Buckland-Warren-Puzzle-Films-Complex-Storytelling-Contemporary-Cinema

100 Stefano GhislottiFilm formMain character’s identityWhy did Leonard kill Teddy?Sammy Jankis storyWho is Natalie?What happened to Leonard’s wife?What’s Natalie’s game?Why does Leonard kill Jimmy?Film form (seq. 22+A)Are Leonard’s memories true?Figure 4.3Main aspects/questions presented in Mementothe flowing of the film will propose an entire set of schemata, concerningthe other characters, the film form, and the outcome of the story. A listof the principal aspects is provided in Figure 4.3.We shall now consider the main character’s identity schemata, which isproposed at the beginning of the film. If we examine the first scenes wecan notice that the tattoos which help to define the character’s identity areshown repeatedly, and are present in both black and white and colorscenes. We hear about Sammy Jankis or we see the tattoo on Leonard’s lefthand in three scenes (2, T, S), and after a few minutes the same happensin three other scenes (S, 5, R). We see other tattoos on Leonard’s body intwo contiguous scenes (T, 4): these scenes belong to different temporal lines,but they both show Leonard in front of the mirror, looking at his tattoos,and we can see how they read. In the subsequent scene (S) Natalie speaksabout Leonard’s “freaky tattoos.” All these elements are present in contiguoussegments, and while the narrative follows two opposite time directions, theyform a robust cluster of references to the identity and to the mental stateof the character. Despite the backward structure, after the occurrence ofthis set of elements, viewers can determine Leonard’s goals and motivations.The primacy effect (see Bordwell 1985, p. 36), the initial frame ofreference concerning Leonard’s condition, is about the loss of his wife, andthe search for revenge, and it is set in the first part of the film, even if mostcolor scenes showing essential details are to be referred to the last part ofthe story.