Forgetting, Rememberring and Obsessing

Leonard in the movie Memento has a very strange memory considering what and/or how he remembers and he doesn't remember. His amnesia is not forgetting some time interval from the past but it is forgetting recent events in some periods and he remember the past very well. It is short term memory loss.

In many aspects of memory, he is like just a person who doesn't have this condition. However his condition changes him in a way.

First I would introduce a term; organic memory which refers to the memory of the mankind and implies its insufficiency. Refering to my writing before this one, our organic memory can be false and it is usually reconstructed from our current perspective. Eventhoug Leonard's organic memory doesn't work properly, he reconstructs his memory by removing some of his notes and burning some of the pictures he took, also there are implication about Leonard has a twisted memory for the past he remembers. The reason he have taken these actions was to remember what he wants to remember and people without amnesia do exactly the same thing for the same purpose. This is the most definitive charecteristic/flaw of the organic memory and Leonard is no different than any one else in this case.

However, he is driven by his obsession to the past he remembers. The last thing he remembers is his wife is been raped and/or murdered. These memory is the cause of everything he does during the movie. His whole purpose become to find and kill the rapist/killer of his wife. The way his condition changed him is that he is obsessed with the memories he remembers because he cannot make new memories. Same thing can be observed in people without amnesia but in Leonard's case it is caused by his amnesia.

If we evaluate Leonard according to the concepts Nietzsche introduces in his article “Use and Abuse of History”, the historical and unhistorical concepts are colliding in exact opposite way of Nietzsche's suggestion for a healthy thinking. In other word, Leonard is neither historical nor unhistorical and he is definetely not supra historical.

He remembers some of his memories and he forgets some of his memories but he is not controlling what he remembers and what he forgets so he has no plastic power and he cannot transform anything within his horizon eventhough the borders of his horizon are defined.

At the same time he is both historical and unhistorical. He remembers the past before the accident too much so he is historical. However he is like a 'cattle' in peresent time, he cannot remember if he is happy or not so he is unhistorical.

However his obsession to the past he remembers drives him away from being unhistorical.

Note: This is a reflection to the movie Memento with the concepts defined in Nietzsche's "Use and Abuse of History" for AE222 course at Boğaziçi University to Aylin Vartanyan.