My analysis of 'Memento'

The opening of this psychological thriller, directed by Christopher Nolan starts off by presenting the opening credits which is in a light blue colour, with the effect of fading. There is also non-diagetic, sombre, orchestral music playing over the opening which gives a mysterious, uneasy feel to the the introduction of the movie.

In this film the main character, Leonard Shelby suffers from anterograde amnesia, which interestingly is connected to the title of the movie, Memento, as a memento is an object that is kept by a person as a reminder of a specific event or person who is cherished, in this case Leonard is experiencing memory loss and the plot of the movie is that he is discovering who killed his wife. By using memorandums and his tattoos he attempts to unravel the mystery. Shelby is the first character the audience is introduced to in the film, however only his hand is shown at the start, he is holding a photograph taken by a Polaroid instant camera of a headless person with blood surrounding them.

I think that the purpose of making Guy Pearce use an instant camera is to inform the audience that he is the person who took the photograph as the camera prints photos instantly, so this should automatically makes the audience start to think 'Could it be Leonard who killed this person?'. In the opening scene, as Leonard waves the developed photo, the image start to fade, the audience should also then notice that everything is sequenced backwards as he puts the film into the camera, takes a photo. and then put it away.

It isn't until after the camera tracks Leonard's movements, his face is revealed. The effect of this could be that it relieves the audiences' thoughts of the image of the character they were thinking of in their minds, as the music sounds slightly negative and sets a mysterious mood.

After the character is shown, we see three separate close up shots of the blood, a bullet and a pair of glasses on the floor, all shot with four second intervals which stuns the audience as the horrifying images of violence is portrayed and built, rapidly one shot after the other. The portrayal of the graphic violence is finalized with a shot of the man lying faced-down on the floor covered in blood.

After Leonard shoots Teddy, a soliloquy is shot in black and white, which instantly made me think there has been a change in time and we are shown something that happened in the past.

After the interior monologue the film is then shot in colour again.

This is the soundtrack played at the beginning of Memento.