![]() ![]() ![]() Folklorists have compiled catalogs of amnesia motifs, such as “forgotten fiancées” and “forgetting by stumbling.” Great authors from Homer and Shakespeare to Dickens and Balzac have had recourse to amnesia, and it has been a common device for modern writers, high and low. Movie amnesia is only one step above the “magic forgetting” we find in folk tales. Clinicians may deplore the fact that creative writers almost never represent amnesia accurately, but fictional versions answer to narrative demands, which often care little about realism. It’s a treasured plot resource throughout the world’s literature. Amnesia is rare in real life but common in movies.Īnd not only movies. But we can find over sixty amnesia-driven releases in the 1910s, about fifty in the 1920s, and at least forty in the 1930s. There’s no disputing that a great many 1940s Hollywood films involve amnesia-over seventy, by one count. population, 130 million strong, induced Hollywood to make such movies is never explained. A more academic critic might suggest that broader anxieties within American society led to a fascination with “a loss of cultural memory.” But exactly how the U.S. One critic proposes that films featuring amnesia (like movies about angels and ghosts) were the culture’s way of offering solace to those who lost loved ones. With so many 1940s characters suffering from it, we’re tempted to interpret their plight as reflecting wider forces. As in other art forms, filmmakers swipe cultural elements and submit them to the demands of their craft. They’re selected and sculpted by filmmakers and the pressures of cinematic tradition. If we want to understand continuity and change in film history, it’s useful to assume that cultural attitudes, memes, sticky ideas, and the like serve as materials for movie making. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |