Controlled Chaos - Memento's Use of a Non-Linear Story

Memento was, without a doubt, one of the most unique movies I have ever seen. Unlike most movies, in which events are presented to the viewer in the order that they happened, Memento switches back and forth between a black and white sequence which occurs first chronologically and moves forwards in time, and a colorized sequence which begins at the "end" of the story chronologically, and moves backwards in time in chunks, with a brief overlap between each chunk so that the viewer can connect the dots. To call this a complex story would be an understatement, but while this convoluted structure can be confusing to the viewer, it is also what makes the genius of this film. Memento's main character, Leonard Shelby, has a memory condition that causes him to forget all events within a few minutes of them happening. So, by showing a large portion of the film's events in reverse order, director Christopher Nolan forces his audience into experiencing things from Leonard's perspective, because while Leonard doesn't remember events that occurred just a few hours ago due to his condition, the audience simply hasn't seen them yet, and become just as confused as Leonard himself. Eventually, the two sequences meet in the story's chronological middle, and the events that lead to Teddy's death are finally revealed. This is one of only two movies I have ever seen that I believe makes effective use of a non-linear story line, the other being "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Both films use their non-linear stories to intentionally omit key details from the audience's knowledge, keeping them guessing until the final reveal at the end. All in all, Memento is a masterfully written screenplay that manages to turn a story that initially seems  to be incomprehensibly chaotic into a true masterpiece.

Memento Blog: Cameron Haber

I must hand it to director, Christopher Nolan, for making what is probably one of the best movies i have ever seen. Of course I'm talking about his film in 2000, Memento. Starring Guy Pearce as Leonard, a man, suffering from short-term memory loss, who uses notes and tattoos to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife. I believe what made this movie so great with addition to the great plot, after all whats better then man out on the hunt seeking vengeance, was the obscurity of Nolan's style of filming. 
 I have never seen a movie shot the way Memento was. With the viewer actually knowing the fate of a later character after the movie, the epilogue if you will. Working backwards all the way to the beginning of the main characters story. Nolan's use of black and white in the film was also very well used symbolizing past tense for the views to understand and switching to color anytime a scene was in the present. In addition i thought Leonard's character was one of the more interesting characters I've ever seen on the big screen. Even with a severe condition of short term memory, he continued to hunt down the killer of his wife regardless whether he would remember doing so. I thought the psychological aspect to Leonard's character was quite intriguing and got me to think more during the film. An additional comment i have on this film is about the ending. With out giving anything away i thought ending was fantastic how everything kind of tied together at the end, and when the credits came on. You had that feeling of "no way". Similar to the feeling you get after watching a movie such as Usual Suspects. How everything makes sense in the last seen (sort of). Overall Memento was a great movie scripting wise, and with its cinemitogrraphy effects and ideas. 

Link To My Base Sheet (You're welcome, trees)

https://docs.google.com/a/students.westport.k12.ct.us/document/d/1KVg3ykxmJBbrtgH3XkTgZdTL4cDy_JqQ21IA79qu3vc/edit

Music in The Graduate

One of the things that stood out to me the most while watching The Graduate was its music. Its entire soundtrack was written and performed by the folk-rock group Simon and Garfunkel . In the film's opening moments, we hear the words "Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk to you again", the first line of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence". The song continues to play as the opening credits roll and Benjamin makes his way through an airport. As the film progresses, other Simon and Garfunkel songs are played, some repeated several times. All of these songs seem to have a similarly depressing mood to them. With such somber songs playing in the background, one would expect the movie to exhibit a similar tone. Benjamin, however, does not have all that much to be sad about. He has recently graduated from a premier east coast university, and his family is incredibly proud of him. He spends his summer by the pool and at parties celebrating his academic success. So why is it that the film's music suggests that this is in fact, a sad story? I believe it is because Benjamin, while he lives a privileged life by most standards, is unhappy because has been unable to find someone to truly connect with. This unhappiness leads to a lack of confidence while he is being sexually pursued by Mrs. Robinson, which is the only reason he decides to sleep with her. But, when Benjamin meets Elaine, he believes he has finally found someone who fills the need he has always had, someone to truly connect with. This connection gives Benjamin the confidence to end his affair with Mrs. Robinson, crash Elaine's wedding, and pursue future happiness with Elaine. However, at the end of the film, Benjamin's deep, blank stare signifies that although he as conquered his personal goal of finding a woman he can truly be happy with, he has still yet to face the world as an adult, and this will certainly not be the last of his challenges.

