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The Unofficial Christopher Nolan Website / Movies / Memento / Analyses, Thoughts & Ideas - Remember |
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Remember... Warning: This section contains major SPOILERS. The thoughts gathered here are also more biased than what you'll find about Memento on the rest of the site. So, if you want to argue, to approve or to correct please post at the Board or feel free to send me an e-mail. If you would like to submit a piece of text to this section, just send it to me with a short comment and I will be glad to publish it here. Also recommended: Memory is Treachery; Memento Goofs? (No Goofs & Uncertain). Snapshots of Memento: Angles of Interpretation by Liza Blake - George Washington University Excerpt [...] Why is it that most critical debates spend their time trying to figure out who Leonard “really is?” Maybe there is no other way for them to frame their arguments than to get to the “truth” of the movie. But what if the movie has no “truth?” Is it coincidence that this threat which occurs very early in the movie (“We’ll determine you who really are”) is rewarded with a bullet to the face? What does this say about the ultimate destiny of the critic or viewer who is determined to squeeze the “truth” out of the movie? [...] Complete essay currently only available as a Word document Philosophy in Film - Memento, Memory and Identity by Kyle Abram - Lindenwood University Excerpt [...] Leonard’s character can build memory continuity from his first conscious memory to the murder, but nothing thereafter. Since he lacks the continuity of memory for all his actions and experiences after his injury, according to Shoemaker’s account of identity, Leonard of the present has a separate identity from the past Leonard. However, how altered can his identity truly become. If he does not remember any of his actions after the incident, they cannot affect his mannerisms, tastes, personality or character. This meaning that he is influenced in these areas by his previous memories before the loss of his short-term memory. Based on this, Leonard could be argued to hold the same identity due to Shoemaker’s revision including psychological continuity, ”...two person-stages will be directly connected psychologically, if the latter of them contains psychological state (a memory impression, personality trait, etc.) which stands in the appropriate relation of casual dependence to the state contained in the earlier one.” [...] Continue to the complete essay Christopher Nolan's Memento - by Torben Schmidt - Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt Excerpt [...] It’s obvious that there is a conventional noir and revenge story behind Memento: A husband (former private investigator) seeks revenge on the person who murdered his wife and left him with his condition. The police couldn’t help him find the murderer. The only help he has is his rather dubiously “motived friend and a tough female barmaid” (Franklin 2001), who certainly has some character traits of the typical femme fatale. Furthermore, the whole story – and this is also typical of the film noir genre – plays in an absolutely anonymous, bleak, and empty environment that “accentuates the loneliness” (Shahinfar 2001) of the protagonist. Typical moods of classic film noir, such as alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, pessimism, evil, guilt and particularly paranoia, can be found in Memento. Additionally, the story is full of noirish flashbacks and it has no happy ending. But what makes this film so special and different from other neo-noir or revenge films? [...] Continue to the complete essay as PDF Instant Karma: Leonard Shelby as The Ultimate Pragmatist Essay by Jeff Gomez / www.dontcallhome.com "We wake up one morning and find ourselves in a new place, and then we build a ladder to explain how we got there. The pragmatist is the person who asks whether this is a good place to be. The nonpragmatist is the person who admires the ladder."
1. In Christopher Nolan's 2000 film Memento, Guy Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, a man who-due to a head injury-cannot make new memories. Because of this condition, approximately every ten minutes whatever knowledge is in Shelby's head is lost and his mind is washed as clean as a freshly scrubbed blackboard. To deal with his problem (which Leonard acknowledges is "almost impossible" to live with), he has come up with an intricate system of mnemonic devices, such as writing notes to himself, establishing rigorous habits and routines, as well as getting a large number of tattoos to remind him of crucial facts. Read on | Download as PDF ...Sammy Jenkis by Johannes Duncker Remember Sammy Jenkis. One of the most prominent and maybe the most important of Lenny's tattoos.
But maybe Lenny left himself a small hint that this instruction - to remember Sammy the way Leonard does - is not correct. Maybe he prepared a clue for himself that left him the possibility to reveal his mistake. Leonard's body is full of tattoos, his world full of notes. These notes and tattoos all - almost all - have one thing in common: They are in printed characters. But not the "Sammy"-tattoo.
By changing his handwriting, he knows that this information is incorrect. And by tattooing Remember Sammy Jenkis in cursive he left himselft this small hint, that the whole world he build himself is not factual... |
              
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Lenny uses this tattoo to remember his condition, to remember the made-up story of Sammy and by contrast his story or what he has made of it. He has succesfully projected part of his story onto Sammy and every time Lenny looks at this tattoo (the only one that can be seen when he is dressed and the one he is confronted with the most.
At another time in the film Lenny writes down something in cursive. Teddy says that he should write down not to trust Natalie. Unwillingly Lenny notes it, but in cursive.