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FTVMS326

| Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

Assignment 1 | Memory and Forgetting in Memento

Christopher Nolans Memento (2000) is a film that deals with tensions between
memory and forgetting. Following Leonard Shelby, who while suffering from
anterograde amnesia the inability to create new memories is attempting to
avenge the murder of his wife, the film explores the notion that we use our
past, and access to our memories, as a means of understanding ourselves, and
giving ourselves purpose. Leonard must piece together his constantly fading
memories in order to find his wifes killer and ultimately gain revenge.
Memento confronts problems surrounding the mediation of memory, and the
relationship between the past and the present. The narrative structure of the
film looks represent the notion of modular memory, and how fractions of
time can be taken apart and put together in order to form understandings of
the present.

Memento is built upon ideas surrounding temporal anchoring, with a


segmented narrative that follows an anachronic timeline. Anachronic is a
form of modular narrative that uses a logic of association to progress.1 The
narrative will move from one timeline to another, but there is no main
temporality.2 That is to say that the narrative cannot progress on its own
without the influence of a characters recollection. The film has two timelines
that alternate scene by scene: one timeline in colour, which goes in reverse
chronologically, and another that is black and white and moves forward in

1 Cameron,
2 IBID

A. (2008). Modular narratives in contemporary cinema. Basingstoke

FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


chronological order. The two timelines meet in the final moments of the film,
transitioning from black and white to colour as the shot focuses on a
developing Polaroid photo.

The reversed structure of the narrative amplifies the notion of fatalism the
idea that all events are inevitable. 3 This narrative contributes to what
Maureen Turim describes, when discussing flashbacks, as a logic of
inevitability.4 What we see first is understood as definite and unchangeable.5
This is the inevitable. The opening scene of the film takes place at the end of
the story chronologically, the timeline then moves in reverse as we look to
discover how the inevitable present came to be. This is a representation of
how we use memory to access the past and make sense of the present.
Speaking on the unique narrative structure of his film, Christopher Nolan
explains:

The story is told in as subjective way as we were able to do. ... We


really tried to put the audience in the head of the protagonist and make
them experience some of his confusion, uncertainty and paranoia
[We told] the story backward so that it denied the audience the
information the protagonist is denied (Nolan 2001)6


3 Kilbourn, R. J. (2010). Cinema, memory, modernity: the representation of memory
from the art film to transnational cinema. New York: Routledge.
4 Turim, M. C. (1989). Flashbacks in film: memory & history. New York: Routledge.
5 Mitchell, D. (2010). Twisted Tales: Cognitivism and Narrative Distortion.
6 IBID

FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


According to Jo Alyson Parker, through its temporal reordering, Memento
attempts to provide the audience with an experience analogous to Leonard's
and thus heighten our understanding of how memory makes us human.
(Parker 239)7 As Leonard is piecing together his own recollections, so too are
the audience. Melissa Clarke suggests, Memento is characterized by a chronic
undecidability between what is true and false in the present; in fact, in each
scene we are presented with a simultaneity of possible interpretations of the
present. (Clarke, 175)8 The film acts somewhat as a puzzle in this sense;
audiences are able to engage with a feeling of forgetfulness because they do
not know the events that have anticipated each scene much like the
protagonist.

Memento uses conventions of film noir, emphasizing the notion of fatalism.


The film features some voiceover in the form of Leonard speaking on the
phone which can be understood as a signifier of past-ness. The character of
Natalie can be viewed as the femme fatale of the film she is a danger to
Leonard who isnt sure whether to trust her, or whether she is using him.
Psychological trauma is a convention of film noir vastly apparent in Nolans
film and much like film noir; Mementos protagonist can be viewed as a
fatalistic hero. His present is unchangeable because of events in his past his
present is black and white and definite, his past is colourful and active. The

7 Parker,

J. A. (2004). Remembering the Future: Memento, the Reverse of Time's


Arrow, and the Defects of Memory. KronoScope, 4(2), 239-257.

8 Clarke, M. (2002). The Space-Time Image: the Case of Bergson, Deleuze, and
Memento. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 16(3), 167-181.

FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


intertwining of death and desire is another convention of film noir present in
Memento, through Leonards romantic determination for revenge.

