Unknown White Male (2005) - full transcript

Just imagine waking up tomorrow with no memory of today or any other since the day of your birth. Imagine living without a history, without experience, no relationships, no past troubles. Imagine starting your life over again, making a new set of friends, finding new talents and falling in love for the first time. Imagine what it's like to see the world anew. On the 2nd July 2003 Doug Bruce left his apartment on the Lower East Side at about 8pm. No one knew where he was going. No one knew he'd gone. He turned up, 11 hours later, on the New York subway heading to Coney Island. He had no idea who he was. Unknown White Male is the startling story of a man who, for no apparent reason, lost 37 years of life history, who lost every memory of his friends, his family and every experience he had ever known. This true story follows Doug in the hours and months following his amnesia, as he tries to pierce his life back together and has to discover the world anew. The film dramatically reconstructs those first terrifying hours in Coney Island as Doug wandered around disoriented before asking the police for help and being sent to Coney Island Hospital Psychiatric ward where he was given an identity wrist tag reading 'Unknown White Male'. Doug had nothing to identify him and whilst he discovered after a few hours that he was able to sign his name, no one could read his signature and reveal his name. Unable to leave until someone could identify him, all attention turned to the single phone number in his possession. The woman on the other end, Eva, didn't recognize him. Finally Eva sent her daughter Nadine to investigate. Nadine recognized the man she had recently become friends with, Douglas Bruce, a good looking, English 37 year old wealthy ex-stockbroker and photography student. She took him home. The film recounts the next crazy few weeks as Doug tried to reconstruct some kind of life; re-learning the streets around his apartment, re-meeting his family, re-learning the history of the world and what it feels like to swim in the ocean. It's an overwhelming voyage of discovery as Doug discovers art, music, movies the taste of every kind of different food and much of it was filmed by Doug himself who started recording his re-entry into the world just one week after the amnesia. Doctors were unable to find any physical basis for the amnesia and over the following months we follow Doug as he returns to his photography school where his tutor believes his work has greatly improved. He falls in love with a girl he has just met and slowly re-meets old friends including director Rupert Murray who filmed their first meeting even though he has known Doug for over 15 years. Will they still like one another? Together they travel back to London for a reunion with Doug's oldest friends. One year after the amnesia and his friends in London offer him a toast to his first birthday. Everyone seems sure that Doug has changed since the amnesia. Many people prefer the new Doug, find him more sincere and reflective but others miss the old Doug's edge and cynicism. Yet for the first year and a half, Doug didn't want his memory or his old self back. He was happy with his new life, believed it was possible to live without a past and simply looked forward to his future. But in the last few months all this has begun to change as the full implications of his loss have begun to resonate in his life and Doug has started to question who he really is.

[music, birds chirping]

[filmmaker Rupert Murray]
How much of our past lives

- the thousands of moments we experience -

help 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"?

[industrial noises]



When I found out that an old friend
of mine, Douglas Bruce,

had mysteriously suffered
total amnesia...

losing all knowledge of
the past 35 years of his life...

I decided to make this film.

I wanted to know what had
happened, and why.

How had those close to him
been affected?

What did memory loss feel like?

And how had he coped?

His astonishing story begins
in New York City, on July the 2nd, 2003.

The only thing that I know was that...

I was on the phone to a friend of
mine at eight o'clock at night,

and he said to me that I had no real
plans to go out, and to stay at home.

He came and knocked on my door
at seven o'clock in the morning...

... to see if I wanted to
have breakfast, and...



... he rang and rang
and said there was no one there.

So sometime between
eight o'clock at night...

and seven o'clock in the morning,
I must have left the house.

As to that particular night,
no one knows anything.

[Rupert Murray] Doug had entered
the initial stages of
a particular type of amnesia,

a very rare and bewildering medical
phenomena called the fugue state.

Unaware of himself, he must
have left his apartment

and entered the New York subway system.

[Prof. Daniel Schacter] The fugue state
is a very interesting condition in which

an individual does not have the ability
to retrieve information about their past.

They may not even know who they are...

but what makes it so interesting
is that they're...

they're not aware of that at the time.

They may be traveling...

... or functioning in some way

for hours, days, even weeks

not knowing who they are

but until they're put
into a situation where somehow
this is brought to their attention

they're unaware of it.

At the moment they become aware,

then the fugue state per se is broken

and they realize that they
don't know who they are.

[loud subway noises]

[Rupert Murray] Doug opened his eyes
on a subway train, miles from his home.

[Doug] The first thing I see is...

this scenery which I don't
remember ever having seen at all, ever.

And what I'm seeing is basically
projects and sort of run-down...

old concrete buildings, and...

... there was hardly anybody on the subway

- and that also made me feel very uneasy -

and then I didn't know
where I was going, so...

and suddenly I thought,
where have I just come from?

And this is... it's...

... you really struggle with that and...

and then I suddenly realized, you know,

I didn't know who I was.

I was scared. I mean
it's not anxiety, it's...

you're scared, you're...

in a place where you don't
have any bearings, or...

... um...

You don't know anything. It's...

It's frightening. It's
quite simply frightening.

I had bumps on my head, my head hurt,
it was throbbing.

So I thought okay, well,
I'll get off at the next stop.

And, basically, I was in shorts
and flip-flops and just a t-shirt.

That's all I had.

And a backpack.

And it was cold and raining.

I remember seeing that.

People were speaking Russian.

You're just trying to think of what you
might have been doing or, you know...

Where did I have dinner last night?
Or what was I doing? Or what...

... and nothing comes.
You're just trying to grasp at something.

It's a bit like being in darkness.

And I'm just clutching, you know,

feeling your way around,
trying to find something to hold on to.

And you can't.

[Prof. Schacter]
The character of the amnesia depends on

exactly what happened
to cause that amnesia.

For example, after a head injury,
it would be very common for someone

to be unable to remember
the few minutes prior to the injury.

And then, depending on
the extent of brain damage,

the retrograde amnesia may reach back

a few minutes prior to the event, to
- in extreme cases -

years or decades prior to the event.

However, in the very rare cases,

you may have a
retrograde amnesia that wipes out not only
all individual experiences,

but all knowledge of one's past.

[Rupert] Suddenly Doug became aware
of something over his shoulder...

... the backpack.

He searched its contents...

two sets of keys,
a strange vial of liquid,

mild painkillers,
a Latin-American Spanish phrasebook,

and a map of New York.

But nothing that linked him
to who he was.

With nowhere else to go,

he turned himself in to the police.

[Lt. Peña]
We normally get the runaway -

a lot of runaway kids.

They come back a couple of days later
and we find them roaming the streets.

Or you get the elderly that walk out,
they forget to tell someone.

That's regular... normal.

Someone coming in, losing their memory,

not knowing who they are,
what their name is,

anything at all... that's...

I've never had that and it's very rare.

They say to me, what do you...

... uh... yes, can we help you?
and I said, yeah,

... I don't know who I am.

[Lt. Peña] He didn't have any kind
of identification on him - nothing.

So we thought that he got robbed.

But he didn't get... he wasn't struck.

He doesn't remember being robbed.
He remembers being around.

He doesn't remember being hit at all.

They sort of asked me, you know,
do you take drugs?

and I think, no. I mean, I don't know,
but I don't think so.

You speak with an English accent -
you must be English.

And so they'd flick through the book and
then there's one guy who sees the number

and he goes, yeah,
I think I have something.

[Rupert] At last someone who
might be able to identify him.

And then the officer that had the phone
comes out and I say to him, well,

you know... what...
what happened?

He said, "Well,
she doesn't recognize you."

