Documentary Film: "In Search of Memory"

Next on my list of movies to see, this documentary, "In Search of Memory." I know so little about the science of memory, but really, doesn't Memory Studies encompass the cognitive realms of memory as well? It boggles my mind just to say neuroscience, and yet, I am fascinated by studies that show the brain on fire with thought! I first read about this film in the New York Times, and then, on my favorite documentary film blog Memoriando (usually in Spanish, with the occasional English post). Those two articles follow.



From: New York Press

"Memory is everything. Without it, we are nothing," says Nobel Laureate Neuroscientist and Columbia professor Eric Kandel in Petra Seeger's documentary film In Search of Memory. The film premiered to a full audience on the Upper East Side last night at the 92nd Street Y. Though largely centered on Kandel's own memory of the Holocaust and his personal narrative, the film's larger message tied memory—in both the scientific and sociological sense—to the larger scope of humanity.

In Search of Memory's introductory scenes begin through the rainy windshield of a moving car. Already, notions of nostalgia and selective memory incarnate as the audience squints to distinguish the urbanscape through which Kandel drives. The film, inverse to Kandel's life, begins in New York City and works backwards—like memory—to his hometown Vienna, Austria.

Throughout the film, the audience learns that Kandel's impassioned search for memory finds its roots in his experience growing up in the WWII era in Austria. His interest in neuroscience began with a foray into European history; initially, Kandel wanted to study history to understand motives of humans in times of war. In response to this ambition, his high school European history teacher encouraged him to look into neuroscience instead. If he wanted to understand motives, the teacher advised, he would have to examine humans and their intentions on a very basic cellular level.

And so begins Eric Kandel's legendary career in neurobiology: In his sensitive efforts to discover the science behind motives and map the physical locations of the id, the ego and the superego in the human brain, Kandel finds himself at the intersection of psychology and neuroscience. More specifically, he discovers the physical differences between short-term memory and long-term memory and the process by which short-term memory transforms into long-term memory. These findings ultimately lead to his Nobel Prize.

Instead of focusing strictly on the complexity of Kandel's research, however, Seeger presents short and simple segments of the neuroscientific data with Kandel's memories of Austria, clips from the Holocaust and Kandel's present day activities. Through Kandel's remarkably simple explanations of memory vis-a-vis neuroscience, even those with no scientific background are able to understand the complex structure of the memory as it travels and grows in the brain. Simple physical constituents of memory such as the synapses, the neuron, and the axon are explained as they relate to the memory.

Seeger's style, or almost lack thereof, is without intruding or contriving and, as such, the audience is given a candid look into this scientist's memory and his opus as Kandel remembers it. And because of Kandel's powerful charm and energy, the science-less and more personal aspects of the documentary add an engaging and often comical texture to this very delicate quest for memory and remembrance. The most memorable part—that which changed my brain's synaptic structure—is perhaps the colorful visualization of that very process. I was able to watch with wonder as something as seemingly figurative as short-term memory physically transformed and grew into long-term memory.

From: The New York Times

January 8, 2010
Total Recall: A Journey From Vienna to Brooklyn and the Center of the Brain

By A. O. SCOTT
Published: January 8, 2010

It’s not often that you are invited to spend an hour or two in the presence of a Nobel Prize winner, and “In Search of Memory: The Neuroscientist Eric Kandel,” Petra Seeger’s new documentary, offers an especially gratifying opportunity. The film’s subject won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research into the workings of the brain. He is particularly interested in how, at the cellular level, the mind stores and sorts various stimuli and turns them into long- and short-term memory.

For Dr. Kandel, whose laboratory conducts experiments on mice and snails, memory is one of the keys to human identity. Our mental patterns of recollection and learning have been grist for much philosophical and literary speculation, to which Dr. Kandel, a deeply cultured and thoroughly civilized man, pays sincere respect. And though he is preoccupied with physical processes, he is also aware of just how mysterious and complicated their implications and results can be.

Ms. Seeger, a German filmmaker who occasionally appears on screen with Dr. Kandel and his family, gives only a sketch of his ideas and discoveries, but the basic information about axons, synapses and neurons is presented clearly and with enthusiasm. “In Search of Memory” is finally more concerned with the scientist than with his science, and in his particular memories rather than his insights into memory as such. This is hardly a criticism, since Dr. Kandel is an unusually engaging person with a pretty amazing biography.

The camera follows him on visits to Vienna, where he was born, and to Brooklyn, where he lived after fleeing the Nazis in the late 1930s. His accent and temperament are an almost perfect amalgam of the two places: a refined, intellectual disposition forged in Sigmund Freud’s hometown and inflected by the scrapes and strivings of life in the borough of immigrants. He speaks German precisely if at times a bit haltingly and peppers his English with Yiddish words. He laughs easily, and though a prodigious talker — we see him lecturing and also holding forth in the laboratory and at a family Seder — he seems like a good listener as well.

As its main title (shared with Dr. Kandel’s 2006 memoir) suggests, “In Search of Memory” is more concerned with exploration than with comprehensiveness or conclusions. At 95 minutes, it necessarily lacks the sweep and detail of the book, which was more than 500 pages, and occasionally tries to compensate with awkward re-enactments of events from Dr. Kandel’s childhood. But it is an engrossing portrait all the same, a generous introduction to someone worth knowing, who knows an awful lot.

IN SEARCH OF MEMORY

The Neuroscientist Eric Kandel

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Written and directed by Petra Seeger; directors of photography, Robert Winkler and Mario Masini; edited by Oliver Neumann; released by Icarus Films. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. In English and German, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. This film is not rated.