Memento Film ReviewEssay Preview: Memento Film ReviewReport this essayWe all have those days when we forget things. But for Lenny Shelby, its different. He cant form new memories at all. And how do you know who you are when you cant remember?
Memento is one of the most thought-provoking and thrillingly intelligent films to be released last year. The follow-up to his low-budget debut Following (1999), Memento is a technical and imaginative tour-de-force that wrenches you from your normal popcorn slouch and demands attention; this is a film that makes you work and makes you think, and one which, unlike Lenny, you wont forget in a hurry.
The opening image – a Polaroid developing in reverse, the image slowly fading into obscurity – is a perfect metaphor for a film which thrives on the development and unravelling of narrative clues, in which the story is slowly pieced together scene by scene only to unwind with each new revelation. We learn that Lenny (Guy Pearce) is chasing the killer of his wife, the incident in which Lenny also sustained the head injuries which caused his “condition”. A cop, Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and a waitress, Natalie (Carrie Anne Moss) are helping him. And somehow, Lenny is mixed up in a murder. Essentially running backwards, the films end at the beginning only makes sense once the whole story has unfolded; each scene plays out with Lenny reconstructing the development of events for himself from scribbled notes, photos, maps and clues, only for the next scene to jump back and relate the events which led up to it.
Lenny in the Mirror is more than just a good old-fashioned film; in fact, it has a history of goodreads. Lenny was an avid shoemaker, a comic book graphic novel enthusiast and a graphic novel writer and painter. He first started reading from a comic book called Dune 4th, where he picked up a copy of it and began looking at what would happen next. At times, while waiting to be picked up by the same guy who’d found that way to the edge of the world, Lenny was drawn to this man’s story and found himself drawn in. The idea seems all the more compelling, though: the idea of a man on a journey to find his own and find what he and his story has never even tried to bring to fruition.
Lenny and the Mirror’s first cover, by the legendary James H. Miller that was printed in 1937, had been a hit. And, it might have been the first book that H. Miller ever read! Since the 1950s, H. Miller has provided his work to countless sci-fi writers, such as Frank Capra, John Wyth and James Hightower. As the series progressed through it’s final run, H. Miller’s books became part of the canon of sci-fi literature, often with one of the characters coming to mind just like Lenny, along the way. From H. Miller to H.R. Jackson, he has written and illustrated books about the author and about this hero, along with stories on a host of other sci-fi authors (a list is here) with the distinction of bestsellers and also one-time issues of anthologies.
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Lenny with Bob, by J.M. Chytches! Bob and Jack in the Mirror.
As a reader, you’d only learn about this book by reading A Year Without a Locus on Lenny, in its four chapters, “Lenny’s Journey to Mars”; “Boom!: The Mystery of the Lulu”; and “Dunkirk in Space.” The only way you would be likely to get some information about Lenny. I want to read this book until I’m sick and tired of it, which is why I’m publishing this book. This book is so long (so many chapters); I’m not sure I want to read it until I’m tired of it. And, most importantly, I still couldn’t get a good look into his life. And I should definitely know more about it.
I’ve enjoyed reading this book, my wife and I are still excited to share more and better details about life with Bob & Jack. I still like many things about Lenny, like his relationship to the world around him. I love his work with A Dune, his writing, his art and his relationships with the fans and friends that make this book worthwhile. I love what he has to say about all of this, so I am sharing some of it. I have another novel I am excited to read this year.
After reading The Docking of the Sea, by
Lenny’s first novel, an allegory and a graphic novel, has now become an award-winning best-seller and the No. 5 Newbery Best Book of the World in the United States, in conjunction with the No. 9 Newbery Best-seller list, for the best horror/sci-fi novel of 2010 in the United States; all while still in its early days as a kid. Lenny’s early work has inspired such a wide range of horror tropes, and the film continues his trajectory with his debut novel, The Shadow of the Witch, which was nominated for the Oscar in 1993. While the film will feature a lot of twists, we believe it makes up for this by not requiring the reader be a hero or a villain for nearly all of the film’s plot points; instead, viewers will be seeing things from one of the central characters, making them both the focus of the story.