[Rupert] Doug's hopes were dashed.

Who was the woman on the other
end of the phone?

Why did Doug have her number?

And why didn't she recognize him?

We just didn't know what do,
what to think about what happened to him.

Um, maybe it was just a freak...
a freak case... and...

I guess it was. [laughs]

[Prof. Schacter]
Some degree of memory loss is very common

- whether we want
to call it amnesia or not -

as a result of aging, Alzheimer's
disease, head injury, and so on.

Extreme forms of memory loss
to which we would give the term "amnesia"

where one is so impaired
by the inability, let's say,

toform new memories
in the case of anterograde amnesia

that you can't carry on with your life,
are relatively rare

but occur regularly as a result of
various forms of neurological insult.

Retrograde amnesia,

where someone has a complete wipeout
of their memory for their entire past,

are extremely rare.

Those are the rarest of
all kinds of amnesias.

[Doug] So we go off in the ambulance
to the hospital and...

I walk in the hospital
and that's terrifying because

you've got people who're
cut open everywhere,

people in comas, and on the drips,

drug addicts who are just screaming...

people that are mainly drunks...

everything... I mean
it's the worst process

in the emergency room,
Coney Island Hospital.

[Rupert] Without a name, the nurses wrote
"Unknown White Male" on his chart.

[Doug] They kept asking me my name

and that's really the last thing
that I wanted to be asked

'cause, you know, I didn't know.

[Doctor Vorobyev]
Frankly speaking - first time in my life.

I've never seen such kind of amazing
clinical case like Douglas.

That was known for me
only from movies, actually.

[Rupert] Only from the movies?

Only from movies. And from
my textbooks, of course.

What got me interested in him -
he was a very good-looking man

with a cute little English accent

and very polite -
very, very polite.

A lot of people were coming in just
to look at him because it was so unusual

to have a young handsome man
in the middle of the summer

and not to know
who they are or where they're from.

And he didn't look like he
was an alcoholic, drug addict.

Very neat, very well-dressed...

just totally out of it.

[Prof. Schacter] There are three
major types of long-term memory:

Episodic memory - that's memory for
unique experiences

that happened in a particular time,
in a particular place.

Semantic memory - that's our
general knowledge of the world,

the kind of memory that we acquire
through learning and school...

facts, language,
that sort of thing, concepts.

And the third one
we call procedural memory -

and that's memory for skills,
memory for knowing how to do things,

as opposed to knowing
that something is so.

So learning to ride a bicycle, learning
to play a sport, learning to type,

these are all examples
of procedural memory.

[Rupert] The hospital ran every test.

They found that his blood was
completely clean of drugs or alcohol...

... and that the vial in the
backpack was medicine for a dog.

[Dr. Vorobyev]
Firstly when we have such kind of cases,

we would like to rule out organic causes,

...meaning tumors
or bleeding into the brain.

But as far as I know
the CAT scan was normal

and further evaluation, including
outpatient neurological evaluations,

didn't reveal anything
that would have explained this amnesia.

Some small pituitary tumor was found
but it doesn't explain amnesia.

[Rupert] Amazingly they found a small
tumor growing on Doug's pituitary gland

that had probably been there since birth.

It was not deemed a health risk

and was ruled out as a
possible cause of the amnesia.

The small bumps on his head
could have triggered it

but it was unlikely.

With no conclusive clinical evidence,

he was transferred
to the psychiatric unit.

[Doug] So they moved me to
the psychiatric ward, and...

... and everything gets put into a
locker and everything, and, um...

and then they said, "Can you sign this?"

And I sort of pick up the pen and...

you know, there's this sort of
thing that just goes like this

and I just went brrrr,
like that, and I said

"Look I can fucking...

"I'm somebody! I have a signature!"
you know?

and ... um...

I couldn't believe that they hadn't
asked this earlier of me.

And... so I'm really pissed off
with them, you know? It's...

it's something which is really hard
and I'm trying to...

'cause my signature's a scrawl basically.
It's just totally illegible.

And then I realize that...
that my first letter starts with a "D"

you know, and...

They have been calling me
"Johnny" all day.

They asked me,
what would you want to be called?

And they said,
do you want to be called "John"?

So I said, yeah, okay, that's fine.

And so...

And I suddenly realized and said,
look, you know, I am somebody.

[Prof. Schacter] I think what this
kind of observation tells us -

- that he could sign his name -

- is that it's not a complete wipeout
of memory across the board.

Again we have to come back to the idea
that there are different kinds of memory.

So clearly what's most affected here
is episodic memory

that does seem to be
wiped out across the board.

Procedural memory, or memory for skills
and how to do things

typically, in these cases, is preserved.

[Doug] They said, well,
until somebody identifies you,

you're not going to be released.

So they made it quite clear that
there absolutely no way that...

... I was going to be let out
unless somebody identified me.

So it became more and
more important for me to...

you know... to have somebody find me.

[Rupert] He kept on trying
the telephone number.

He was convinced that Eva
was his only way out.

She must have some idea of who he was.

And I'm looking at this
pink piece of paper,

you know, with Eva Eckert's name on it

and... um...

and I'm trying to remember, you know...

where... why I had written this down.

[Eva]
I got a phone call from a hospital -

Did I know a young man?

I said, well, I know many young men.

So they put him on the phone, and he said,

"Hello I'm so scared -
I'm scared, I'm scared."

That's the only thing he said.

I said, "You don't know who you are you?
You don't know your name?"

"No," he said, "I don't."

I said," Well, do you know who I am?"

He said, "No."

I said, "I'm Eva Eckert."

He said, "I don't know...
Can you please come and pick me up?"

And I would have liked to go

and take the subway to Coney Island,
right there and then,

but I couldn't because I was taking
care of my 90-year old mom

who has dementia and
who can't be left alone.

The voice of this man...

I knew I had heard the voice before.

I didn't know who it was
and who it belonged to.

But I knew I had heard the voice, so...

I called my daughter
who had gone to Long Island

and I said,
"Can you imagine what happened?"

And I told her the story
and she said,

"Mommy, Mommy.

"One of these crazy stories!
Forget about it!"

My mom always gets really involved
in people's lives who she doesn't know

and sometimes to a fault.

And people steal things from her and...
whatever...

She gets way too involved sometimes.

[Eva] I said please,
drive by this hospital

and check if it's somebody you
might even know him because

the voice to me...

I... I don't know if it's not
one of your friends.

What am I supposed to do?

Like, there's nothing I can do from here,
the phone number's busy.

And she's, like, well,
you got to go there, and I was, like...

Mom... [laughs]

I'm three hours away,

it's like the most traffic in the world

to go to this hospital
to see someone who...

who knows?

The only thing that you're sort of hoping
- that you're clinging on to -

is that this person is coming
and is identifying you.

And this pink piece of paper
sort of pans out,

Otherwise, you know, uh...

there's nothing to connect me to
anything ever in the world...

and I'm sort of stuck there.

[Nadine] My mom gave me the number
and I called the number...

and they put Doug on the phone
and I immediately knew who it was.

It was like everything bone in my body.

He was so scared.

And she goes, oh my god, and...

... she says... you know...
she goes... I said...

...she said, "Doug?"
and I said,"I don't know."

And she goes, "Yeah, you're Doug.

"I'm coming to get you in half an hour."

And...

You know, for me that was just, um...

It was, you know, it's like...

I don't know...
I can't really describe the feeling of...

...you know, the relief,
the sense of, you know, belonging...

I don't know... um...

um...

And she... and she said, yeah,
I know who you are -

You have, you know, you have
a great life and everything.

