Memento

This summer I was able to watch many films, some of which have been out for awhile and some that are fairly recent. One film that I had a particular interest in was Christopher Nolan's Memento. This is a very strange film that is filmed in a very unique style.

This film has been out since the year 2000 and I still think that it have more character and style than most recent films that I see. The plot is not told in a chronological order and the audience has to wait until the very end of the film in order to figure out what is actually going on.

The main character in the movie has short term memory loss and the way the plot is communicated in equally as hard to follow as the main character. He is always saying the same thing from scene to scene over and over and while this might sound redundant and boring it actually is quite entertaining and interesting to watch.

If you have not seen this film I would recommend you check it out. It is a bit of a chore, however if you can make it all the way to the end them it is worth it.

Color in Film

After our conversation about the importance of color in film, I was interested in researching more about it. Color and the art direction of a film needs to be carefully chosen to make sense with the script. The color palette can convey meaning, evoke emotion, and add symbolism to a film. Basically, color can make or break a film.

I've found that specific movie genres have specific color palettes. Horror movies heavily use the color blue. Apocalyptic movies are gray and faded. Disturbing movies use green a lot.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the meanings of different colors, and this is what I found:

1. RED – anger, passion, rage, desire, excitement, energy, speed, strength, power, heat, love, aggression, danger, fire, blood, war, violence

2. PINK – love, innocence, healthy, happy, content, romantic, charming, playfulness, soft, delicate, feminine

3. YELLOW – wisdom, knowledge, relaxation, joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, dishonesty, cowardice, betrayal, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, illness, hazard

4. ORANGE – humor, energy, balance, warmth, enthusiasm, vibrant, expansive, flamboyant

5. GREEN – healing, soothing, perseverance, tenacity, self-awareness, proud, unchanging nature, environment, healthy, good luck, renewal, youth, vigour, spring, generosity, fertility, jealousy, inexperience, envy

6. BLUE – faith, spirituality, contentment, loyalty, fulfillment peace, tranquility, calm, stability, harmony, unity, trust, truth, confidence, conservatism, security, cleanliness, order, sky, water, cold, technology, depression

7. PURPLE/VIOLET – erotic, royalty, nobility, spirituality, ceremony, mysterious, transformation, wisdom, enlightenment, cruelty, arrogance, mourning, power, sensitive, intimacy

8. BROWN – materialistic, sensation, earth, home, outdoors, reliability, comfort, endurance, stability, simplicity

9. BLACK – No, power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, fear, anonymity, unhappiness, depth, style, evil, sadness, remorse, anger

10. WHITE – Yes, protection, love, reverence, purity, simplicity, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision, innocence, youth, birth, winter, snow, good, sterility, marriage (Western cultures), death (Eastern cultures), cold, clinical, sterile

11. SILVER – riches, glamorous, distinguished, earthy, natural, sleek, elegant, high-tech

12. GOLD – precious, riches, extravagance. warm, wealth, prosperity, grandeur

It's important to know that different cultures have conflicting meanings for colors. For instance, black symbolizes death and mourning in Western cultures, but in Eastern cultures that's what white symbolizes.

With this newfound information, I looked up some films that I know use color in stunning and smart ways.

Some films that portray a good use of color are Oz the Great and Powerful, Memento, (500) Days of Summer, and The Matrix.

Oz the Great and Powerful uses color to tell part of the story. The first portion of the movie is in black and white (just like The Wizard of Oz). Once Oz travels to the magical land also called Oz, it slowly turns into color. And not just color, but an extremely vivid, blows-your-mind color. Just like in The Wizard of Oz, the black and white symbolizes the boring reality in which the characters live, while the bright colors symbolize the thrilling fantasy of the beautiful Oz.

The Production Designer, Robert Stromberg, talks about the use of color and says, "This was a tribute from black-and-white to Technicolor. In 1939, Wizard of Oz used this amazing three-strip Technicolor. People's eyes were blown out because they'd never seen color like it, so we played with that concept of going (from black-and-white) to really vivid color to jar the senses."

In Memento, some scenes are black and white while others are in color. The black and white scenes go chronologically and the color scenes start at the end and go backwards. Differentiating the scenes using color makes it easier to understand - especially the second time around, once you really understand what is happening. It sounds confusing, but you should really watch it if you haven't.

