Christopher Nolan's Memento Term Paper

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Mento

Memento and Narrative Closure

On first glance, it is difficult to apply the adjective of "satisfying" on a level of expectations or of 'questions' to the filmic narrative of "Memento." Christopher Nolan's motion picture 'feels' open-ended as cinema. It is structurally in violation of the supposed commandments of filmmaking. At the beginning the reader is introduced to 'Teddy' and 'Lenny,' the latter of whom has no short-term memory, and lives in a quest to avenge his murdered wife. At the end of the film, he is still on his quest -- but only after killing Teddy because Teddy has revealed the uncomfortable truth that in fact it was Lenny who killed his wife, in anger after she transgressed because of her frustration with dealing with Lenny's mental incapacity.

The film evolves in a lurching back and forth fashion, mainly through flashbacks, but anchored by scenes of Teddy and Lenny, first depicted at the beginning of the film. Finally the two 'have it out' together at the film's end in a kind of dialogue version of a 'shoot out' that ends with Teddy's real demise. But how can such a narrative become 'closed' a viewer might ask, when the main character is still in a futile quest for his dead wife's killer? Lenny gives himself a continuing narrative reason to justify his existence, even if there is no real reason for doing so. The viewer knows more than the main character, but unlike in traditional film, the main character, because of his mental illness and the false nature of his quest, can attain no psychological epiphany of closure, and the viewer's expectation of the end of the quest is thwarted.

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Agon," or conflict, is at the heart of most narratives, according to the literary theorist of narrative H. Porter Abbot. For instance, the 'agon' in the tale of Solomon and the two women contesting over the same baby is the question of which of the women -- both of whom are prostitutes -- is the true mother. Famously, in the Biblical age before genetic testing, the woman who refuses to allow the child to be split in half is deemed the true mother by the great Hebrew king and judge Solomon.

However, the resolution of the tale is not merely the answer of the question as to whom is the mother, according to Abbot's theory, but the transformation that allows the prostitute, by saying when Solomon offers to split the child in two, 'let her have the whole baby,' to become 'The Mother.' In other words, the prostitute exchanges one narrative archetype and character designation for another, and only does the narrative truly resolve the expectation of closure. The narrative of questions is satisfied in that the mystery is solved, but more importantly at….....

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https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/christopher-nolan-memento-171045
   

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