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Mento
Memento and Narrative Closure
On first glance, it is difficult to apply the adjective of "satisfying" on a level of expectations or of 'questions' to the filmic narrative of "Memento." Christopher Nolan's motion picture 'feels' open-ended as cinema. It is structurally in violation of the supposed commandments of filmmaking. At the beginning the reader is introduced to 'Teddy' and 'Lenny,' the latter of whom has no short-term memory, and lives in a quest to avenge his murdered wife. At the end of the film, he is still on his quest -- but only after killing Teddy because Teddy has revealed the uncomfortable truth that in fact it was Lenny who killed his wife, in anger after she transgressed because of her frustration with dealing with Lenny's mental incapacity.
The film evolves in a lurching back and forth fashion, mainly through flashbacks, but anchored by scenes of Teddy and Lenny, first depicted at the beginning of the film. Finally the two 'have it out' together at the film's end in a kind of dialogue version of a 'shoot out' that ends with Teddy's real demise. But how can such a narrative become 'closed' a viewer might ask, when the main character is still in a futile quest for his dead wife's killer? Lenny gives himself a continuing narrative reason to justify his existence, even if there is no real reason for doing so. The viewer...
Porter Abbot. For instance, the 'agon' in the tale of Solomon and the two women contesting over the same baby is the question of which of the women -- both of whom are prostitutes -- is the true mother. Famously, in the Biblical age before genetic testing, the woman who refuses to allow the child to be split in half is deemed the true mother by the great Hebrew king and judge Solomon.
However, the resolution of the tale is not merely the answer of the question as to whom is the mother, according to Abbot's theory, but the transformation that allows the prostitute, by saying when Solomon offers to split the child in two, 'let her have the whole baby,' to become 'The Mother.' In other words, the prostitute exchanges one narrative archetype and character designation for another, and only does the narrative truly resolve the expectation of closure. The narrative of questions is satisfied in that the mystery is solved, but more importantly at the level of expectation the…
Works Cited
Abbot, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Chapters 11 and 12. Accessible on the World Wide Web at http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/projects/ct4/pages/Readings/Abbott.html
Memento. (2000) Directed by Christopher Nolan.
Memento as Film Noir Christopher Nolan's Memento as Film Noir Film noir rose to prominence in the late 1940s and was at first described as being "murder with a psychological twist (Spicer 1). Since the 1940s, the film noir genre has undergone a few changes, yet the central concepts of the genre remain the same. Christopher Nolan's 2000 film Memento is a neo-noir film that integrates many of the concepts found in
Memento Film Analysis Christopher Nolan's Academy Award nominated film Memento provided a new perspective on film noir and helped to redefine how a narrative was presented in cinema. Memento stars Guy Pierce as Leonard Shelby, Carrie-Anne Moss as Natalie, and Joe Pantoliano as Teddy/John Edward Gammell. Through Leonard's psyche, the film's narrative structure, and its mise-en-scene, Nolan is able to demonstrate the perpetual conflict that arises in the film between good
Nolan's Dark Knight deals directly with the idea of a hero's control over his world by pitting the emblem of anarchy (the Joker) against Batman (a mythological hero, supported by technology that borders on the totalitarian). Nolan questions the degree of power that someone like Batman should possess and whether or not he actually possesses it. Much of the film is spent analyzing this philosophical query, with Batman's tech-support
When we mimic the social behavior of people 'like ourselves' when we are unsure of how to behave we are observing another implied guide for how to behave. Our perceived appearance thus also defines who we are -- whether we are male or female, for example, creates a different set of social roles and expectations. It also creates an impression of continuity of our actions for the people whom
Memento Analysis Did Leonard Shelby Kill His Wife? Memento is the 2000 film by Christopher Nolan that follows Leonard Shelby (Guy Pierce) as he attempts to piece together fragmented memories and facts in an attempt to get revenge on a man that raped and killed his wife. Throughout the film, Shelby is seen interacting with numerous people who grow to become unreliable influences on Shelby and manipulate him to further their own
There is also a similarity in the portrayal of women in both films. For example, Natalie in "Memento" manipulates Leonard, because of his faulty memory. Leonard is driven to avenge a wife whom he seems to regard in extremely idealistic terms. This suggests that a kind of virgin/whore complex attitude towards women is harbored by the main character. Although Fellini's film seems slightly more positive in the way that