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Memento Essay

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There is absolutely no doubt that the structure of Memento unconditionally shapes the cinematic experience. By telling the story backwards Christopher Nolan denies the audience the same information that the protagonist is denied. We are just as unaware of whether or not a new character is to be trusted or even if he has met them before (Eyes on Cinema, 2014). The film begins with a literally reverse scene for the title sequence where we see a polaroid un-develop, this helps introduce the audience to the backwards structure of the film. The back and white scenes, which are going foreword in time, separate the colour flashbacks so that we can comprehend them more clearly and get a stronger feeling for the progression further back in time. Both …show more content…

The mix of objective and subjective scenes and their collision at toward the end of the film creates a confusion for the viewer, this suggests the relationship between imagination and memory and the way they are mixed to form a narrative. Because of his condition, Leonard is able to manipulate the audience’s as well as his own interpretation of certain memories based on the context in which we are seeing them. Even if the images remain the same, their meanings change. This is apparent not only with his memories but with some of the repeated beginnings/endings of the colour scenes; for example when Leonard is searching for a pen we don't quite understand, but the second time we see this we realise he needs to make an important note that Natalie, another main character, is using him. Changing what the action means to the spectator relays again into his subjective view of what he is doing at that specific time, presents the idea between our subjective view of the world in which we experience life and our faith in an objective reality, something Leonard does not have, an important overall theme of the

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