Christopher Nolan's Memento - Literature review Example

Literature Review: Usability Testing and Heuristic Evaluation Name of University Submitted by Names: Tutor: Date Critical Research Essay: Christopher Nolan- Memento Introduction Memento is a film written and released in 2000 under the directorship of Christopher Nolan. In its scenes, the film is presented in two different sequences. A black-and-white sequence is presented chronologically while that of color is done in reversed chronological order. However, the director has carefully made the two sequences to meet at the end to produce a single common story. Its star, Leonard Shelby is a man with Anterograde amnesia, which is a condition that impairs one’s ability to store explicit memories. He has therefore developed a trait of recollecting information using tattoos, handwritten notes and Polaroid photos. In the opening credit of the story, it portrays the end of the whole story whereby Leonardo has killed Teddy. He does this as a form of revenge for the murder and rape of his wife; this is based on the information that Natalie provides. The film was released in September 5, 2010 during the Venice International Film Festivals. From this time, it has been receiving various critical acclaims and similar responses. Critics have especially, been praising its uniqueness, non linear narrative structure and several elements of motifs that include perception, motifs, grief, revenge and self deception. Since its script had not been written before its release, it was put in the nominations of Film Editing and Original Screenplay. Since then, it has been named as one of the best releases of 2000s. This discussion therefore will carefully review various scholarly articles and evaluate why the film has successfully managed to be one of the best in 2000s. However, before beginning the discussion, there will be a summary of the plot to make the reader become acquainted with the actual events of the film, Memento. Cast Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, Carrie-Anne Moss as Natalie, Joe Pantoliano as John Eward Gammel (Teddy), Mark Boone Junior as Burt, Russ Fega as Waiter, Jorja Fox as the wife of Leonard, Stephene Tobolowski as Samuel R. Jankis (Sammy), Harriet Samson Harris as the wife of Sammy, Thomas Lenon as Director, Callum K. Rennie as Dodd, Kimberley Campbell as Blonde, Marianne Muellerleille as Tattooist and Larry Holden as James F. Grantz or Jimmy. The Plot The film begins with a backward sequence where a Polaroid photograph of a dead man is shown. As the sequence continues to play backward, the photo will continue reverting itself into a developed state whereby Teddy enters into a camera before being shot on the head to die. This sequence will then be followed by others of black-and-white interspersing color sequences. Although the black and white sequences will be running chronologically, those of color will happen in reversed way (Memento 2000). The black-and- white sequence resumes with Leonard Shelby being in a motel room talking to a telephone bartender whose name is not shown on the screen. Leonard suffering from anterograde amnesia cannot remember results of an attack by two men on his wife. However, he is able to explain that he killed one of the two men` who raped and killed his wife; but although he managed to kill one of them, the other one clubbed him and disappeared. Although the police insist that there was no second attacker, he still believe that there was one, called John, with the last name beginning with letter ‘G’. Consequently, Leonard begins his own investigations by use of a system of Polaroid photos, notes and photos. Being an Insurance Investigator, he recalls Sammy Jankis, as also having been diagnosed with the same problem. Sammy repeatedly requested for Insulin to his Diabetic wife to break her act. As a result, his wife fell into a comer and died (Memento 2000). As the color sequence resumes, it is shown in chronological order. It begins by Leonard giving himself a tattoo as based on the license plate of John G. When he finds a note in clothes, he decides to meet Natalie. Natalie is a bartender who hates him very much because he usually wears clothes and drives the car of Jimmy, his boy friend. When she gets to understand his conditions, she tasks him to drive a man called Dodd out of their town. In this regard, he will offer to use the license plate in his investigations. After a while, he meets Teddy. As Tedd plays out with Dodd, he warns him against the bartender, Natalie. However, Leonard had written a photo of Teddy marking him as one of those people who were not to be trusted. As Natalie provides him with driving License, he gets to know Teddy’s full name as John Edward Gammell. This confirms the information he had from Natalie about the ‘John G’ and the warning he had received from her; he was in search of a person whose first name was John and the second one beginning with G. When Leonard meets him, he drives him to abandoned buildings and kills him, as shown at the start of the film (Memento 2000). The final black and white segment begins by John being prompted by the caller. Leonard then meets Teddy in a motel. As events develop, it becomes revealed that Teddy is an undercover police officer. According to him, he had found that the Leonard’s perceived ‘John G’ was Natalie’s boyfriend, Jimmy Grantz. Teddy then directs Leonard to the same old building as shown in the last paragraph. When Jimmy Grantz arrives, Leonard strangles him and takes photos of his body. As it transitions into colour sequence again, Leonard can be seen swapping clothes with Jimmy while he whispers the name of ‘Sammy’. Because Teddy has only been talking stories of Sammy, Leonard starts to doubt if Jimmy was the real attacker. As the story continues to develop, it can be seen as Teddy claiming that Leonard was confusing the elements of Sammy, a con man with no wife, and incorporating them into his life. It was Leonard’s wife was who had survived the attack, one year ago, but died because of insulin overdose. Teddy asserts that they had