Ghislotti applies Bordwell’s ideas to Memento, tracing how we construct the fabula out of the film. Do you think there are other ways that the films manipulation of time and space help explain this week’s readings? Are there other points from the class that go beyond Ghislotti’s analysis to best comprehend the film’s storytelling strategies?
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Perhaps too fittingly, I can’t recall if I’m drawing this idea from a reading from this week or from another, or from past analysis of my own. Oh dear, where has my memory gone? Whosever it is, the idea is that Memento replicates videogame narrative via its use of space. Every time Leonard enters his motel room and looks at his blueprint of the town, it is the equivalent of a gamer pressing start and viewing the game’s map. Specific locations are specific settings within the videogame world. Leonard can pick a polaroid off the wall– the bar where Natalie works, her house, the motel itself– and must explore the space, performing trial and error in order to arrive at his final destination. Within each location, he must discover his goal and accomplish it. Although this videogame parallel is not nearly as self-evident as in Run Lola Run, the analogy helps us understand the film’s inner-workings. Ghislotti touches upon “Memory Rotation” to explain how the film uses our natural short term memory to recreate Leonard’s disability. In confusing us and aligning our comprehension alongside of Leonard’s, the film becomes a series of cognitive challenges for the viewer. It makes the film into a compilation of videogame-esque levels, where the objective is simply to remember and to not forget.
I would say that it’s important to take into account how Memento uses prototype and template schemata in order to guide the viewer in its storytelling. In terms of template, genre would be an appropriate marker of difference for the conveyance of narrative. The film presents itself as having a style, if not equal to, consistent with crime thrillers or film noir stories. In terms of prototype, Lenny is clearly the detective, while Natalie seems to be along the lines of a femme fatale character in the way that she manipulates the protagonist.
Lenny is important in this respect. With Lenny being the protagonist in a dark, gritty urban area, we expect him to be flawed, maybe even tragically so, morally or otherwise. I think this serves to ease the audience into accepting the offbeat premise of a man with short-term memory loss who searches for his wife’s killer. The crime/revenge template adds familiarity to the uncommon plot idea. Moreover, the presentation of a mystery to be solved helps cushion the blow of a potentially alienating puzzle format. This makes it easier for the audience to identify with the main character and invest in his story.
More accurately, I feel, Memento (2000), does more than challenge our active psychological investment—which demands such investment—rather, it challenges our scope on the term fabula itself. Up to now, we have used our psyche to assist us in formulating a structured, continuous, and chronological schema to follow a film, but in Memento we have no initial place to start construct a valuable fabula. Instead, we are thrown into a situation—which we later deduce has happened many times before—where the audience has to play catch up. Our “fabula” is comprised through expository explanations and repetition of scenes, which are interspersed together, as well as divided.
Stefano Ghislotti points out, “the process of fabula construction is of central importance,” but I feel the film does not allow the viewer to immediately construct any inferences, but risks the film’s foundation in trusting the audience to follow along a jumbled plot/storyline. Furthermore, though Ghislotti delves into the concept of fabula vs. time vs. memory, he fails to elaborate on theory behind “puzzle films,” which, I feel, is an under-categorization for the complex structure of this film.
Sure, I do not have a film theory-esque proposal of what should be examined, but I feel Memento touches on a few more issues and topics that are broader than our previous readings with Bordwell and Ghislotti.
Help me out Guys!!!