Unreliable Memory in Memento
Unreliable Memory in Memento Thesis: The unique narrative structure of the film and the leading role, Leonard Shelby in Memento prove that memory is unreliable. . In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Samneric saw something moving, something large, which in reality was the dead body of a parachutist. But in the darkness and out of fear, in Samneric’s memory, the parachutist became a beast with leathery wings, teeth, and claws. He even claimed that he ‘saw it slinking behind the trees’. In this case, Samneric’s memory were mastered by his personal feelings — fear.
Thus memory is unreliable, as it can be manipulated by personal feelings. Similarly, the leading role of Memento, Leonard Shelby’s memory is also manipulated by his personal feelings. Leonard distorts his memory due to his desire to find and kill ‘the one and only’ murderer of his wife. In the following, I am going to prove memory is unreliable through the unique narrative structure and Leonard Shelby, the leading role of the film. Memento, the story features a man called Leonard Shelby, who has anterograde amnesia, a disorder that caused his brain to be unable to store new memories.
From Leonard’s memory, the disorder was a result from a concession caused by the rapist murderer of his wife. From then on, Leonard’s life is all about finding ‘the one and only’ murderer of his wife and get him killed in order to take revenge. Firstly, it is the unique narrative structure. The film’s events unfold in two separate, alternating narratives — one in color, and the other in black-and-white. The black-and-white sections are told in chronological order, beginning by showing Leonard conversing with an anonymous caller in a motel room.
Leonard’s actual investigation is shown in color sequences that are in reverse order. By the end of the film, when the two narratives converge, revealing the investigation and events that lead up to Leonard’s friend, Teddy’s death. The narrative structure is literally a memory test that the director of Memento, Christopher Nolan gives to the viewer. As each color sequence begins, the audience is unaware of the preceding events, just like Leonard, giving the viewer a sense of his confusion.
With the structure arranged in this alternating and reverse way, the confused viewer would be lost, in a way that they have no clue where the story is heading. At the end of the film, which chronologically is the first sequence, would only leave the viewer more question marks. Therefore, the narrative structure of the film, which is also the memory test, proves human memory is unreliable. For relying only on memory, the viewer cannot group all the puzzles — the reverse chronological scenes — together and have a full understanding of the events.
Confusion is brought on by unreliable memories. As time goes, memory fades, based on this principle that everyone knows and even experiences, Nolan first gives this ‘memory test’ to let the viewer a firsthand experience that ‘memory is unreliable’. Zigzagging through the two separate and yet related narratives, Nolan brings out memory is unreliable not only due to physical reasons, but also mental ones. The black-and-white sequence is indeed the narration of Leonard, a former insurance investigator, telling the story of one of his claimants, Sammy Jankis before his injury.
Jankis, just like Leonard, appeared to have anterograde amnesia after a car accident. Leonard explains how Jankis’s diabetic wife tested Jankis to see if he really had a memory disorder or just faking to claim disability insurance, by repeatedly requesting insulin injections from him. She is desperately hoping that Sammy did not have a memory disorder and would remember the previous injection. As a result, she died from an insulin overdose from Jankis. While the viewer is puzzling why Leonard remembers Jankis so vividly, Nolan reveals a parallel story of Leonard.
Because of Leonard’s condition and his denial of possibly killing his wife by overdosing her with insulin, he might have made up a different scenario in his mind. He constructed a rape-murder scenario for his wife’s death. He alienated his killing his wife by inventing Sammy Jankis, memorizing it as a separate event. He altered his memory to lessen his guilt. At the end of the film, Leonard confronts his memory and says,”Do I lie to myself to be happy? … yes, I will. ” This narration conveys that emory can be full of flaws, it can be distorted by personal feelings, it can be changed by one’s desire, that memory can be no more than a tool of self-deception. Secondly, through the leading role of Memento, Leonard Shelby’s verbal expression, condition, tattoos and flashbacks, Nolan proves to the viewer that memory is unreliable. Leonard’s lines point directly at ‘memory is unreliable’. In the film Leonard said, “Memory’s not that perfect. It’s not even that good. ”, “Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted.
They’re just an interpretation, they’re not a record, and they’re irrelevant when you have the facts. ” Leonard stresses that ‘memory is not good’. Through Leonard’s lines, the film emphasizes that, ‘memory is unreliable because they’re just an interpretation’. Then moving on to Leonard’s condition, anterograde amnesia is the significant feature of Leonard and it is also the heart of the film. Since Leonard has this disorder that he cannot form new memories, everything fades, memory is definitely unreliable for him. For the viewer, being put into Leonard’s shoes, unknown to the preceding events, memory is unreliable as well.
