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Marjorie Prime

The film’s focus is on the character Marjorie who suffers from memory loss. The image of her young husband retells stories to her, using episodic memories. She doesn’t remember the day previous, like when he told her about getting a dog before they have children. She adds in little things, additions to how she felt, and he responds “I’ll remember that.” 

We find out that this image is a technology like an AI called a Prime. Walter Prime is like a vessel then for memory. 

The script itself talks about memory a lot on a scientific basis. Tess reiterates that you remember the last time you remembered a memory and not the memory at its source. 

Music is predominant in this film, what Marjorie chooses to listen to and she talks about her desire to play the violin, she remembers how to read music and the names of the strings, the first song she learned. In a scene before this, Tess plays the piano after a discussion about memory. This feels like a subliminal message about how music sticks with you over other things, could it be that this is an example of affect as information, information as memory retrieval? 

Earlier in the film, the story of how Marjorie was proposed to is much different from the memory that comes when she looks at her wedding ring, which is a real example of affect of information since looking at the ring prompted her to remember. I think she was also influenced to remember by the story, a part of her might have realized it wasn’t the real thing that happened, affect of priming? 

The different primes are made up of the autobiographical self but it’s composed of the perception of memories of the family members making the Primes more biographical. A question asked at one point is to a prime was, do you have emotions?

What I like about this film is that it’s a real depiction of what it’s like to take care of someone with memory problems, aside from the science fiction of the AI technology. 

There are a lot of layers to this film, I liked the subtle revelation that Marjorie had passed away. This was one of the sadder movies I have watched in my life, so intentional from every shot, what they choose to include in every scene (the mess, the whisky, etc.); really excellent filmmaking. 

Star Trek “The Measure of a Man”

Firstly, I have been watching the Star Trek episodes on my computer and I watched this one on my TV, I can’t believe the amount of makeup they put on the person who plays Data! 

The scene that stood out the most to me was when Data was gathering the items that have meaning to him, looking at them nostalgically and Commander Maddox comes in to try to convince him to undergo the procedure of taking him apart, saying he will keep his memories. Datas main concern is those memories loosing their essence, the emotions that come with them. 

The common theme of the two works is: are computers able to conceptualize memories and feel? 

Also, I think the films for this week and last were kind of interchangeable due to that theme. These last two modules were my favorite to learn about and had me thinking about the lectures in my day to day life, too. 

I have to say, I’m glad I don’t have to watch any more films or television episodes! This class has reinforced that I’m a book person and not a television or movie person. However, the films were great reinforcers of the concepts we learned throughout the course, and I enjoyed making connections between the two.