Hit Me With Your Best Shot: MEMENTO

"What are you going to do when you find him?"In honor of cinematographer Wally Pfister's recent Oscar win (Inception) and the 10th anniversary of Memento's theatrical release (today), we're looking back on Chris Nolan's breakthrough for the season 2 debut of Hit Me With Your Best Shot.

Memory and its malleability are the skeleton themes which Memento's inky flesh clings to. Leonard (Guy Pearce), who has lost both his wife and his short term memory to a murder/rape, is out for revenge. He tattoos "facts", quotes intended, onto his skin to remember them and he also takes polaroids; these repetitive shots of skin and photography are the movie's signature images. My "best shot" naturally combines them both.

The most ingenious thing about the screenplay's reverse construction is that as you become acclimated to it you start to wonder how each scene will begin in order to get to where you know it's already ended. The same thing happens with the polaroids. After a few of them are revealed you begin to wonder how each was taken. So in addition to Memento's overarching mystery "What exactly happened with that murder?" you get the continually evolving mini-mysteries of what the hell is going on has just gone on?

The final crucial polaroid, which is actually the first in true chronology is this spookily cheerful one of Leonard, pointing to his chest. This is a space we already know he has left empty on purpose, for (maybe) hen his revenge is complete. But that's too literal as he's also pointing to his heart. He looks nothing like the Lenny we've come to know.

Look how happy you were.

Lenny flips it over but no clues await him on the other side. The clue we're looking for this late (i.e. early) in the game is not what happened but who Lenny is or has become. Later in the narrative (i.e. earlier in the film) he'll turn the photo over again while talking to a cop about how no one trusts him. It's an especially telling moment as it's the only time he's not looking for clues by flipping a picture over. "We all need mirrors" he says at one point in the film but he obviously doesn't want to see this particular reflection.

Chris Nolan has returned to these themes of self deception and adjusted memory in subsequent films, but it works best in Memento. Returning to this impressive calling card ten years later,  the biggest shock to the memory is how much fun it is. Each scene involving Dodd (Callum Keith Renne of Battlestar Galactica fame) in particular has a bracing dark humor.

This sense of humor is not referenced to imply that the film fails to intrigue or haunt with its disturbing undertow. It's just that Nolan's subsequent films have often been clever without exactly being "a gas" (just occassionally gassy). I'd be hesitant to call Memento Nolan's best film without rescreening The Prestige but it sure makes a strong claim.

Do I know you?
I urge you to check out these entries. I'm usually pretty proud of my own pieces for this series but I still felt a bit of the old disconnect with Nolan (I've always had to look at the critical reception of his work at a certain remove) and honestly I think some of these accomplices have outdone me with their pieces. Bravo.

FACT 1: Pussy Goes Grrr chose a vulnerable fleshy moment.
FACT 2: My New Plaid Pants sees the symmetries and the fog of memory.
FACT 3: Cinephilia & Sass remembers Sammy Jenkis.
FACT 4: Okinawa Assault identifies the bullet casing as totem.
FACT 5: Serious Film doesn't trust Teddy's lies.
FACT 6: Movies Kick Ass doesn't trust Nolan's eyes.

and my apologies... I forgot to link to...
FACT 7: Amiresque is waiting for Natalie to come into focus. Beautiful choice, Amir!

late arrivals!
FACT 8: Against the Hype knows that Memento knows from irony; "it peddles unabashedly in it."
FACT 9: Luisergho finds the facts touching.

Next Wednesday...
We'll be gazing at two bonafide immortals, Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando, in the well-Oscared classic A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951). It's part of our weeklong celebration for the Tennessee Williams Centennial. If you've never seen it, talk about a perfect opportunity to fill that void in your life. Will you join us?

Cover Those Tracks

My best friend recently moved apartments and I got one of his bookshelves in the move so suddenly I'm noticing my old buried movie books again that couldn't fit onto my previous shelving. I used to buy them in the 90s at garage sales or used book stores. This image is from "Life Goes to the Movies." published in 1975. It's basically just a picture book.

Caption:

In Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Peter O'Toole practices crawling to the resuce of a guide trapped in quicksand while two production crewmen stand by to sweep away the dry-run tracks before actual filming.

Never once while watching Lawrence of Arabia have I stopped to think  "damn, that's a lot of sand sweeping during production!" you know? Hee. Movie-making is so magical and mundane. Was that the least epic duty on that epic set? The sweepers undoubtedly had good tans by the end of production.

Reader of the Day: Paolo

It's Reader Appreciation Month so we're doing interviews with YOU. Well not you literally (although... maybe?) but you collectively. Here's Paolo from Toronto.

