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Memento movie essay
Memento movie psychological analysis
Memento movie essay
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Film noir as a genre began in America following the Great Depression with a visual style reminiscent of German Expressionist cinematography. It reflects the time’s general sense of pessimism, cynicism, and dark confusion. It became widely known for its psychologically expressive approach to visual composition and many definitive stylistic elements. The use of dark and white lighting, a morally ambiguous protagonist, loose plotlines, a corrupt authority figure, and a femme fatale character were among its defining features. Neo noir, a sub-genre of the classic definition, utilizes the core elements of film noir but with evolved characteristics better suited to contemporary society, particularly toward technological advances. Christopher Nolan’s neo noir psychological thriller Memento (2000) encompasses many of the widely known characteristics of classical film noir in a unique way. Its form, narrative, cinematography, and mise-en-scene show its undeniable place among modern neo noir film. It tells the story of Leonard (Guy Pearce), a grief stricken man in search of his wife’s killer—the same person responsible for his short-term memory loss leaving him frozen in time. Although he cannot make new memories, he attempts to seek vengeance for his wife’s murder with the help of reminders he leaves for himself, including polaroids with notes scrawled in the margins and tattoos covering his body. Among his notes are important people he meets, including Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), the corrupt police officer and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), the femme fatal with suspicious motives.
The film’s use of neo noir conventions is made evident right from the opening scene. It opens with a man fanning out a polaroid. In the picture is a body laying face d...
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...ure allows the viewer to share Leonard’s every experience and emotion whole-heartedly and work until the very last scene to piece the entire complicated puzzle together. This work speaks volumes to the capacity of film—not just what can be portrayed but what can be taken away. Every viewer undoubtedly walks away feeling the same rage, confusion, and helplessness Leonard felt every moment trapped in time. Even when he accomplishes what he has been working so desperately for—to find his wife’s killer—he realizes that he will never gain the satisfaction of feeling like her death was avenged because moments later, it is gone. In an almost tragic end to a story doomed from the start, Leonard’s life becomes one of searching for his wife’s killer because it is all he has left. His last memory has become who he is—a man eternally seeking a vengeance that he will never get.
On the surface, The Big Lebowski might look like a simple stoner comedy, but with closer inspection the film possess sharp undertones of film noir. The Coen Brothers were inspired by film noir when making their movie, The Big Lebowski. Their main inspiration came from Raymond Chandler’s, The Big Sleep, with mix-match patches of other classic film noirs. The Big Lebowski is a playful, modernized, and loose form of noir film. With that said, The Big Lebowski, is a tribute to the themes of classic film noirs.
While there are many different ways to classify a Neo-noir film, Roman Polanski’s, Chinatown captures many. The 1974 movie consists of many of these elements, including both thematic and stylistic devices. One of the main themes of neo-noir film that is constant throughout the film is the deceptive plot that questions the viewers’ ideas and perceptions of what is actually happening in the film. Every scene of Chinatown leads to a twist or another turn that challenges the practicability of the film’s reality. All of the never-ending surprises and revelations lead up to the significant themes the movie is trying to convey in the conclusion of the film.
Film Noir is a genre of distinct and unique characteristics. Mostly prominent in the 40s and 50s, the genre rarely skewed from the skeletal plot to which all Film Noir pictures follow. The most famous of these films is The Big Sleep (1946) directed by Howard Hawks. This film is the go to when it comes to all the genre’s clichés. This formula for film is so well known and deeply understood that it is often a target for satire. This is what the Coen brothers did with 1998’s The Big Lebowski. This film follows to the T what Film Noir stands for.
Janey Place and Lowell Peterson article “Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir” establishes noir as a visual style and not a ...
In breaking down The Prestige overall, the film utilizes cinematography, sound, and its mise-en-scene to convey its theme. The film’s theme is centered on sacrifice, obsession, and secret. By focusing on one scene specifically it is conceivable to completely value the film's exceptionally demanding and viable utilization of mise-en-scene and cinematography to exhibit and uncover detail. The scene I have carefully examined is that of the film's opening in which it we are presented with a scatter of many hats.
