Personal Identity In Christopher Nolan's Film Memento

In this essay it will be discussed how the theme identity played its role in the film “The Sapphires”. It will also see why young people have difficulties when it comes to knowing who they are. There will also be a further discussion about why friends and family can help on deciding who you are and why even some older people have to ask themselves who they are.

Most of us feel that we're “different” in one way or another at some point in our lives. Being different, however, is not always the “bad” thing that we sometimes imagine it to be. In fact, Charles Evans Hughes once said, “When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.” Literature often portrays differences as a good thing, too. In Flowers for Algernon, for example, vary from others, that person still has value and worth. Likewise, the movie Awakenings sends a similar message in the character of Leonard. Interestingly enough, even though the first story is science fiction and the second is based on real life events, Flowers for

John Perry uses his characters Miller, Weirob, and Cohen to illustrate the ambiguousness of personal identity in A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. The goal of these characters is to define personal identity in such a way that allows for the possibility of survival without a body. In order to do so, the characters Cohen and Miller attempt several definitions, all of which are scrutinized by the skeptic, Weirob. One definition of personal identity, given by Miller, is that personal identity is made of person-stages connected by real memories. Weirob refutes this definition because it relies on identity to distinguish real and apparent memory. Since identity relies on real and apparent memories, and identity is needed to distinguish the memories, the argument uses one of the premises as the conclusion. This creates a circular argument. In this paper, I will first go into detail on Miller’s definition of personal identity. Then I will indulge Weirob’s skepticism in order to understand the weaknesses of Miller’s argument. Finally, I will illustrate how Weirob fails to prove Miller’s definition wrong.

From watching the 2006 film titled “The Departed”, I argue that the social message of the film is not just identity but the changing of identity through socialization. This can best be described through the symbolic interaction theory. Like the main characters of the film, people give meaning to their behavior based on the meaning they impose on objects, events and other behaviors (Anderson & Taylor, 2009). The film’s main protagonist Bill Costigan and main antagonist Colin Sullivan both share similar backgrounds and culture. Costigan “being born into a family with criminal backgrounds”, rebels against the social norm like his father and instead becomes an undercover state police officer. Sullivan on the other hand “with influence from

J.D. Salinger’s world-renowned book The Catcher in the Rye and director Sean Penn’s dramatic feature film Into the Wild both give us a unique perspective of society through a collection of descriptive imagery and riveting plot development. Both materials present us with protagonists Holden Caulfield and Chris McCandless, whom are deeply encompassed by self-introspection and who seem to be on a quest to find true happiness and meaning to their bland, corrupt lives. A recurring theme in both works is the process of discovering one’s true identity, which can only be achieved through a journey of spiritual self-discovery.

Memento In the beginning of the movie Memento you meet a guy named Leonard who is facing a dilemma with his memory loss and trying to find his wife’s killer. Through the movie he meets many new characters that take part impacting his life in ways that he didn’t expect. Leonard, however has developed ways of dealing with his dilemma through methods of photos, and tattoos, but unfortunately, he is in the same time loop dealing with the same dilemma over and over again.

In the movie “looking for alibrandi the director presents the viewer with the idea that people can attain an enduring sense of both identity and belonging. The director believes that many life experiences compel us to alter our sense of self. Both text, movie and the story of my friend suggest that our identity changes depending on

The most obvious way that a person’s identity can be understood is through that individual’s actions. For instance, Christopher McCandless continued to push himself away from society and those closest to him and eventually made his way to his ultimate destination-the Alaskan Wilderness-where he

In Memento Mori¸ The story revolves around a man names Earl. Earl has amnesia, to the grade where he forgets what happens in the past 24 hours. Specifically, in which as he persists through time physically but once Earl goes to sleep, he forgets all the past actions of the day. When Earl cannot remember a past event and needs to remember something for the future he puts it down on a note, or gets a tattoo of the Memento. We start the story of Memento Mori with no prior information of Earl’s past, so as the story goes on, we find out about as much as Earl is currently finding out regarding his past. We find out through multiple notes and photos scattered about the room that his wife was murdered by someone and the brain trauma that he

Momento is a film directed by Chris and Jonathan Nolan. Leonard Shelby is the protagonist of the movie and suffers from anterograde amnesia. Because of his amnesia, he has to tattoo facts on himself in order to remember things. The film has two main points-of-view. One being Leonard’s point of view and the other telling a parallel story. This can be considered to be a third-person point-of-view because it often shows Leonard talking to himself in his head. Leonard was an investigator called to check on Sammy Jenkis. Sammy also suffered from permanent short-term memory loss. Leonard also had an acquaintance named Teddy. Teddy, actually, was behind the murder of Leonard’s wife by getting Leonard to give his wife too much insulin. Teddy was eventually

Americans today tend to believe that each individual has their own distinct personality that represents who they are in the society. When it comes to the topic of identity, most of us will readily agree that Jay Gatsby and Forrest Gump’s identities changed through the lifetime. The changes in their identities bring huge differences in how they view themselves in love, wealth, social status, and friendship. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the question of do we change our identity on purpose. Whereas The Great Gatsby is convinced that individuals can create their identities with strong efforts, Forrest Gump maintains that even if individuals don’t have self-reflective thinking, their identities can still shift, but both show

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.

Shelby cannot be responsible for his actions either, as they can be grossly manipulated by others as shown in the film. Leonard had to analyze his surroundings

The scene analysed in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Memento’ occurs at the finale of the film, portraying the main character Leonard, as he attempts to rationalise his actions and own existence. The scene reinforces Leonard’s personal philosophy; that his actions have meaning whether or not he remembers them, opening with the line:

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.