The Graduate

I had seen tidbits of The Graduate when I was much younger, and seeing the film all the way through painted the picture much more clearly than before.  It is really a film about being lost.  After graduating from college, Benjamin has no idea what to do with himself.  He states many times that he is worried about his future.  In this vulnerable state, he allows Mrs. Robinson to seduce him and obviously this leads to some major consequences that he might have thought about if he had a clear head.  When he meets Elaine, he finds he enjoys her company very much, but again, he doesn't know what to do about it due to his affair with Mrs. Robinson.  I also think the recurring imagery of water throughout the film has some hidden symbolism.  In a way, the water symbolizes Benjamin's life, as both have no shape.  The famous scene where Benjamin steps into the pool with scuba gear on is very disorienting, making a good comparison with what Benjamin himself must feel like.  The director did a fantastic job with this scene, especially with the audio, making it seem like Benjamin is alienated from the outside world.  Even at the end of the film, when it seems Benjamin has gotten what he wanted, he gazes off into the distance with an uncertain look in his eyes.  Even at that moment, with Elaine sitting by his side, he still looks lost.

The film, The Graduate, was an interesting film to watch due to all of the drama and romantic confusion that was going on between the characters. I thought it was fascinating to see how the film used the same song over and over again, but played in different ways. During the film, whenever a certain event happens to Benjamin, the song kept repeating itself after he has done something that might have ruined his love life. This film showed so much confusion within Benjamin’s feelings of having an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father’s business partner, and then finding out that he has fallen in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine. There was so much confusion in Benjamin’s life because he couldn't seem to figure out who he wanted to be with the most until the very end of the film. The song plays itself over and over again which it has a connection to how Benjamin dealt with his decision of who he loved the most whether it was Mrs. Robinson or Elaine. The song still goes on playing multiple times whenever Benjamin makes a mistake within the relationship with the two. The significance of the song was to see how much sadness Benjamin would bring whenever if he were to tell Elaine that he was sleeping with her mother, but Elaine figured it out herself without hesitation. The song also showed that Benjamin had to make a choice where he chose to go with Elaine and then they both, at the end, ran away with each other. 

Lost in Translation

One thing that stood out to me while watching Lost in Translation was the theme of simplicity. Described by one of my classmates as "a movie without a plot", Lost in Translation is primarily a story of ordinary occurrences. Its Wikipedia plot description is composed of 4 flimsy paragraphs that barely take up a third of a page. And although some might argue that a movie with such a basic plot cannot say anything profound, I believe that because Lost in Translation does not try to portray too many themes at once, it portrays its few main ideas exceptionally well. The first of these two main ideas is the experience of being in another country, particularly Japan, alone. My dad, who has been to Tokyo by himself several times on business, told me that "you feel like you're on another planet when you're there, no one speaks English, they have lots of customs you don't understand, and everything just feels dark, mostly because you are up late at night and tired during the day because of the jet lag." These themes of alienation and insomnia are explored similarly through Bill Murray's character as he struggles to gel with Japanese culture during his commercial filming and appearance on a Japanese talk show, all while he cannot sleep at night. The second theme that is exceptionally well explored is the connection that can occur between two very different people when placed in an alienated setting. In a normal American setting Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson's characters would have never connected because of their obvious differences. One is male, the other is female, one is in his late forties or fifties, the other is in her early twenties, and they are both married. But in Japan, where everyone else seems so alien to these Americans, they are drawn to each other simply because they share the same nationality and speak the same language. While Lost in Translation is at its core a simple movie, it explores the themes of traveling in a foreign country and connecting with a stranger exceptionally well.