VOL. III: Ignorance vs. Control

As a quote by author Barbara Kingsolver states, “memory is a complicated thing, relative to truth, but not its twin.”

Do we get to control how we see the world? Are we even in power when it comes to how we see ourselves? Do we have the power to define the courses of our lives, our relationships, and what we remember? It’s easy to let the opinions of others influence our choices, decisions, and opinions on virtually anything, even ourselves. After all, we are the company we keep.

The films discussed in this volume explore the various ways in which our relationships with others mold the ways in which we see the world and even see ourselves. They lead us to wonder if the decisions we make are fully in our control...are we perpetually granting control to others? -- is it healthy to let others control us? It makes us question whether or not ignorance is bliss, if it’s better to lead an ‘easy’ life devoid of suffering and pain. However, isn't all of that -- the painful lessons learned, gaining insight from our mistakes -- what makes all of us human? After all, we can’t exactly call it ‘bliss’ if it comes at the cost of our humanity. Can we experience bliss if the only form of it is dehumanizing? 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 film directed by Michael Gondry, starring Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey. The film follows a couple, Clementine and Joel, as they endure a painful breakup, and Clementine decides to have a procedure that erases all traces of Joel from her memory. Upon hearing about it, Joel gets the operation as well. The film is a tragic love story in reverse about loss and the complications of relationships, how people make marks on us and inevitably affect our personal interactions for the rest of our lives. 

Joel discovers that Clementine has erased him, and that’s the root of her strange behavior. Clementine and Joel’s interaction in the book store is entirely impersonal, and you can see the pain that Joel endures recounting the story. (The dark fades in and out of the memory, the obvious physical distress). Joel’s friends, Carrie and Rob, even act like Joel doesn’t exist when he’s in their home, telling them his problems. Then, he’s faced with the slip of paper that confirms his worst fear: Clementine has completely erased him. Would ignorance have been better in this situation? Would it be healthier for Joel to not know at all that this woman he still clearly loves in some way no longer remembers him and the significance he played in her life? This scene shows ignorance is a double-edged sword. Perhaps Joel would have lived a “better life” if he did not know that Clementine intentionally scratched him from her memory, yet Clementine is living a more blissful life by being ignorant to their history. They perceive it differently. It’s ironic that Clementine isn’t even aware of the drastic mark that she’s left on Joel’s soul. 

Joel is in the process of getting his mind erased of all traces of Clementine to make the situation even. Part of this process involves Joel walking through all of his old memories with Clem as a cleansing of the mind. The whole world is falling apart as the memory breaks down. The tone of Joel’s voice when he claims he’s “happy” sounds a little strained, as if he’s attempting to convince himself that he is. Joel wants to convince himself that ignorance is better than the pain of the times shared. Having control over one’s pain, control over what he/she remembers and perceives the world to be, seems like it would be the easier way out. However, is Joel’s strain going against this? 

Clementine and Joel miraculously run into each other after their operations and even meet -- as if the decision to separate wasn’t even made by them, but by outside influences, once again blurring the line between what’s in our control and what isn’t. It’s also outrageous that in a world not so far away from where we are now, that our own experiences, thoughts, and lessons learned through these tough times can be made so malleable by technology. Enduring complicated situations and relationships are what cause us, as humans, to grow and gain more dimensions and knowledge about ourselves. So, with this control to erase memories and choose what to be ignorant about in our lives, it seems like we’re cutting out the key parts of us that make us interesting and dynamic, that make us human.

So, if we have the ability to do something as sensational as erase integral people from our lives, is there such a thing as “too much” control over our lives? Most likely. The more control we have, to less human (if you define your humanity through your relationships with others) we may become. That’s something that this section will also attempt to cover and answer. If we strip ourselves of the ability to remember our actions, does our life still have meaning? What we know about ourselves should matter most, correct? Forget how others affect us. This will be explored in Memento. 

