Film Analysis of Memento Essay

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

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

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

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

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.).

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

However, Leonard has a very hard time doing this because he suffers from a rare and untreatable form of memory loss that allows him to recall all the details of

In the movie 50 First Dates one of the main characters suffers from the severe condition of anterograde amnesia. The movie is about Henry Roth who is a wildlife veterinarian in Hawaii, meeting Lucy Whitmore a woman who has a short-term memory loss from an auto accident a year earlier. Henry meets Lucy at a local cafe and takes her out on a date. Henry falls in love with Lucy, but there is one problem when she awakens in the morning, she can't remember him or anything that happened that day. Henry must devise a plan to meet Lucy everyday and try to get her to fall in love with him again and again.

The way this movie messes with time in the past is not new. Pulp Fiction did it, and many other movies did, but never like the way Memento has chosen to work it. The movie is broken up into individual segments, and each one ends where the one before it began. This is confusing, but it does not take long to understand how the story is going to be told. Nolan wants the audience to feel what it is like when you cannot make any new memories and cannot trust anyone. That is what Nolan accomplish, the audience feels like they are in Leonard’s shoes. This method Nolan uses creates an amount of tension and suspense. The audience knows what happened, but now they want to know why it happened. We learn the bits Leonard forgets. Nolan created a unique movie, blending color and black and white images and with this technique of filmmaking. It is truly original; the audience will feel just as confused and lost as Leonard when each scene begins.

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.

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

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.

At the beginning of the movie you feel bad for Leonard and emphasize with him. As the color sequence progresses towards the start we start to see how Leonard is not exactly the kind of person we thought we has. The color sequences began to elude that Leonard might have mixed motives for writing something down on a photo. In the last 15

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

The things that Lenny knows about his world is the kind of certainties that people take for granted, like objects that your memory recognized right away. In this quote, Lenny decribes how his memory plays a big role on how he knows some objects and how we take that for granted. “Leonard Shelby: I know what that's going to sound like when I knock on it. I know that's what going to feel like when I pick it up. See? Certainties. It's the kind of memory that you take for granted.” He also does know everything thing that happened with his wife. He flashes back in a few segments and replays everything that happened when his wife dies. Lenny remembers past memories about his world like it happened yesterday. He remembers Sammy Jenkis with his condition and can’t seem to forget him. I found a good quote that Lenny says. It describes his own world and how he feels about it. Leonard Shelby: “I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even if I can’t remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world’s still there. Do I believe the world’s still there? Is it still out there?… Yeah. We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I’m no