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Modern Classics: Memento
 Sometimes I’ll walk into a room and suddenly have no idea why. Other times I’ll get nervous, start thinking about something else, and then wonder why I still feel a pit in my stomach. I may get distracted and then take a few seconds to remember what happened before. We all depend so much on our memory just to get through the day. That’s why it’s so heartbreaking to learn of Alzheimer’s patients, former football players and others struggling with memory loss. Memento played with our reliance on memory. The hero, Leonard Shelby (Pearce) suffers from a condition called anterograde amnesia, which means he can’t make new memories. Nolan tells the story backwards, meaning the audience, like Leonard, is unaware of what just happened before. When I saw the movie for the first time, I became preoccupied with slowly piecing the story together. On repeat viewings, I was able to explore its themes a bit more, including how memory becomes so critical while often being unreliable and even malleable. Before I go any further, if you have not seen Memento before, please stop reading now and go watch it. The film is free on Amazon Prime. Major spoilers follow. Nolan shrewdly made his two storytelling tracks very different, at least on the surface. He explained in the DVD commentary that he made the color, backwards track very subjective. Plenty of point of view shots, and in conversations the camera always stayed closer to Lenny than whom he is talking to. Every shot in this section tried to put you in Leonard’s head. Some critics pointed out that the time period Leonard can remember something before he forgets constantly changed but this was also part of the subjectivity. Our thoughts stay in our minds for varying amounts of time before something new enters. For the forwards, black-and-white section Nolan took a different approach, initially framing it more like a documentary. He started with high angle, more objective shots. Its story points seemed to echo those in the color section. Leonard explains the rules of his condition along with his system of notes, tattoos and Polaroids. This system keeps Leonard focused, despite his memory problems, on avenging the murder of his wife. He also uses Sammy Jankis (Tobolowsky) as a reference point for how the condition works and what he should do differently. The Jankis story, while taking little screen time, becomes a moving tragedy in its own right. Nolan called it the backbone of the film. During the commentary, Nolan cited the influence of classic noir films such as Double Indemnity. Noir had a rebirth in the 90s with Basic Instinct, The Last Seduction, Devil in a Blue Dress, and The Usual Suspects, although the genre never really left in the first place. Nolan weaved in noir elements such as dingy streets, dive bars, and seedy motels. So many noir films feature a sense of betrayal and fears that other people are manipulating a doomed hero. Memento not only included these themes but amplified them. Leonard fears not only what other people might do to him, but also what he might do or already has done. These fears only strengthen Leonard’s belief in his system, the one thing he seemingly can control. Nolan called it a dialogue between Leonard’s past self to his future self. As the film progressed we rely on that system too, because it’s giving us desperately needed clues. Memento presented itself as a puzzle, and it’s so easy to get lost simply in figuring it out. But gradually it started giving hints that the system may not be all that Leonard thinks it is. The black and white section, which began more objectively, slowly changes to a more subjective style mirroring the color scenes. The film subtly warned the audience that the system may be flawed, which I did not fully comprehend until multiple viewings. Nolan gave himself no margin for error. There are so many ways Memento could have gone wrong. Any lack of continuity or a perceived mismatch would have unraveled the story. Nolan explained that he could not cut any scene because then everything that came afterwards in the film but before in the story would not have made sense. Thankfully the film’s story, cinematography and editing blended together seamlessly. Every element worked the way it’s supposed to. Nolan’s use of humor was one of the underappreciated elements. While Memento can hardly be called a comedy, Nolan recognized the funny aspects of his story, particularly at the start of scenes. Moments where Leonard realizes he’s holding a bottle of whiskey and remarks “I don’t feel drunk” or kicks in the wrong door at a motel, give the audience a little room to breathe. Nolan also has fun with action scenes, such as Leonard running, seeing someone else and then remarking “Oh, I'm chasing this guy” followed quickly by “No, he's chasing me.” Another of those elements, the cast, doesn’t get enough credit for what they brought to the film. Guy Pearce had already demonstrated his range through varied roles including a drag queen in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and a determined cop in L.A. Confidential. He imbued Leonard with a sincerity, soulfulness, and vulnerability, which heighten the audience identification with the character. But he also instilled an intense brutality to the man needed for some of the more violent scenes. As Natalie, Carrie Anne-Moss carried an air of mystery needed for a femme fatale, who can switch from seductive to cruel in a heartbeat. Her eyes conveyed a woman who has been hurt so much that she may take it out on others. Few actors can pull off sleaze the way Joe “Joey Pants” Pantoliano can. Anne-Moss recommended to Nolan that Pantoliano play Teddy the dirty cop after the two worked together on The Matrix, and you can see why. Stephen Tobolowsky and Harriet Sansom Harris gave so much depth and nuance to the Jankis couple, that I felt a whole other movie could be made about their story. Nolan has so carefully crafted the narrative that it’s devastating when all the aspects that we took for granted, everything that gave Leonard a purpose: how his wife died, his search for her killer, and even Sammy Jankis comes crashing down. Leonard’s faith in his system shows itself just as shaky as the other parts of his life, even the little things that appeared objective. Five years earlier The Usual Suspects used an unreliable narrator to pull the rug out from audiences, as did Fight Club in 1999, but Memento takes it a step further. The final scene, where Leonard manipulates his future self, reveals a higher truth: That we modify our memories to fit our preconceptions and prejudices, or to fit a narrative that we have built for ourselves. In the commentary Nolan takes the idea of the mind giving itself what it wants further still. How do we know Teddy is telling the truth with the grand reveal in the finale? It’s not as if Teddy was honest before. He clearly wasn’t and has shown himself untrustworthy. Nolan explained that by this point in the film audiences are so desperate for answers that they accept them even from such a shady source. In a way then, we end the film like Leonard, holding on to something that seems to make sense because we want it to. Memento challenged audiences throughout its runtime, first as a puzzle and then as a mirror into our own minds. Memento launched Christopher Nolan’s career and he moved on to bigger projects, most notably the Dark Knight trilogy. He always kept his fascination with how time moves and the intricacies of the human mind, returning to those themes in Inception, Interstellar, and most recently in Tenet. Those recent films felt overstuffed, as if Nolan had too much to say, too many ideas to explore. Memento remains the film where Nolan’s themes fit the unusual story perfectly. At least that’s how I remember it. Adam Spector September 1, 2021 Contact us: |