Memento is a 2000 thriller/mystery film directed by Christopher Nolan starring Guy Pearce as Leonard, a man who is hell-bent on tracking down his wife’s killer and rapist. The issue, however, is that Leonard suffers from a memory loss condition that prohibits him from forming any new memories in his new life without his wife. Leonard can’t recall situations that happened minutes beforehand, making the hunt for a killer a rather disastrous and winding road.

This is one of the first scenes in the entire film. As you can see, Leonard has every polaroid labeled with names to keep track of his acquaintances. To ensure that he doesn’t lose cardinal pieces of information in regards to his manhunt, he uses his body to keep track of his progress. He thinks he’s found his wife’s killer, but has he? Leonard perceives the markings on his body and the documents that he has as the only reliable sources of information for his cause, but if he can’t recall how he got them or confirm the validity of this information, how sound can it really be? Yes, the information stems from his brain, but he’s relying on the words of people that he cannot even remember. These unknowns guide his life. Leonard also states that his daily routine gives him the control and means necessary to accomplish his mission, but that’s what his memory condition allows him to believe. It doesn’t mean that it’s entirely true.

This clip is a perfect example of how people can manipulate Leonard to their advantage and he’d never be able to realize it or catch on. This woman is supposedly helping him find his wife’s killer, but she, like many others, uses Leonard’s condition for her personal gain. Leonard doesn’t realize it because you can’t control what you’re ignorant to (most of the time). If we can’t even remember what people say to us, can we even generate proper emotions and relationships? Technically, you can, since you’d perceive the relationship to be normal and would never remember any conflict, but by no means would it be beneficial. You can’t live a life of progress, a typical human life, if you can’t believe those around you all of the time. You’d never have any sort of personal growth. The film itself also is organized end to beginning, so we get more of Leonard’s struggle. The viewer feels confused, stuck, confused on what character to believe. 

Notice Leonard looking for a pen to remember this encounter, and Natalie hides the pens as he walks into her house. She goes to her car and waits for his memory to relapse so that she can twist the story again. When you are ignorant or perceive situations differently, you are at the hands of those around you, relying on their stories and interpretations. It leads us to wonder if our lives truly have meaning if they’re defined by the opinions and stories of others. 

“So you lie to yourself to be happy...we all do that.” Leonard’s friend, Teddy, finally helps him come clean...or is it truly a ‘finally?’ For all we know, this speech has happened a plethora of times, but it’s never going to click for Leonard. Like Teddy says, “you only believe the stuff you want to remember.” However, can’t that be attributed to all people, memory condition or not? The more we think of a situation or recall it, the more it loses its truth, its validity. The idea behind the scenario can be so altered by our minds that we can convince ourselves to almost believe anything as a survival/coping mechanism. If memory really is only relative to truth, then the most authentic life we can lead is one where we never dwell on the past, we’re only looking ahead so as not to tarnish what we’ve experienced. But, if you never dwell on the past, then you can’t grow from it, creating an unbreakable cycle of questioning one’s purpose and existence and control. 

It’s said that we, as humans, can be measured by the sum of our actions. However, if we don't’ remember those actions, how do we forge a purpose, an identity? We still have one, but it’s built upon ignorance. In Leonard’s case, he controls how he perceives his world through burning his notes, his pictures, only to let it serve him in his ignorant bliss when his memory relapses. It’s a unique situation. “I have to believe that even when my eyes are closed, the world is still here...my actions still have meaning.” It’s hard to place ourselves outside of our bubble and realize that what we do and what we believe also affect others. The world can be a chain reaction of relationships. The interactions that we have with others are what make us and define our existence. In the film, Leonard can’t really conceive who he is because he has no recollection of it. His real reputation is forged by how others see him. The backwards structure of the movie only enhances the idea of perception and reliability. We only know as much as Leonard knows, meaning he’s in control of our opinions. The only proof left after we die is what we’ve done for others -- how we’ve made them feel, how we’ve inspired them.