(500) Days of Summer goes against the norm and uses blue to symbolize love and happiness. The protagonist's love interest, Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel, was either always wearing blue or surrounded by the color blue. In the dance sequence after he spends the night with Summer, the color blue is used so much that it's almost obnoxious - but obnoxious in the best way possible. Zooey Deschanel talks about her character and the color blue:

"They wanted me to stand out in the movie. To have a colour that was only used once. It was used in the dance sequence, because everyone reminds him of Summer. But no- one else was allowed to wear blue. If I wasn't wearing a lot of blue, there would be a big blue thing, like I'd be right next to tons of blue wallpaper or a big blue poster. There would be something giant and blue somewhere in the shot! It was a cool cinematic thing. It was Marc's idea."

The Matrix uses greens and blues. A green tint saturates the picture when in the Matrix, and in the real world, a blue tint is used. The green color palette is used to represent the green text code of the Matrix code. The green color also gives it a slightly uneasy feeling. Differing colors not only symbolically show the opposing worlds, but also make the movie clearer to the audience.

In the Matrix

In the real world

I could go on and on with more examples of movies that have a great use of color. If you want to read more about it, here's a pretty cool article: http://www.fullsailblog.com/5-innovative-uses-of-color-in-film/

Film Adaptations: Memento

Christopher Nolan achieves an interweaving film adaptation from his brother, Jonathan Nolan’s, short story, Memento Mori.  The main narrative of Memento is shown in color and this narrative goes in reverse chronological order.  The black and white narrative is then told in chronological order.  These two narratives are a sujet narrative consideration and each one helps the audience receive a new piece of information about the task at hand.  This allows Nolan to play with our perceptions of the characters. At the beginning their motivations seem very clear, but at the end we just can not be sure.  Christopher Nolan does an excellent job of taking material directly from his brother’s short story and implementing the imagery in his film.  He takes the images of staircases, needles, and in many cases, what’s going on in Lenny’s head from the short story and recreates the vision through specific scenes in Memento.

Murders

The short story is full of subtle clues hinting that Earl is on a murder spree. The vague, subtle hints in the short story are translated into dialogue and narration in the film, making the premise of the story clearer – that he has been manipulated into murdering many men under the impression that they are his wife’s killer. Through dialogue and Christopher’s addition of the character Teddy, it is explained to us that Lenny is a serial killer, even though he doesn’t know he is. In both works, Earl/Lenny manipulates himself through the use of notes and tattoos. Since he cannot remember what he’s doing most of the time, his notes tell him he is on a mission to kill a man. Throughout the short story, there are many subtle indications that Earl has killed before, and what his motives are in doing so. Since time does not pass for him, neither does his grief and anger for his wife’s death. This never-ending feeling of the same emotions urge him to avenge his wife’s killer. And so this becomes his purpose in his new life. Without someone to find and kill, he has no purpose. And so he continues to find and kill men in a continuous cycle that he cannot remember. The short story discretely conveys this, while the film makes it more obvious.

Tattoos

In the short story, Earl uses tattoos as permanent reminders to himself about his mission. His tattoos serve as lists of his accomplishments regarding his investigation and things he still has left to do. They include facts about the man he is searching for. This is true for both the short story and the film. In the film, we are given a visual of his tattooed body and can read the tattoos for ourselves as Lenny reads them. The film uses the tattoos as a strong method of manipulation into searching for a murderer. Lenny believes anything that is written on his body. It is the easiest way for him to lie to himself. The film adds some tattoos not mentioned in the short story, once again clearing up some indirect things that raise questions in the short story. Not only does Lenny permanently mark himself with lethal lies, he also displays one indicator of his lies on his bicep. “Memory is treachery.” This tattoo is not part of the literary work, but it is a direct reference to the theme of the story – memory is untrustworthy.

Memento: A Movie You Will Never Forget

Even though I believe I only very briefly mentioned this film before in a much earlier post, after recent discussions in my psychology class I realized how much this creative and crazy film deserves a full post. Memento is a film written and directed by Christopher Nolan and it showcases Guy Pearce playing Leonard Shelby, a man who has no short-term memory. Even though he says in the film it is not amnesia, as I learned in my psychology class, Shelby actually has anterograde amnesia. Throughout the film Leonard tries to seek vengeance for the rape and murder of his wife by finding a “John G.” This process of detective work is hard for Shelby because of his anterograde amnesia, which makes him unable to remember new facts and memories.

The film does a wide variety of things to help accurately convey Shelby’s condition to the audience. Shelby can remember the events leading up to his wife’s murder but is unable to make new memories. To combat this he writes notes, tattoos his body, and takes Polaroid pictures so he can remember this information and find the mysterious “John G.” figure. It is still tough for Shelby especially since characters like Teddy and Natalie are telling me contrasting stories and information. These notes and reminders give Shelby help in “remembering” where he is in the case.

