Film Analysis of Memento Essay

The 1967 film by Mike Nicoles “The Graduate” is about Benjamin Braddock, a recent college graduate, who is at a crossroads in his life. He is caught between adolescence and adulthood searching for the meaning of his upper middle class suburban world of his parents. He then began a sexual relationship with the wife of his father’s business partner, Mrs. Robinson. Uncomfortable with his sexuality, Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson continue an affair during which she asked him to stay away from her daughter, Elaine. Things became complicated when Benjamin was pushed to go out with Elaine and he falls in love with her. Mrs. Robinson sabotaged the relationship and eventually the affair between Mrs. Robinson and

Through Nolan’s application of editing, such as flashbacks, in Memento, the story of Sammy Jankis can be linked back to Leonard’s past as well as the central theme of the fragility and unreliability of memory. Leonard’s unreliable memory is clearly conveyed as the sequence rhythmically displays scenes showing that the protagonist’s wife survived the assault, which is evident as she removes the shower curtain from her head in a flashback. This indicates the unreliability of Leonard’s memory and the devastating result of ‘Conditioning [himself] to remember, learning through repetition’. Nolan’s employment of flashbacks within the sequence expresses Leonards desperate attempt to escape guilt through the fragility of his memory. This is exemplified in the flashback when Leonard’s memory of pinching his wife adjusts to him injecting insulin into her. Nolan’s utilisation of editing illustrates the fragility and unreliability of Leonard’s memory, specifically when he learns that he

The vision Christopher Nolan had for The Prestige (2006) was to add to the outbreak of street magician film, whilst playing a large dramatic subplot equal in grandeur to the magical performances within the film. In the final sequence of the film, I will analyse how the cinematography and sound resolves the plot so that it summarises the themes present in the film, whilst also invoking a response from the audience. Nolan predominantly uses close up shots, non-diegetic sound (music) and dialogue collaboratively to convey the dramatic, personal subplot of the characters and their relationships, whilst appealing to the audience bringing forth an emotional response from the audience. The heavy, slow, dramatic atmosphere of the ending sequence uses various techniques to summarise and uncover the underlying mysteries of the events throughout the film and consolidate themes introduced during the exposition.

In the film Memento, written by director Christopher Nolan, the main character Leonard Shelby, is a confused and damaged man that wants the revenge for the murder of his wife. We can say that Lenny lives in his own world uniquely different from everyone else. The reason for this is his inability to store short term memory and convert into long term memory. This disability renders Lenny’s life into a repeatable lifestyle and has to start from scratch about every 15 minutes. The only source he has is to go back to is his notes and tattoos he discovers every morning on his body. It seems as though he only has his past memories but the only memories we learn about in the movie is about Sammy Jenkins and the murder of his wife. I think that

Memory is defined as “The faculty of the mind by which it retains the knowledge of previous thoughts, impressions, or events.” Memories are units of information that have impacted one’s life and are stored in the brain for years. In some cases, dramatic events may not let the brain register every single detail about a situation. This is much like Anton’s case of the winter of 1945 of the novel The Assault by Harry Mulisch. The events of that winter affected him like no other would. The loss of his mother, father and brother and the burning of his house left an impact on him but the events were so grave his brain did not allow him to remember the smaller

Yet, “I don't remember. See, have no short-term memory. It's not amnesia” is incorrect, since he does have an anterograde amnesia. In addition, he does have short-term memory, but he just cannot transfer to long-term memory because he is not able to repeat within 10 minutes. To state an another point, it could be contradictory that if Leonard has a deficit in long-term memory, it would be difficult for him to do everyday routines, such as taking a shower, but he can perform those actions. However, if we look at long-term memory in the detailed manner, it can be divided into two parts: declarative and nondeclarative memory. In Leonard’s case, his procedural memory was intact, so that is why he did not have much problem doing so. It can be said that he had an impairment of declarative memory, similar to case H.M., which we have learned in the

In the book “The Assault,” by Harry Mulisch, the author demonstrates how the main character, Anton, becomes free of the influence of his memories by showing that Anton's approach to memory changes over the novel course of the novel – from protective denial to acknowledgment. However, what remains static is a constant self awareness that Anton shows in-regards to his attempts to repress these memories. During the beginning of the novel (post-tragedy) Anton is a shell of his memories of the night where is family was killed. This is shown through how many details of his character, from major life aspects such as his wife or his job, to insignificant things such as what sorts of media he likes, can all be traced back to his allegedly forgotten memories.  The