Certain scenes from films that we’ve previously viewed can also take on new meanings and provide different insight depending on the lens we examine it through. Because of this, the next film we will be examining is A Scanner Darkly, which I’ve discussed in a previous episode. 

I’ve already used this clip in another episode, but I think it still applies. Arctor questions the amount of privacy that his lifestyle gives him. In this modern day and age, we’re conditioned to give in to the relinquishing of all privacy. With this release, we can lose our sense of self, even our utmost control over ourselves. Arctor even says that he doesn’t recognize himself anymore or who he’s meant to be, hoping that the scanner sees it, further emphasizing the point that our darkest times can come when we rely on the perception/opinions of others as a means of self-worth and self-definition.

What do we do when our mind isn’t even perceiving the world in a proper light? When we can’t control how the world looks to us, we muster on as best we can. Arctor’s brain issue is related to his drug use, which is ironic considering that most people become addicts in an attempt to cope with the lack of control in their lives. His controlled substance now permanently controls him. 

This is also a scene we’ve viewed before. Looking at it from the perspective of ignorance and control, it’s a perfect example of how our perception and behaviors and opinions of ourselves are at the hands of those who are more powerful than us, those who have the privilege of being more ignorant towards certain things and situations than others. While Reeve’s character believes that he sees the Substance D, or death growing up from the earth, he’s immediately dismissed and called crazy by the director of the facility. Because the man seems like such a reliable and hierarchical figure, Arctor is left wondering whether or not he’s seeing things clearly -- is it just because of his brain hemisphere issue? Can he rely on his own perception of the world? Like Joel and Leonard, the way Arctor sees the world is controlled by his surroundings and those above him (or in Leonard and Joel’s cases, their peers), and it’s hard to break out of that cycle given the circumstances. Like Leonard and Joel, whose identities and senses of self are both deeply affected by those around them

Following this idea of one’s world being controlled by others, we will revisit Synecdoche, New York, where fact and fiction meld into one, creating a loose grip on reality and what can truly be controlled.

Caden’s perpetual need to clean stems from the lack of control he feels like he has when it comes to his life and what’s happening around him. His job is falling apart, his wife left and took their daughter with her -- all that’s left to give him some structure is the knowledge that he controls the cleanliness of his space. It gives him the excuse to ignore that his life is crumbling. This is a theme that continues throughout the film, paired with his hypochondriac tendencies. The fixation of cleaning allows him to ignore the world falling apart around him; it controls his perception. 

This scene was used in another volume, but it still applies to this theme. Caden is so focused on replicating his life in order to ignore his real issues that he hasn’t even brought in an audience to see the “production.” Watching his life unfold around him, with actors playing the characters in his life, allows Caden to detach from what he experiences. He sees his life’s events as the misfortunes of another, someone that he can try to empathize with in order to face his real feelings. Caden wants to live in a state of ignorance so badly, that the only way he can control his emotions and simultaneously perceive them in the way that he wants is to create a show based on the seemingly “brutal” truth. However, it leads one to wonder whether or not emotions are truly real if we feel the need to manufacture them. Are emotions legitimate if we have to force ourselves to feel them and they don’t occur in a natural setting?

This scene also heavily focuses on the idea of human perception and ignorance -- the two indubitably go hand in hand. Caden walks around his life’s set again, only to see Sammy, the man that plays Caden, about to jump to his death. Caden really has only examined himself in this acting process. It isn’t to help others relate, or else he would’ve attracted an audience. For the past 20 something years, it’s all been for Caden. How can Caden fix his life, how can he control it, what needs to be made better? The set is simply a simulated world where Caden replays his most traumatic events to see where others wronged him, never to really see if he may be the issue at the epicenter. Here, his “double” is leaving the show, possibly symbolizing Caden’s departure from reality. Caden claims he didn’t jump, but he did mentally when he left the real world behind to join one of scripts and sets. 

