Narrative Practice research

In most film cases, people believe that films should follow a pattern in the narrative. A pattern that follows cause, then effect. This is what audiences expect from a typical film, and this is what the mainstream film makers follow. But there are a few films that challenge this well, and challenge the idea that cause THEN effect are basic. They show that you can know the effect, and see it unravel and see the cause as the last thing in the narrative.


"Causes and effects are basic to narrative, but they take place in time. Here again our story-plot distinction helps clarify how time shapes our understanding of narrative action."





In this scene, we see the effect, then cause. Completely throwing off the audience and crushing their expectations from a narrative expectation point of view. It shows Leonard helping Natalie from previously getting beat up, then it shows the previous scene, the cause. And you figure out it was Lenny who beat her up. And this, for me, was the defining scene in doubting Lenard's narration and his point of view.




The films unique and unconventional style is to do two things. Portray Lenard's problem with remembering new memories, anterograde amnesia. But by doing this, the film infamously is filmed 'backwards'. Showing the last scene chronologically first, in fifteen segments, then another point from the narrative in a hotel room, then the previous scene. This completely throws off the audiences and confuses them as it combats their experience and expectations from a standard film. The narrative is directly from Lenard's point of view, which the audience takes for the truth, as we are forced to align with Lenard. The narrative style within the film allows the audience to experience Lenard's experience first and, and showing how hard it is to go into something without remembering why you are, or where you are, constantly having to look at pictures to remind yourself of who you are, and what your goal is.
Twists in the narrative are vital to keeping the audience engaged, and allow the writer to keep the audience on their toes, constantly throwing them off.

Of course, every plot, every story, should have surprises hidden inside. Though wish fulfilment is still a powerful thing in fiction, if our stories are all predictable and formulaic (good guy faces off with bad guy in a battle and wins and/or "gets the girl"), people will become bored and disillusioned pretty quick. But the unexpected twists, helped along by good doses of foreshadowing that might not become significant until the surprise is revealed, engage the reader.




In the end we see the whole story unravel, we see all the pieces slot into place on the time line. And in this scene, we realise that it anonymously isn't black and white anymore. The twist in Memento is vital to the narrative, because there is no effect that follows the cause, because of the style. So the audiences needed something to shock them, and their fix of a climax was finding out they had been lied to by the whole time, almost betrayed by Lenard, who lies to himself (and you as you are experiencing him) as he continues to kill every John G in America.

The film brings up the point that knowing the 'ending' makes the film understandable, and if they know the end of the film, they probably won't watch it. Linking this with narrative, knowing the ending of a film does not ruin the story, or narrative. Because you are taken on a journey throughout the film, and you still get this.

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