Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) has short term memory loss resulting from an injury he sustained which was associated with the murder of his wife. He remembers his life prior to the incident, such as being an insurance claims investigator. He has learned to cope with his memory loss through dealing with a man named Sammy Jankis, a person he investigated professionally who also had short term memory issues.
Some of these coping mechanism are to have a system of where to place things, talk to people face-to-face if possible rather than on the telephone as to be able to gauge their true intention, take Polaroids and write copious notes, the most important of those which he tattoos on his body so that they become permanent.
Leonard’s current mission is to find and kill his wife’s murderer, who he believes is a man named John G., a name which is tattooed on his body. Over the course of a day, Leonard is assisted in this mission by a few people seemingly independent of each other, including a man named Teddy and a woman named Natalie. However, each time he meets them, he has no idea who they are, why they are helping him and if indeed they are working toward the same goal as him.
Memento is a 2000 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed and written by Christopher Nolan, and produced by Suzanne and Jennifer Todd. The film’s script was based on a pitch by Jonathan Nolan, who later wrote the story “Memento Mori” from the concept. It stars Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Joe Pantoliano.
Pearce stars as a man who, as a result of a past trauma, suffers from anterograde amnesia, the inability to form new memories and suffers short-term memory loss approximately every five minutes. He is searching for the persons who attacked him and killed his wife, using an intricate system of Polaroid photographs and tattoos to track information he cannot remember.
Memento is presented as two different sequences of scenes interspersed during the film: a series in black-and-white that is shown chronologically, and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order (simulating for the audience the mental state of the protagonist). The two sequences meet at the end of the film, producing one complete and cohesive narrative.
Memento premiered on September 5, 2000, at the Venice International Film Festival and was released in European theaters starting in October. It became a blockbuster success, being acclaimed by critics who praised its nonlinear narrative structure and motifs of memory, perception, grief, and self-deception, and earning $39.7 million over a $9 million budget. It received numerous accolades, including Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. The film was subsequently ranked one of the best films of the 2000s by several critics and media outlets.
Filming took place from September 7 to October 8, 1999, a 25-day shooting schedule. Pearce was on set every day during filming, although all three principal actors (including Pantoliano and Moss) only performed together the first day, shooting exterior sequences outside Natalie’s house. All of Moss’ scenes were completed in the first week, including follow-up scenes at Natalie’s home, Ferdy’s bar, and the restaurant where she meets Leonard for the final time.
Pantoliano returned to the set late in the second week to continue filming his scenes. On September 25, the crew shot the opening scene in which Leonard kills Teddy. Although the scene is in reverse motion, Nolan used forward-played sounds. For a shot of a shell casing flying upwards, the shell had to be dropped in front of the camera in forward motion, but it constantly rolled out of frame.
Nolan was forced to blow the casing out of frame instead, but in the confusion, the crew shot it backwards. They then had to make an optical (a copy of the shot) and reverse the shot to make it go forward again. “That was the height of complexity in terms of the film”, Nolan said. “An optical to make a backwards running shot forwards, and the forwards shot is a simulation of a backwards shot.”
The next day, on September 26, Larry Holden returned to shoot the sequence where Leonard attacks Jimmy. After filming was completed five days later, Pearce’s voice-overs were recorded. For the black-and-white scenes, Pearce was given free rein to improvise his narrative, allowing for a documentary feel.
The Travel Inn in Tujunga, California, was repainted and used as the interior of Leonard’s and Dodd’s motel rooms and the exterior of the film’s Discount Inn. Scenes in Sammy Jankis’ house were shot in a suburban home close to Pasadena, while Natalie’s house was located in Burbank.[29] The crew planned to shoot the derelict building set (where Leonard kills Teddy and Jimmy) in a Spanish-styled brick building owned by a train company.
However, one week before shooting began, the company placed several dozen train carriages outside the building, making the exterior unfilmable. Since the interior of the building had already been built as a set, a new location had to be found. An oil refinery near Long Beach was used instead, and the scene where Leonard burns his wife’s possessions was filmed on the other side of the refinery.
Memento (2001)
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Stephen Tobolowsky, Jorja Fox, Harriet Sansom Harris, Callum Keith Rennie, Larry Holden, Marianne Muellerleile
Screenplay by: Christopher Nolan
Production Design by: Patti Podesta
Cinematography by: Wally Pfister
Film Editing by: Dody Dorn
Costume Design by: Cindy Evans
Set Decoration by: Danielle Berman
Music by: David Julyan
MPAA Rating: R for violence, language and some drug content.
Senaryo: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan
Distributed by: Newmarket Films
Gösterim Tarihi: March 16, 2001
Visits: 397
