Leonard Shelby's Extreme Memory Loss In The Film Memento

Through Nolan’s application of editing, such as flashbacks, in Memento, the story of Sammy Jankis can be linked back to Leonard’s past as well as the central theme of the fragility and unreliability of memory. Leonard’s unreliable memory is clearly conveyed as the sequence rhythmically displays scenes showing that the protagonist’s wife survived the assault, which is evident as she removes the shower curtain from her head in a flashback. This indicates the unreliability of Leonard’s memory and the devastating result of ‘Conditioning [himself] to remember, learning through repetition’. Nolan’s employment of flashbacks within the sequence expresses Leonards desperate attempt to escape guilt through the fragility of his memory. This is exemplified in the flashback when Leonard’s memory of pinching his wife adjusts to him injecting insulin into her. Nolan’s utilisation of editing illustrates the fragility and unreliability of Leonard’s memory, specifically when he learns that he

In the film Memento, written by director Christopher Nolan, the main character Leonard Shelby, is a confused and damaged man that wants the revenge for the murder of his wife. We can say that Lenny lives in his own world uniquely different from everyone else. The reason for this is his inability to store short term memory and convert into long term memory. This disability renders Lenny’s life into a repeatable lifestyle and has to start from scratch about every 15 minutes. The only source he has is to go back to is his notes and tattoos he discovers every morning on his body. It seems as though he only has his past memories but the only memories we learn about in the movie is about Sammy Jenkins and the murder of his wife. I think that

Memory is defined as “The faculty of the mind by which it retains the knowledge of previous thoughts, impressions, or events.” Memories are units of information that have impacted one’s life and are stored in the brain for years. In some cases, dramatic events may not let the brain register every single detail about a situation. This is much like Anton’s case of the winter of 1945 of the novel The Assault by Harry Mulisch. The events of that winter affected him like no other would. The loss of his mother, father and brother and the burning of his house left an impact on him but the events were so grave his brain did not allow him to remember the smaller

Yet, “I don't remember. See, have no short-term memory. It's not amnesia” is incorrect, since he does have an anterograde amnesia. In addition, he does have short-term memory, but he just cannot transfer to long-term memory because he is not able to repeat within 10 minutes. To state an another point, it could be contradictory that if Leonard has a deficit in long-term memory, it would be difficult for him to do everyday routines, such as taking a shower, but he can perform those actions. However, if we look at long-term memory in the detailed manner, it can be divided into two parts: declarative and nondeclarative memory. In Leonard’s case, his procedural memory was intact, so that is why he did not have much problem doing so. It can be said that he had an impairment of declarative memory, similar to case H.M., which we have learned in the

In Chapter 12 of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Mr. William Thompson suffered from an extreme case of Korsakov’s, also known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (Sacks, 1985, p. 109). According to Anderson (2010), Korsakoff syndrome can cause serious damage to one’s hippocampus and temporal lobe due to habitual alcoholism, resulting in amnesia (p. 201). Similar to HM (Anderson, 2010, p. 200), Mr. Thompson suffered from anterograde amnesia and could remember nothing for more than a few brief moments (Sacks, p. 109). Anderson (2010) states that anterograde amnesia results in the incapability of creating new memories, leading to fractional or absolute inability to remember something that just happened (p. 201). Yet, one’s long-term memories before the incident remain intact; such as when Mr. Thompson recognized his younger brother, Bob, as he walked by the window (Sacks, 1985, p. 112-113). Mr. Thompson and HM both suffered from anterograde amnesia and could remember some long-term memories but not remember new ones, signifying that the neural makeup involved in making fresh memories are diverse from maintaining past memories (Anderson, 2010, p. 202).

In the movie 50 First Dates one of the main characters suffers from the severe condition of anterograde amnesia. The movie is about Henry Roth who is a wildlife veterinarian in Hawaii, meeting Lucy Whitmore a woman who has a short-term memory loss from an auto accident a year earlier. Henry meets Lucy at a local cafe and takes her out on a date. Henry falls in love with Lucy, but there is one problem when she awakens in the morning, she can't remember him or anything that happened that day. Henry must devise a plan to meet Lucy everyday and try to get her to fall in love with him again and again.

Although his memory was exceptional, he forgot things such as his age in certain events.

