History and memory
Explore the interplay of personal experience, memory and documented evidence shown in memento. How has it broadened your understanding of the way history is shaped and represented?Personal experience/memory are considered to be very unreliable with documented evidence and history being considered the more reliable and trustworthy source of information, however history is just a shaped product of ones interpretation and is often unreliable as historians strive to represent false accounts or biased stories so suit their own interpretation. Christopher Nolan's film "Memento" explores the way history is shaped to represent and the way history can be manipulated through a selective process of which important facts are disregarded and manipulated to express and represent a one sided opinion or perspective. Through following Leonard Shelby (The protagonist) a man with no short term memory, we learn how easily facts can be manipulated or even rejected to suit a certain perspective. Leonard relies upon notes, tattoos and photographs that in the end prove to be not as reliable as most expect documented evidence and facts to be due to his own manipulation of the truth. The film "Memento" d
The audience are positioned into following Leonard's side of the story at this moment as they are basically being "put in Leonard's shoes" through Nolan's clever use of an over the shoulder shot. Both History and memory can be considered as unreliable as both can be easily manipulated. Leonard manipulated the truth, and shaped the documented evidence "the tattoo" to represent the story he wanted to believe, so he could manipulate and position himself into believing his "lie". We see that he's developed a number of clues to the killer's identity, each of these tattooed on his body. isplays how easily history can be shaped and represented, just like many nation's cultures and history have been manipulated and shaped by historians who represent their own biased beliefs and perspectives. He claims that Leonard was the one who killed his wife, whom actually survived the assault. The audience does not see the truth right until the very end because Nolan uses film techniques such as over the shoulder and eye level shots that position the audience into trusting and believing Leonard's story. This is an example of how easily true facts can be manipulated and shape to represent an interpretation or perspective. He pulls out a Polaroid of Teddy and writes on it "Don't believe his lies", and copies down teddy's licence plate number and then has it tattooed to his leg as a clue to help himself track down the killer. He knows he wont be able to remember what Teddy is telling him so he empties his gun, to fool himself into thinking he hadn't used it. Through the use of clever film techniques to undermine Leonard's story we are given the impression that Leonard projected his own story onto the Sammy Jankis Story. The killers name is John or James and his last name begins with a "G", Leonard even has the killers licence plate number. Leonard after killing his wife could have gotten the "remember Sammy Jankis" tattoo in order to condition himself to remember the Sammy Jankis story instead of the true story. Nolan has allowed his audience a greater understanding of this as he demonstrates how easily it is to manipulate the truth and change the past. The audience as well as Leonard are looking down on teddy and are made to "see things from Leonard's perspective"; we are positioned into believing Shelby's story.
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