Film and Memory: the Role of Footage and New Worlds from the Cinema in the Construction of Human Memory
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FORUM FOR INTER-AMERICAN RESEARCH (FIAR) VOL. 13.2 (JUL. 2020) 77-84 ISSN: 1867-1519 © forum for inter-american research Film and Memory: The Role of Footage and New Worlds from the Cinema in the Construction of Human Memory NELSON CAMILO FORERO MEDINA (BIELEFELD UNIVERSITY) Abstract The processes of memorialization are historic, and depend not only on the historical interpretation but also include how memory is mediated. The appearance of new media implies a new form of developed memory. Although the historicity of memory is taken as a given, the role of media is left unattended in these processes. This article highlights the role of media in memory and focuses on a specific type of memory, namely, filmic memory. I argue that filimic memory is more complex and more strongly connected to subjectivity than written memory. In order to achieve that, the analysis will be carried out through the film Memories of Underdevelopment directed by Thomas Gutiérrez Alea. Keywords: Filmic Memory - Subjectivity - Complexity- Memories of Underdevelopment Introduction the past in the present. This statement seems to be contradictory, since the past cannot be This paper [1] seeks to develop a new concept experienced again. The past is already gone. of memory that could only appear with the The claim is not that the past is experienced by introduction of cinema in the societies. The claim the subject as it was at the first moment. The is that cinema transforms the human process assertion is that the process of remembering of memory as other media have already done. implies a new experience of that which has been The article has four sections. The first section retained from the former experience. reconstructs the Husserlian model of memory. Here, it is helpful to use the distinction of The second points out the relationship between the German philosopher Edmund Husserl. media and memory. The third part deals with He distinguishes three different stages in the memory films as a genre. In the final section, construction of memory. He describes in his this theoretical construct is applied to the Cuban book “Text for a phenomenology of the inner filmMemories of Underdevelopment directed by time” (1985) how the process of memory Thomas Gutiérrez Alea (1968). is carried out from the experience of the succession until the act of re-remember. The Construction of the Phenomenological first stage contains two processes, namely, Memory protention and retention (Husserl 45). Retention refers to the act of retaining what is experienced Memory is a process which links the past to “right now” for consciousness, but the subject the present. In this sense, the past is mediated has not reflected on it. It is the mots basic act by memory, and remembering is always of memory. Protetion means the opposite remembering from the present. Memory is not operation of expecting something to come, but in the past, but the cognitive process constructs this expectation does not involve any reflection a particular vision of the past from a ongoing by the subject. Retention and protection are the experience and interpretation of it. Thus, most basics operations in order to construct a remembering is not the process of accessing pure unity of experience. When the subject watches old memories, it is the process of experiencing a film, for example, he or she connects what has 78 C. FORERO: FILM AND MEMORY just been experienced with what is expected to gone, but those memories are not the totality of appear. What has just been experienced is not the experienced. This means that the subject already the past in a strict sense, but it is “a remembers, Husserl claims, “either … one ray concrete perception which belongs to a whole of sight (Blickstrahl) ... where the remembered continuum” (Husserl 47). This whole continuum is still vague … or a continuum [which] is is the action which is performed or experienced, not complete” (Husserl 37). Moreover, those and it is built perception by perception since the memories can be modified by the subject. This act is not given as a unity for the subject. In this process is called modification through fantasy case, the film will be the unity of experience, (Husserl 45). It allows the subject to introduce since although each particular scene contains a new elements in the action. It also provides the meaning, the subject does not reflect on each possibility to change the seriality of action, in scene, but either on the whole film or a larger part this case, the film. On the one hand, the viewer than one only scene. The viewers, for instance, can link scenes that have been connected in do not watch a whole film at once, they observe another order according to a new serialization. scenes that the conscious connects one by one It means that the scene is represented for the through the process of pretension and retention. counsciousness in a different way than it was The scene of an (building) explosion in the presented in the film. It is possible to transform, famous filmV for Vendetta starts with the running for instance, the whole scene of the building´s of the train into the building. The spectator explosion in V for Vendetta, exchanging the is expecting and following the movements of order of appearance of some events. The the train along with the people who are also movement of the train happens simultaneously marching to the building. The former movement with the protester’s march to the parliament. is held by retention and the next one is expected However, it can be transformed in the process of by the subject until the building blows up. The fantasy, and the viewer may organize the scene whole continuum is the explosion. The process in a different way. The walking of the people, for of retention is to maintain the former perceptions example, could occur after the explosion of the from the beginning until the final explosion. building or vice versa. The protention is the expectative for each On the other hand, the viewer can do this perception. It means each unity is connected process unconsciously. The subject believes to the former (retention) and expects a coming sometimes in a certain organization (serialization) unity (protention) In the case of the film, the unit of the film’s events that does not comparatively of perception is the scene. correspond with the order presented in the film. When this whole continuum is finished, the The subject really believes that the order of the subject can provide meaning to the action scenes represented for him is the same order (Husserl 35). The meaning is only reached at the that the film plays. end of the action. Thus, this process of providing These three stages are the steps from the meaning to the action is simultaneous to the perception to the re-remembering through process of second remembering. This is the the process of reproduction and modification. second stage. The viewer begins to remember An important question arises here, how is it how the totality was played, and the subject possible to distinguish among those stages connects the past in a specific form through this if it is possible through fantasy to introduce action of remembering. A complete sequence of elements without being conscious of doing the whole building’s explosion in V for Vendetta so? How could the subject know that the new can only be constructed by the viewer at the memory is not actually an old memory which end. In this sense, the meaning of any action is it does not remember experiencing? Husserl’s always a meaning of the past, but constructed in response (48) is the vivacity of the experience. the present. The most detailed and complete experience is The third stage is the process of reproduction the “real” one. Thus, in the first memory, it is of a specific memory. This re-remembering is the more possible to access some details that the act of accessing the memory of what is already experience provides. Details which are always FORUM FOR INTER-AMERICAN RESEARCH VOL. 13.2 (JUL. 2020) 77-84 79 there for the viewer during the film. With the maintain the vivacity of human memories. Thus, passing of time, the memories become weaker, an introduction of a new medium implies a since fewer details can be accessed, and the transformation of the memory process. subject has no certainty of not adding fantasized As the German philosopher Sibylle Krämer elements to the memories. This explanation claims, the media are not only artefacts, but seems very plausible at the beginning, but with they are conditions of possibility [3] of human the introduction of audivisual media a more experience (17). The proliferation of the printed complex explanation is necessary. book in the 19th century (McLuhan 147) produced Before the relationship between media and a new perception of time which allowed the memory is introduced, it is necessary to point existence of new consciousness with a stronger out that the Husserlian model of memory is link to the past than that of the former societies. also applicable to collective memory. [2] The This new consciousness of time also produced Husserlian model of memory is only for the a new process of memory. The former process subject´s experience in principle. It may seem relied upon what the subject was told and its that it is not possible to apply this theory to the capacity for memorizing. In most cases, memory process of construction of collective memory. was only possible through orality. Thus, the However, the subject acceses the collective process of modification described by Husserl memory in the same way that it apprehends was more flexible than with the written word.