[MUSIC] Memory loss due to amnesia has a long history in film, usually portrayed as resulting from a blow to the head or severe emotional trauma followed by a dramatic recovery. In real life, amnesia, meaning without memory, is a relatively rare disorder caused by multiple factors leading to temporary or permanent impairment. Popular films sometimes perpetuate old myths by showing fictional characters that bear little resemblance to actual case studies of amnesia. What is amnesia? Amnesia is defined as the temporary or permanent loss of memory function beyond normal forgetting. We normally think of amnesia as an inability to remember the past. But amnesia can operate in two directions. It can make it hard to recall old memories or difficult to make new ones. When amnesia operates forward in time, it is called anterograde amnesia. We saw this form of amnesia depicted earlier in lecture one, with the film, 50 First Dates. Following a brain injury in a car crash, Drew Barrymore's character Lucy could remember events from her past but she had trouble making new memories. Alternatively, if amnesia operates backward in time where a person loses memory for prior days, weeks or years, the impairment is called retrograde amnesia. In the film that I will describe shortly, Roberta, in Desperately Seeking Susan, shows this type of amnesia that operates backward in time. In real life, both forms of amnesia can occur in the same person - with some individuals showing more anterograde than retrograde loss, and others showing the reverse. When amnesia results from brain damage, it is called organic amnesia. It involves anterograde loss or both anterograde and retrograde loss. When amnesia occurs without any known precipitating brain damage, it is labelled functional amnesia and it shows retrograde loss. Functional amnesia has often been attributed to psychological or emotional trauma. Although people with amnesia may have trouble recalling old memories or problems making new ones, their other cognitive skills are usually maintained. People with amnesia for example, can carry on a conversation, recall historical facts and learn new skills, indicating that their working, semantic and procedural memory systems still function. What is not working, is their episodic memory, their memory for personal experiences. People with anterograde amnesia find it hard to make new memories and those with retrograde amnesia have trouble remembering them. Retrograde amnesia in particular has enjoyed widespread popularity in film. For over a century, film characters have portrayed retrograde amnesia in ways that bear little resemblance to reality. Often losing their memories after a concussion, these people recover their memories in the strangest ways. For example, in 1915s, Judy Forgot, Marie Cahill developed amnesia after banging her head in a train wreck, until another head bonk restored it. In 1918s De Luxe Annie, Norma Talmadge lost her memory after being hit in the head by crook only to get it back by a brain operation. The origin of these mythical amnesia cures is baffling. During the 19th century psychologist Théodule Ribot in his pioneering studies of amnesia, observed a link between head injuries and amnesia. But neither Ribot nor anyone else has ever found that a person's lost memories could be recovered by a second concussion or a brain operation. Yet, in Susan Seidelman's fast paced romantic comedy, Desperately Seeking Susan with Rosanna Arquette, Aidan Quinn, and Madonna, amnesia's double head bonk cure persists. [MUSIC] >> It's gone forever. >> Reminiscent of the screwball comedies from the 1930s this fast paced comedy of errors shows a bored housewife named Roberta pouring over the personals in the newspaper's classified section. One that begins Desperately Seeking Susan, written by someone named Jim, particularly intrigues her. Jim, a struggling musician, and Susan, a dazzling seductress, plan a rendezvous in New York's Battery Park, before Jim heads out on tour. Curious, Roberta decides to watch, and later trails Susan to a secondhand clothing store, [MUSIC] where she buys Susan's trademark jacket. [MUSIC] Unfortunately a killer has also been stalking Susan, believing that she has a priceless pair of stolen earrings. Seeing Roberta in the jacket, the killer mistakes her for Susan. >> [INAUDIBLE] pretty little earrings did he get you. >> As they tussle, Roberta falls, loses her purse and is knocked unconscious after banging her head. Upon awakening, >> Susan. >> she has retrograde amnesia. >> What happened? >> Are you okay? >> My head hurts. >> I'm Dez, I'm a friend of Jim's. >> Jim? >> Okay, sorry. >> With no identification, and unable to remember her past, a bewildered Roberta is rescued by Jim's friend, a handsome young man named Dez, who, believing also that she is Susan says, >> You are not at all what I expected. >> You're not quite what I expected either. >> [APPLAUSE] Now accepting that she is Susan, Roberta lands a job as magician's assistant while her husband and killer separately pursue her in a mad cap plot full of improbable coincidences. [NOISE] This dizzying farce about mistaken identity and amnesia concludes when a second head bonk restores Roberta's lost memory. >> What? >> Come on sweetheart you just got a little bump on your head, you'll survive it >> So I guess your name isn't Susan? So what is it? >> Roberta. >> Roberta. >> Now realizing that Dez is the lover she was desperately seeking, Roberta finds him in the projection room of a movie theater as everything gets sorted out in the end. [MUSIC] Desperately Seeking Susan is entertaining. But its portrayal of amnesia is unrealistic. After striking her head, Roberta could have damaged those delicate brain structures important for memory. But while brain damage from a concussion can lead to amnesia, a second concussion never clears it up. In fact, a second concussion can sometimes produce harmful brain swelling, leading to greater brain damage, not recovery. I'll speculate on the origin of this nonsensical second head bonk view of amnesia later on. For now, we need to get to the facts. Writing about amnesia's usual portrayal in film, psychologist Sallie Baxendale said this, memories aren't made of this. [MUSIC]