Classic film noir originated after World War II. This is the time where post World War II pessimism, anxiety, and suspicion was taking the world by storm. Many films that were released in the U.S. Between 1939s and 1940s were considered propaganda films that were designed for entertainment during the Depression and World War II. During the 1930s many German and Europeans immigrated to the U.S. and helped the American film industry with powerf...
...ng the underlying theme that drives the story and the movie, propels the reader and viewer to rekindle the desire to hope above all else because hope is all one has in devastating as well as dire needs. Hope overcomes despair, permits others to see your “inner light” to develop integrity which connects with honesty and trust. Hope is the inspiration to continue to live regardless of the circumstances. Red may have narrated; “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” But, Andy Dufresne states it best: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
Director Christopher Nolan′s film Memento (2000), is loosely based from the concept of a short story named Memento Mori written by his brother Jonathan. This story is about a man named Leonard Shelby who is suffering from anterograde amnesia, which is a loss of ability to create new memories after the event that caused the amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long term memories from before the event remain intact. Leonard was hit over the head during an attack which resulted in his wife being raped and murdered. With the help of contact named Teddy and a bartender named Natalie, Leonard set out for revenge. Since the attack Leonard has set out to exact revenge on the man who has caused him suffering. He helps himself by writing notes, taking photographs, and tattooing himself with important notes and facts. An analysis of the film Memento reveals the use of film techniques such as editing, non-linear storytelling, symbolism, director's style, musical score, color, and cinematography that creates an intellectual stimulant that has the viewer deciphering a puzzle in a reversed chronological order.
The Relationship Between Visuality, the Body, and Knowledge in the Film Memento The film Memento offers an interesting yet ambiguous insight into the relationship between visuality, the body, and knowledge. Through the use of clever, complex cinematography, director Christopher Nolan explores this relationship, which leaves both the protagonist, and the audience constantly challenged, constantly searching for the truth. We come to realize that there is no single and absolute truth, every story has many colours and the black and whites of truth are personally constructed. The elements of visuality are not only used to create Leonard’s truth, but ultimately shape the way the audience view and understand the film. The body is another important theme used to explore the truth.
“Gerald’s Game,” is an American psychological horror film directed by Mike Flanagan, and written by Jeff Howard. Based on the Stephen King’s novel of the same name, it explores how the main character fight to survive when her husband unexpectedly dies, leaving her handcuffed to their bed frame. Within the context of “Gerald’s Game,” the formal and social aspect will be examined through the use of camera movement, lighting, and the genre of the film. The paper would include a very brief investigation of the plot summary and the formal and social analysis of the film.
The link between expressionism and horror quickly became a dominant feature in many films and continues to be prominent in contemporary films mainly due to the German expressionist masterpiece Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari. Wiene’s 1920 Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari utilized a distinctive creepiness and the uncanny throughout the film that became one the most distinctive features of externalising inner mental and emotional states of protagonists through various expressionist methods. Its revolutionary and innovative new art was heavily influenced by the German state and its populace in conjunction with their experience of war; Caligari took a clear cue from what was happening in Germany at the time. It was this film that set cinematic conventions that still apply today, heavily influencing the later Hollywood film noir genre as well as the psychological thrillers that has lead several film audiences to engage with a film, its character, its plot and anticipate its outcome, only to question whether the entire movie was a dream, a story of a crazy man, or an elaborate role play. This concept of the familiar and the strange, the reality, the illusion and the dream developed in Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari, is once again present in Scorsese’s 2010 film Shutter Island. It is laced with influences from different films of the film noir and horror genre, and many themes that are directly linked to Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari shot 90 years prior.
story is going or ’who dun it’ until very near the end. There will be
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (Set with DVD). New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.
Oldboy is a neo-noir following traditional film noir tropes. Starting with the protagonist Oh Dae-Su, he is imprisoned for 15 years, and all he wanted is a truth, a reason for his imprisonment. Even the villain of the film, Lee Woo-Jin says to him that revenge is good for his health. Without the truth, life is just a bigger prison for Oh Dae-Su.
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.