Memento Presentation Script

Projector – Memento movie poster

Presenter - Christopher Nolan’s film Memento presents audience with a complex story, about a Man named Leonard, who struggles to find the killer of his wife due to his short term memory loss. His memory loss was sustained during the night his wife was murdered, he was attacked by one of her killers. His struggle to obtain any short-term memory means the search for the killer becomes almost impossible.

Projector – Trailer for Memento

Presenter - Throughout the film, Leonard relies on pictures that he has made notes on to inform him of events that have happened previously, and warn him about who he can trust. However, we come to learn that these pictures become unreliable. And he’s beginning to only trust the notes on the pictures he has made, even though as an audience, we know they aren’t true.

Nolan himself said that he thought “creating a character who we begin to distrust throughout the story is a very interesting concept” we are ultimately left to piece together the complex narrative ourselves because we cannot rely on any character due to the fact we have been forced to take Lennies point of view, there for we perceive the characters as he does.

Projector- Beginning scene of Memento

Presenter - The story we see is presented in a Portmanteau format, which means that we are presented with different stories that eventually merge to form one specific narrative. Rather than being told from beginning to end, the format of the film provides us with the ending, at the beginning, and the beginning at the end. Parallel to the backwards scenes, we are shown a black and white story that allows audience to gain information about Lennies background, it also plants clues for the backwards narrative and allows audience a sense of relief from the separate running plot. Boardwell and Thompson tell us that “audience will pick up clues, recall information and this will allow them to anticipate what will follow, and generally participate in the creation of the films form” which allows us to see that running two narratives alongside each other in this case has proven to be successful in allowing audience a chance to understand the complex story easily.

Projector – Images of films similar to Mementos narrative format 

A Similar film that also uses this format is Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’. Pulp Fiction follows a non-linear narrative structure and re-arranges a plot in order to draw attention to specific moments in the film, however, much like Memento, the parallel narratives are eventually merged into one linear plot, which allows audience to gain understanding of why the story has been mixed up. However, Nolan argues that Memento actually differs from this, he states that “Memento is actually a linear structure, its just that the scenes are reversed. If you were to put them in the right order they would portray a completely liner narrative.”

Projector – Three trailers for thriller films

Presenter - A Film Art: An Introduction by Boardwell and Thompson tells us that “spectators approach a narrative film with definite expectations” Therefore as an audience, we expect to watch the film and for it to give us the usual generic expectations we would usually gain from a thriller, such as tension and suspense. Which in due course we do get, however, this film uses narrative to present these generic emotions.

From the beginning of the Film we are immediately forced to adapt to Lennies perspective, we Learn very little about who he is and what he wants, but due to a restricted narrative being used, audience form a bond with Lennie, as we only know as much as he does. Nolan said that he “wanted audience to see Leonards point of view, we know hes psychologically challenged, its much more interesting than if he was lying or dreaming” this leads on to why Nolan specifically used a confusing narrative in the story to create tension and suspense. After we learn about Lennies condition, we sympathise with him, and Nolan wanted audience to create the ultimate bond with him, To do so he created a narrative that would confuse audience, just as much as Lennie. Nolan said “both Leonard and the audience want to know what’s going on, firmly from the view of the protagonist”. He can only remember for a few minutes at most, therefore we are only shown short clips of happenings in Lennies search for his wife’s Killer.

Projector – Short clip of bar scene from Memento

Nolan also said that “he wanted the audience to come out questioning their memory, much like Lennie does” This can only be done through the distortion of time throughout Memento. According to Boardwell and Thompson “Narrative heavily relies on cause, effect, time and space” and this film defies most of those narrative expectations, it distorts time, to mirror Lennies mindset. Boardwell and Thomson also state “any films plot can withhold causes and thus arouse curiosity.” Which this film does. Throughout various scenes we are shown the effects of happenings before we actually see the cause, not only does this mirror Lennies mind-set, it also allows tension to build throughout the film.

In this particular clip, we are shown Lennie, Natalie and a man from the bar spitting into a cup, however previous to this we see Lennie drinking from the same cup, although all of the scenes are shown from Lennies perspective, as an audience we gain understanding of how Lennie is taken advantage of.