Daniel Ford - Memento Genre

Genre

Memento follows a film noir structure with a dark brooding plot with much suspense and tension connately building due to the reverse structure of the film, this also has a heartless structure with little meaning and depth distancing the audience from the plot and letting the audience uncover the plot initially but create alternative problems throughout the film. Nolan has successfully done this in a grimiest manor with mild gore and a cold cult edge within memento

“It is not defined, as are the western and gangster genres, by conventions of setting and conflict, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone and mood. It is a film “noir”, as opposed to the possible variants of film grey or film off-white. “ By Paul Schrader 1972

An example of this noir plot is in the opening scene when Leonard has met up with teddy as this point the audience is unaware of he condition he has and what his motives. When Lenard and teddy meet up Leonard has shown the audience a card that tll us that teddy must be killed the close up f this shows that this is Lenard’s focus through film. When teddy is helping him they go to an abandoned warehouse with a  grim, silent, eerie layout there shot in a narrow shot with darkness taking up most of the frame, while they are talking Léonard  looks at the photography again and asks himself “How long have I been looking” this quote is the center of the theme in this film and shapes the genre as the film consists of suspense and confusion with a group amnesia affect on the audience manipulating us into thinking the strangest ideas as to how Lenard’s condition woks and how he is coping with this mystery murder which is shown late in the film. This can be representative of a true story of a person with the disorder of Anterograde amnesia as Lenard is an example of this disorder and the film is representative of his mental state as he is lost within his own mind and can manipulate himself without knowing this helps the film Noir genre prominent within the film