The reconstruction of Jesus’ crucifixion through a personal journal entry (juxtaposition of text and images) demonstrates the way in which prosthetic memories are experienced bodily. Although the memory of Jesus’ crucifixion is clearly not derived from my lived experience, the wide range of cultural technologies, in my case, cinema, allow such prosthetic memories to ‘become part of one’s personal archive of experience’ (Landsberg, 30).
The film The Passion of the Christ (dir. Mel Gibson, 2004), made it possible for me to experience Jesus’ crucifixion in a bodily way. Although I had previously read about Jesus’ crucifixion through the Bible, the power of cinema in allowing a viewer to experience what is projected on the screen intellectually as well as sensuously through their bodies (Landsberg, 29), made the images that I saw become part of my own ‘archive of experience’ (Landsberg, 30). When viewing The Passion of the Christ, I was fully absorbed in what I saw, so my feelings, thoughts, responses, impressions have become genuine to me. Although my experience is not natural or authentic, they are nonetheless intensely felt. This experience is illuminated in the journal entry written in first person. The beginning of the journal constitutes the trigger for the memory: on Good Friday, I encounter a church communion service. This is the only natural memory that I actually lived through. The oral narrative of the Bible is accompanied by a sensuous experience of eating what is to be presumed as Jesus’ body and blood. This service set off the memory of Jesus’ death. I wrote the journal entry as if I was there, in that moment, as one of the witnesses, when Jesus was nailed to the cross. Furthermore, I have purposely used enjambment, to make the text appear like a flow-on of thoughts, with a sense of panic and sorrow emerging a watch Jesus suffer. The photos embedded throughout the journal entry accompany what is written, and adds to the visual reality of the memory. The images are so powerful that it evokes tears, grief and sadness within me, feelings that I would have felt if I was actually present there. Although I was not physically present when Jesus was nailed to the cross, my experience I encountered via the film The Passion of the Christ is vivid, hence it could be argued that what counts as ‘real experience’ has changed (Landsberg, 48). Having been physically present in a certain memory is no longer the only 'real experience', but prosthetic memories are also 'real experience'.
The Passion of the Christ gives an opportunity for the viewer to experience Jesus’ crucifixion. The way in which moving images seizes the viewer intellectually and sensuously drives the viewer to fully experience a memory that they did not naturally live through. Alison Landsberg’s claim that mass cultural technology allow prosthetic memories to become one’s personal archive of experience (Landsberg, 30) is supported by the creative task that juxtaposes text and images (still images from a film). The powerful visual images evoke genuine responses from the viewer, making the viewer in turn write about the experience in a way as if the memory is true to them. Although the memory is not ‘authentic’, prosthetic memory itself is undoubtedly a real experience. As Annette Khun says, ‘remembering appears to demand no necessary witness’. (Khun, 128).
The Passion of the Christ gives an opportunity for the viewer to experience Jesus’ crucifixion. The way in which moving images seizes the viewer intellectually and sensuously drives the viewer to fully experience a memory that they did not naturally live through. Alison Landsberg’s claim that mass cultural technology allow prosthetic memories to become one’s personal archive of experience (Landsberg, 30) is supported by the creative task that juxtaposes text and images (still images from a film). The powerful visual images evoke genuine responses from the viewer, making the viewer in turn write about the experience in a way as if the memory is true to them. Although the memory is not ‘authentic’, prosthetic memory itself is undoubtedly a real experience. As Annette Khun says, ‘remembering appears to demand no necessary witness’. (Khun, 128).
Bibliography:
Landsberg, Alison. "Prosthetic Memory." Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. 25-48.
Kuhn, Annette. "Phantasmagoria of Memory." Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination. 2nd ed. London: Verso, 2002. 125-46.
