Memento

Makayla Lovelace

Professor Juenger

Film 115

October 1, 2018

                                                                      Memento

In the film Memento, it is about a guy by the name of Leonard Shelby who has a condition that keeps him from creating new memories called Anter and faces challenges every day. He lives life by his own rules, Leonardo has to take photos and notes of everything he sees or hears that he finds important or he will forget it ever happened. The very last memory he has is of his wife being raped and murdered. Even with his condition, he seeks revenge to find the person who killed his wife and took his “normal life”away forever. The film was considered one of the best movies ever made or it’s time and received several film awards such as best screenplay. The movie wasn’t a typical movie that has a build-up leading up to something big or a major event. But it was the exact opposite the movie wasn’t shot in chronological order everything that was considered to be important happened in the very beginning and the ending was showing his plans or journey leading to him finding the person who murdered his wife. If the film were placed in chronological order it would have been easier to comprehend because originally the first scene is the killed someone and my mind automatically wonder why he killed the guy and what led up to him committing the act. I would prefer knowing what led up to the murder first then to see the murder first and backtrack to what happened prior. The color and black and white sequences used in the film were used differently as previously said the movie isn’t in chronological order so everything was reversed. The black and white sequences representing the film going further along in the story and, the color sequences were used to represent the film going back like a flashback moment. In the film, the two sequences combined together to develop a structure for the story that watchers could feel as though they have insight into what happens in Leonard’s head. The pace of the film fast compared to other films such as Raging Bull because it would switch to different parts of the movie, to sum up, Leonard’s plans and understanding of what was happening. In addition, the film Raging Bull was much slower it seemed as though the pace of the film was prolonged and exaggerated so that watchers could have an understanding of Jake’s point of view and Joey’s point of view.  Mememto used several different editing techniques throughout the film. My personal favorite editing techniques were the montage and crosscut. In the very beginning of the movie Leonardo is waving a picture trying to make the image appear clearer, but before it reaches its full clarity the scene goes in a loop and starts over. In addition, that particular montage scene was used to intrigue the audience to be even more engaged with the film. My cross cut scene in the film was Leonardo creating his own tattoos in one instance and on the next it cuts to another scene where he is outside saying that he his chasing a guy, then he eventually realizes that he is one who is being chased. I thought it was a pretty cool scene because it seems to flow well together and it could be considered as a visual trick to deceive the audience. In conclusion, Memento was a good film and it was my first time ever seeing the film. Also, it was difficult to understand overall because the film was out of order and it was confusing because it would continue to jump one scene to another and somehow they were in correlation. But after getting a better understanding of why the film wasn’t shot in chronological order it made sense they wanted to enhance the movie more from in Leonardo’s perspective because he had a short-term memory condition they wanted to give a visual of exactly how he operates so watchers could have a better understanding of Leonardo.