already found and killed the person responsible for the death of his wife. In this regard, he accuses him (Leonard) of creating unsolvable puzzle so that he can continue having a purpose in his life. This is because, as he loses memory frequently, it is obvious that he will keep on forgetting the way he kills people or searching repeatedly, which could turn to Teddy himself as a “John G”. When Leonard grasps, this, he burns the Jimmy body’s photographs. He then drives off and tattoos on himself the number of Teddy’s license plate. It is therefore eminent that Teddy has become the next target, which will spiral up to his death (Memento 2000). Discussion Memento as a neo noir thriller Neo-noir thrillers are modern movies that use elements of film noirs, although they manifest updated themes, style, content and media or visual elements that were absent in the films of 1940s and 1950s. According to Schimidt (2003), film noirs were characterized by tilted camera angles, interplay between light and darkness, and skewed scene compositions. The common motifs in them included crime and punishment, pessimistic meaning of life and upheaval of traditional morals. Schmidt (2003) detailed analysis for Memento that puts the film in a typical category of neo noir film. It has all the necessary elements with a non-linear plot that aims to engage the audience more. The following features explain why the following has maintained a very big following on the chart. Structure of the Film Non-linear sequences This film is also interesting by the fact that it does not follow the traditional linear narrative and merely considers a non-linear one to pose a challenge to viewers. By this, it becomes unusual as it forces the audience to reassess continuously the content for clearer interpretation. This is because putting in mind that Leonardo himself looses memory in a short period; he also becomes obliged to continue reassessing his memory frequently. His view of the World mostly depends on people around him and questionable photos and tattoos. Viewers can also note that since they are not given more information that the star posses, dramatic iron will not result. Psychologically, memories of a psychosomatic person are normally fragmented. Therefore no one can expect that his narratives will be linear as it is the case of traditional narratives (Gargett 2002). In fact, Michael (2005) has praised the structure by asserting that for any composition of a movie, it should begin at the “end”. In this case, as it is the case of the star, he is merely retelling the fragments, assessing and reassessing to make a valid interpretation. Therefore as being under the genre of neo-noir, the film has been given a new twist where old characteristics like detective theme and plot are not fixed as this one a very uncertain plot. What interests many people in this film is that it does not at large induce emotional engagement as it is the case of traditional cinema but it requires intellectual involvement (Schmidt 2003). The narrator remembers things in short incremental bits that match the Leonard Shelby’s short memory. This enables the audience to follow him closely in his perceived investigations of his wife’s murderer, John G. This will allow the audience to try to recollect the message from the fragments due to his fragmented memory from multiple plots, which close up by meeting at a single conclusion. Everything in color forms the reverse of the plots making up the main investigations for the murder of his wife. However, he has put several subplots that are in black and white which mainly show him talking on telephone to shed light on color sequence. As Clarke notes, the film is seen as a possibility of shifting multiple and varied connections of the past into the present, in this case, the writer keeps on insisting on the primacy of epistemology, which is a controlling idea of the movie itself (2002). For the protagonist in this film, he actually lacks a sense of continuity in his time and there no one should expect the fragment to be flowing smoothly. It is important to note that a person in a condition of short-term memory always lives in the present. His thinking is always composed of a series of ‘nows’. In this case, the director has tried to put the message in a series of stagnant realities as represented by discrete photographs and tattoos (Hesselberth and Laura 2008). Way of narration ` Another way the structure is very unique is that he uses the star Leonard to narrate the film in two different ways. For instance in the reverse sequence, the narrator is simply expressing his thoughts, which happens almost at the beginning of every scene. When every new scene begins, Leonard starts a new memory as if he is waking from a new dream. The thoughts help to stabilize the film because the audience can at least be aware of where he is where he is going. This also helps in character development and even though the story is told in backwardness, it enable its progression. The second way the story is narrated is through Leonard talking on telephone. This happens during the black and white sessions orders of chronological scenes and brings a thrilling essence in the neo-noir films, which is psychological. Through this telephone conversations, one gets to realize his conditions. He tells to the mysterious cop that his conditions of anterograde amnesia may differ from that of Sammy. As he talks to Sammy, the audience can realize that his talks refer to one person, Sammy who, in reality implies him. Specific visual style In the films noir, it had a specific style that was characterized by deep shadows, low-key lighting and obscuring camera angles. As one of the innovations in Neo-Noir films, Nolan has given this structure cross cuttings that range from color to black and white. By using the cross cutting visual style, he is able to manipulate the audience to show that that is how a short-term memory is. One should notice that the cross cuttings in the traditional noir genre had actions and events taking place simultaneously, that is same time but from different