Don't worry. I promise you, I'm going to
be there in half an hour, you know.

My name's Nadine, um... and...

and so... whatever...

This was at about 11:30 or something
and she came with a friend of hers, Kara,

and sort of identified me

and, um...

I mean the relief of the whole thing...
of leaving that place and being in the car

and then seeing those buildings
that I had been past

which were now sort of lit up

and saying that I was
leaving all that... and... um...

[music - Dvorak
Symphony No. 8]

[music continues]

[Rupert]
On the morning of July the 4th,

Douglas Bruce, 35, woke up
to discover that before his amnesia

life had treated him very well.

He found out he'd been
a successful stockbroker

who'd stopped work at 30
to take up photography.

He now lived alone in a large
loft apartment in the East Village

with his three cockatoos and two dogs.

With a video camera, he started
an astonishing record of his new life...

filming his first impressions
of the world around him.

[Doug] So, might as well go
and have a look at the house -

it's where I live.

It's nice.

These are paintings done by Magda.

I said, I thought that they were mine

I'm starting to get used to the fact
that I live here.

Before it was as if a stranger...

I was living in a stranger's place,
a friend or something like that.

Here's the bedroom...

... dream catcher...

... I had intense dreams...

... my stuff...

... my clothes.

It's funny, my clothes, because it feels
as if I'm wearing somebody else's...

um... unless I've worn them twice
or something which I'm used to it, but...

[Rupert] It's hard to imagine
what those first days were like.

Not only Doug's past history,

but his practical knowledge of how
his life actually worked, had been erased.

He was a stranger in his own home
and lost in the streets around it.

He had to discover how
much money he had in the bank,

and find out who his family
and friends were.

Get the f...

- Switch it off!
- Why?

Switch it off!

I am not going to...
Douglas, I am not going to do this.

Give it to me.

You do look great.

This is Magda.

[Rupert] Magda and Doug
had lived together for over eight years

and have remained close friends after
their relationship ended.

She flew back from Poland
as soon as she heard the news.

[Magda]
When I arrived here, I decided to...

I mean, I decided to...
I mean, it's hard to say in that way...

but I kind of took control of
the whole medical situation.

'Cause I probably didn't want
to go to bed

thinking that maybe
he's got a clot in his head

and he might not
wake up tomorrow, be in a coma.

So I really stressed on the fact

that we need to go and have him
thoroughly, you know, checked out.

How do you feel?

How do I feel... today?

Yeah.

I'm sort of confused.

Confused by what?

Well I don't...

I don't remember anything
past last Thursday, so...

But can you explain exactly confusion

- the confusion that you have
right now in your head -

what's confusing you in particular?

Well, what's confusing me is the fact
that I can name cities in Australia...

No, I'm saying in everyday life,
like right now.

- Like right now?
- Yes.

Well, uh...

I'm confused as to why nobody can find
what's wrong with me.

[Prof. Schacter] One of the things that
we're starting to learn about these cases

as more of them have been reported

is that there's just an
incredible amount of variability.

You can't say
that there's any one picture.

Some of them recover in a few days,

some that have been tracked have not
recovered their memory for years.

[Rupert] Doug's neurologist,
his endocrinologist, and his psychiatrist

all had their different theories

but still no one could give him
a definitive answer.

And he was growing tired
of the endless examinations.

I've had two head MRI's,

- I've had one MRI on...
- [Magda] Douglas... Douglas...

on my pituitary gland

I've had two CAT scans, one CAT scan
on my head, one on my pituitary gland...

- And you're fine.
- I've had 26 blood tests...

- You're fine.
- ...and they're not showing anything

so we have information that says
that I've... that...

- Your brain is fine,
you're not going to die.
- ...that my brain is functioning

but nobody knows why my...
yeah, fine... fantastic.

So I'm a bit confused about that.
What's the problem?

- Well, there's nothing...
- Isn't that something to be
confused about?

Well, psychogenic amnesia occurs

in cases where people lose
some aspect of their memory

and there's no known
cause in the brain,

or no cause in the brain
can be indentified.

So it's then assumed to be attributable
to some sort of psychological cause -

as opposed to a direct damage
to the brain.

The brain... brain function
must be changed in some way,

in psychogenic amnesia, for it to occur,

but it's not thought to be the result of

actual direct, physical damage
to the brain.

For many researchers

they're less interested in
studying those cases

because there's not the opportunity
to learn about normal memory function

or how the brain relates to memory.

There's also the worry
for many researchers

that in cases of psychogenic amnesia

that the amnesia may be,
in some sense, malingered.

By malingering we mean someone
is possibly capable of remembering,

but prefers not to remember.

In an extreme form, is
out-and-out faking the amnesia.

[Nadine] I know, but I have to...
in the two hours...

... I have to leave,
I have to go home...

I have to bring...
I have to get my junk...

... get my...

[Rupert] Nadine and Doug
had been on a few dates together

and then they broke up.

Two days later, her mother Eva got
the call from Coney Island Hospital.

So we have less than an hour.

People thought that it was a total scam...

that he... it was like some weird guy

that I've met and gone
on a couple dates with

and then broken up with,
or whatever, and then...

... had invented some malady and...

... whatever!

I remember that I had had coffee
with him once with Nadine,

that she had introduced him to me

but I must say that I was
a little bit suspicious.

I was always saying to that
do you think he really doesn't remember?

And with other friends, you know,
that met Doug

and we were all kind of wondering
if it could really happen.

It's something that you don't want
to really accept,

that it could happen
to all of us potentially.

[Doug] Hi, Eva!

[Doug laughs]

What?

Where is the strainer?
Where is the strainer?

[dog barks]

There's no strainer?

[Doug] No, there's a strainer.
What kind of stainer do you need?

He was giving me this hug that was...

I think it when he gave me the hug,

I was kind of thinking no,
he's not making this up.

[Doug] I'm having so much fun.

[Eva] I feel very strong for him now.
I really love him.

He's my son.

[laughs]

Like he's almost, you know,
my son... yeah.

[Nadine] The morning afterwards,

when we brought him home, he woke up

and...

It was really weird 'cause I didn't know
that much about his family,

and he didn't really even
ask about his family

and he just didn't want
to talk to anyone on the phone.

He woke up really early,
and he was like,

"Where's my mother?"

And it was... it was so...

I had to tell him that his
mother had passed away.

And I started crying
and he started crying

and we were both kind of there, and...

that was a really, really tough...

that was probably the toughest thing...

... that I had to tell him

was...

... you know...

Because we've been trying
to contact his sisters

and trying to contact people

and we couldn't, and then...

it was like this weird afterthought,
like...

"Do I have a mother? Where's my mother?"

[music - Karsh Kale
Home"]

[Rupert] Doug had been
at his mother's bedside

when she was dying of cancer
in Paris some years earlier.

His father and younger sister
now lived in Spain.

Doug took a terrifying first flight
to come face-to-face

with his closest family,
not knowing anything about them.

He filmed his first trip,
and then I visited the family later

to find out what it was like
to meet him for the very first time.

[music]

[crowd noises]

There were just hoards of people there.
I mean, it was so scary...

Marina said later that I had...
she was afraid to come up to me

because my eyes were just popping out
of my head, and that I was just looking...

you know, around like this, and...

and there were people with signs
everywhere, and I thought that maybe...

maybe I'd have my...

my father would have a sign
for me or something, and...

people were - because I had
the video camera - were saying,

hey, uh, you know, this way

and then I thought, well,
maybe that's my father and...

it just didn't make sense,
and just so many people,

and I was tired,
and I had the dog and...