Another interesting thing the film does is present the story in two different sequences. One sequence is in color and is shown in reverse and the other sequence is in black and white and is shown in chronological order. These two sequences then converge at the end of the film and thus create one full story. This is done to put the audience in the main character’s shoes. By not being able to recall the events in the color sequence (since the audience does not what happened before them during their first viewing) they are experiencing short-term memory loss and Shelby’s inability to remember what happened after his wife’s death. To help further understand this “sujet” or presentation of the film Andy Klein for Salon magazine numbered the black and white timeline with the numbers 1-22 and the lettered the color timeline with the letters A-V. After the opening credits the sequence starts at 1 and is followed by V, 2, U, 3, T, 4, S and so on until finally 22/A and the end credits.

Two of my favorite moments from the film are when an event in Shelby’s life runs too long and he forgets where he is and what he is doing during it. For example he finds a wounded and injured man in his hotel room and asks him who did this to him only for the guy to respond, “you did!” Another great moment is when he is running through a trailer park and wonders what he is doing there. He sees a guy running on the other side of some trailers and thinks he must be pursuing that guy. He begins to chase him only to realize he is actually running away from him!

Memento is a crazy thrill ride directed by Christopher Nolan and a great film not only for a film or psychology student like I am but also for anyone in general. The film does a good job (especially for most Hollywood films) portraying psychological conditions like anterograde amnesia. While I could go on all day about unique and creative this film is many of you will probably forget about this post. But please do not forget to check out Memento when you have a chance over the holiday break. Believe me it will be a movie you will never forget!

8 1/2: Breaking the Rules and Paving the Way for the Future

For this week’s blog post, we were asked to read a chapter from Closely Watched Films by Marilyn Fabe. In the chapter it focuses on Federico Fellini’s film 8 ½. This unusual film broke a lot of the “rules” of cinema and helped pave a road for creative pieces of entertainment in the future. Overall after reading this chapter I came away with that certain “rules” of cinema could be broken with good reasons and intentions like how Fellini broke many of them in his strange and baffling film 8 ½.

8 ½ is a film about “director’s block” and tells the story of Guido Anselmi, a film director, who during the filming of his latest film, suddenly loses inspiration and worries he will not be able to finish and fail. One of the first “rules” Fellini “broke” was the non-linear story. The linear plot is constantly interrupted with Guido’s dreams, fantasies, and childhood memories that are triggered by present problems. This helps create a world of fantasy and makes it clear to the audience that this film is not about life but the make believe world of film. When first reading about this it reminded me of Christopher Nolan’s film Memento. That film is about Leonard Shelby who has anterograde amnesia searching for the killer of his wife. The film’s events are told in two separate narratives. One is told in chronological order in black and white and the other is told in color in reverse chronological order. As each sequence begins the audience is unaware of the preceding events just like the main character. Finally at the end the film’s narratives converge and everything makes a lot more sense. Memento in comparison seems a lot easier to understand and follow than 8 ½ and since I was confused during Memento I can’t even comprehend my level of confusion if I watched 8 ½.

Another “rule” 8 ½ breaks is with editing. For example objects in the background and the orientation of people in the room move from shot to shot. This disrupts the viewer’s illusion of “reality” because in real life these kinds of things would not happen. However it makes perfect sense in the film because it helps capture the disoriented process of recalling memories, which the main character is doing. Try it yourself. It is hard to pinpoint the exact location of people and objects when recalling memories. In other words “rules” are meant to be broken but only with good reasons like Fellini had.

Like Memento, 8 ½ reminded me of a lot of other movies and television shows I have seen. First it reminded me of Six Feet Under when sometimes Fellini creates dream sequences or fantasies that are not really happening. Six Feet Under would use this method all the time to show what was really going on in their characters’ heads. Overall the plot of the film reminds me of two movies; Adaptation and Tropic Thunder. Adaptation is a Charlie Kaufman film about Charlie Kaufman’s difficult struggle to adapt The Orchid Thief novel into a film. It turns out it is based on upon his actual struggle when hired to write the film’s screenplay. Tropic Thunder is about a bunch of prima donna actors who are making a Vietnam War film based on the fictional novel Tropic Thunder. When their director becomes frustrated he decides to skip the script and drop them into the middle of the jungle to survive real action and danger. In the end the making of the film becomes the actual film in the film’s reality and is a worldwide smash! Sound familiar? Between these four movies and shows it is clear to see that Fellini’s movie paved the way for future strange and creative projects. It can take just one person to change the way we think and Fellini was definitely one for many people.