places. The narrative technique was used largely to bind concurrent different story lines. The editors had these cut back and forth and ran across different sets of events and characters. Nolan creates cross cuttings that bring very different kind of effects. In the first place, which edges the movie form the traditional one, is that they do not go across different characters, but on the same character. In every segment, Leonard is seen as the central segment in them. Secondly, Nolan’s cross cuttings gives the same characters playing in different places and times as opposed to Traditional ones of same time but different places. In this case, it is an intelligent manipulation of audience to participate in the conditions of Leonard. Just like Leonard, the audience will not have the direction of where it is going. As the movie unfolds, the viewer only continues to understand that it is Leonard’s problem, although he cannot understand the relationship between two sequences until the movie ends. Even if one tries to figure out the relationship as hard as he can, the events in color sequence are in reverse chronological order. This becomes even harder because one cannot know what the next reverse segment will be. Therefore, to concretize the relationship between the two segments becomes hard. It is also important to notice that the lengths of two segments are not the same. The black and white one is much shorter. According to film analysts, the black and white segments are short for three reasons. They have been improvised to shed light on chronological sequence so that the viewer can understand much more events in color segments, which have more dialogues and actions. Secondly, the man speaking on the phone is just static, which may be boring to sustain his actions in a long period. The focus on this is to provide attention on what Leonard is speaking, that is about his conditions. Thirdly, the frequent cross cuttings serve another purpose of breaks between the more lengthy color segments. Just as Leonard keeps on forgetting, the black scene breaks the movie into segments to enable the viewer forget where he was and start wondering where the movie is going. For color segments, the color is appropriate for the events happening outside the motel, which encompasses a wide range of actions and people. The color also makes the viewer to shift his minds especially when events change. Although Leonard wants to disorient them, the color continues providing a clue. The use of color also gives the condition of Leonard trying to regain his memories. As he loses them, he plunges back into black and white segments. The other use of color scenes is to give a transition between life and death. The black Polaroid photos indicate that “Jimmy G” or Teddy was dead. As the color sequence reverses back, one can see Teddy’s images being in color. Renner (2006) has argued that when a film exploits such techniques (of visual cross cuttings), it creates good emotional markers which will obviously help the audience to understand the motif of the director. In most cases, filmmakers would use musical effects or lighting schemes. These will redundantly mark a character or an action with certain emotional tone without greatly having to use themselves. The upshot of this, as expressed by her, is that the audience already has experience with the intense light scheme. Owing to the fact that the movie was a psychoanalytic one, it was better for such a scheme to be putting the viewer in both conscious and unconscious scenarios. Unreliable narrator Leonard being in a condition of amnesia looses information within a very short period. Additionally he recollects information from others and assimilates them. The fact that he develops the whole story by projecting Sammy Jenkins’ events into his own shows that he is extremely un reliable. Leonard was, in reality, a cop. He went mad, murdered his wife, and escaped from the insane asylum. The story he narrates about his wife is the one he oversaw, while she was still alive, of which she survived. Having censored this report, he uses it as a prompt to continue lying and killing more people to attain a purpose in his life. Some say that his condition is an imagined one so that he continuously justifies his dishonesty and continue living on the side of justice. Main Themes and Motives of Neo-Noirs Movies Memory defects in shutter Nolan has neo-noir sublimation where characters are depicted as having memory problems through their false recollection of ideas/ events. Leonard has anterograde amnesia, which makes him continuously forget everything he does. Suffering from short-term memory problems, he incurs many fascinating twists from the beginning of the movie to the end. He keeps on running alone on the street as if he was being chased or by himself being after someone. In a certain sub plot, Leonardo as an Insurance adjustor is easily convinced that Sammy was faking on him. Sammy had informed him that his wife had committed suicide, which he could not believe due to short memory although it was later proved right. In a motel, a greedy manager easily charges him twice for one room because he cannot remember having already paid for one before. As another condition for his disease, Leonard is fond of scratching out old information and replacing them with ones that permit self-serving actions. For instance as Teddy establishes, he will go on killing every “John G” so long as he loses memory on having killed the last one. Surprisingly in this state, he believes that he cannot make up any new memory either (Wegg 2003). On other developments, although Teddy informs him that Sammy did not have a wife, but instead it was Leonard’s own wife was suffering from diabetes, and survived rape but died later because of high insulin intake. Leonard cannot remember this but keep on denying. At the end, although Teddy reveals that he had already killed the rapist of his wife, because of his short-term memory, Leonard denies and continues to pursue another “John G.” ( Williams 2003). Morrissey (2011) analyses that memory in this film, is not