[crowd noises]

When he came out from the airport,
he was filming

so he was filming our sort of initial
reaction of how do we say hi to him.

Do we hug him?

Or was he going to feel that's too much of
an invasion of his personal space? Or...

It's all these things
that you're trying to deal with,

he was sort of
filming the whole thing, and...

Yeah, it was just it was very difficult.

I see times haven't changed -
still video camera in hand.

How was the trip?

Douglas is definitely one of
the most important people in my life

and so very nervous that he...

just when he saw me that he wouldn't
feel that sort of closeness or just...

"Yeah, she's my sister, cool"
but, you know, nothing more.

She's really sweet, you know? She's...

I'm really happy to have her as a sister.

She sort of looks nothing
like me. She's...

dark and with black hair

and creased eyes

and a big smile.

She's either smiling or frowning...

there's no sort of
in-between expressions, it seems.

And...

I don't know...

And then I met my father and
my father's not at all what I expected.

Hi, Douglas.

Well, there I was playing
the loving father, you know.

Douglas, you know,
I am your father. I love you.

I am always there, you know.
Whatever you need let me know, whatever.

And he looked at me
with his usual big grin

and he said,
"Well, it's nice to meet you." [laughs]

I felt that this was, um...

a moment of grace, if you like.

... and...

dark hair and glasses and

he was wearing this yellow t-shirt...

... which he hasn't taken off since!

I mean, today's Tuesday

and he's been wearing that
same t-shirt ever since, every day!

So every picture
that I've ever taken of him,

he's wearing that yellow t-shirt

and people are just gonna think
I took it all in one morning

or one day or something.

But it's over several days

and maybe he's gonna wear it till
the end of the vacations. I don't know.

It was one of the few times in my life

- I don't wanna say it bragging -

but when I was frightened.

Um... I just didn't know
what I should be doing.

And, um...

I just did my best.

There aren't many cases like this.

I mean if there was some track record
of others, or something, but you know,

this is apparently a very rare occurrence.

So anyway he was here
and, um... he rested.

That's what's what it came to.

But then I began to observe also that,
in subtle ways, possibly, he had changed.

He had always been a very
outgoing sort of character...

and fairly sure of himself, and...

I always wanted it that way,
as a father, anyway...

that's what you want your son to be.

But now he had become sort of
reflective, if that's the right word.

We began to discuss philosophy.

Um...

to be precise,
existentialist philosophy.

And he showed interest in it.

Now this is something
which Douglas [laughs]

never ever showed an interest in.

[Doug] Do you think, having seen me
for three days that, um...

that my core is the person
that I was before?

Or you believe that I am
a blank piece of paper that...

from which I can, you know,

become the person who
I will be from my actions?

But does it, does it worry you?

No, not at all. I'm just
asking you for your opinion.

[Father] You are a stranger as
you are to me, because you...

...you have no relationship

to all the things which we knew
together, good and bad, you know?

Me and your mother
formed your character in some ways.

- Right?
- [Doug] Right.

So now, I don't think I could do that.

Well, I mean it would be wrong.

You know, you're a mature man.

And, um...

but one who has a chance, you know -

looking at all this and saying,
well, what does my...

as you say, what does my instinct say?

And if you're not sure,
you could always ask me.

I can always give you an opinion.

There's nothing wrong with, um...

with asking questions, if you're unsure.

And who better, if you think about it,
to give these answers than your family?

Right, but, I mean, I'm
not disputing what you're saying, but...

my family might be intending
to do well for me

but it might not be the right judgment.

What makes their judgment right
over somebody else's?

[music - Mascagni
Cavalleria Rusticana]

[Marina] In some ways
he's exactly the same,

and in other ways,
he's a completely changed person.

He's a lot more open.

He's a lot more emotional,
in the sense that he shows emotions.

But I think maybe he's lost a little bit
of his spark that he used to have.

But then maybe it wasn't a spark,

it was maybe more of an edge whereas
now he's a lot more relaxed, I think,

maybe a lot more comfortable
with who he is.

It's strange because until recently

I'd gotten used to the idea
and it was fine

and in the last couple of months,
I've started to really really miss him.

Miss the old Doug?

Yeah.

[music]

[Rupert] The final member
of Doug's immediate family

is his other sister, Christina.

I traveled ahead to see her
on the day they met for the first time.

[Christina] The one thing I did find
very strange is that

he hasn't asked anything about
the past in our family, because, um...

my sister is much younger than us
and my mother died,

so I'm probably the closest link really

to his younger years
and he hasn't asked me anything

he hasn't seemed at all interested
which I find really, really weird.

Of course you can't possibly say
what you would be like

but I think I would be...

a bit curious myself
if that happened to me...

about my childhood and, you know...

So I want to speak to him about it.

Hiya.

Oh, hi!

[muffled laughter]

I'm sorry, I just didn't recognize you
with sunglasses.

Yeah, there's definitely a connection.

I have definitely a connection
with Christine.

I felt that for sure.

I could feel there's something, I mean.

I felt it with Marina
when I first saw her

and it goes beyond, you know,

experiences that you can
remember with people.

There's something chemical.

[Christina] Well, I thought you were
never happy working.

You were never happy doing that
because really...

I don't know - you interested?

- Did you want some...?
- Yeah!

And, um...

I guess you were quite driven
to making money for whatever reason.

But you're never happy.
You were so stressed out.

You'd be like...
you'd come back from after work

You'd be pacing around
the kitchen for about...

It would take ages
to calm down, whatever...

Wow.

Yeah. Um... and...

... and then I think as soon as you
thought you could, you stopped work.

It was great talking to Christina

because she's very matter-of-fact
about everything, and...

She explained a lot of things
so when I explained to her it was uh...

... well, it's thought that maybe
what's happened

is due to a psychological trauma

she thought it was maybe
something to do with my mother.

[Christina]
When our mother died you...

I think it was really difficult,
really hard for you.

I think it really...

but you never would talk about it...

at all.

And you were around when...
you know, when...

when she was really ill in Paris

because she spent
the last couple of months...

she went back to Paris.

And that was already hard. And then
you were just really shut in, and...

You know, we used to joke
that you were my mother's favorite.

But you were her little boy.
She adored...

I mean I know she loved me,
and Marina was different -

she was the baby of the family.

But Douglas was like the Golden Boy.

The first child died
when it was a few days old.

So it must have been... well,

I can't imagine what it
must have been like.

So then she was...
and then she had you.

[music]

It's possible that

you know, that there were
certain traumatic experiences

that happened in my past life and...

my... you know... my brain didn't...

or me, or whatever

didn't want to deal with it anymore, and
it shut down in order to block it out.

When I do remember, I'm...

I'm apprehensive of the fact that
I'm going to remember things that are...

quite worrying, quite, um...
quite traumatic really.

And I know, you know,
I know they're out there.

[keys jangling]

[Rupert] Doug could only hear about
the experiences of his life, secondhand.

His past now belonged
to everyone else but him.

The only place he could get close
to the things he had done

- on his terms -

was in a storeroom in Paris

where many of his past belongings
had been kept.

[mechanical toy whirring]

"Douglas Bruce and guest -

"Mr. and Mrs. Jack Baines

"request the pleasure of your company

"at the marriage
of their daughter, Michelle Rachel

"to Mr. Nicholas Charles Terrace."

[to Rupert] Do you know who that is?
-Yeah.

[Doug] Every little square inch
alludes to some new personal memory,

whether it was clothing
that I might have worn or...

shells that I picked up somewhere or...

those two lances up there,
or these paintings.

And it's not open
to somebody's interpretation

or of events, which is normally
what I have to deal with.

