Remembering (Not Remembering) Movies You've Seen (2000, spoiler, Lost, TV)
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This phenomenon is almost driving me crazy. What could be the explanation?
My wife and I watch about three movies a week in the early afternoon. I am intelligent, educated and with an excellent memory.
Yesterday we watched "A Man Called Otto" with Tom Hanks. My wife recalled that we had watched the Swedish movie "A Man Called Ove" on which it is closely based. I thought we might have watched it but had no recollection.
As we watched "Otto" my wife knew absolutely everything that was going to happen from having watched "Ove." It was all new to me. Today we watched "Ove." At no point did I have any recollection of ever having seen it. My wife knew what was going to happen and even what characters were going to say.
This happens again and again and again. It isn't because my wife is a movie savant or has a photographic memory, because exactly the same thing used to happen with my first wife who passed away.
Possibly a male/female thing? I feel like I get pretty absorbed in movies, but apparently they are completely forgotten ten days later while my wife has very specific recall years later.
(FWIW, IMO "Ove" is superior to "Otto" in every way.)
Memory and what it remembers is very individual. Doubt this has anything to do with gender. IME, just watching a movie doesn't necessarily mean it makes a lasting impression. It could be that your wife tends to reference or discuss more of the movies the two of you happen to watch in conversation with others. Maybe she is better at applying context to the movie and incorporating aspects of it into her life. Maybe movies evoke more of an emotional response for her than they do for you. All of that could help strengthen her longer term memory. Remember the adage about how people learn? People remember new information better if more than one sensory channel is involved while learning it. Visual, auditory, tactile, etc. Do more than one thing with the material: read about it, visually experience it, hear it, talk about it, do something physical because of it (practice something manually), etc.
Who tends to select the movies you two watch? If she does, there may be a reason she chooses one over another...motivation and intention may provide more of an incentive to remember it longer.
Memory and what it remembers is very individual. Doubt this has anything to do with gender. IME, just watching a movie doesn't necessarily mean it makes a lasting impression. It could be that your wife tends to reference or discuss more of the movies the two of you happen to watch in conversation with others. Maybe she is better at applying context to the movie and incorporating aspects of it into her life. Maybe movies evoke more of an emotional response for her than they do for you. All of that could help strengthen her longer term memory. Remember the adage about how people learn? People remember new information better if more than one sensory channel is involved while learning it. Visual, auditory, tactile, etc. Do more than one thing with the material: read about it, visually experience it, hear it, talk about it, do something physical because of it (practice something manually), etc.
Who tends to select the movies you two watch? If she does, there may be a reason she chooses one over another...motivation and intention may provide more of an incentive to remember it longer.
Well, I select all the movies. Our life circumstances are such that we really only discuss them with each other. I do think it has to have something to do with the way each of us processes what we are watching. I do read about 100 books to every one my wife reads, so perhaps movies loom larger in her mind. I really don't - it's just such an extreme phenomenon that it's driving me crazy.
Well, I select all the movies. Our life circumstances are such that we really only discuss them with each other. I do think it has to have something to do with the way each of us processes what we are watching. I do read about 100 books to every one my wife reads, so perhaps movies loom larger in her mind. I really don't - it's just such an extreme phenomenon that it's driving me crazy.
Why do you select the movies you do? Maybe your motivation for the choices play into why you don't tend to remember them.
Memory and what it remembers is very individual. Doubt this has anything to do with gender. IME, just watching a movie doesn't necessarily mean it makes a lasting impression. It could be that your wife tends to reference or discuss more of the movies the two of you happen to watch in conversation with others. Maybe she is better at applying context to the movie and incorporating aspects of it into her life. Maybe movies evoke more of an emotional response for her than they do for you. All of that could help strengthen her longer term memory. Remember the adage about how people learn? People remember new information better if more than one sensory channel is involved while learning it. Visual, auditory, tactile, etc. Do more than one thing with the material: read about it, visually experience it, hear it, talk about it, do something physical because of it (practice something manually), etc.
Who tends to select the movies you two watch? If she does, there may be a reason she chooses one over another...motivation and intention may provide more of an incentive to remember it longer.
This is a summation that has validity. ^
There is a gender difference in some areas. It isn't an absolute, but usually holds true. Women can be better at remembering complex interpersonal relationships, men are often better at space relationship.
There also is an example of how you might differ in relating to stories (written and/or movies). Say instead of stories, you have 300 marbles of different colors and sizes. She has 3. Are you going to be as good at remembering the exact attributes of any one of your marbles than she of hers? You might think you have lost your marbles, but you just have enough that they are handled differently in your mind.
Why do you select the movies you do? Maybe your motivation for the choices play into why you don't tend to remember them.
My wife is not as fluent in English, nor as familiar with things like selecting movies on Netflix. Our Netflix DVD account (now unfortunately coming to an end) has over 2000 rentals, so the movies are all over the map. I am thinking this may have more to do with me than my wife - that for some reason I am absorbed while watching the movies but don't regard them as fundamentally important and thus flush them from my mind pretty quickly.
There are some movies that I realize "This is important" or "This is profound" as I'm watching them - the Japanese movies "Woman In the Dunes" and "Ikiru" come to mind - and those I do remember much more clearly.
I was curious to see if anyone said "We're exactly the same way!" - but so far, no.
Mr. Spock said in an episode of ST:TOS "Call it an understanding of the way things work.". Someone said about "Batman" (Adam West), "If you've seen one Batman, you've seen them all." Thomas Edison said there are only so many original stories, everything else is a retelling. Finally, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
With these factors in play, maybe some of them together, maybe all of them, those who are tuned to this can probably pick out what is going to happen in the flick most of the time. Some may be lucky to pick it all the time.
For example, the way things work. The movie I saw Sunday, "Southern Cross", has Michael Ironside and Malcolm McDowell in the front credits. Well,
Spoiler
They kill off Malcolm in the first 5 minutes of the flick. What a waste of major talent but you know he is going to show up later and he does because you don't hire major talent only to have him in the first 5 minutes.
If one can identify the patterns, they can predict much of a movie.
Now, on memory. I have trouble remembering what I watched last week or even sooner. I put it down to that since my way of watching is so much different from the ways we are "programmed", I am very much outside the established memory pathways that are normal for TV watching.
Outside the theme nights, I am watching at random. I have no "TV guide" to refer to, there is no advertisement to tell me "Watch this!", no one is talking to me afterwards about what I saw, it is not on a schedule so I have no anticipation for what is coming up, the people I see are either unknowns or of long ago, retired or dead, and there is very little to convince me to watch them in the future.
All the associations that we normally have for watching isn't there, so those memory paths aren't activated, the memory of the movie sits alone.
So maybe that is it.....she has the things in her life to associate with the movie....but you don't.
Last edited by TamaraSavannah; 09-05-2023 at 10:14 AM..
Now me, if I really liked a movie or really hated a movie I will remember it, but movies I found to be so so and didn't make a strong impression I tend to forget. DH is the same way.
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