Nathaniel: Do you remember your first moviegoing adventure / obsession?
Paolo: Probably The Lion King, coming out weeks before the movie I actually remember watching first: Forrest Gump. We had a full row in the theatre, my artsy paternal grandma, me, my sister and like five cousins from my dad's side. I remember the bus stop interludes, "run Forrest run", meeting Jenny for the last time, but none of the Vietnam, hippie, black power, Gary Sinise, coked up whore scenes in between. I was seven. I don't even remember Forrest being special needs. Either the old country censored the hell out of the movie, I slept during some parts, or Lacuna exists.

My first movie obsession was with Anastasia, the cartoon. It's about a princess, what else could fuel a little gay boy's mind? That fueled my slight but ongoing interest in royal families. I also made my own fanfic that's probably sitting in a floppy disk in Quezon City somewhere.

Ha. That's great. When did you start reading The Film Experience?
Around 2009, the aftermath of the highway robbery that is the 2008 Oscars. Most film blogs are either fanboy-ish and/or snarky, and what TFE offered instead is Langlois-esque connoisseurship and well, love. I'm the kind of guy who cheated on his tests, so I looked up your site and the name I used to comment on. Apparently what caught my eyes was the April Showers series. As Juno's best friend would say, 'yum'.

That's coming back next month! Okay. 3 Favorite Actresses?
I love Kate Winslet like Josh from 30 Rock loves Elizabeth Taylor. Michelle Williams. And...blast from the past Bette Davis. As a person of colour, I'm kind of ashamed that I don't have an actress here of colour. I've seen three movies with Lubna Azabal on them. The perfs are great, but I can't knock my top three for her.

Take one Oscar from someone and give it to someone else.
Sandra Bullock's Oscar should have been Kim Hye-Ja's.

The movie of your life. Title, director, etcetera
Paoloisms, starring an unknown, directed by Charlie Kaufman with a soundtrack by whoever does the Lisa Cholodenko soundtracks.

linker like me

Did you see last night's Glee "Original Song"? I always feel so melancholy at Regionals episodes because I know that means no Glee for awhile. For a show I often actively dislike on account of lazy writing, wasted opportunities and ridiculously unnecessary pandering (People loved the show before it started pandering to them! Why bend over backwards to worry about what people might like now?), sometimes the show makes it really hard for me to pretend that I don't just love it, warts and all. So many highlights in this one, from Brittany's always dependable split second deadpan "favorite song: my headband" to a rare Mercedes showcase "Hell to the No" to a gay kiss played emphatically and without apology, to the return of undergirding themes (Rachel's future completely obvious stardom versus small town limitations) to that killer joyous finale "Loser Like Me" in which the kids learn the age old oppressed minority trick of turning insults into empowering F-you pride. Anyway, loved it. I still wish that show I loved last year about small town Broadway geeks trying to find their voices would come back but the new now old Glee is still great cathartic fun when it remembers to be.

Gold Derby on Mark Wahlberg's dreams of The Fighter Mickey Ward 2. Some sound-Oscar-reasoning from Wahlberg's Fighter alter ego Mickey Ward.
Awards Daily Natural Selection (feature) and Dragonslayer (documentary) win jury hearts at SXSW
Just Jared Seann William Scott taking care of personal and health matters in treatment. Best wishes. I think he's adorable even if he has way too many consonants in his name.
Movie|Line Ewwwww. They're rebooting Daredevil now?
Playbill Kathleen Turner (nearly back on Broadway in High) will be interviewed in the Times Talk series in May. Tickets available.
Movie|Line bizarre lengthy Tarzan audition tape
Gordon and the Whale Hey, if Alessadro Nivola gets Michael Fassbender's cast offs, maybe Fassbender should say no a little more often? I love them both but Nivola has been way too neglected and I don't want Fassy to burn out.

Beatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade in BETTY BLUE

Acidemic "Beatrice Dalle My What Big Teeth You Have." Beatrice is on my mind as I just watched this newish french flick Domain where she is typically vivid and dangerous feeling, even while simply strolling through a park or ordering a glass of wine.  Have you ever seen Betty Blue? Still one of the craziest movies ever to snag a Best Foreign Film Oscar nom.
Towleroad Remember that story about Jake Gyllenhaal being photographed in a men's room at SXSW. It's been animated. (The transformation into Jack Twist is a funny touch.)
Serious Film revisits Viggo Mortensen's Oscar worthy work in A History of Violence.

First and Last

the first and last images from a motion picture.

The first and last lines of dialogue

first: and so while the New York Stock Exchange showed signs of restlessness...
last: Yes darling, yes.

can you guess the movie?

The answer is after the jump

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