This is actually what is
and what was.

There's no, you know...
everything is tangible here.

That head is that head.

It's not, you know... somebody
saw it a particular way or whatever.

And so, you know...

ultimately this is a room of...
complete truth.

It's funny because I used to
hoard things away, it seems,

whereas now I don't have
any importance for stuff like that.

[music - The Protection Company
Kimeaa]

[Rupert] Why should Doug be
obsessed with the past

when what lay in front of him
was a voyage of unbelievable discovery?

Doug now saw the world
with the eyes of a newborn baby...

but appreciated it
with the mind of an adult.

[Doug] I would be aware of everything -
everything would interest me, you know -

- everything!
Everything was totally new.

[music - Stravinsky
Petrushka]

It was crazy, I mean it was
completely, completely crazy.

The first month in New York
was just totally, totally crazy.

Just watching the relationship
between a guy and a girl,

or the way people people would
express themselves by the way they dress,

or their mannerisms, or...
um... everything!

I mean, you know,
everything was totally new, basically.

Chocolate mousse, I think?

Or did I just hear about that?

[Doug] I remember actually eating my
first chocolate mousse for the first time.

And the strawberries.
They said, "Here..."

Because they - Kara and Nadine -
took great thrills in,

"Okay, well, look here -

"these are blueberries,
these are strawberries...

"Let's go out,
let's go to a restaurant..."

Italian, Cuban, French... everything.

...trying to discover it all.

[wind]

You know, when I went
to the ocean for the first time

there was not a cloud in the sky.

It was a beautiful orange light

and the beach was completely empty

and then you get to the ocean

and the ocean was just crazy
the colors -

and I was overwhelmed I started to cry.

It wasn't so much the beauty of it,
it was over-...

"ahh!"... [unintelligible]
I had difficulty in breathing.

I was just so overwhelmed.

I put my feet in like that
and just the sense of it,

just the energy rushing onto my legs,

I don't know how to describe it.

It was just this
extraordinary energy...

... that was just going around
because the waves were just breaking and

surf that was just breaking
all around my knees and...

it just felt absolutely amazing -

- the texture of it -
and then I dived in

I didn't know if I could swim

and you know, the moment I realized
that I could instinctively...

it was fantastic.

[music]

[Doug]
The first time I went to the Met...

... I mean, it just blew me away.

[music]

You know, I'm thrilled because
I do a history class at school

and it's enabled me to find out
the last 500 years

of what's been going on in the world.

And that's like, a great help.
Yeah, I want to know everything.

[music]

[Rupert] With everything fresh in his eye,
Doug saw no clichés or stereotypes.

Only originality.

[music]

[Prof. Schacter]
There are some aspects of memory

that are shared among individuals -

- our general knowledge.
Psychologists call that semantic memory.

Your semantic memory, my semantic
memory might have a lot of overlap.

But our episodic memories probably
have very little overlap

because my specific experiences

have been very different
from yours and from everyone else.

So it's that episodic memory system

that I think is tied to our
uniqueness and our individuality.

[Doug] It's snowing!

[Rupert]
Doug filmed the first time he saw snow...

and fireworks.

[explosions]

[Doug] Snow!

[street noises, sirens]

[Nadine]
I do remember the months afterwards

when things kind of settled down

and I was back in school
and he was in school

he'd call me and be like,
"I discovered the best band!"

and I'd be like,
"Oh what are they called?"

and he's like,
"The Rolling Stones!"

Oh! You know...

I actually introduced Doug
to smoking weed.

I got him stoned
for the first time!

Can I tell that on camera?

That was the funniest thing.

We were... I was like, come on.

I was convinced
he was gonna get his memory back.

[Doug] This picture here
is a bit of a mystery...

... no idea what it is.

Looks beautiful, though.

It just doesn't seem
to belong in the flat.

I don't know, maybe it's not mine.

And that's me,
with two of my best friends.

I think, uh...

Pete Small and James Philips, I think.

Jim Philips

I spoke to Pete the other day...

He's nice.

Was it a wedding?

[church bells]

[Rupert] Doug had spent
fifteen years of his life in England,

but he had no recollection

of his time here
or the friends he had made...

...including me.

The last time we saw Doug

was at a friend's wedding,
three months before his amnesia.

Eleven months later
and we still hadn't seen him...

and we were starting to worry.

We didn't know what was going on
or what we should do.

I went to see Pete,
who used to be Doug's closest friend.

[Pete] It's very difficult to know
exactly what goes through his head

'cause, you know,
he's just forgotten everything.

Sometimes I'd be talking to him...
initially, it was like...

Last conversation we had
was talking about Chelsea Football Club

just after they'd been bought
by the Russian guy.

You know, and he was massive Chelsea.

And then the next time I speak to him,
after he's lost his memory...

I rang him up...

and Magda had written
a little sort of paragraph

on everybody he knew
from all around the world

in case somebody rang him up.

And I rang him up,
knowing that he's lost his memory,

and I've just gone, "Hi, Doug,
this is Pete Small, you don't know me."

He's going, "Yeah,"

and he's obviously reading it
off the piece of paper

There's on Pete Small:
"Chelsea Football Club"

and he's finished the sentence
by going, "...whoever the hell they are."

You know, and that's the
first conversation I've had with him

and I'm like...

it's sort of suddenly you realize,

yeah, he really has lost his memory
'cause he wouldn't, you know...

unless he's really
the greatest bullshitter in the world.

You could just tell by the voice...

"Who is... what is this
Chelsea Football Club?"

[Rupert]
You haven't seen him in person?

I haven't seen him, no.

I should really go out and see him.

I was gonna go
at the end of last year but it's...

it's difficult. I mean that's the big step
- that's the big one.

[Rupert] I asked Doug
if he wanted to make this film.

I wanted to bring him back to London

and record the emotional reunion
with his old friends...

Yeah

... but I wasn't sure how he'd react.

Yeah, but... well I'll tell you
why it's interesting...

It's interesting 'cause, um...

you know, 'cause you and I
used to be friends.

If I came for that weekend,
would you mind if I filmed what we did?

Okay...

... excellent.

[music]

[Rupert] I'd met Doug through
a large group of mutual friends.

We were all in our early 20's

with everything to play for
and nothing to lose...

... or so we thought.

[music]

The Doug I remember was fast-living.

He was generous with his cash
and had a penchant for monkey bikes

- two tone -

and expensive champagne.

He was a compelling character...

slightly eccentric with a vaguely
arrogant air and a sharp tongue.

Here... come here.
- What?

I would like to introduce you to somebody.

[speaking French]

[Rupert] These home movie clips -

- a few snatched glimpses
out of an entire lifetime -

hardly tell you anything
about who he really was.

How can you reconstruct a man

from moments distorted by the camera
and who was behind it?

[Pete] What do you want, Doug?

I want $600 US.

What are you gonna do
if doesn't give it to you?

Tell us, tell the camera
what you're gonna do to him.

Six hundred things.
I'll then go and cash his ticket -

- so that will probably be okay -

- and then he can sort himself out.

Excellent news.

That's the way I look at it.

Means I can sell his ticket on from Miami
'cause we can both be in the cash.

No something more all along the lines
of cashing his ticket

and maybe upgrading
myself to first class on the way home.

What's that, fat boy?

Ugh...

Fifty-four hundred meters,
Base Camp Everest...

[panting]

Phew!

Every breath is like...

- There's not enough oxygen...
- No...

- It's like somebody's just...
- Someone's holding your chest tight.

Yeah...

It's like having had...

a tequila and Southern Comfort bender.

