Tattoos Mirroring The Past: Analysis Of The Film Memento
"We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I\'m no different."
"Memento" came out in 2001 and it\'s the second feature film by director-producer-screenwriter, Christopher Nolan. The film is based on a short story written by the director\'s younger brother, Jonathan Nolan, which has only been published after the film came out. The production\'s cost is considered minor in the world of cinema, 9 million dollars, and it was filmed in just 25 days (IMDb, n.d.). The narrative is constructed in a very unusual way. The colorful scenes, which one might argue, describe the external conflict of the hero, are arranged in reverse order, end to start. In contrast, the black-white ones, which could be explained as describing the hero\'s inner conflict, are arranged in chronological order (but in fact should appear before all the colorful scenes). Finally, the two narrative lines connect to one, black-white scene - that changes into colorful during. A sort-of analogy of the hero\'s internal conflict taking over his external world.
"Memento"\'s popularity is subject to debate. As appropriate for an independent film, its distribution wasn\'t as wide as film produced in Hollywood\'s big and well-known studio, and so were its takings. Moreover, in the US the film received the dubious rating, R, which restricts entry for audience 18 years of age and above (IMDb, n.d.). This rating usually hurts the gross of films (Henderson, 2008). However, despite never entering the number 1 spot in Box Office takings in the US, the film survived over half a year in the top 50, with its distribution getting wider every week, in accordance with its success. Only about 2 months after its release it even entered the top 10 (BoxOfficeMojo, n.d.). 39 million dollars may be considered a small gross in Hollywood\'s scales, but it still means a 200% profit. One might be able to attribute this success to the attention the film received from Academy of Motion Pictures, with two Oscar nominations, for editing and original screenplay, and for the even bigger attention the film received from film critics during 2001. In a website that follows film critics, the film is standing on 92% positive reviews (RottenTomatoes, n.d.). In addition, a marketing campaign in which flyers were handed out in festival and even sent to random homes, including only the address of the unusual website for the film, otnemem.com, should be mentioned. The website was published a long time before the film\'s release and even helped the Nolan brothers find a distributer in the film place (Molloy, 2010, p. 47). However, one might argue that most of "Memento"\'s success came from word of mouth recommendations (Klein, 2001). Klein describes the affect it had on the film\'s success as \'phenomenal\'. Moreover, he mentioned a phenomenon of "repeat viewings". Like many other films containing a surprising "twist", each scene in the film could be interpreted differently once you know where the film is heading.
Memento tells the story of Leonard who suffers from a type of short-term memory loss. He uses notes, Polaroid pictures and tattoos on his body in order to "get on with his life", when the force that powers his will to continue is revenge, killing the man who raped and murdered his wife and caused his memory loss. The scenes in the film are naturally very short, in accordance with the hero\'s memory\'s range. This fact, plus the extraordinary order of the narrative create a puzzle which is, allegedly, resolved at the end of the film – the end which is actually the beginning, the turning point which fuels the entire film. But, since the answer to that puzzle is that the narrator isn\'t at all reliable, the ending brings up countless questions. While the only conclusion is that the audience mustn\'t take any character or event for granted (Molloy, 2010, p. 42). The official website also helped in fixating this ambiguity, providing bits of newspapers and fabricated documents which hint about the hero\'s past. The ambiguity is certainly another factor behind the "repeat viewings" phenomenon. In an interview, Christopher Nolan it\'s obvious to him what "the truth" is, behind the story. However, his brother, Jonathan, told him he mustn\'t tell because "the audience enters the head of a narrator who doesn\'t know the truth himself. If we tell we will hurt the rules of story", then added "if we don\'t, we\'ll make more money" (Yamato, 2011, p. 2).