Again, Leonard’s memory problem has directly pointed at ‘memory is unreliable’. Leonard’s tattoos is also a significant feature of Leonard. In order to find his wife’s murderer, Leonard relies on notes and annotated Polaroid pictures. But for vital information which he believes would lead him to the “murderer”, he tattoos that piece of information on his body instead of writing on a piece of paper because of his inability to form new memories. In one scene, Leonard gets a tattoo of the murderer’s license plate number, relying on his memory, he has mistaken an I for a 1.
Now this clue has really changed because of his unreliable memory. It tells us not to trust Leonard’s believe-to-be-true facts, memory can indeed manipulate everything. As Leonard puts it, “Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car… They’re just an interpretation, they’re not a record. ” Also, according to Leonard’s tattoo, the name of the “murderer” is John G. At the beginning of the film, which chronologically is the last sequence, Leonard does succeed and kill one John Edward Gammell, whose nickname is Teddy.
Leonard says he would remember he had killed that ‘one and only’ murderer even with his condition, because that excitement of revenge would remain. However, at the end of the film (which should be the beginning of the story), reveals that Teddy is just one of the few John G. s that Leonard has killed. It turns out after Leonard has killed a John G, he copies Teddy’s license plate number and gets it tattooed on his body annotating that is the license plate number of the murderer, making Teddy(John Edward Gammell) his John G, for the sake of his ‘meaning of survival’.
Memory can manipulate, and at the same time, be manipulated. Leonard, in order to fulfill his goal and his desire of taking revenge, he lets his memory be manipulated by his personal feelings, and keeps on killing more and more John G. s. Furthermore, there are a few of Leonard’s flashbacks throughout the film, one is preparing an insulin injection, one is his staying in a sanatorium (instead of Sammy Jankis does after he accidently killed his wife).
The more significant flashback is of Leonard’s wife waking up, opening her eyes, but if it is played backwards, it is very much like his wife is going into a coma. Leonard also recalls the scene that his wife crying out, “Ouch! ” when he executes the insulin shot. However, the fact is Leonard manufactured Sammy Jankis in order to deny being the murderer of his wife. So, when he recalls that injecting scene from memory, ‘administrating insulin’ has become ‘pinching his wife’s thigh. There are actually quite a lot of Leonard’s flashbacks giving proof that Leonard himself is the murderer of his wife, but it is clearly that Leonard wants to lessen his sense of guilt, so he distorts his memory, it shows that memory can in fact be changed to satisfy oneself, memory can be reconstructed. To conclude, “He took away my…memory. He destroyed my ability to live. ” Just like Leonard, humans in general acknowledge ‘memory’ is one of the abilities that help us to live, however it is not a must that this ability is reliable, in fact memory practically cannot be trusted.
From Memento’s unique narrative structure, a genuine memory test definitely created a certain degree of confusion to the viewer. It is impossible for humans to have everything well organized merely by memory. The ‘facts’ in one’s memory can be rebuilt, as Leonard says,”Do I lie to myself to be happy? … yes, I will. ” Memory can easily be manipulated by one’s personal feelings. In Leonard’s case, his memory is manipulated by his guilt; he uses his memory as a tool to cloud the fact that he killed his wife because of his lack-of-short-term memory disorder.
Leonard’s lines, physical problem, tattoos and his flashbacks all are important proofs of ‘Leonard is the murderer of his own wife’, which Leonard does not want to admit. From the beginning, his true motive of finding that rapist murderer is only for his own satisfaction, finding his ‘goal of life’, and more importantly, for lessening his guilt. That is why — being unknown that he does it on purpose or unintentionally — Leonard distorts his memory and reconstructs it and in the film.
Now the distorted memory became reality for Leonard, and the facts change according to his reconstruction. We can see that memory can also manipulate at the same time, “memories can be distorted. They’re just an interpretation, they’re not an record. ” The unique narrative structure and Leonard Shelby, the leading role of Memento, have proved that memory is no more than an interpretation after all. For memory can be distorted and manipulated out of one’s own satisfaction and desire. Memory is not facts, it cannot always be trusted. Memory is unreliable both physically and mentally.
