Film Critique- Memento
Sneha Chackochan
Miami Dade College
Film Critique – Memento
Item 1:
Which film did you choose to view?
I chose to view Memento, written and directed by Christopher Nolan.
Item 2:
Provide a paragraph ONLY summarizing your understanding of the film. In this summary, address the main theme or idea of the film as well as any underlying themes that are conveyed during the production. In other words, what primary message was conveyed to the audience IN YOUR OWN WORDS via the production of this film? (Note – I have seen all of these films – thus, this section should be one paragraph only – the majority of your critique should include your responses to Items 3 & 4).
Memento is a very different kind of movie than what’s normally expected, a movie that makes you question the reality of ones memory. The movie is set in two ways: one in black and white and the other one in color, where black and white is shown chronologically and color is demonstrated in reverse order. The main character, Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia but he is still determined to find the man who raped and killed his wife one night, as believed by Leonard. He tries to organize the world around him using notes, tattoos and Polaroid pictures. The audience tries to figure out the story through the “facts” that is given via the protagonist. We know just as much the main character is aware of. It is a movie that screws with your mind every time we come closer to the “truth” but the question is: is it really the truth or a made up memory by the character to make himself happy?
Item 3:
Choose at least one main topic or theme PER CRITIQUE that has been discussed in class lecture / the text that appear to be related...
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...erstanding this “truth” is to not just simply look for one given truth but analyze the whole story and see it from many different perspectives. There is no one absolute truth. I have watched this movie three times and I still haven’t able to figure out if he is Sammy or if it was his wife who was diabetic or the fact that is teddy really John G.? There is so much that one could predict and interpret and I think that’s exactly what Christopher Nolan aimed for.
There is a remake of this movie in Bollywood, named Ghajini, I have watched it a million times and I have never been bored to watch it. Last semester I found out that it was a remake of Memento. When I first watched it I disliked it very much. It was confusing and extremely frustrating even thought the concept of the movie, the overall cinematography and style of the movie was thought provoking and remarkable.
Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, Fifth Edition. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.
Lehman, Peter and Luhr, William. Thinking About Movies: Watching, Questioning, Enjoying. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
In conclusion, by using the production elements of both allusion and symbolism; director Tim Burton has created the film in such a manner by making deliberate choices in order to invite a certain response. The film is constructed and given greater depth through the allusion to elements from other genres and ridicules the suburbia’s materialism and lack of imagination, which in turn enhances the invited response.
Although Christopher Nolan does not acknowledge any philosophical basis for Memento, the film provides a character, Leonard Shelby, who serves as an example of several aspects of existentialism. Through Leonard, Memento illustrates Soren Kierkegaard's idea of truth as subjectivity, Freidrich Nietzsche's notion that God is dead, and Jean-Paul Sartre's writings on the nature of consciousness.
Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.
Jonathan Romney clearly summarizes Memento as an “at-heart film noir in classic 1940s vein -- the story of a man investigating his wife's death. True to form, there is a mysterious femme fatale and a sly, ambivalent character who could be friend or foe. The first twist is that the hero and narrator, Leonard, suffers from short-term amnesia and forgets things almost as soon as they happen. The second twist is that the story is told backwards -- it starts with Leonard getting his revenge and taking a Polaroid to prove it to himself.” Romney’s outline of the story describes the plot. He continues on “But his bullet returns to the gun and the photo fades, then slides back into the camera. This is something more than an echo of the reverse storytelling of Martin Amis's Time's Arrow. Here, it is as if events erase themselves the instant they occur -- which, in Leonard's mind, is exactly what happens.” Romney introduces two of the tricks that Memento uses. The first scene is the only scene of the movie that is actually backwards as Romney explains. It succeeds in establishing the mood of the movie and confusing the viewer. Writer-director Christopher Nolan draws the viewer into Leonard’s world with this confusion and the syntax of the story. Romney goes on to describe this syntax like this: “[The audience] start[s] off in [Leonard’s] position, as much in the dark as he is. But the more we learn, the more he forgets. And whenever we think we know more than he does, some new enigma comes along to redress the balance. A bizarre narrative construction keeps us shifting in and out of focus. Each section of the main story begins in mid-action, so that we do not know what is happening any more than Leonard does…To make things more complex, another strand, apparently chronological, is inter...
Leonard Shelby suffers from a condition known as anterograde amnesia. This is a type of short-term memory loss that hinders a person to hold and keep new memories. Most often this type of amnesia is caused by damage to the brain. Leonard was unable to keep any his memories after the injury he sustained. There was irreparable damage to his hippocampus. The hippocampus is the part of the brain associated with the formation of new episodic memories. Episodic memories are at type of long-term memory that involved the recalling of specific events and the experiences tied to them. Anterograde amnesia basically means that a person, such as Leonard Shelby, will not be able to turn his short-term memories into long-term memories. This is why it was
...movie that I fell in love with. But most of all I love how the story line is a great overlap into the cinematically engaging movie. There is a great use of camera, timing, shots and story line that are portrayed in this movie without being too overwhelming. This allows the audience to relax during the movie and just take in the scenes as a story from reality. To this day, and even still doing this paper I still come to find different aspects of the movie that I missed the previous times I have watched it.
Also, in order to fully understand the meaning of this film we must answer two
Analysis of the Way in Which the Director Has Brought the Film to a Satisfying Conclusion
The film’s story does not simply shines forth, but is also the foundation of the plot. The film’s plot makes the traditional guidelines applicable...
For my movie analysis I selected the 1996 film, A Time to Kill. For the next four pages I will answer the following questions, What feelings did the movie evoke?, What surprised you?, What made you mad?, How much were you aware of the problem presented in this movie before you watched this movie?, How does this movie relate to your life?,
Have you ever had the feeling of deja vu or forgetting why you walked downstairs for no reason? In the movie Memento, Lenny, the main character, has a condition. He has short-term memory loss and it is his achilles tendon in finding his wife’s murderer. Throughout the movie, it is a wacked out timeline of events that goes from the present to the past, goes a little bit further before the present, but then jumps back further back in the story. It can be at parts difficult to understand, but every flashback gives the audience an important clue about the murder and soon changes what you thought was right into the complete opposite. Memento is a great mind exploding movie that I thoroughly enjoyed because it makes you question what is reality and what is fantasy.
The movie Memento is a psychological thriller directed by Christopher Nolan. It was nominated an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing starring Guy Pearce and Carrie-Anne Moss (Stroeter). It’s about a man, Leonard, searching for his wife's murderer having a short-term memory loss. The movie’s quality was made through the specific camera angles and editing.