In “Memories aren’t made of this: amnesia at the movies,” Sallie Baxendale details how “most amnesic conditions in films bear little relation to reality” (Baxendale 1480). This article, published in the medical journal, BMJ, explains how most peoples’ perceptions of amnesia are derived from films and bear little resemblance to the actual medical condition. While Hollywood has used amnesia as a cinematic device, the depictions are far from legitimate and further the misconceptions concerning this disorder. Films such as Finding the Way Home and The Matrimonial Bed demonstrate amnesia victims whose abilities to learn are “left intact” and exhibit few of the “severe everyday memory difficulties associated with this disorder” (Baxendale 1483).
