I'm sorry i couldn't not give a decent presentation even if my life was on the line, i'm sorry you guys had to see me give that horrible presentation. well here is my line i could of just read but like i said i forget everything when i'm in front of people. Thanks everyone it was a pleasure being in a class with such fine people.
Memento.
I. Memento is an
iconic puzzle film where we follow
Leonard Shelby the protagonist
with anterograde amnesia in his
journey to find the man that
raped and killed his wife.
II. Characteristics
and Conventions of the Film that Link it to Classic Film Noir
1. .The
ambiguous protagonist.
A. The person
between the fine line of good and evil. Leonard Shelby he suffers from anterograde
amnesia, which makes him not remember a single detail after a period of 15 min
or after he gets distracted. He is often being manipulated to do things by the people
that surround him and know about his condition.
2. The
detective figure
A. Played by two
people: one of them being Leonard he has a double or
triple function in the film, the
other detective is Teddy Gammell the cop that was
assigned to the scene where
Leonard lost his short term memory.
3. Femme
fatale.
A. Natalie
is the one \that gets the best out of Leonard’s condition. She manipulates
Leonard as she pleases in order to get people out of her way.
4. Filming technique.
A. filming the last
scene to be the
first one to appear
is a common technique used in noir. This
gives us basically the end and we
know that’s how it will end
now we have to figure out,
how did it get
to that point.
B. Claustrophobic
settings. You never get a full shot of the place you are every room seems
small, and all the shots are really closed.
C. Voice
over. Throughout the film we hear Leonard narrating what’s going
on or at least what he is trying to figure out. A great example is when he
is running and Dodd is
chasing him, he forgets
what he is doing and
ass himself what am I doing, oh I’m chasing this guy, Dodd shoots at him
and Leonard says nope he is chasing me.
III. Elements
of the Film that Deviate from Classic Film Noir and Link it to Neo Noir
1. The
ambiguous protagonist.
A. Leonard
Shelby is clearly the ambiguous protagonist, but the reason he is in this
position is due to his condition. This makes him different from any other
ambiguous protagonist because he is not really choosing to be the person that
he is. Every choice he takes is based on his system that can be easily
manipulated.
2. The
femme fatale.
A. Natalie
is not the greed driven femme fatale, she is
driven more by the need to get revenge , also sees
the window to get rid
of people that interfere in her
life.
3. The
Internal search.
A. Leonard
knows who he was before the accident, but after that he really
just has memories of that person,
because he has no
clue of the monster that
he has become.
“Teddy:
You're not a killer.
[Pinches
Leonard's cheeks]
Teddy:
That's why you're so good at it.”
B. He creates an
alter ego called
Sammy Jankins, mainly to deal
with his condition, he compares his style
of life with the
one ok Sammy, he convinces himself
that he is more disciplines that
Sammy, that he actually has a motive
that drives him
to stay alive each day.
Quote
1.
In
the anthology the philosophy of Noir,
Jason Holt in his short
work A
darker shade quotes
Carl Richardson “ Somewhere in
between the soft lies of cinema and the
harsh truths of reality, there exists an
element of realism in film
noir”(23).
Quote
2.
Claire
Molly In her work
Memento she quotes Christopher Nolan
“film noir has become this nostalgic image of guys in rain coats and
fedoras coming down alleyways. But when you go back and look at the films, you
realize they were very contemporary stories, imbued with exaggerated everyday
fears. I wanted to do a modern noir which would reawaken some of that paranoia
in a slightly different way”(87).
Works
cited.
Holt Jason. A darker shade. The
Philosophy of Film Noir. ED Mark T Conrad.
Lexington: University
Press of Kentucky, 2006.Print.
Molloy, Claire.
Memento. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Nov. 2013.