As I have learned from this class, the memory theory simply states if somebody can remember their own past and the experiences they have had then they maintain their same identity now as they did when they first experienced their memories. Obviously, for a person with memory issues like Leonard, there are a couple of problems that arise when looking at identity in this context. Let’s call the original Leonard, before his memory loss, Leonard A, let’s call the Leonard at the end of the movie that kills Jimmy, Leonard B, and let’s call the Leonard that kills Teddy at the beginning of the movie, Leonard C. Notice that both Leonard B and C represent a Leonard that has the issues with memory loss. Because of the nature of Leonard’s memory loss where he can’t make new memories but can remember everything prior to his condition, Leonard B and C can remember being Leonard A, but Leonard C can not remember being Leonard B and vice versa. Applying the memory theory, we can make three observations.

Anterograde amnesia refers to a memory deficit from brain injury that prevents patients to store new informations in their short term memories. The patients show normal memories for events that occurred before the injury but has severely impaired ability to recall information about events that occurred after the incident. Anterograde amnesia is reflected in the movie “50 first dates” through the main character, Lucy Whitmore, whose memory lasts only a day because her memory stopped on the day of car accident. (additional description) The movie, “50 first dates,” contains valid depiction of anterograde amnesia yet it also contains some dramatic points that is far from reality.

There is no way to take time to think situations over, a decision must be made immediately or the thought will be forgotten. While Leonard’s memory problem causes him not to be able to form new memories, his memories of everything that happened before the incident are still intact. According to MemoryLossOnline, “Memories for events that occurred before the injury may be largely spared, but events that occurred since the injury may be lost. In practice, this means that an individual with amnesia may have good memory for childhood and for the years before the injury, but may remember little or nothing from the years since” (“Anterograde”).

Losing one’s memory can be a mysterious affliction, and the causes can be quite complex. Severe memory loss is introduced in author Oliver Sacks’ collection of stories The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and lectures given by professor Jim Davies can help with understanding of some of the concepts introduced in the book. In chapter two, The Lost Mariner, the patient Jimmie is suffering from aspects of both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, which Davies explained as loss of memory of events or facts learned before an event (the event that caused the amnesia), and loss of ability to create new memories after the event, respectively. In more detail, and in relation to our book (here, the target example), retrograde amnesia would consist of any loss of memory that happened prior to an event, such as an injury or onset of disease in Jimmie’s case. Dr. Davies’ explanation of retrograde amnesia helps to understand Jimmie’s case, where in the year 1975 he is unable to recall any events after 1945. As well, the explanation of anterograde amnesia as including symptoms such as inability to form new memories, learn information or tasks, or to recall the recent past is useful when applied to Jimmie’s experience of not being able to recall events that happened even a few minutes prior. Jimmie’s suffering from both retro and anterograde amnesia, as explained by Sacks, results from Korsakov’s syndrome – a destruction of memory caused by alcoholic

Since his condition prevents him from creating new memories Leonard uses a clever system of Notes, Polaroid photos, and Tattoos to record clues which may lead him to finding the man who killed his wife. Every morning he would wake up and the body tattoos will remind him of what happened and what his mission is. He will use post it notes, polaroid pictures to reconstruct what he was doing and what he needs to do today. He followed some simple rules – focus on the objective and take short notes and picture of relevant clues after key events. But the fact that Shelby was aware of his condition made life even more challenging. Since he was AWARE of his condition he forced himself to live a very structured routine; every morning he’d wake up study and observe his body

‘50 First Dates’ is an old romantic comedy movie with a young woman who suffers from short-term memory loss after a horrible car accident. Lucy Whitmore (played by Drew Barrymore) is portrayed as having significant memory loss, with no other impairments. The damage experienced has left her with a form of amnesia, referred to in the movie as “Goldfield’s Syndrome.” While this disease is completely fictional, there is, however, a type of amnesia –anterograde amnesia- that describes Lucy’s condition well.

There are parts of this movie that are not accurate depictions of amnesia. For instance, in the film Barrymore’s characters’ father gives the fallacy that time is standing still. Every day they pretend that it’s October 13, 2002, instead of helping her with her condition. The majority of patients who suffer from amnesia don’t have a support system that can give this much time completely to the patient.

The movie 50 First Dates is about a tragic head injury and its effects on memory that takes place in Hawaii. In the movie, the main character, Lucy, experiences a terrible car accident that involved hitting a tree and resulted in short-term memory loss. Lucy had her long-term memory and was able to recall everything prior to the actual accident. However, Lucy was unable to retain and store new memories after a night’s sleep. Each morning Lucy would wake up and think it was Sunday, October 13th, her father’s birthday. Lucy’s father and brother worked hard each night in order to undo any changes for the next day.