′s home at

night before it happened. Time is a blur in the film, as it shows no linear development.

Instead, the narration jumps back and forth in the story, corresponding in a way to

neural activity during memory processing. When experiencing a trauma, the ordinary

way of processing is said to be violently disturbed. Janet defines traumatic memories

as:

"(...) the unassimilated scraps of overwhelming experiences, which need to

be integrated with existing mental schemes, and be transformed into narrative

language."2

For this kind of integration, not only narrative integration, but also action is necessary:

"(...) experience, unless acted upon, cannot be integrated into existing meaning

1 Van der Kolk and van der Hart, p. 159.

2 Ibid, p. 176.

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schemes", writes Janet.3 The action chosen by Leonard is to go on a mission finding

and killing the person he holds responsible for the death of his wife, and his shattered

life. This errand keeps him going on, keeps him from thinking. Besides, Leonard

invents a narrative about some person called Sammy Jenkis. The viewer cannot find

out who Sammy Jenkins really is ­ but he is not the person Leonard turns him into.

At the beginning of the paper the split of Leonard′s identity has already been hinted

at. In psychology, such a splitting (of the content of consciousness) is called

dissociation. A dissociation usually takes place after an experience of frightening

and/or novel experiences4, e.g. after traumatic experiences such as the rape and

later death of Leonard′s wife. Memory becomes dissociated from conscious

awareness and voluntary control:

"Janet proposed that traumatized individuals become "attached" (Freud would

use the term "fixated") to the trauma: unable to make sense out of the source

of their terror, they develop difficulties in assimilating subsequent experiences

as well."5

That is exactly what has happened to Leonard, who developed the fixed idea of John

O, the scapegoat for the destruction of his former life. It is this life he wants to get

back at all costs, and to which he refers when he says "I want my fucking life back".

But this life is over for good, it only exists in Leonard′s memories, presented to us as

flashbacks throughout the film. Since this sort of dissociated memories serves no

social function anymore, and cannot by communicated, communication to Leonard

has become a threat (for example he doesn′t answer the phone, he doesn′t want to

share his memories with the girl he meet. They don′t serve a social function anymore,

and finally Leonard becomes a threat to society because of his psychopathic

behaviour). As it says in the text by van der Kolk & van der Hart, traumatic memory is

a solitary activity.

The movie provides an impressive sequence for this statement which I am going to

discuss. What happened before is this:

Leonard tells a prostitute to arrange the

belongings of his wife/make him wake up finding her in the bathroom (re-enactment, I

will refer to this phenomenom later). Afterwards, he tells her to go, and the another

3 Ibid, p.175

4 See: van der Kolk and van der Hart, p. 164-166.

5 Ibid, p. 164