Memento [2000] Genre: Neo-Noir/Psychological Thriller Director: Christopher Nolan Actors: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano Focus: Narrative [This blog post contains mild spoilers for Memento] The order in which a story is told can change a spectator's perception dramatically. Begin with the protagonist attacking a seemingly innocent character to the viewer and the viewer will see them as someone who is cruel, heartless and psychopathic and the viewer will have less support for the character as a whole. Begin, however, with showing the victim of the attack murdering and torturing people, then the viewer will respect and support the protagonist far more than in the former example. The order in which a story is shown to the spectator can drastically change their view on the world being set up by the director. In Memento, Christopher Nolan takes this idea and exploits it to the extreme, creating a sense of confusion for the viewer that they can share with the character. While many have praised in particular its 'motifs of memory, perception, grief and self-deception', what has all received a huge amount of praise is the narrative structure and how it exploits the formulaic structure that viewers are used to to make an exceptionally thrilling story. Memento shows the story of Leonard (Pearce), a man who suffers from 'anterograde amnesia', which means he is unable to form new memories, and suffers short-term memory loss every five minutes. He is searching for the man who attacked him and killed his wife, and uses photographs and tattoos to remember information he has learnt. What is particularly interesting about the narrative structure of Memento is that it presents itself as two different sets of scenes. To distinguish the differences to the spectator, one is black-and-white and takes place in chronological order and one is in colour and is shown to the viewer in reverse order. While this is extremely confusing for the spectator, this is intentional and by the end of the film, the spectator has a complete narrative and knows exactly what has been happening. However, what is so brilliant about this narrative structure and style is that it really puts the viewer into the mind of Leonard. When Nolan introduces a new event that happened, the viewer tries to piece it together in their head: when did this happen? Why is this character treating him that way? What happened before this to cause these events? This is good in terms of spectator interaction as these are exactly the questions Leonard would be asking, wondering what had happened to get him to this situation. There is one fantastically written series of scenes where we see a scene where Natalie (Moss), a bartender who Leonard talks to to try and find information, is behaving particularly nice to Leonard and is giving him lots of information that he needs. However, a few minutes later, the viewer realises what is actually going on. Natalie has verbally abused Leonard heavily and points out that whatever she does, he will still continue his trust whatever she says and they will remain friends or even lovers. She could even tell him lies and he would not remember. The spectator then sees Leonard scrambling to find something to write with to remind him of this fact, reciting to himself: 'concentrate' and 'keep it in mind' to help him to remember. The spectator shares this distress of his, knowing the future mistreatment and abuse that Natalie will use of this in the future events of the film. This is so powerful, increasing the emotional connection between Leonard and the viewer as both feel this effect of not knowing where they are and what has happened. The structure places the viewer with Leonard on his journey and this makes for a brilliantly uncomfortable viewing experience. Leonard as an unreliable narrator also really helps to make the viewer more and more confused about the events. They, too, end up trying to uncover the truth about the attack on Leonard's wife, and this can really make for a really enjoyable, although unnerving watch. This experimentation with narrative structure, while typical of the psychological thriller or noir genre, is exceptionally used here to affect the spectator's view of the film and the characters. This film is also particularly interesting for comparing it to narrative theories as it can be heavily debated upon how conventional it is. Of course, in terms of structure it is extremely different, changing the order around to change the emotional reaction from the spectator. However, it does follow some of Propp's character functions, with a clear hero (albeit with mixed morality) in the character of Leonard and the idea of the helper is present in the character of Teddy (Pantoliano). However, the event functions are very different, especially considering the nature of the story being told. Todorov's ideas, however, are non-existent in Memento. The plot does not follow the structure of Todorov at all and the lack of a clear equilibrium and new equilibrium do not exist, considering the story has an almost cyclical narrative, and so this idea doesn't really fit. This is a flaw in Todorov's theory when looking at many ideas of narrative structure. When it comes to ideas of cyclical narratives or narratives being told out of order, it can be difficult to apply his ideas. However, you could interpret that the new equilibrium could be the same as the original equilibrium, which shows the lack of change in the characters throughout the story and how these same events will likely happen again. One of the most successful theories that can be applied to this film in the end though would be the idea of Barthes' enigma codes. The whole film leaves lots of little puzzles for the audience, making one great larger puzzles as the spectator really has to try to piece together the order of the scenes, and really try to understand what may have motivated these series of events. The use of Barthes' ideas is extremely effective when placed alongside Memento and shows the reason for Nolan's choices in his screenplay, placing the spectator in a position alongside Leonard where they too must piece together the answer, and must work out where they are not only in terms of the plot, but also in time too. Aside from narrative, Memento is an extremely enjoyable watch. The reverse narrative really creates a sense of confusion and helplessness for the spectator, as they too are unable to remember the previous events in the film. This really helps Nolan to build up the rising tension for the viewer, as they come closer and closer to the end surprise. One of the biggest triumphs of the film though was the star – Guy Pearce provides an absolutely stunning role which really brings across to the viewer the absolute helplessness of this role as he struggles to remember what is going on and what has happened in his past. Carrie-Anne Moss also really provides a chilling edge to some of the scenes, really showing herself as a cruel and cold character in some fantastic scenes. Nolan's direction is, as usual, very well-done, adding some real tension and suspense to many of the climactic scenes of the film. My only Overall, Memento's absolutely exceptional narrative structure and style combined with some really compelling performances and Nolan's brilliant direction and script makes Memento a truly brilliant film. Rating: 10/10
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