I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining. We do not remember. We rewrite memory much as history is rewritten. How can one remember thirst?
Interpretation
Memory is not simply a recollection of facts but a reconstruction shaped by our experiences and perceptions.
Chris Marker's quote explores the complex nature of memory and forgetting. It suggests that our memories are not static recordings, but rather fluid narratives that we reconstruct based on our current understanding and emotions. This idea emphasizes that remembering is intertwined with forgetting, as they both play a vital role in shaping our perception of the past. In essence, our memories are more like a rewritten history than a direct reflection of what has occurred.
In practice
In a discussion about how people's perceptions of the same event can differ, this quote highlights the subjective nature of memory.
Who said that time heals all wounds? It would be better to say that time heals everything - except wounds. With time, the hurt of separation loses its real limits. With time, the desired body will soon disappear, and if the desiring body has already ceased to exist for the other, then what remains is a wound, disembodied.
Nothing sorts out memories from ordinary moments. It is only later that they claim remembrance, when they show their scars.
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line: the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.
The apartment was built at the edge of a high cliff so that when you looked out the back window it seemed as if you were twelve floors up instead of four. It was very much like living on the edge of the world - a last resting place before the final big drop.
He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships become newly born. Each one was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that is transitory. Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face: only time stood between one face and another.
Certainly, poverty and economic decline have a lot to do with the so-called rage of Islam. You've got all these young men in countries which are economically in bad shape. The idea that they might be able to make a good living and get married and have a family, a decent life, seems very remote to a lot of people in a lot of the world.
When a man is born...there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.
Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.
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