WEIRDLAND: Nocturnal Animals (Amy Adams & Jake Gyllenhaal) Trailer, Modification of Memories

Friday, October 21, 2016

Nocturnal Animals (Amy Adams & Jake Gyllenhaal) Trailer, Modification of Memories

It’s quite the time to be alive for Amy Adams fans. On the heels of the final trailer for Denise Villeneuve’s “Arrival,” which has thrown Adams into the thick of the Best Actress Oscar race, a new trailer has debuted for “Nocturnal Animals.”


“Nocturnal Animals” is based on the 1993 Austin Wright novel “Tony and Susan.” The crime drama/melodrama hybrid divided critics at Venice and TIFF, though most agree the performances are stellar. 

Amy Adams plays a Los Angeles artist who’s unhappy with her job and marriage. She receives a manuscript from her ex-husband (Gyllenhaal), who she hasn’t seen in nearly 19 years, and begins devouring the text, which Ford brings to life in a duel storyline. The script details a shocking crime that happened to a family of three after they encountered a group of criminals while driving through the desert. Adams’ character takes the story as her ex-husband exacting revenge, but Ford has something much more dangerous up his sleeve.

The film also stars Isla Fisher, Armie Hammer, Laura Linney, Andrea Riseborough, Michael Sheen, and Jena Malone. Focus Features will release “Nocturnal Animals” in select theaters November 18. Source: www.indiewire.com

By framing a crime story within a domestic novel, Wright, an English professor and author of three previous novels, dissolves the fragile civility that often conceals violence. He also scrutinizes the institution of marriage, considers the nature of memory, and documents the potential impact of one's choices. At Edward Sheffield's request, Susan Morrow reads his first novel, Nocturnal Animals, in which an impulsive change of plan delivers Tony Hastings and his family into the hands of strangers who terrorize them. Passages from Sheffield's novel alternate between Susan's memories of Sheffield (her ex-husband), to details of her current marriage, to her speculations about the writer's and the reader's obligations. By counterpoising the eroding compromises of Susan's daily life with the sufferings of the Hastings family, Wright demonstrates that the refusal of individual responsibility infect both sexes and all classes. Highly recommended. -Library Journal, Jane S. Bakerman, Indiana State University.

Both true and false memories are associated with activity in the left posterior parahippocampal, bilateral retrosplenial, and bilateral posterior inferior parietal cortices, areas of the brain linked with memory retrieval. However, false memories were associated with equal amounts of activity in these brain regions when people looked at both the wrong and right photos; in contrast, true memories were associated with more activity in these brain regions. Moreover, compared with true memories, false memories involved greater activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Those brain regions are linked with flexible memory processes that allow for updating of existing memories with novel information, which unfortunately might involve false details.

“Our study provides evidence consistent with the general idea that some kinds of memory errors — in this case, falsely remembering that a ‘lure photo’ was encountered during the museum tour — can result from the operation of functional or adaptive memory processes that are otherwise beneficial,” St. Jacques says. “For example, if you couldn’t update your memory with new information you may have difficulty remembering where you parked your car today versus yesterday.” Future research can investigate what situations might support modification of memories. Source: blog.pnas.org

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