These Memories Can Wait by F. Colier
Every decade a handful of films captures the identity of a whole generation. Predictably, in the same way that "Rear Window" defined its particular cultural climate forty years ago, over the last two years, two such films, "Being John Malkovich" and "Memento," have succeeded in encapsulating the climate prevalent at the beginning of this new century. Nowhere else but in the films’ themes and motifs is this fact so clearly exposed. Asking ourselves why these films get made at the time they do rather than at other times, therefore, calls for an investigation of the relationship between cultural identity and a historical context. Indeed, while "Rear Window" incarnates the affirmation of a stable and shared historical memory, the latter two films emblematize a current nostalgic trend reflecting the loss of a collective history.
History in the late Fifties conveyed the feeling of a monolithic world. Threats were clearly exposed, the enemy pointed out, and opinions tailored accordingly. The nation gave the impression that, should conflict arise, everyone would rally to defend the system of belief. "Rear Window" is emblematic of this mood. The film is about the fear of Communism prevalent in the McCarthy era. In no other time could it have been made. L. B. Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) the crippled super-voyeur, who peeps on his neighbors without impunity, symbolizes the Red Scare’s climate. A strong political and media belief in the infiltration of communist spies fomented the sensation of being constantly watched. Like aliens landed from other planets, the spies were "among us." The political climate of mutual distrust, as a result, produced a culture of fear suspecting its own members. The political message ensuing suggested that if the whole society dreaded the risk of an inner contamination of being infiltrated, everyone was responsible to prevent this possibility from happening. Jeffries incarnates the spy; the Big Brother turned detective, the civilian with a sense of duty, for whom appearances are not fooling. If behind the veil of innocence and the mundane, terrible bloodthirsty criminals hide, Jeffries will uncover them no matter how astute they are. And Jeffries does unveil Thorwald’s crime, with the help of the two women, who eventually accept to risk their lives to take part in Jeffries’s privileged panopticon, Lisa (Grace Kelly) and Stella (Thelma Ritter). Their taking part exposes the vision of a uniform historical process. Society could still rely on its members to protect its homogeneous existence. As long as historical homogeneity remained Communism and infiltrators would have a tough time.
But the panoptic investigation reflects a phase of our history no longer pertaining to our postmodern days. As the Cold War subsided, so did our interest in intruding upon other people’s mundane life. Left without a potential enemy to contemplate and fear, the gaze had to be redirected towards more fulfilling fantasies in order to retain a sense of voyeuristic power. At the end of the last millennium, the gaze abandoned the historical concerns in favor of personal gratifying ones—such as celebrity and fame. This visual substitution, nonetheless, did not happen without a cultural price. Not only the redirection of the gaze results in the fragmentation of a collective historical experience, since the experience is isolated and personal, but it also reflects the absence of a homogeneous historical society, making the personal experience possible.
"Being John Malkovich," directed by Spike Jonze, portrays this cultural shift. The powerful voyeur no longer stalks, or stares at his preys from an anonymous point of surveillance, but instead invades their inner world. "Being John Malkovich," could not have been made in any other time. The displacement of the gaze from the outside to the inside of the targets disrupts the shared historical process. The voyeuristic impulse is not fueled by a patriotic conscience but rather by the rewarding experience of watching a movie star, from a movie star’s perspective. In "being John Malkovich," the threat has no ideological purpose but completely emotional. The main character turns himself into a deceitful cultural and historical icon.
Before our media-based society produced a culture starved for pop icons, political icons prevailed over cultural ones. One would dream of becoming the next Alexander the Great, Lincoln, or even Ghandi. History acted as an uniting factor. The absence of a strong divergent political opponent has changed this equilibrium. In today’s society, the dream focuses on famous and popular models. When Craig (John Cusack) discovers a portal inside his office leading straight inside John Malkovich’s head, his voyeuristic yearning, for living famously (even for fifteen minutes) and seeing a new reflection of himself, is awakened. Through his hijacking of star status and depersonalization of himself, he is empowered with a new sense of being. He aspires to a personal rendition of history, notably his own posterity. The unemployed puppeteer gets the chance to resume his old activity. He controls Malkovich’s personality, though, not by pulling strings but by turning the famous actor into him. Craig breathes, sees, and experiences first-hand the life of being a movie star. Since he cannot look to history to infer a strong sense of identity, Craig turns the attention towards himself, in the purest hedonistic fashion, and so in order to get attention from others. Craig’s personal desires illustrate the absence of a collective historical process.
The collapse of a collective history is further aggravated as the film unravels. Problems arise as soon as Craig shares his secret and, immediately, the characters begin competing against each other to occupy the privileged post in Malkovich’s head. Because the competition occurs among the members within a same society, it is at this stage that the historical process undergoes a highly individualistic fragmentation. All competing characters emphasize the present cultural climate where the desire to transform oneself into a famous icon implies the end of personal isolation. Being a star suggests being seen and being the center of attention. In this regard, "Being John Malkovich" captivates our cultural plight. Rather than an external voyeurism, which is aimed at an outward threat, the inner voyeuristic look, with overtones of narcissistic traits, symbolizes the absence of a strong patriarchal figure around whom everyone can rally. The watcher’s displacement from an outside station to the prey’s inner world enhances the absence of historical cohesion. Better to be famous and seen than invisible and anonymous with an uncertain and invalidated past. By being famous, one both supplants the collective historical absence with a personal narcissistic and titillating experience and exposes the faded historical veneer that allowed societies to give its members the appearance of cohesion. Ultimately, the substitution of voyeur for voyeur-actor reflects a nostalgic yearning for a sense a shared community.