to be trusted. It does not really matter but only facts are important because they will give equal interpretations, as the memory would have. Therefore, the basic philosophy in the film is that reality should be up to the memory but not the other way round, because memory cannot be reality. Although the star in the Memento is desperate to do an act that will avenge for his wife, he cannot simply remember any information for about 10 minutes because of unreliable memory. As Leonardo in this case cannot trust himself, resorts to rely on facts that are inform of photographs in Polaroid, tattoos on his body and those on printed papers. Therefore, the director reveals that trauma memory is in essence a structure of itself and it cannot indeed be integrated into a linear narrative structure (Morrissey 2011; Nungesser 2009). In fact, Bodnar notes that some human experiences may occur because of faulty memory, which is explicitly played out by Leonard in Memento (Bodnar, 2003). Vengeance Vengeances for the loved ones are seen as key characteristics of the neo-noir movies. This motive is the driving force behind the non-linear notion of the movie. At the end of the story however, a reader gets to know Leonard’s own justified dishonest. Although Teddy tries to tell him about who the real John G is, he does not seem to relent himself and therefore refutes that he is not the same to which he is referring. Although Teddy tries to enlighten him that he created this problem for the purpose of refuting that it was his own illness that killed his wife, this self-justified dishonesty will multiply several times until he kills him as the last “John G”. While explaining about vengeance in this movie, which is driven by the false power of deception, Lyons (2006) notes that this cinema gives the concept that relates to the people of this kind of psychological problem. Although a cinema is relatively reflective, it can also present a philosophical quest in it. In it, one can see several representations of actions, movements, impulses, recollection, effect, revenge, among others. Each of them entails a theoretical explanation that will demand more discourses. Analyst have noted that Amnesia have a tabular rasa effect even on an adult. However in this capacity the amnesia seems to be managing the data of Leonard without totally wiping it out. This explains the case why he is experiencing a generative fury of memory repressions and at the same time, becoming in a state of sometime recurring, and often repetitive conditions. Leonard’s revenge presupposes both of the two conditions (Lyons 2006). Murder mystery The film, which revolves around Leonard trying to determine who killed his wife, begins at the end showing the Polaroid of Teddy having been killed. In fact, Michaels (2005), establishes that the movie begins with a photo of a dead person to emphasize on the responsibility Leoanrd should take. While he has lost memory, he is being manipulated very much by those around him. Teddy gives him an address of an abandoned building where he meets a local drug dealer Jimmy Grantz, and murders him. He takes his car keys and switches himself into Jimmy’s clothes. In the end, he manipulates himself and puts Teddy as the next suspect of which he eventually kills him. This shows that the society lacks a compressive system of investigation. On the other hand, Bodnar notes that some human experiences may occur because of faulty memory, which is explicitly played out by Leonard in Memento (Bodnar 2003). Conclusion The features discussed above have contributed a lot, making the movie to stand out of the neo-noir genre. Immediately after its release, it entered into the top 10 chart and has been staying there for a while. The puzzles that its creator worked out are very intriguing and inpenetratable in the initial instances. This forces film mongers to go back for a second show to figure out what real plot and ideas were. The usual killer nearly takes on a different meaning in every new scene and it is very interesting once one realizes where the film is going. List of References Bodnar, Christopher, (2003), The Database, Logic, And Suffering: Memento And Random- Access Information Aesthetics, Film-Philosophy 7. Clarke, M (2002), The Space-Time Image: The Case Of Bergson, Deleuze, And Memento, Journal Of Speculative Philosophy 16(3) 167-181. Gargett, A 2002, Nolan's Memento, Memory, And Recognition, Clcweb: Comparative Literature And Culture: A Wwweb Journal 4(3). Hesselberth, P and Laura S, 2008, Into The Mind And Out To The World: Memory Anxiety In Mind-Game Film, Mind the Screen: Media Concepts according to Thomas Elsaesser, 96- 111. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam UP. Lyons, D 2006, Vengeance, The Powers Of The False, And The Time-Image In Christopher Nolan's Memento: A Note On Ressentiment At The Beginning Of The New Millennium, Angelaki 11(1), 127-135. Memento 2000, motion picture, New Market Films, United States. Michaels, W B 2005, Christopher Nolan's Chinese Room: The Death Of A Beautiful Woman And The Idea Of Form. Fictions: Studi Sulla Narratività 4, 45-55. Morrissey, B 2011, Impossible Memory: Traumatic Narratives In Memento And Mulholland Drive, Millennial Cinema: Memory in Global Film. 97-116, New York, NY: Wallflower, 2011. Nungesser, V 2009, I Forgot To Remember (To Forget): Personal Memories In Memento (2000) And Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004), Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory 31-47, Berlin, Germany: de Gruyter Renner, K 2006, Repeat Viewings Revisited: Emotions, Memory, And Memento, Film Studies: An International Review 8, 106-115. Schmidt, T 2003, Christopher Nolan's Memento - Analysis of the Narrative Structure of a Noirish Revenge Film, BIBLIPEDIA, viewed 22 October 2013, Wegg, J 2003, Momento, JWR, viewed 22 October 2013, < http://www.jamesweggreview.org/Articles.aspx?ID=837> Williams, G 2003, Factualizing The Tattoo: Actualizing Personal History Through Memory In Christopher Nolan's Memento, Post Script: Essays In Film And The Humanities 23(1), 27-36. Read More