Don't make me laugh... it hurts!

[laughter]

[wind]

[Rupert] To tell you the truth,
I was quite scared.

How much had he changed over
the last eight months?

[buzzer]

Who was the person
I was about to meet?

[intercom] Hello?

Doug? It's Rupert.

[door buzzes]

[elevator dings]

- Hello
- Doug

- Nice to see you.
- Nice to see you, too.

How are you doing?

- I'm doing good.
- You're all right?
- Yeah

- I've just got to get
a couple of bags out...

- Is that all you came with?
- Huh?

- That's it?
- Yeah, that's quite a lot isn't it?

Well, um...

Yeah, I don't need much.
I've just got my little camera...

- So, yeah... so what does that do?
- Huh?

[Rupert] Those first moments
were uncomfortable.

I started to ramble...

Talking about my cameras was easier than
asking him, "Do you know who I am?"

Of course he didn't -
he'd lost his memory.

I was a complete stranger.

The more we talked, the less
I recognized the person in front of me.

Our 15 years of history
didn't mean anything

We had to start all over again.

I felt there was some kind of rapport -

he looked and sounded just like
the man I used to know,

but it was obvious
something had changed.

Would I like the new Doug?

Would he like me?

[Doug] I'm meeting you for the first time.
I have no kind of background or anything

to go by other than
our phone conversations.

So it's really an instinctive thing.
Either you're feeling it or you're not.

And there's good friends
that I've had in the past

who I've met them and
I just don't don't get them.

I don't feel it and so I don't
hang out with them.

Which for them it's... it's tough and...

- Yeah. It must be tough for them.

Um, I suppose... I don't know.

Well that's, you know... that's obviously
one of the more disturbing things,

or worrying things for me
about the situation is that, um...

After the accident, I felt
much more comfortable

with people who didn't know me.

And it's basically
the idea of expectancy...

... that somebody's expecting me to be
the person that they knew

- which in a way, I probably am anyway -

but for me it's...
it's a completely new start.

I was very confused because I no longer
knew the person across the table.

It was difficult to feel any emotion.

It was almost as if the person
I'd cared about

wasn't in the room.

And I was amazed
by what he had to say next.

The longer that it goes on,
the less I care if my memory comes back.

And if anything I feel
slightly apprehensive

about when it does come back

because how is it going to come back?
And what am I going to think?

And so I'm thinking that...

... that my mind isn't actually
wanting it to come...

I mean, not wanting it to come back

but there's no pressure on it
to come back, and so...

... maybe it will, maybe it won't.

I don't care too much anymore.

[Magda]
For people that know him very well,

this situation right now
is very strange

because, for me, um...
it's sort of...

by getting used to who he is now,

he's sort of, like,
undermining his previous self.

We see each other and we, you know...
we spend time together...

and we hang out, and... um...

and I'm sort of
getting used to the new Doug

which sort of erases the old Doug for me.

And it's very weird

because that sort of has an effect
on my own history, too

which seems to be
undermined at this point

because I don't think, like...
then who was...

Where is the person
that I've had a history with?

[Rupert] That person now only existed
in our memories or on film.

I'd brought over some old home movies

almost to prove to Doug
that we were old friends.

I was curious to see what effect
it would have on him.

[music from computer]

- Who's that?
- Well who do you think it is?

Mr. Small. [laughs]

That's Pete?

- Oh, wow.
- That's you.

- That's Rupert.
- Oh, wow.

Where we're going looks like
that says "lady salesmen"?

- That's you.
- Wow.

[Magda bursts out laughing]
That's you! Ha, ha, ha!

That's you!

[still laughing]
It's excellent. It's so good!

Wow.
[Magda laughs]

-But, I mean, I really...
- Can I see it again?

[music - Dandy Livingstone
Rudy, A Message to You]

♪ Stop your running about ♪

♪ It's time you straighten right out ♪

♪ Stop your running around ♪

♪ Making trouble in town ♪

♪ Aha-a, Rudy ♪

♪ A messsage to you, Rudy ♪

♪ A messsage to you ♪

[Doug]
It makes me feel sad watching this.

I think it's a bit like looking at
an old film or something

and seeing something you like
about that film

and wanting to...

you know... wishing for instance
that you lived at that time.

Do you see what I'm saying?

And here it's odd because I'm actually
in the pictures and...

but I don't really feel any
direct connection to it at all.

I don't feel any connection
to this character because...

I mean, I don't feel
that I look like that and

I can't identify dressing
like that or...

And I don't know anybody else in it.

You know I haven't met any of them.

So this is, you know, it's just really
like viewing a movie.

I find it sad, you know,
just watching this.

You know... it's these
little moments here, for instance,

when Pete walks around here
into this supermarket

and he gives that little
sort of nod of the head

like that and some kind of expression.

It's sort of these little mannerisms

you probably know really well from him

or you would expect that from him
and, you know, I don't.

I don't know anything.

[birds chirping]

[Rupert] Dislocated from his past...

had Doug now become
a completely new person?

Or was he the same person,

greatly altered by the defining
experience of his life?

A question I couldn't really answer

but one that philosophers have been
wrestling with for centuries.

[Mary Warnock] I think there's no doubt
that Douglas is the same man

in the sense that you could
- someone could -

trace his existence
from birth to where he is now.

But he wouldn't feel responsible for
what he did before his memory loss.

And so, in that sense, I think that he
could be said not to be the same person.

But it is true, I think,
that our distinctions...

... our talking about
who is a person and who is not,

whether people dispute whether
an embryo is a person and so on...

this is actually a matter of the way
we use language in normal cases.

and when we get something
which is very rare, very abnormal,

then we don't quite know
what to do with our language -

how to fit what's happened into the
categories that we're accustomed to using.

So I think we have to acknowledge that
we don't quite know what to say.

But I would on the whole
go along with John Locke and say...

certainly the same man...

questionably the same person.

[music - My Robot Friend
Way Down]

[Rupert]
Given a new lease of life

Doug seemed to be more articulate
than before -

more serious, more sensitive,
more focused...

as if his senses had been sharpened
by a rebooting of the system.

[music]

[Doug] Coming back in September,
I needed to have a purpose in life

and photography gave me that -
going to school and everything.

So I really tried to devote
as much time as possible...

and I've obviously got a lot
to catch up on

compared to everybody else.

At school, I think it's
a really important thing for me

because you know it gets me
up to speed for a lot of things.

I mean, people say to me that I'm
much more into photography now

than I was before.

for sure...

and for me it was definitely a thread.

It gave me a purpose of life.

[Rupert] Prior to his memory loss,

Doug had been studying photography
for two years.

In order to rejoin the course,

he had to relearn all of those skills
in just two months.

[Stephen Frailey] We first needed
to make sure

that he was ready
to go into his third year.

So he quickly amassed all those skills

with the help of some of our faculty.

And that, in and of itself,
was really interesting,

the fact that he was such a quick learn.

It was almost as if some
of these procedures and processes

were familiar to him
in some completely recessed way.

A creative sensibility for the most part
- as far as conventional wisdom goes -

is formed by our memory -
is formed by our past.

It's the accumulation of our experience.

If you wipe that slate clean,

how do you develop a sensibility?

How do you figure out what it is
that's relevant for you?

If you're going to pursue your art
with any sort of depth -

- with any kind of resonance -

how do you figure out
what your subject is?

I think that his work
has gained enormous depth.

He's basically always been
interested in portraiture.

I think the portraiture that he was
making was problematic...

-ideologically problematic -

and I think that soon after his accident
he made some amazing images

very simple, very austere portraits

of some people that he was close to,
or becoming close to,

or perhaps had a relationship with
before his accident.