Because of his anterograde amnesia, Mr. Thompson suffered from declarative memory loss; however, his nondeclarative and procedural memories appeared to be preserved. I believe that Mr. Thompson suffered from an impairment of episodic memory and retained his semantic memories because he could reflect common knowledge of the

Memory is defined as “the mental capacity to encode, store, and retrieve information” (American Psychological Association, 2002). It is a part of the means by which humans function. The process of forming and recalling memories involves various complex neurological processes and disruptions to these processes can result in loss of memory or the inability to form new memories. Amnesia is a memory disorder, in which, due to trauma or a head injury, certain parts of the memory is inaccessible. The two main types of amnesia are anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia refers to the inability to create new memories (Mastin, 2010). “Retrograde

The first scene we see in Memento, is Leonard, in color holding up photo of a man he just killed to serve as a memory of what he had done. Throughout the film, both in color and in black and white, we see various forms of memories Leonard has manufactured such as photographs of people, notes, and tattoos on his body. Christopher Nolan does a good job of utilizing this mise en scene and timeline structure to help influence our perspective of characters like Natalie, Leonard and Teddy.

As I have learned from this class, the memory theory simply states if somebody can remember their own past and the experiences they have had then they maintain their same identity now as they did when they first experienced their memories. Obviously, for a person with memory issues like Leonard, there are a couple of problems that arise when looking at identity in this context. Let’s call the original Leonard, before his memory loss, Leonard A, let’s call the Leonard at the end of the movie that kills Jimmy, Leonard B, and let’s call the Leonard that kills Teddy at the beginning of the movie, Leonard C. Notice that both Leonard B and C represent a Leonard that has the issues with memory loss. Because of the nature of Leonard’s memory loss where he can’t make new memories but can remember everything prior to his condition, Leonard B and C can remember being Leonard A, but Leonard C can not remember being Leonard B and vice versa. Applying the memory theory, we can make three observations.

Although the movie, “50 first dates,” was fairly dramatic, it accurately portrays the possible struggles that patients may experience from anterograde amnesia. The main idea of the movie is that the main character Lucy gets into a car accident on the day of her father’s birthday. The accident causes a severe brain injury to her temporal lobe and it leads her to suffer from anterograde amnesia. Because memories of any events occurred after the accident fades away, Lucy wakes up every morning thinking that it is October 13th, the day of a car accident. Lucy’s family helps Lucy to constantly relive the day before her accident to avoid a pain that Lucy may have as she discovers her condition. On the other hand, Henry comes into her life thinking that it is better to update her with important events through

Time can be a thinker’s most thought-provoking yet infuriating concept to grasp. Infinitely complex, time plays a crucial role in everyone’s life. We do not know much about it, other than that it is there. What is before time or after time? Most movies move through a linear fashion. There is a beginning, middle, and end. Narrative structure can slightly be bended or modified, but for the most part it follows the same basic formula. The movie Memento (2000), directed by Christopher Nolan, follows Leonard Shelby, the main character with short term memory loss, trying to avenge his fallen spouse. He only remembers up until the time his head was bashed into a mirror after his spouse was sexually assaulted. The movie is told in a unique way through two stories that do not make complete sense until the end. Memento’s unconventional narrative structure puts the audience into Leonard’s shoes, which is apparent in the movie’s convoluted flashbacks, out of sequence story, and bleak ending.

After enduring a string of abusive relationships, Jean arrives unannounced at her estranged father-in-law 's ranch in Wyoming, with her daughter Griff. Griff 's father and Jean 's late husband died years ago in a fatal car crash while Jean was behind the wheel. Her father-in-law, Einar, has never gotten over it and still blames Jean for his son 's death. Einar lives on the ranch with his business partner, Mitch, who was mauled by a bear one night when Einar was drunk. This film reflects on forgiveness and rebirth, as family members work through their problems related to various communication and relationship theories. The main characters in the film are interdependent with each other, often times seen interfering with one another in terms of conflict resolution. This paper will analyze how the main characters cooperate to keep the conflict in motion throughout the film An Unfinished Life through the use of systematic collection of information about the dynamics of conflict resolution (Conflict Assessment, n.d.).

In Memento, Leonard suffers from short-term memory lost after the murder of his wife. In order to make sense of the world and remember things, he covers himself in tattoos, takes polaroid, and makes notes on these photos. As the text states, he must rediscover himself every few minutes. The psychological continuity theory relates to Leonard in the sense that his personality, worldview, etc. at one time identify him and his subsequent actions.