Video Reviews
by Ken Cornwell
Unknown White Male
Directed by Rupert Murray
2005
 | | Nowhere man? Doug Bruce has forgotten it all..or has he? |
Amnesia--it's fertile ground for a movie subject and it's popped up again and again throughout cinema history, but usually as some kind of gimmick to get the story in motion or provide a surprise twist. Hitchcock used it in "Spellbound" in which Gregory Peck's memory loss may have been caused by a psychological trauma. In "Random Harvest", Ronald Colman's WWI soldier suffers amnesia after a head wound and takes up with Greer Garson only to forget his second life after a traffic accident. And Jim Carrey voluntarily chooses to have his memories of an unhappy affair with Kate Winslet removed by a futuristic device in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
Instead of treating amnesia as a gimmick, the documentary "Unknown White Male" looks at the real case of Doug Bruce who woke up on a subway train in New York City with his past erased. It's a real "truth is stranger than fiction" story. And it poses all sorts of interesting questions: Is one's personality shaped and constructed by experience? Or does personality come from somewhere entirely within the brain?
Pre-amnesia Doug Bruce had lots of advantages, both genetic and otherwise. A British expatriate living in New York, he was handsome and intelligent, came from a privileged background, attended the best schools and had a successful if demanding career as a stockbroker. He'd been through a rough patch when his mother died and was beginning to express to friends a desire to make a career move to something more fulfilling (he had a passion for photography) but nothing seemed to explain the strange turn of events that would follow. On July 2, 2003, he left his lower East Side apartment at 8 P.M. Eleven hours later, he turned up on a subway train bound for Coney Island with no idea who he was, having lost all memory of his friends, family, and all of his 37 years of accumulated experiences. Wandering disoriented and confused, he was admitted to the Psychiatric Wing of Coney Island hospital as "unknown white male." There was no immediate explanation for how he ended up in such a state.
And a mystery it remained. The film documents post-amnesia Doug as he goes through a battery of physical and psychological tests to try to figure out what would cause such a profound case. Most are precipitated by a physical cause like a head injury or a psychological condition. But in Doug's case, doctors are unable to find such a cause. Furthermore, they can't determine when or even if his memory might return. Doug's left to recreate his life from scratch, becoming reacquainted with friends and family and trying to figure out how to start over again.
But a strange thing becomes clear: he's not the same person he was before the memory loss. His personality changed, becoming more sincere and reflective, a kinder gentler Doug without the edge and cynicism for which he was once known. This new Doug pursues photography with a new passion (and he's told by a professor that his photographs are much better). And he revels in the experiencing things for the first time: his "first" trip to the ocean, "first" taste of ice cream, the "first" time he falls in love. He struggles with wanting his memory to return, but grows to become comfortable with his new life and personality. Soon he starts to fear the return of his memories and the return of the person that he once was.
But in a Hollywood-worthy twist, exactly who Doug Bruce really is seems to be in question. Soon after the doc's release, veracity of his amnesia was called into question because the whole thing just seemed too improbable, a one in a billion occurrence. Could he possibly be faking his condition for the publicity? And yet, no evidence has come along in the intervening years to prove that Doug is putting on an elaborate ruse. It just seems to be a gut reaction that this can't possibly be a true story. In my own humble opinion, Doug seems completely sincere. It's hard to believe that someone would go to the trouble to maintain such an extreme lie (and putting his family through agony) for the sake of a little documentary (which nonetheless was nominated for a 2005 Academy Award).
And besides, the issues the film raises are compelling enough to put aside the surrounding controversy. Will a person robbed of the past become someone entirely new? "Unknown White Male" seems to put a very large check in the "yes" column.
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