And there was a sadness
in the portraits

and there was a sense of depth

and also a sense of emptying out
in the portraits

that I thought was a surrogate
for what he was experiencing.

In a sense, I thought that
they were self-portraits.

Come on, Gaija.

I'm obviously nervous
about going to London.

I'm going to meet friends
who've known me for 20 years

and some who I'm quite
close with, it seems.

and...

you know, I could be sitting
in a restaurant next to them

and wouldn't know who they were...

I always sort of fear the expectations

and almost feel that I have
an obligation to them as well...

...morally.

[Pete]
Known each other for 20 odd years...

going back to, probably... 1986.

He's definitely been scared
to see other people

and I mean... and where...
where it's similar.

I mean if I wasn't scared
about meeting Doug

then I would've met him already.

Although he's coming over and he's
meeting us, it's taken so long...

and from what I've heard,
what people said,

that he doesn't actually worry too much
about the fact that he's lost his memory.

So it's not like he's desperate to
reacquaint himself with his past

and his past relationships.

So it's almost going to be harder,
I suppose,

the meeting somebody fresh

because there's that knowledge that there
was some sort of relationship beforehand.

But for him it must be like,
"Why did I hang out with these guys?"

"What's so interesting about them?"

He's got to make the decisions
out of that...

...as he gets to know his past...

which bits of re-embrace,
and which bits to discard.

And in some ways he's quite lucky

that he's in a position
where he can make that decision

'cause if he suddenly meets someone
he doesn't like them any more, you go,

"Sorry, I'm not the same person I was.
Piss off."

It'd be great.

[Rupert] Before the reunion
in a local pub,

I took Doug on an impromptu
sightseeing trip.

I don't know whether it's stranger
for him... or for me.

It's much more beautiful that New York...
that's for sure.

Well, it's a bit like
the Upper East Side, a bit.

[cabbie] This is Buckingham Palace
coming up on the left, yeah?

[Rupert] Is it? Brilliant.

[cabbie] These people are here
because it's Changing of the Guard.

[Doug] I can't believe how many people
come to see. What's going on?

- [Rupert] It's Changing the Guard, man.
- [Doug] Which means what?

The different guys...?

- These soldiers come down here, and then
they change with the ones over there...

- and then the other ones come back...
- And these are the guys
that guard the Palace?

But there aren't any soldiers!

Oh, hello...

[shouting commands]

Hang on - so wait...
let me get this straight -

I mean, just check out
how many people there are here!

Look at that...

It's like a gas key picture.

[Rupert]
That's, um... Westminster Abbey.

And um...

[cabbie]
We'll go past 10 Downing Street now.

What's Downing Street?

[Rupert] That's where the Prime Minister,
- whoever it may be -

runs the country from.

- So he lives there.
- Yeah, he lives there.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer
lives next door.

[Doug] Ah... it's a beautiful city,
I mean what I've seen of it.

And you know what it reminds me of? It
reminds me of those opening scenes in...

in that film "28 Days Later."

That's the only kind of association
I can make with it.

But it's... what's amazing is,
you know, well...

[Jim] It is...

I don't know... I suppose I've been
looking forward to it. It's gonna be odd.

It's gonna be odd, but I suppose...

I haven't really thought about
what's gonna happen really.

[crowded pub noises]

[Pete] All right, mate - how you doin'?

- Good to see you, buddy.
- [Jim] All right, Dougie.

Take a seat. What are you drinking?

Um... I don't know..

- Take a seat. Welcome back to England.
- ...whatever you guys are drinking.

[Doug] So it's sort of overwhelming

You good?

- Yeah, it's just...
- Knackered.

Yeah... a bit jet lagged.

I think I'm really in need of food
more than anything else.

You look just like in your picture anyway.

I wasn't sure if I was
going to recognize Jim because...

- He talks like a fat one. [laughs]
- In the picture you had your...

[Pete] Your whole relationships with
people are built up

on frameworks and
conversational references

that you've built up over those years.

And once you take those references away

I find it very difficult
to communicate with someone.

Doug and I shared a love of cricket

and one in particular was he was
obsessed with West Indian cricket.

and we used to go to test matches
in the Caribbean.

And I sent him an email and I said,

I look forward to reintroducing you
to the ways of West Indian cricket.

The email I got back said...

"What is West Indian cricket?
Is it a drink or some kind of insect?"

And I was like, where do you start?
I don't know.

- Ah - Chazzle
- He's 21 or something..

[Doug] Because I'm normally in New York
around girls most of the time

it was a strange experience to be
in a sort of "lad" environment.

[laughter] Yeah, yeah...

[Doug] Yeah, you do look similar -
that's true.

I just feel 20 years older
than I am now...

... all of a sudden.
Which is really odd.

You know - he's lost
all his cynicism and...

Which was a good, you know,
that was a good trait.

It wasn't a bad cynicism -
it was like...

a hilarious sort of sarcastic sort of
outlook on life and everything.

but flippant and... yeah... whatever.

I was very moved. I mean I can see
that they love me a lot and...

I think that, you know, that they all have
trouble saying it because everything...

... anything emotional seems to be
pretty repressed amongst them...

I think anyone in the
English culture, generally, it seems...

[laughter]

I think lots of people were...
Cheers

- Happy one year... Happy first birthday.
- Cheers... cheers, guys.

If that isn't the maddest thing I've ever
said to you, I don't know what is.

[Rupert] It was
an uncomfortable meeting,

but really good to see everyone together.

On the surface it looked like
things were back to normal

but deep down, we knew they weren't.

When Pete's wife Alessia arrived,

I wondered that maybe Doug had more
in common with Edward, his new godson,

than he did with us.

Go and meet your godson.

Wow.

Check that out.

There you go!

[music - Pryda
Animal]

[Jim]
I want him to get his memory back

but he doesn't,
so there's a bit of conflict.

But as long as he's happy
that's cool, but...

I mean, if you ask anybody
who knows him,

you definitely want him
to suddenly ring you up and go...

"Hey - I'm back!"

[Charlie] He lives in New York -
I live over here.

But I don't suspect for a second that
it's gonna develop to how it was before.

I mean, he doesn't remember...

... doesn't remember me,
doesn't remember other people

but he's still Doug.

[Doug] They're great... I mean,
I like them a lot.

They seem like good people.

And I have no problems about
seeing them again, hanging out.

If they want to come and see me,
that's cool - it's no problem.

Have a great summer, and...

and I'll see you...

well, I'll speak to you this week
from New York or something.

Okay?

Do you want me or Narelle
to come with you?

[Alessia crying]

[Rupert]
Everyone from Doug's past

had to accept that
the old friendship had been lost...

and we'd all have to make the effort
to become close friends again.

[Alessia] Thank you for coming.

Hey, it's no problem.

Thank you for coming.

I'm so proud of you.

Yeah... oh, come on,
I'll walk you back.

[Rupert] Before he came to London,

Doug had met and fallen in love
with an Australian girl called Narelle.

Now we had some serious competition
on our hands.

[Narelle] It's true, what I am saying.

- [Doug] Do you know where we are?
- I'm always right.

Yeah, I do - we're at the Ritz.

[Rupert] Now this is first love.

[Doug] Right, I mean, yeah,
the first time I felt real, um, yeah...

real love.

It's intense - I mean,
it's all-consuming, it's, um...

I don't think of anything else
when I'm with her, it's, um...

It's just amazing.
I'm so happy to have met her.

She's the most wonderful, loving,
caring person, funny, beautiful...

