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Unknown White Male (2005)
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Overview
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Tagline:
If you lost your past, would you want it back?
Plot:
The true story of Doug Bruce who woke up on Coney Island with total amnesia. This documentary follows him as he rediscovers himself and the world around him. full summary | add synopsis
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Awards:
3 nominations
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NewsDesk:
(16 articles)
Remains of the Day: John Hughes 1950-2009
(From ioncinema. 7 August 2009)
After.Life stills
(From JoBlo. 6 August 2009, 5:03 AM, PDT)
(From ioncinema. 7 August 2009)
After.Life stills
(From JoBlo. 6 August 2009, 5:03 AM, PDT)
User Comments:
Very intense, if you've had a similar experience. Irritating music, etc.
more (37 total)
Cast
(Credited cast) | Doug Bruce | ... | Himself |
| Rupert Murray | ... | Narrator (voice) |
Additional Details
MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for drug references and brief strong language.
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Runtime:
USA:88 min
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Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
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Fun Stuff
Quotes:
[first lines]
Narrator: How much of our past lives, the thousands of moments we experience, helps to make us who we are? If you took all of these remembrances, these memories, away, what would be left? How much is our personality, our identity, determined by the experiences we have, and how much is already there - pure "us"?
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Narrator: How much of our past lives, the thousands of moments we experience, helps to make us who we are? If you took all of these remembrances, these memories, away, what would be left? How much is our personality, our identity, determined by the experiences we have, and how much is already there - pure "us"?
more
Movie Connections:
References Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)
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Soundtrack:
String Quartet No. 15 in E Flat Minor, op. 44
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Personally I'm a 55 year old white male with a degenerative neurological disorder. In 1993 the randomly occurring damage took out the equivalent of my FAT for those of you who are computer geeks. Presumably all my memories were "there." Just no organized way to find any. Think, of yourself as a library, hit by a flood. The pages of information may still be there. But not even adjacent to each other, much less in the right section of the library.
I'd walked down the hall and had the familiar experience of "what did I come in here for?" But I then realized I couldn't think of _anything_ that I had a "desire" for. I remember thinking, "Do I like blueberry pie?" I couldn't even tell if food in general was something I considered important. All the factual data was there, name, numbers, etc. But nothing about me as an individual. It took five long years to rebuild a replacement personality.
As such, this film was a very intense experience for me. (It did remind me of how much it's possible to love another person.) I would probably preferred to wait and rent it on video. But there were some yahoos (Look up Swift's Gulliver's Travels to understand the term.) who insisted the film was a fake. So I felt obliged to go see it, not just trust the opinion of reviewers like Roger Ebert. My wife and I both strongly disliked the music. As a movie, it's definitely so-so quality. But it's asking a lot to expect that an exceptional event would happen to an exceptional film maker. If Oliver Sacks wasn't a good writer there would be no "Awakenings."
I definitely would recommend that people see the movie if they care about what being an "individual" means. If you have it on DVD, watch the clips of Mr. Bruce before the "event." Get a good sense of that person. Then contrast it with who's there in that body at different times after the event. Note the purity of the love felt by the mother and daughter that first looked after him, while he was still a "child." I've had the experience of doing that with my best friend. The 9-12 months that I helped him put his life back together is the closest I'll ever come to being a parent. I wouldn't trade that joy for anything.
For further reading I would strongly suggest the very entertaining "Phantoms in the Brain" by V. S. Ramachandran and "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" by Oliver Sacks. For exploring the limits of what consciousness is "Dancing Naked in the Mind Field" by Kary Mullis. These are both entertaining and informative, if you're not afraid to find out how little you know.