Page 173 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 173
memory and identity in film
Multiple consequences of this impact were broad and far-reaching and they
were reflected in knowledge and sciences after they became recognisable
and definable scientifically and in a variety of specific reflexive ways.
Bergson‘s Memory
As soon as we mention a concept such as memory, many people are quick to
associate it with psychology as the science that can supposedly define and
describe the concept. True, apart from neuro-science, psychology (no mat-
ter which of many different doctrines) deals a lot with the concept of mem-
ory. The psychological concept of memory, as much as it serves its pur-
pose within the limits of psychology as a science, seems to be insufficient
as an answer to a range of questions. Problems associated with memory
have nowadays become a matter of cross-related issues and various types
of knowledge and research. No one expects psychology itself in isolation
from other research to deliver much more knowledge than it already does
in the field, which is designated by the concept of memory. This divergence
between psychology and other humanities started to come into view with-
in the work of Henri Bergson. Gilles Deleuze brought this historical fact
to our attention in 1983, when this great philosopher of the 20th Century
stunned the intellectual community with his first extensive study on cine-
ma. Bergson’s works displayed many features of a great foresight, when he,
in his discourse, revealed the full meaning of the concept in a nascent con-
text, which fully developed later. By “this context” I mean not only aesthet-
ic developments as such, but these developments as they were seen through
the interactions with education, cinematography, and cultural institutions,
which all contributed to a change of the perception of human perception.
It is of the utmost importance that along with the concept of movement
Bergson not only emphasised the notion of memory, but also the concept
of image. It is not as important how exact or wrong Bergson’s observations,
assertions and statements were in view of, for example, modern physiolo-
gy and the psychology of perception, since we are talking about the phil-
osophical building of concepts. Thus, maybe – due to the fact that Berg-
son’s book on memory was first published in 1896, roughly at the same time
when the brothers Lumieres’ cinématograph started film history – we can
shed light on the problem. We can now better understand that the interac-
tion between moving pictures and the changes of the meaning of the con-
cept of memory was an immediate one. As such, it has been uttered in Berg-
171
Multiple consequences of this impact were broad and far-reaching and they
were reflected in knowledge and sciences after they became recognisable
and definable scientifically and in a variety of specific reflexive ways.
Bergson‘s Memory
As soon as we mention a concept such as memory, many people are quick to
associate it with psychology as the science that can supposedly define and
describe the concept. True, apart from neuro-science, psychology (no mat-
ter which of many different doctrines) deals a lot with the concept of mem-
ory. The psychological concept of memory, as much as it serves its pur-
pose within the limits of psychology as a science, seems to be insufficient
as an answer to a range of questions. Problems associated with memory
have nowadays become a matter of cross-related issues and various types
of knowledge and research. No one expects psychology itself in isolation
from other research to deliver much more knowledge than it already does
in the field, which is designated by the concept of memory. This divergence
between psychology and other humanities started to come into view with-
in the work of Henri Bergson. Gilles Deleuze brought this historical fact
to our attention in 1983, when this great philosopher of the 20th Century
stunned the intellectual community with his first extensive study on cine-
ma. Bergson’s works displayed many features of a great foresight, when he,
in his discourse, revealed the full meaning of the concept in a nascent con-
text, which fully developed later. By “this context” I mean not only aesthet-
ic developments as such, but these developments as they were seen through
the interactions with education, cinematography, and cultural institutions,
which all contributed to a change of the perception of human perception.
It is of the utmost importance that along with the concept of movement
Bergson not only emphasised the notion of memory, but also the concept
of image. It is not as important how exact or wrong Bergson’s observations,
assertions and statements were in view of, for example, modern physiolo-
gy and the psychology of perception, since we are talking about the phil-
osophical building of concepts. Thus, maybe – due to the fact that Berg-
son’s book on memory was first published in 1896, roughly at the same time
when the brothers Lumieres’ cinématograph started film history – we can
shed light on the problem. We can now better understand that the interac-
tion between moving pictures and the changes of the meaning of the con-
cept of memory was an immediate one. As such, it has been uttered in Berg-
171