The "repeat viewings phenomenon" is the reason why many categorize "Memento" as a "cult film". According to the Oxford Dictionary, "cult films" are films that need to provide "constant attraction to a relatively small audience" and they mustn\'t be considered "part of the mainstream" (Haigh, 2010). The audience tends to watch these films many times, analyze and discuss them. An "active" audience, allegedly, in contrast to the audience who watches "mainstream" films. Some add that "cult films" are films that give the audience "insight concerning the meaning of their lives" (Faulkner, 2003, p. 2). That is the explanation, probably, for the amount of released books analyzing the film and interactive forums about the film which are still active on a daily basis, over a decade after its release. But it seems that "Memento" was always destined to be in the "sidelines". Not just because of its independent film status, but also because many were afraid to distribute it and saw it as esoteric (Molloy, 2010, p. 26). The assumption was that Americans would have trouble digesting the non-linear narrative, in addition to the alternative and creative commentary of the existing order that the film provides. Ultimately, the acceptance of the narrative\'s form surprised even the distributors. It seems like in the post-modern world (Gorovic\', n.d., "Basic Concepts"), which was built on foundations of internet use and video gaming, the viewers are culturally equipped to deal with a non-linear and complex narrative.
The role of the film\'s narrative structure and that in every scene the hero has to remind himself of the facts that drive him, give the feeling of living in a world without a clear meaning (Williams, 2003). A sense of nihilism in the post-modern world, criticism of the "Society of the Spectacle". A world entirely based on symbols and images (Gorovic\' and Arav, 2012, "Society of the Spectacle"). Tattoos, notes and Polaroids that make up the world of the hero, could as well be, to emphasize the materialism of the contemporary world, receipts of purchases for example. As noted by novelist Chuck Palahniuk ("Fight Club") in his interpretation of the film (Palahniuk, n.d.). A world where the classic structure of narrative disappeared. There is no beginning, middle and end, everything is built with short data segments - "status lines" in social networks - as quick as they appear, and as many as they are, they are forgotten and disappear from our memory. Without any real emotional significance. So Leonard has to look again and again at the information in his possession, every time he opens his eyes, in every short scene. Doubtful whether emotion is really still taking part.
Baudrillard said in his book that, in the not so distant past – between the two world wars – "the myths were driven from the \'Real\' by the violence of history, and found their sanctuary in cinema" (Baudrillard, 2006, p. 43). In the post-modern world, the sense of nostalgia and the "longing for the \'Real\'" – in the form of the past\'s violent wars – caused history to go through the same process. History itself takes the places of the myths on the screen. The biggest trauma of the time is actually the lack of piercing violence of the \'Real\'. Thus, we bring the history back from film, fashion and ideologies of the past. Namely, not because we believe in those fashions and ideologies or are interested in them – we bring them back emptied of their content. But we do this to revive the time in which at least "there was history". In which life and death were at stake. According to Baudrillard, in the post-modern world, history is no longer an objective measure of looking at the past, since the history itself is a myth (Baudrillard, 2006, p. 43). This claim creates a paradoxical relationship with the idea that we can create a coherent narrative from segmented information on events and circumstances. The subconscious – subjective and with its fractured capability to understand the \'Real\' in the post-modern world – questions our ability to understand, and obviously objectively represent the events of the past and their circumstances. A kind of "subjective reality", as is in "Memento".
Leonard lies in his bed and says "I have to believe in a world outside my own… I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world is still there", and answers himself positively. However, later on we find out that the world, as he represents it, doesn\'t really go on without him. He uses his own loss of memory to create his own reality. As he says in another scene, "facts, not memories, that\'s how I would investigate". But in his world facts are told through tattoos and pictures. Those create his history, which drives his reality. A reality which is no more than a way to hide the emptiness of a man who lives in absurd essence which is entirely stipulated on his whims and the way he chooses to view himself and those around him. Thus, using a few words in the back of a Polaroid picture he chooses who he will trust and who he won\'t. It should be noted that Teddy\'s credibility, who represents himself as a close friend of Leonard, changes in the eyes of the viewer all throughout the film – as Leonard sees fit. Until the understanding that Leonard himself, as the narrator, isn\'t trustworthy at all. At the end of the film, Leonard tattoos the license plate of Teddy\'s car on his hand. A tattoo which, eventually, brings forward his demise. When Leonard writes down Teddy\'s license plate, he accidently writes 1 instead of I, he even tattoos the wrong license plate on his body. However, in another scene where the car is visible, the license plate changes in accordance to Leonard\'s tattoo. Handwritten notes on the screenplay that were put up online proved it wasn\'t a mistake, but was actually planned this way. Another hint at the "subjective reality" of the film. The reality Leonard creates for himself.
