Memento: Part 1
Hello and welcome to Sonia Speaking, a blog focused on dissecting and demystifying the narrative techniques employed by the greatest films ever made. The films covered here will encompass a wide variety of genres, historical eras, themes and tones. But the very first film to be covered here in a seven-part series will be Memento, arguably Christopher Nolanâs greatest work (yes, I do believe it is his greatest). Each part will cover a specific screenplay sequence. This first part will, of course, cover the opening sequence until the filmâs inciting incident. I will be assuming that readers will already be familiar with the different sequences of a screenplay. But if you are not, please Google âscreenplay sequences and dramatic turning pointsâ to familiarize yourself with the concept. Not all screenplays follow this structure nor is this structure meant to be followed by every screenwriter. But the model exists for a reason and it is incredibly helpful with laying down the foundations for creating a screenplay that feels cohesive and focused.
Letâs get into Memento. Whether you are a Christopher Nolan fan or not, there is little doubt that this is one of the greatest films ever made. Most strikingly, it is one of the few films that presents a direct and unique relationship between the visual style and narrative choices. All films do have their own âvisual rulesâ (stylistic choices that signify importance of certain narrative choices). But Memento takes it a step further because of the deep thematic resonance it weaves through the entire narrative. It is not enough to suggest that the color blue signifies sadness in your protagonist; that sadness has to become a topic and arching theme that the entire narrative explores and eventually makes a statement about. Mementoâs themes obviously explore the temporal landscape as well as the shifting landscapes of identity and self-awareness by alternating between the black-and-white (BW) and color sequences. This series will divide the screenplayâs color and BW scenes for the sake of reading ease and understanding.
COLOR SCENES
The film opens with its famous opening image, a Polaroid being shaken. Like every other scene and plot development in this film, the audience is introduced to something without its context. This is Leonardâs âmemoryâ of the event (Teddyâs murder). Even within the span of the first two seconds or so we see this, it is automatically clear that this photograph is important to Leonard. After all, we only record what we want to remember. But the scene immediately throws a curveball as the scene plays out backwards with the Polaroid jumping back into Leonardâs camera and ending with Teddyâs abrupt and unexplained murder. This creates the filmâs first overall layer of mystery: who are these men and why did one just kill the other? When the scene ends, the violent image of Teddy being murdered has not been recorded by Leonardâs camera yet but it has been in the audienceâs mind. Even though this is technically the âendingâ of the actual story, it works as an opening teaser because of the way the conflict escalates and leaves most of the context unexplained.
Even though the color scenes play out backwards in terms of chronology, it could be argued that they still manage to follow the conventional three-act structure because of the way each succeeding scene provides more context and insight into Leonardâs motivations. One such example is that on page 3:
LEONARD
Beg my forgiveness! Beg my wifeâs forgiveness!
TEDDY
Leonard, you donât have a clue whatâs going on. You donât even know my name.
This is the first mention of Leonardâs wife, clearly a source of intense motivation and emotion for Leonard.
Another essential goal that Mementoâs first fifteen pages achieves is the âworld-buildingâ, a term more often associated with high fantasy/science-fiction/genre stories. But each film has its own world, rules and tone. After the opening sequence, weâre taken to the motel, prior to Teddyâs murder. Here we are introduced to Burt (the clerk), a brief explanation by Leonard about his condition, visual cues like Leonardâs suit and car, his Polaroids. The world-building in Memento is done masterfully. This is the kind of story where a different writer would surely have fallen victim to the dreaded âinfo-dumpâ. The trick is to find the logical reason for a character to directly explain something. It is done masterfully here as Leonard himself cannot remember if heâs explained his condition to Burt or not.
As the screenplay barrels towards its inciting incident, another character is introduced: Natalie. Like Sammy (discussed below), she herself is not present in person at her introduction. Instead, Leonard has an envelope from her. His Polaroid of Natalie presents her as an ally, someone who identifies with Leonard because âshe has also lost someoneâ. And this envelope is a bombshell as it contains a photocopy of Teddyâs driverâs license, except it lists his name as âJohn Edward Gammellâ. And here is where a major set-up is paid off as Teddyâs Polaroid is noted with, âDonât believe his liesâ. This scene on page 13 is layered with surprise after surprise as Leonard sheds his clothing to reveal tattoos that contain information about his past and his current quest. The most damning are the license plate (which matches Gammellâs) and the one that says, âJOHN G RAPED AND MURDERED MY WIFEâ. And it is at this point we realize that this was the real moment Leonard decided to kill Teddy/Gammell, making this the filmâs inciting incident. While the larger context of Leonard and Teddyâs relationship is still unexplained, enough context has been provided here to make this the end of the first sequence.
BW SCENES
Immediately after the opening, the audience is very briefly introduced to the filmâs BW scenes. Similarly, the first BW scene has no real context. But the first line of dialogue in it (âSo where are you?â) echo exactly what happens in an audienceâs mind as they watch a film unfold: constantly asking questions, orienting themselves physically and geographically within the location, etc. As much as this film is about memory and identity, it also acts as commentary on the film-watching experiences. As the theater darkens, the individual audience memberâs identity as well as the collective audience identity are snuffed out and the filmâs identity is adopted in place of those. We take on the protagonistâs identity and absorb the presented philosophical musings, forcing us to ponder how to assimilate or reject those ideas into our ârealâ identities once the credits roll and the theater lights return.
This concludes the first post. Stay tuned for the next post, this time next week. Feel free to comment and/or send me questions and thoughts. Thank you for reading!