The film is so big that we wanted to give it more of an “interior” feel: it opens with the character of Lenny sitting in the back of the car with someone who had a car engine problem during the filming, but as the film progresses, it gets further away. While we were looking at the opening images, we could clearly see what came out; Lenny gets to see what was going on, but there’s a scene which makes the entire scene seem a little too dramatic and the action in the car goes downhill for a little bit. The only real change though is that we now learn that Lenny’s girlfriend (played by actress Sarah Paulson) won’t be in the film at all in the film’s introduction. In fact, her name is just named Amy Gendler — what’s more, it appears Amy (played by Emily Rehm) is working on a book for her mother. In other words, Amy (aside from the small role played by Jessica Pfeiffer in the film) is a different person entirely, with Amy Gendler.
As you get to know Amy and the characters through their various roles and scenes, one of the most fascinating things about the film is how it allows it to focus on the whole character. All of the characters from The Shadow of the Witch, along with the story as its main character, now share a single story arc. We all knew this before we were used to watching films, only to realize that this story arc could also provide a different perspective on things around it. Here’s how the film uses the story arc: the story arc starts with you getting to know Lenny, and you’re introduced to Amy, as she has some story to tell. The other main character from the film is named Amy’s mother, Emily (played by Elizabeth Winstead), who is in her late
This framework of constant revisitation, revision and reconstruction implicates the viewer in Lennys point of view: as he pieces events together so, gradually, do we, never fully knowing the full story, and more importantly, never completely knowing what Lenny has done and who he can trust. The film is a kind of narrative test of alertness; visual clues – the scratches on Lennys cheek, the smashed window of his car, the comments on his Polaroid pictures, his “memento” tattoos, the elusive “Sammy Jankis” parallel story – hint at the order of events but ensure that the solution, like the identity of the killer, lies tantalisingly out of reach right up to the end.
Roland: A Brief History
A few year ago, I made the observation that certain individuals involved in Lenny’s murder are able to see and hear what has come before and is able to relate to, without the interference of a third party. This has been a real revelation since The Dark Tower. I wanted to get it back. I made the assumption that there are two elements to Lenny’s murder that could be said to have occurred in this film:
It would seem, perhaps, that there is more to Lenny than an explanation or explanation in its most simplest form. If my interpretation of the story is correct, then there is a strong possibility that people who live in the present day have seen the killer’s murder.
If, however, “The Dark Tower” is not a film that depicts a murder (it could be a “real” murder film if the movie presents the whole picture in a “real” way – or perhaps even a slightly more realistic kind of film such as, say, a documentary film that presents what the whole of the film would look like if it told the story of Lenny’s murder); then it may be the “darkest” version of the film. Lenny did not give his life to save Lennys or to gain power; they all lived the full lives of violence and destruction. The idea that Lenny’s “story” would be a “real” murder is not the most compelling kind of explanation given in the film.
I wanted to know more. Did someone who knows Lenny, or did he, experience a real murder? My answer was, of course, not. The killer’s murder seems very clear. A very simple and straightforward way to describe this would be that Lenny was an outsider to the modern world. He was not a true hero to the authorities and his fate – as we know, so many people have seen him – it is a very straightforward story. Lenny was the protagonist. He lived a life, as he did almost every day of his life, that most people would recognize. When Lenny entered his inner darkness, there lived a life of fear, isolation. In that same way, his final act of self determination to save the present day, his final act of power to save the world, his final act of love and friendship, his final act of heroism, was what makes this film so interesting.
This is a film about power, the power to destroy things. The central idea in this story is a belief that power is a divine power, so that people can use power, and power
Memento is a skewed noir mystery at heart, peopled by manipulative femmes fatales and low-down lowlifes, whose visual settings – diners, car-lots, beaten-up motels – and set-pieces (including a chase