"Memento" (currently playing in theaters), takes the yearning for historical cohesion to its paroxysm. The film incarnates the thorough effacement of the historical memory and the utter nostalgia ensuing from its absence. In Christopher Nolan’s film, the main character, Leonard (Guy Pearce), has deserted "Being John Malkovich’s" field of fame, without losing the voyeuristic compulsion, in order to lead an investigation in "Rear Window" fashion, yet, with the nuance of knowing that his memory is unreliable for that process. Leonard’s short-term retentive memory has been destroyed. The written words become the trusted past. Leonard’s investigation to unveil his wife’s murder relies entirely on hand-written captions on pictures, which he consults over and over again to refresh his memory and the gathering of clues, which he inevitably forgets over and over again. Leonard even goes as far as tattooing the progress of his investigation on his body. It is through this gesture that the nostalgic yearning for a definite past becomes apparent. In the absence of a mode to achieve a certain truth, the body, being the closest thing that attached us to the physical world, becomes the safest receptacle of memory. Yet memory is still subject to retentive power. Very much like collective history, which suppresses people’s individual characteristics, Lennie’s personal history through the absence of long-term memory, erases itself. It remains highly ambiguous, uncertain, and permanently absent in any given time. The film’s philosophical subtext approximates sheer cynicism.
Indeed, Leonard’s loss of memory causes him to distrust his own understanding of the past. The past is indeed reinterpreted in the present and then forgotten again. A span of several minutes is the extent that Leonard’s memory can store information before it is lost once again. Lennie’s memory is constantly deformed, corrupted and renewed during this time frame. The past becomes the personal interpretation and selection of Leonard’s perceptions as he struggles to solve the mystery of his wife’s death. Because Lennie’s investigation is based on forgetfulness, the film depicts the failure of both collective and personal histories and, at the end, the nostalgic longing to grasp a sense of certain truth. Leonard’s hopeless condition makes a departure from Craig’s yearning for a sense of historical identity and reaches tragic proportion.
"Memento" could not have been made in the Fifties when rational thinking was instrumental to the belief of a homogeneous collective memory. "Memento" thematizes the dysfunction of memory and echoes the cacophonic climate of our days. The film portrays, in other words, the implementation of a trash culture, where the past no longer exists. Trash culture implies substitution and replacement of old goods in favor of a constant renewal of commodities. In this cultural context, the past is devalorized, and the present appears suspended. What matters is the experience of the present and the definition of oneself in the present. Leonard’s apocryphal investigation reflects a history of amnesia where no book, no picture, no dialogue, no story, provides certainties for the past, or even the present. There is a consistent conflict between reality of the present and the possibility of what the past may have been. This clash is remarkably portrayed with Lennie’s mistrust of Teddy who reveals the truth to him—but whom Lennie eventually kills. Since the present is ephemeral, his memory becomes invested with constant doubts that would normally lead to severe anxiety and despair attacks.
Yet, although "Memento" is the embodiment of the complete absence of certainties, instead of veering into sheer cynicism, the film adopts ludic features. Since the character cannot hope to recapture a faithful past, he delights in the possibility of a constant entertaining present. Playing a game does suggest being in the present and experiencing ephemeral physical pleasures. Devoid of memory, diverting oneself allows virtually every sort of crimes, even the burning of valuable memories, repeatedly emphasized by Leonard’s habit of burning embarrassing evidences useful for his investigation. Leonard decides consciously to espouse the life of crime, because he knows that within five minutes he will have forgotten the whys of his actions, the reasons for his choices. His behavior’s tragic playful quality arises from his repeated certainties to have to plow through fragmented clues belonging to an uncertain past, in order to unveil the murderer—only to discover that he was guilty from the start. This tragic twist at the end of the film exempts Leonard from any criminal charges. Since he is not responsible for his actions, he has no recollection of having killed his victims, Leonard is left with only one possible outlet: to leisure permanently in solving the mystery.
In this regard, "Memento" symbolizes the current cultural climate of evasion. Through the absence of a strong collective or personal sense of history, the film demonstrates our current inability to look at or into ourselves as the potential source of investigation. The film reflects the compete rejection of potential responsibilities for our predicaments. A step is missed out in the process. We looked at others in suspicious, inside others to become them, but when confronted to ourselves, our memory fails us entirely. We would rather look back in the past even at the price to entertain ourselves through a process of endless reinterpretations, re-examinations of the past, than to confront the present from our own perspectives. Since our memories can wait, we may as well forget what happened . . . and ask ourselves with bitter irony what happened by the way?