Leonard\'s self-deception consists of another illusion. Throughout the film, during the black-white scenes, Leonard describes himself in the past as an insurance company investigator. He tells of a client he investigated, "Sammy Jenkins", who suffered from a memory problem quite similar to his. However, "Sammy Jenkins" is actually Leonard. He\'s an Imaginary object. The "Mirror Image", his own experience as someone else. As noted in the "Mirror Stage", a part of the "Imaginary Order" by Jacques Lacan (Gorovic\' and Arav, 2012, "Imaginary-Symbolic-Real"). When Lacan describes the "Mirror Stage" he claims "misconceptions constitute the ego" (Lacan, 1977, pp. 4-5). In Leonard\'s case the illusion bursts the "Mirror Stage". Since, often this illusion slides into the "colorful world" of the film and thus drives some of his actions. In one of the colorful scenes, Leonard says that "we all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are". Therefore, it\'s possible that Leonard\'s distorted vision, the creation of "Sammy Jenkins", is a products of his lack of understanding of his own self. An expansion of the "misconceptions". This idea also causes a deliberate ambiguity of the notion of subjectivity in Leonard\'s world, in order to defend "his Real".
At the end of the film, when understanding that Leonard wants to continue to deceive himself to search and kill the murdered, only known as \'John G\', this murderer becomes a kind of "eternal myth", always true in the eyes of the believer. He will always be the murderer and Leonard will always have to find him. Even when Teddy shouts at Leonard that he already killed that \'John G\' and that this man never even murdered his wife, Leonard chooses to continue to believe in the myth. He asks himself "can I just let myself forget what you told me?", and chooses to do so. He prefers to make Teddy his new \'John G\', and acknowledge himself as a murderer for the short duration of the scene and his memory, rather than experiencing the shock of the truth. This way he actually tries to get rid of the "stubbornness of the \'Real\'". He repels the "breakthrough experience which reflects the passion of death" of the "Real Order" (Gorovic\' and Arav, 2012, "Imaginary-Symbolic-Real"). Hence the name of the film, according to Zizek (Zizek, 2004, p. 276), "memento always relates to mori [death]". As Leonard describes "Sammy Jenkins" memory problem as different from his, since Sammy\'s is caused by a "mental block" and isn\'t physical, maybe Leonard himself chooses on his own to forget the \'Real\'. Thus he wouldn\'t have to experience the "emptiness" of it. The melancholy (Gorovic\' and Arav, 2012, "Imaginary-Symbolic-Real").
"Trauma is fascinating to us, because it is always a temptation for something else, always a mask of another trauma" – Jacques Lacan (McGowan & Kunkle, 2004, p. 134). In Memento, we are attracted to the trauma of the murder. The mystery, the search for the killer. Like the classic film-noirs. However, the collision between the fictional world presented in the film using Leonard\'s narrative, to the breaking at the end - the dissolution of the thought that we "know it all", takes off a part of the mask that hides the real trauma of "Memento" - the trauma of choice. Leonard\'s choice of the \'Imaginary\' and his escape of the \'Real\'. This conflict also drives the audience away from the desire to discover the murderer; understanding not only that this desire is impossible, this desire is entirely phony – the murderer was not a murderer. Thus, it\'s entirely irrelevant. The viewer has to experience a kind of dissolution of a fictional world. The film is an endless circle that tells a story through a series of contradictions and ambiguities, even when it seems that the narrative is clear, the feeling quickly fades.
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handed it in today. Fingers crossed.
