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In honor of the Academy Awards, every "I Don't Get It" blog for the month of February will be devoted to mistakes I feel the Academy has made in both failing to recognize the worthy and choosing to award the unworthy. 

I was an English major for two years in college before I switched to study film.  Before the transition, I remember watching Pulp Fiction with a group of friends, some of whom were film students, and finishing the film with an underwhelming feeling of "meh."
- "Is that really the film that I've heard so many people rant and rave about?" I asked one friend.
- "Jim," he replied, "when you learn about all that goes into writing a screenplay, you'll understand what makes it so amazing." 
Eventually, I did learn what goes into writing a screenplay and, sure enough, I realized what a brilliant piece of work Pulp Fiction really is.  It wasn't just that film though - learning the structure, nuances, and technique of screenwriting opened my eyes to some gems of the cinema and the master writers by whom they were crafted.  One of the films that stood out to me immediately as a shining chunk of genius was Memento, the second feature by Christopher Nolan.  Given to me when I asked one of my film student friends (remember, I was an English major at this point) for a great movie, I think my review may have consisted of two words, spoken with wide open eyes and a dropped jaw: "holy shit."  Filmmakers will say that when you know the structure of a film inside and out, you can begin to disassemble it and Jean-Luc Godard once said a film must have a beginning, middle, and end, "but not necessarily in that order."  Memento is a perfect example of this.

As time went by and I indulged myself more and more into the world of cinema, Memento resonated with me as something truly special.  Even if I did somehow manage to forget about it, I kept hearing it mentioned in classes I was taking.  Essence of Cinema, Intro to Film, and Art & Science of Story were just a few courses in which Nolan's film was mentioned and lauded.  Realizing my love for the film was by no means an exception to the rule, I started to dig for some information to learn more about it.  Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon its awards page on IMDB: 2 Oscar nominations, 0 Oscar wins.  "This doesn't make any sense," I exclaimed.  "This film didn't win Best Original Screenplay?"  In the words of Lewis Black, "and I am confused."

I won't be using this piece to attack the film that did win Best Original Screenplay in 2001, Gosford Park, because it's a fantastic movie, but Memento is the kind of script that will still be studied by film students and cited by screenwriters for decades to come.  It was able to do everything that a standard (three-act structure) screenplay accomplishes - emotional engagement with the audience, gradual building of tension, clear cut protagonist and antagonists (or so we think), etc. - and does it all by completely subverting their established structures.  

Obviously, the first and most notable element of the film is that it plays out chronologically backwards.  "Oh, how quaint," you may say.  Anyone can film a movie, flip it backwards and call it experimental, but it's absolutely essential for Memento to play out in reverse order to mentally engage yourself in the world of Leonard (Guy Pearce).  Rule #1 of having a good film is having a protagonist you can relate to.  With Leonard suffering from Anterograde Amnesia - the inability to form new memories - he's not going to know what the hell's going on from one minute to the next.  By unraveling the film backwards, we experience Leonard's life exactly as he does, with that initial "what's going on here?" moment with each passing sequence.  It's one thing to empathize with a protagonist, but we sympathize with Leonard because, essentially, we are Leonard, locked - physically, emotionally, and mentally - in the same routine with absolutely no foresight, at the mercy of whomever we encounter along the way.  With this, Memento becomes more an experience than it is a film, a study instead of a movie, a journey instead of a recreation.

In the process of side-by-side discovery with Leonard, the film also begins to call into question the cinematic staple of the reliable narrator.  Think about any great film with voice over narration - Goodfellas, Apocalypse Now, The Shawshank Redemption, Fight Club - and think about what the voice over adds to the film.  It adds that edifying voice, that unseen element of the scene that helps us appreciate and understand it better.  Now imagine a film where the voice over speaker has built up your trust, walked you through his or her story, tugged on your heart strings and made you sympathetic to his or her plight then tells you right before the credits roll, "oh, by the way, I'm full of shit.  None of this ever happened."  How could you believe anything you witnessed in the previous 90 minutes?  Memento is brilliant in the sense that Nolan does this from the very beginning by telling us our main character can't remember anything since the attack that killed his wife, yet somehow, he's still pursuing her killer.  But, wait - how?  Good question.  We see his methods for keeping track, we hear the tales he tells, but essentially we cannot trust him.  How can you trust a man who cannot trust himself?  We're therefore asked to uncover a mystery of the murder of Leonard's wife while simultaneously doubting if we can even believe anything Leonard says.  The film begins with Teddy's (Joe Pantoliano) death but after 113 minutes, we're just as confused as we were when the film began.  Leonard said Teddy was guilty, but Leonard can't remember anything.  We can't trust Teddy - nor anyone else for that matter - because we know nothing about him, but we can't trust Leonard because we know too much about him. 

After nearly two hours, we've been taken on a roller coaster ride of emotions while trying to piece together a puzzle that might not necessarily exist.  It's taxing to be sure, worth multiple re-watches, yet it does everything a great film is supposed to do and does it by obeying its own rules.  Less than a decade earlier, Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary had been rewarded with an Academy Award for the way they tweaked with structure and subsequently cemented their place in the annals of film history.  Christopher and Jonathan Nolan did the same thing with Memento, yet walked away empty handed.  In 20 years when my kids are reading film books that mention Memento, will they be as surprised as me that this gem went unrewarded?

Does thinking about Memento's snubbing make you wish you had Anterograde Amnesia?  Let me know your thoughts in the comment field or email me at jr@magnetmediafilms.com

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