[Narelle]
Well, to be honest,

when I met him for the first time,
I didn't know.

It's not like she introduced me...

"Hi, this is Doug, the guy with amnesia."

It wasn't anything like that.

It's not something that
I would have ever noticed.

[Rupert] So how long have you two
been going out for then?

Eleven weeks and four days.

[Narelle] If you're asking me
to pinpoint why I love Doug...

because he's a very genuine, loving,
beautiful, wonderful person...

and... he has no faults...

- [Doug laughs]
- ...yet.

[music - Sibelius
"Valse Triste"]

[Doug's father] He seems to have
slowly begun to reintegrate himself

with his friends
- which is important -

and with his family,
which makes me very happy.

[Marina] I think he's, you know,
he's found himself.

It sounds a bit tacky, but...

I think he has, and he's
built himself a little life.

And he's a lot more confident and
comfortable with who he is now

than when he first came. I think it was
maybe a bit too much for him...

... to take in at once anyway.

[music]

[Marina] He's had the great opportunity
to reinvent himself

and become
a completely different person.

And not many of us get that chance.

You know, start afresh and...

put behind all the things
we wish we'd done differently

or wish we hadn't done at all.

And every day is a new day and brings
new things, and he learns from it.

You know, we tend not to do that. We get
sort of stuck in our daily routine and...

... and we don't learn daily.

[father] The family has always
felt that, you know...

misfortune will always come
in a lifetime.

And you have to know how to treat it.

[strange electronic music]

[Rupert] After seeing his family,
Doug went surfing in Biarritz.

Out on the waves, the swelling
on his pituitary gland -

- first spotted by the doctors
in Coney Island -

ruptured.

He suffered excruciating headaches
and blinding flashes of light.

The French doctors recommended
he return home to his neurosurgeon.

In New York, the scans indicated that
Doug was not in any immediate danger,

but he had to wait six months
for his final checkup.

If the tumor had regrown,
he would need brain surgery.

[doctor] Hello, how are you?

- Hello.
- Nice to see you.

- Good to see you.
- Nice to see you, too.

Do you guys have a new MRI,
or you had it here at Sinai?

- I had it here, two days ago.
- Two days ago, okay.

I didn't bring my old films.
I forgot this morning - I'm sorry.

That's fine.

- And how have you been feeling?
- Uh, good, I think.

I haven't really had headaches
or anything like that.

So it's been pretty good.

And what about your vision?

Have you had any trouble reading or...

No, sometimes bright lights still hurt.

Hurts? Or bothers you?
I mean it's a sharp pain or dull pain?

- No, it's a dull pain.
- It's a dull...

But it's not sharp at all.

It's like this neon light
is bothering you right now?

Yeah, if I was to look at it.
I mean, no, but if I look at it.

- Sometimes bright daylight does it a bit.
- Okay.

But it's not as it was when
it hemorrhaged in Biarritz, so...

So here are the pictures on the computer,
and we're just going to look at them.

What we're looking at is the area
where the lesion was, and...

... there is really not much there
to speak of on this sequence.

[Narelle inhales deeply]
... but we obviously need to look at...

all the different sequences

and so here is where
the pituitary gland is,

and it looks very normal.

- Oh, wow.
- And, uh... same there.

I couldn't see a cyst today
and I couldn't see a cyst...

So it's retracted,
you would say? That's fantastic.

That's really good news.

Um... right.
That's really great. Um...

- Thank you, for this.
- Okay.

So, um...

The only question which I think
I've asked you before, is

if you think this could have triggered
my memory loss.

We see a lot of patients that have
hemorrhages in the pituitary

for other reasons,
like tumors and such,

and I don't remember
ever seeing somebody

with the same degree of memory loss
that you have.

And so whenever we see something
that is out of the ordinary,

- it's always difficult to explain.
- Right, right.

Is it possible that
the hemorrhage caused

this alteration in your memory circuitry?

And the answer is yes, it's possible.

Is it common? And the
answer is absolutely not.

The bottom line, for what I'm concerned,
is that you do not need any surgery.

[laughter]

- That's the bottom line
as far as I'm concerned.

- That is the bottom line.

Excellent. Well, thanks very much.

- I really appreciate it.
- Good seeing you.

Good seeing you, too.

- Take care, doctor.
- Bye, bye.

[Rupert] Nearly two years on, and
no amount of tests or consultations

could reveal a conclusive answer
to his amnesia.

The true nature of Doug's condition

extends beyond the bounds
of current medical technology.

[eerie electronic music]

[Prof. Schacter] For the most part,
there really is no one place in the brain

that you can point to and say,
there's a memory.

You can't go into the brain

and just point your finger
and locate a memory.

It turns out that memories are
much more distributed than that -

... distributed in different parts
of the brain.

This is especially so
for episodic memories.

So a memory is a network
of brain regions

and all those brain regions
have to come together

in order for us to retrieve a memory.

So I think this helps us understand

that there's a sense in which
all memories are constructed.

They're just not literal replays
of events that have happened to us.

[Rupert] Through the making of this film,
I'd seen Doug undergo huge changes.

And I'd like to think we've become
good friends again.

At home in his new flat with Narelle,

he finally seems to be engaging
with his past...

... which is strange, because my
attachment to the old Doug is fading.

I now only want him to
get his memory back, if he does.

[Rupert] Do you hope
he gets his memory back?

[Narelle] Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, in a way
it's a little bit scary

to think about him
waking up one day and

having his whole life with him again
in his memory and...

you know, will he still be
the same person and...

will we still be in love?

Will he still love me?
You know that sounds silly but, um...

Yeah, I guess in a way I want him
to get his memory back.

Twelfth of May, 16th of June, '83...

What does this say?

I took my Art O-Level - nine hours -
and my teacher thinks I may have passed.

I took German oral and got about
29 out of 50, which is encouraging.

Played house cricket yesterday
and got three wickets

and a catch on the first 11 pitch.

I tell you, these letters
are so uninformative.

[Doug] I would like to have been able
to remember things as a child.

I think that's got such a
profound effect on everybody.

It seems that those are things
I would like to be able to remember.

I wish I could remember my mother.

I mean, I have pictures of her
on the walls in the apartment

and it seems that we were very close.

So that's something, you know,
that I feel I missed out on.

[Doug]
Part of a reason for the photo project

is because I see memory as
something akin to traveling in time.

And everybody's got this ability
to travel in time

just by going back to places in the past
that they experienced or whatever and...

And I don't, you know.
I don't have that.

If you encode things and then,
depending on who you are as a person,

you remember them in a specific way

and then sort of create
this personal history

which is a sort of bazaar, if you like,

...a bazaar of myths, of truths,
of embellishments, of...

all kinds of hotchpotches
of distortions, and...

... and if that's, you know,
if that makes up who we are then...

who are we really?

Do you know?

[electronic music]

[Rupert] The doctors say Doug has
a 95% chance of getting his memory back.

But no one can tell him
when that will be.

What will it feel like when
his new life and his forgotten past

collide to form a new character
he's yet to meet?

[inaudible]

[wind]

[music fades]

[music - The Space Lady
"Synthesize Me"]

♪ Your eyes are set on stun ♪

♪ You're hotter than the sun ♪

♪ I love to see you shine ♪

♪ 'Cause you really blow my mind ♪

♪ Your heart beats like a drum ♪

♪ It hammers when you're gone ♪

♪ The terms of you and me are up ♪

♪ Set us free ♪

♪ Synthesize me ♪

♪ Hypnotize me ♪

♪ Humanize me ♪

♪ Energize me ♪

♪ Synthesize me... ♪

subtitles: Iladi Elladi