Andreas Huyssen theorized the notion of media-assisted forgetting (1995)


and the idea that mediation leads to a culture terminally ill with amnesia
(Huyssen 1995).9 Norman Klein has explored how cinema assists in forgetting
and erasure.10 He suggests that narrative cinema is always working to leave
things out and argues that it offers spectators the pleasure of forgetting; in
particular forgetting themselves or forgetting places. 11 Memento affords
audiences the opportunity to forget not only themselves, but also within the
diegesis of the film. What is interesting in Memento, is that what is excluded
from the screen, is also presumably excluded from Leonards knowledge and
memory. The audience is able to engage in this film so strongly because of
this.

We see settings such as the motel, as a representation of the non-place a


setting

associated

with

loss,

purposelessness,

and

transgression.

12

Anthropologist Marc Aug coined the term non-place to describe areas of


9 Huyssen, Andreas. Introduction: Time and Cultural Memory at Our Fin de Sicle.
Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge,
1995
10 Klein, N. M. (1998). The history of forgetting: Los Angeles and the erasure of memory.
London: Verso.
11 IBID
12 Arefi, M. (1999). Nonplace And Placelessness As Narratives Of Loss: Rethinking The
Notion Of Place. Journal of Urban Design, 4(2), 179-193.

FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


nowhereness13, and in Moving Pictures/Stopping Places, David Clarke explains
how the non-place is demonstrated in Memento:

The non-places, the hotels and motels are sites of transgression [but]
in Memento they are the norm, stations on the way to somewhere that
will always be other than the desired destination. [] For Leonard the
problem is to establish a measure of permanence and stability. (Clarke
340)14

The first time we see Leonard in the motel room, in the second scene of the
film, his voiceover tells the viewer Its just an anonymous room. His
interactions with the hotel receptionist throughout the film further
characterize the setting as a non-place.

It is argued that supplanting memories into external artifacts will enable the
active manipulation of memory. In Memento, Leonard uses tools of mediated
memory to remake himself. He writes down notes, takes and annotates
photographs to remember important faces and spaces, and has what he feels
to be the most important information tattooed to his body. This can be
understood as a metaphor for a spatial model of memory retrieving images
from an imagined architectural space. In this instance, Leonards body is a
backdrop for recording. The idea of memories being stored in spatial

13 Arefi, M. (1999). Nonplace And Placelessness As Narratives Of Loss: Rethinking The

Notion Of Place. Journal of Urban Design, 4(2), 179-193.


14 Clarke, D. B., Pfannhauser, V. C., & Doel, M. A. (2009). Moving pictures/stopping
places: hotels and motels on film. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


locations is an ancient concept known as the Art of Memory, or,
mnemotechnics.

Of course, Leonard cannot remember what inspired him to inscribe particular


memories onto his body, having then to decipher not only what the
inscription alludes to, but also why and how the inscription came to be.
Stories then become memories to Leonard, as he must trust what he hears
from other characters as true. Even as Leonard is noting down information it
begins to fade; we see in one scene, how without a pen and paper, or any
other way of noting something down, Leonard loses vital information within
minutes. This scene also shows how Leonard has a distinct temporality and
the inability to experience time in the same way as those who can access
short-term memory. Instances like this raise questions of whether media
technologies contribute to memory, or whether they contribute towards
forgetting.

As he begins to question his own inscriptions and their legitimacy, we see


how the film addresses the problem of representing memory through media.
The clues he makes for himself are rushed and concise. What is excluded from
Leonards notations, and what he deems important can be seen as a metaphor
for Kleins assertions about erasure and digital media.15


15 Klein, N. M. (1998). The history of forgetting: Los Angeles and the erasure of memory.
London: Verso.

FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


As Leonard encounters characters that he cannot remember, the audience is
given new hints or explanations towards their connection with one another.
However, as we go further back in time we find that what may have appeared
to be the truth is far from it. This can perhaps best be understood through
Leonards relationship with Ted. Throughout the film we see scenes with Ted
as a friend, an enemy, a stranger, and a victim but the viewer is constantly
swerved scene after scene. The viewer, like Leonard, is unable to decipher the
relationship he has with characters like Ted and Natalie without access to his
memories.