Another metaphorical world of scripts and sets exists in Vanilla Sky, a 2001 film directed by Cameron Crowe starring Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz. It’s essentially the story of David Ames, a young New York City publishing magnate who has an accident that disfigures his face, making him question his place in the world and his relationships with himself and those around him. Dreams merge with the real-world, blurring the lines between what David can and cannot trust.

David doesn’t realize that he is in a virtual reality/dream life, and he can control it however he pleases, which he learns here. Before David realized he was in a simulation, he felt no need to control because he was ignorant to the fact; he perceived it to be his reality. However, when presented with the ability to stop it all, he’s shocked because it’s so unnatural. Perhaps the power is too much. Perhaps it would be more beneficial to not know certain things, to live as if the surroundings around us are genuine, the experiences not manufactured. 

Here, David learns everything about his death and the blend of this fake life he’s been living. He doesn’t remember anything that led to his true demise. Instead, he’s still been in this dream state. This dream state that masks his unhappiness, his depression, his ultimate overdose. Would it not be better if David had known that he killed himself? To learn from the mistakes, to learn that looks aren’t everything that make a person? While ignorant to this “real life,” David hasn’t exactly learned any lessons from his real existence. This scene is titled ‘Consequences,’ which is pretty fitting considering that the consequences of this suspended state are that there are so many parts of his life that he could’ve changed, could’ve developed, but instead chose death and allowed his peers to define his memory and final moments, such as the memorial and the company. What’s also truly heartbreaking is that David will never understand the impact that he left on Sofia -- will never be able to regain that chance of a relationship. These consequences just leave fading memories and what-ifs. If we’re ignorant to the little things, the small nuances that make life worth living, then we aren’t living -- we’re letting everything else control us. 

“I want to live a real life.” David makes the choice to wake back up in the future. His loved ones will be dead, but at least he’ll know that the life he’s living is real, is his. It’s bittersweet, to let go of the people and the world you thought was real, that made you happy, but it’s a problem because it’s not genuine. David could let his love, the love that he feels is real, for the fake Sofia, but he realizes that living a life shaped your truth and your truth alone is best because it’s all in your control. 

Now, we’re back into The Matrix.

Revisiting this scene from The Matrix, ideas regarding memory and perception and ignorance and control can be derived. We’ve allowed technology to define every part of our lives -- it tells us what to buy, filters the information we consume, and causes us to turn an eye to what’s actually happening around us. However, the issue here is that just because the chemical reactions that the Matrix experiences plant in our brain feel real doesn’t mean that they are real...but we want them to be real. We want to live in the safe simulation, protected by barriers of code and cords; sometimes, we aren’t even given the freedom to choose whether we’re aware or not. Although Neo chooses to free his mind and see the real world, his new life will be far from glamorous. All creature comforts gone...but at least he’s in control, right?

This is another core instance in which our perception can be a block from reaching our full potential as people. It prohibits us from taking the reins on our life and just doing what feels right. Essentially, the world is at our fingertips if we make ourselves aware that the obstacles blocking our goals are usually thoughts, ideas, and notions, be it if they come from our minds or the minds of others.

The same essentially applies to this scene as well.

So, what do we really have control over when it comes to how we see the world? It seems as though those terms are defined by us as much as we want them to be. We can choose to let other people affect our way of thinking and seeing the world, or we can try and forge our own path to better ourselves, even if it’s the more challenging one. Ignorance may be bliss, but making mistakes and knowing information that we may find disheartening causes us to evolve, to grow, to fail forward, making us more interesting and seasoned people of the world. If we’re always in paradise, brains would turn to mush due to lack of processing any challenging or unwanted emotions. We’d all be truly boring carbon copies of one another with no unique experiences to share. 

To be human is to attempt to master our circumstances to our own discretion and to attempt to embrace emotions without shame, to always bring an insightful struggle or experience to the table.