Memento: Blog Post

Memento is filled with different cinematic elements in different unique ways, giving the movie perfection with elegance and something to ponder on. The element I would to focus on from the film is on editing.

In the film, editing was used effectively at most moments of the film when the main character, Leonard, would switch from color scenes to the black and white scenes. The moment where the editing was used most effectively was when Leonard killed Teddy and the scene transitions to Leonard talking in a black and white scene. It was effective because it set the tone that Leonard has short term memory loss because he saying where am I. It also started the movie at the beginning and the opposite from the ending. With the movie playing in reverse, the black and white were playing their scenes in chronological order explaining somewhat of what's going with the movie and also explaining of why the main character has tattoos and other "small" things.

Another moment where editing was important was at the scenes where Leonard was interviewing Sammy Jankis. When Leonard would interview Sammy, he would talk about the side effects of his condition and how Sammy forgets everything. Leonard talks about how he forgets everything and that his wife tries to help but he forgets and that it would be hard it to remember this relates to Leonard and his condition as well. The scenes relates Sammy to Leonard in how they both forget things within the first couple of minutes.

Sammy and Leonard also don't experience any emotion such as fear and anger. Toward the end of the film, Leonard goes to the exact same position as Sammy suggesting that he has the same conditions and experience the same symptoms where it seems like they don't care about anything and don't know where they are.

The scene where it least effective is where Leonard is talking on the phone and then he ask "who is this". I think it's least effective because Leonard at some point did remember who he was talking to but just forgot considering he has short term memory loss. The scene doesn't have any important plot compared to the movie and no foreshadowing but just simply Leonard forgetting who he was talking to. The scene didn't contribute any important information related to the film and the bigger picture the film is trying to bring to the audience. The director's use of lighting helps with the film dramatically because the black and white scenes give the background of the character and who Leonard is. Leonard talks about what he's doing and why he has the tattoos on his body and about who he's trying to catch. The black and white scenes also give a foreshadowing of the movie. One foreshadow was when Leonard sat in the same position as Sammy. It gave information about who Leonard really was because when he described Sammy, he described himself because Sammy and Leonard as the same. A movie that relates to Memento is Inception. Both movies are hard to follow usually lead the audience into confusion while simultaneously trying focus on the main objective. The audience struggles a lot trying to connect everything together to make sense of what they just watched.