While the film allows the audience to piece together most of the story
viewers still leave with a number of unanswered questions. As Melissa Clarke
observes:
Some of the questions as to truth and falsity in the present are never
resolved, leaving only the unequivocal sense that there is no resolving
these questions... Without any past to consult, there is no way to
interpret the present at all. (Clarke 176)16

Leonard uses the story of a man named Sammy Jankis as a means of


controlling, explaining and understanding his condition. Many times
throughout the film, Leonard recalls his encounters with Jankis, a man who
supposedly shared the same condition, prior to the incident, and tells the

16 Clarke,

M. (2002). The Space-Time Image: the Case of Bergson, Deleuze, and


Memento. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 16(3), 167-181.

FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


story of Jankis wife taking her life because she felt he was lying about his
condition. In the final moments of the film, Teddy asserts that Leonard has
confused his own past with Sammys. Teddy explains that, while Leonard
believes he has finally killed John G. the man who killed his wife, she in fact
survived the attack and it was she who took her life not Sammys wife and
Leonard had already killed the man who attacked her a year prior. Teddy
suggests that Leonard is stuck in a cycle wherein he will continually seek out
vengeance against a John G in an unsolvable puzzle so that he has purpose
in his life. Leonard is then conflicted with the idea that the past he thought he
knew was in fact a lie. If he cannot recall his purpose, and if does not recall his
vengeance, then what reason does he have to seek out revenge in the first
place? Leonard is left with a false purpose but can exult in the fact that in
mere minutes he can forget this. As he realizes his motivation may be entirely
misguided, he makes the decision to forget it; burning the photograph he took
of his victim and lending to Teddys theory. This scene, while taking place at
the end of the film, takes place at the beginning of Mementos timeline Leonards purpose throughout the film has been built upon not only his
inability to remember, but also his choice to forget.

Christopher Nolans 2000 film Memento presents a unique representation of


memory, or more appropriately, forgetting. The films narrative follows an
anochronic structure, wherein one timeline moves backwards chronologically
and the other moves forwards. The reversed timeline aids the viewer in
resonating with, and experiencing the same confusion as the protagonist. The

FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


film uses styles and narrative techniques similar to film noir, emphasizing
notions of fatalism and revenge. Memento also reflects upon the problems
surrounding mediating memories, as we see Leonard begin to question the
legitimacy of his own representations. With his inscriptions, particularly the
use of his body, Memento also presents a representation of mnemotechnics
and the spatial modeling of memory. The protagonist, Leonard Shelby, must
establish connections between his past and his present in order to form an
understanding of his own identity and narrative. Memento illustrates this idea
through a condition that disallows Leonard from forming new memories.
When we are faced with the inability to access the past are we left without
purpose? Memento addresses this question, and first suggests that we need
memory as a means of defining ourselves in the present. But in the end, we
see Leonard choose to forget over choosing to inscribe a memory in order to
maintain his purpose and identity.

FTVMS326 | Memory and Media

August 2014

Michael de Alwis | 5948597


REFERENCE LIST:

Arefi, M. (1999). Nonplace And Placelessness As Narratives Of Loss: Rethinking The Notion Of
Place. Journal of Urban Design, 4(2), 179-193.

Cameron, A. (2008). Modular narratives in contemporary cinema. Basingstoke [England:
Palgrave Macmillan.

Clarke, D. B., Pfannhauser, V. C., & Doel, M. A. (2009). Moving pictures/stopping places:
hotels and motels on film. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Clarke, M. (2002). The Space-Time Image: the Case of Bergson, Deleuze, and Memento. The
Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 16(3), 167-181.
Gargett, A. (2002). Nolan's Memento, Memory, and Recognition. Comparative Literature and
Culture, 4(3), 2-9.

Huyssen, Andreas. Introduction: Time and Cultural Memory at Our Fin de Sicle. Twilight
Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge, 1995
Klein, N. M. (1998). The history of forgetting: Los Angeles and the erasure of memory.
London: Verso.
Kilbourn, R. J. (2010). Cinema, memory, modernity: the representation of memory from the
art film to transnational cinema. New York: Routledge.
Mitchell, D. (2010). Twisted Tales: Cognitivism and Narrative Distortion.
Parker, J. A. (2004). Remembering the Future: Memento, the Reverse of Time's Arrow, and the
Defects of Memory. KronoScope, 4(2), 239-257.
Sternberg, E. M. (2001). NEUROSCIENCE: Piecing Together a Puzzling World. Science,
292(5522), 1661-1662.
Turim, M. C. (1989). Flashbacks in film: memory & history. New York: Routledge.

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