Consequently, Leonard begins his own investigations by use of a system of Polaroid photos, notes and photos. Being an Insurance Investigator, he recalls Sammy Jankis, as also having been diagnosed with the same problem. Sammy repeatedly requested for Insulin to his Diabetic wife to break her act. As a result, his wife fell into a comer and died (Memento 2000). As the color sequence resumes, it is shown in chronological order. It begins by Leonard giving himself a tattoo as based on the license plate of John G.

When he finds a note in clothes, he decides to meet Natalie. Natalie is a bartender who hates him very much because he usually wears clothes and drives the car of Jimmy, his boy friend. When she gets to understand his conditions, she tasks him to drive a man called Dodd out of their town. In this regard, he will offer to use the license plate in his investigations. After a while, he meets Teddy. As Tedd plays out with Dodd, he warns him against the bartender, Natalie. However, Leonard had written a photo of Teddy marking him as one of those people who were not to be trusted.

As Natalie provides him with driving License, he gets to know Teddy’s full name as John Edward Gammell. This confirms the information he had from Natalie about the ‘John G’ and the warning he had received from her; he was in search of a person whose first name was John and the second one beginning with G. When Leonard meets him, he drives him to abandoned buildings and kills him, as shown at the start of the film (Memento 2000). The final black and white segment begins by John being prompted by the caller.

Leonard then meets Teddy in a motel. As events develop, it becomes revealed that Teddy is an undercover police officer. According to him, he had found that the Leonard’s perceived ‘John G’ was Natalie’s boyfriend, Jimmy Grantz. Teddy then directs Leonard to the same old building as shown in the last paragraph. When Jimmy Grantz arrives, Leonard strangles him and takes photos of his body. As it transitions into colour sequence again, Leonard can be seen swapping clothes with Jimmy while he whispers the name of ‘Sammy’.

Because Teddy has only been talking stories of Sammy, Leonard starts to doubt if Jimmy was the real attacker. As the story continues to develop, it can be seen as Teddy claiming that Leonard was confusing the elements of Sammy, a con man with no wife, and incorporating them into his life. It was Leonard’s wife was who had survived the attack, one year ago, but died because of insulin overdose. Teddy asserts that they had already found and killed the person responsible for the death of his wife.

In this regard, he accuses him (Leonard) of creating unsolvable puzzle so that he can continue having a purpose in his life. This is because, as he loses memory frequently, it is obvious that he will keep on forgetting the way he kills people or searching repeatedly, which could turn to Teddy himself as a “John G”. When Leonard grasps, this, he burns the Jimmy body’s photographs. He then drives off and tattoos on himself the number of Teddy’s license plate. It is therefore eminent that Teddy has become the next target, which will spiral up to his death (Memento 2000).

Discussion Memento as a neo noir thriller Neo-noir thrillers are modern movies that use elements of film noirs, although they manifest updated themes, style, content and media or visual elements that were absent in the films of 1940s and 1950s. According to Schimidt (2003), film noirs were characterized by tilted camera angles, interplay between light and darkness, and skewed scene compositions. The common motifs in them included crime and punishment, pessimistic meaning of life and upheaval of traditional morals.

Schmidt (2003) detailed analysis for Memento that puts the film in a typical category of neo noir film. It has all the necessary elements with a non-linear plot that aims to engage the audience more. The following features explain why the following has maintained a very big following on the chart.

Read More