This week in class we watched the film Memento. This is about a man named Leonard who has anterograde amnesia, meaning he cannot make new memories. He suffered this from an attack by a man that raped and killed his wife. He is on a mission to find the man responsible for the death of his wife and this film follows him on his journey to do just that.

Leonard suffers memory loss from a hit to his head by his wife’s attacker. He is unable to make new memories, he can only remember things from before his accident. Because of this there are characters that take advantage of this and they manipulate him. Natalie manipulates Leonard by fighting with him and she gets him to hit her and he won’t remember it. When he sees her again she tells him that someone else did this to her and he should go after the man who did it and he does, which he will again, not remember. Teddy is another character that uses his condition against him. Teddy is a cop but keeps this from Leonard. He uses Leonard to get information to find the man who killed his wife so that Leonard can get his revenge on the man. He does, but again does not remember so Teddy uses the information again to find someone else who fits the description to hopefully give Leonard some type of satisfaction that he killed his wife’s attacker. Burt, the man who works the front desk of the hotel, also used Leonard’s condition to manipulate him. He does this by renting out additional rooms in Leonard’s name to make more money from him.

Compared to Raging Bull which we watched in class the previous week, Memento is a much faster paced film. Raging Bull is linear edited, which means that there are more breaths in between takes and there are longer takes. Memento is non-linear edited.

There is a particular flash cut that appears toward the end of the film that reveals a major revelation about Leonard’s character. A flash cut refers to several consecutive shots that convey a lot of information quickly or implies energy or chaos. In this flash cut, Sammy, one of Leonard’s insurance clients from before his accident who also suffered from the same memory loss as him, is shown sitting in a wheelchair. A nurse walks past him and for a brief second, you see Leonard sitting in the chair instead of Sammy. This reveals that when Leonard was telling stories about Sammy, he was actually talking about himself. He got himself confused with Sammy and what happened with Sammy actually happened to him.

While watching this movie, I was a little confused as to what was happening at times. I’m not sure when or where in the movie, but suddenly everything started making sense to me. The movie is a little hard to follow at times because it is not in chronological order. It intrigues you and leaves you asking a lot of questions. However, I don’t think that the film would be as interesting as it is if it was in chronological order. There are a lot of flashbacks and some of them give you clues or answer the questions you have while watching. While it would be easier to follow in chronological order, the film was still really interesting and would not be as good if it were in chronological order.

Primacy/recency is a theory that in a sequence, you will remember the first things that happen because they occur first. That is the primacy aspect of it. Then recency, you will retain what happened at the end the best and the middle will kind of just blur together. The film uses this idea because it begins and need in the same place. The movie starts with Leonard’s last kill at that abandoned building, but it ends with his first kill at this building. The movie would be a lot more confusing if it did not use this theory. There are a lot of repeated scenes but they are repeated because the very beginning of one sequence is the ending of the next sequence.

This film uses black and white to show what occurs before a killing which leads to a moment, and the color scenes lead back to a moment. This film also uses many other editing techniques such as montage, cross cutting, match cuts, smash cuts, and jump cuts. A montage is a sequence of shots assembled in juxtaposition of one another to create emotional impact, condense a story or to convey an idea. The film uses a couple montages. One example being, at the end of the film where Leonard is driving away and closes his eyes while driving. Another being a dream sequence of his wife being killed, which then results in a smash cut because it becomes a nightmare. Another technique used is a jump cut. A jump cut is an abrupt cut that creates lack of continuity between shots by leaving out parts of the action. There is a jump cut montage that occurs when Leonard tells Jimmy to strip off his clothes and then he begins to put on his clothes. Cross cutting is also used when Leonard is on the phone talking about Sammy, and then it cuts back to him being on the phone again. It also occurs when memories are shown and when he has dreams of remembering his wife. Cross cutting gives the illusion that two story lines of action are happening at the same time by rapidly cutting back and forth between them. A match cut is a cut that joins two shots with matching compositional elements and helps establish a strong continuity of action. Match cuts are used when the black and white to color sequences come together. Going back to smash cuts, this is when one scene abruptly cuts to another for aesthetic, narrative, or emotional purpose. This typically occurs during a crucial scene where a cut would not typically occur. This happens in the nightmare sequences, and scenes where it transitions from calm to crazy. Another example is when Leonard is sitting in a booth and cuts to him running away from a guy shooting at him.

This film is continuity edited. Continuity means that one thing flows to the next thing. Even though this film moves backwards, it still all flows together and the sequences go together with the exception of the montages.