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

Film Form and Mnemonic Devices in Memento 10305 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110S 5 6 7 8 0 9 K J 15 E E 21 A A ASammyJankisNatalieLeonardalonehookerJimmyTeddyFigure 4.4Chronology of memories in Mementosurvived the rape, she was diabetic, Leonard injected too much insulinprovoking her death.The last four images show a false memory, a typical mental imagedepicting hopes or aspirations. We see Leonard on a bed with his wife. Onhis chest a new tattoo reads “I’ve done it.” It is the fulfillment of the initialcommitment, because by killing John G., Leonard had his revenge, butit is an imaginary situation. The fact that it appears in Leonard’s mind afterthe killing of the wrong person puts the entire story under a different light,and we touch on the unreliability of the main character.The cluster of mental images and memories is another example of howcomplex a narration can become: the list of mental images shows that theyare disposed in order to obtain an increase of dramatic involvement, a featurewhich is missing in the chronological version of the film, where thereis neither a significant improvement of knowledge nor a dramatic progression.This cluster is designed to fit the backward narration. The last four imagesare clear evidence in this respect: put at the beginning of the film in thechronological version they would quickly reveal Leonard’s mental instability,creating a different primacy effect, based on Teddy’s revelations andon Leonard’s unreliability. We would simply see an impaired man manipulatedby Teddy, then by Natalie, and we would quickly understand thecyclic time in which Leonard lives. The different position of these groupsof images in the film contributes to a different signification, and in thechronological version the sense of a progressive discovery of clues is missing,as it is the mystery about the murder of Leonard’s wife.This difference existing between the two versions is a demonstration ofthe fact that Leonard’s mental images and memories are not a simple catalogue:they are ordered in multiple series, explicitly designed to engagethe viewers’ interest. In this sense we say that they are mnemonic devices,