Scene of the Week: Memento

62 Comments
  1. aryan 12 years ago

    Memento is one of my all time favorite movies. One scene which I liked the most is the chase scene.

    He says hmm I am chasing this guy. No he is chasing me.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=HvljC8HTgwA

    • Baba Ji 12 years ago

      haha…that was an amazing scene aryan! i think ghajini also had a similar scene if i am not wrong.

      • aryan 12 years ago

        Thanks Baba yes In Ghajini also had a similar scene.

  2. Baba Ji 12 years ago

    sputnik – all 3 scenes are amazing .The second scene is a personal favourite!

    John G almost convinces him in one moment where lenny actually imagines he gave his wife the insulin injection! Thats how fucked up you can be if you rely too much on memory! 😀

    • Author
      sputnik 12 years ago

      Yeah the second scene is great because she tells him that she will do it and does it.

      So what do you think? Did his wife die in the attack or did she survive the attack?

      • Baba Ji 12 years ago

        sputnik – it is reasonably clear that the wife died in the attack.John G had killed him.But i just searched the internet to verify and i got all sorts of bullcrap interpretations.people are reading a little too much.some have confused the story of sammy with lenny.now my mind is little fucked and i am little bemused myself!

        • Author
          sputnik 12 years ago

          Baba you are saying John G, the guy who is with Lenny killed his wife?

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            sorry…teddy is not the guy who kills his wife.teddy is probably the one who hit him from behind,the guy who killed his wife was already killed by lenny during the incident.

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            from IMDB (what the) FAQ!

            Who killed Leonard’s wife?

            This is a difficult question to answer, since we are not even sure of all the facts. She could have died in the attack, though it is also possible there was not an attack or that Leonard does not even have a wife. It is all a matter of what one takes as fact and what one concludes from that fact. There is also the exposition which indicates (and can be supported via the character’s actions at the end) that Leonard’s wife died from an insulin overdose. She survived the attack/rape and went on living her life, however, she could not deal with her husband’s (Leonard’s) condition. She wanted to kill herself and she used Leonard as a proxy. She set Leonard up to give her multiple shots, and died from the overdose. Even though it was a “suicide by proxy”, both Teddy and Leonard believe that death was a result of the attack and thus the 2nd attacker is still culpable for her death.

  3. Serenzy 12 years ago

    ^
    She Survived the Attack but Died of Insulin Overdose.

    Lenny’s Memory got Fucked Up in the Attack so he doesn’t Remember his Wife surviving the Attack(and that’s what makes him belive his Wife was Killed in the Attack as it was the Last Memory his Mind can Recall)

    Totally Mindfuck Movie!

    Nolan #legend

    • Baba Ji 12 years ago

      what bullshit serenzy! the film never hints at anything you are saying here.

      • Author
        sputnik 12 years ago

        @Baba,

        Serenzy is right. Teddy did not kill his wife. Lenny created a puzzle and solved it by killing Teddy.

        Watch the first scene I posted and listen to the dialogues very carefully.

        • Baba Ji 12 years ago

          will check the film again,but if teddy is not the guy who hit him from behind then its an intellectually masturbated bullshit like inception.

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            from imdb:

            “Who is “John G”? Where did the name “John G” come from?
            EditHistoryDelete
            “John G” is part of the name of one of the men that attacked Leonard and his wife. According to Teddy, they were a “Couple of junkies too strung out to realize your[Leonard’s] wife didn’t live alone.” The name “John G” came about before the events in the movie. Nothing is explicitly given in the movie to indicate how he got the name. There is also nothing in the info on website or supplemental DVD material which could be lead to that name (it does indicate he had it while he was in the mental institution). Most probably, it came about by the police files or his own and Teddy’s investigation on the attack. [If we believe that the supplemental material on the website online and on some of the DVDs is “canon” then it appears he was convinced of the name before he escaped the mental institute. A doctor’s report indicates: “Leonard seems convinced that the police have overlooked a second man involved in incident in his house in which he was injured. Leonard identifies the man as John G.”]

            It is possible though not too probable that it was “created” by Leonard (or even Teddy, though it would be a little stupid for Teddy to give his own name as that of the rapist and eventually murderer they are looking for). This makes Teddy out to be a complete idiot. It is also possible that, at some point in the past, Leonard already got mad enough at Teddy to write down a part of his (real) name to later persuade himself that it was the name of the killer, just like he did with the license plate number in the film. This seem unlikely since again it makes Teddy out to be an idiot, since he would seem unaware to the fact that while he was feeding Leonard info, Leonard was coming up with his own clues which were pointing to Teddy.”

          • Author
            sputnik 12 years ago

            Ha Ha.

            Teddy is not one of the intruders. Whatever he says in the final scene about the missing pages and everything else is true.

            He already killed the intruder who raped his wife. He wants a purpose in life because he cannot remember anything. So he goes around creating puzzles and solves them and wants to feel happy that he avenged his wife’s murder.

            He is just conditioning himself mentally by repeating that Sammy Jenkis is some other guy who accidentally killed his wife.

            In the movie there is a scene where Sammy Jenkis is sitting in the hospital in a chair and looking at people passing by and just for a split second Lenny is in his position. Watch closely.

            Here is the official website and it has clues. Go to the flash version and then follow the words which get highlighted.

            https://www.otnemem.com/

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            sputnik – i think this film just has “clues” only so people are running their imagination wild.imdb itself seems confused about each plot and subplot and excuses itself by saying the film never answers xyz question.there were two intruders during the incident bcos lenny cannot get hit otherwise as he already killed the killer.

            “He already killed the intruder who raped his wife. He wants a purpose in life because he cannot remember anything. So he goes around creating puzzles and solves them and wants to feel happy that he avenged his wife’s murder.”

            this sounds really silly.if that indeed is what nolan wanted to make,then its a useless effort.aamir khan was right about memento after all 😀

          • hithere 12 years ago

            The movie is not about what is right or what is wrong..whole movie has genesis in last sentence 🙂

  4. Baba Ji 12 years ago

    some outrageous interpretation of memento on internet !

    1) ” Lenny’s wife is actually still alive, but every time she leaves the house, even just for a few moments, he forgets that she is alive since his last memory is of her unconscious and covered in blood on the bathroom floor. Therefore he has a habit of spontaneously leaving home to pursue a vigilante mission to catch the men that raped and “murdered” his wife. I guess my only kernel of evidence would be the few frames that show him in bed with his wife with the tattoo, “I Did It.” on his chest. ”

    2) “I think she actually missed the old Lenny, before the accident, and did have him kill her.

    My guess is that Teddy helped Lenny to get revenge. But after Lenny failed to remember anything, Teddy saw an opportunity.

    Lenny: I’m not a killer
    Teddy: I know, that’s why you are so good at it

    I’m guessing that Lenny has been killing Random drug dealers with the vague name of “John G” thinking it was revenge, while Teddy would steal the cash from the deals. Chances are they probably were doing this for a couple of months, maybe a year tops.”

    3) “I think that he killed his wife the way that “Sammy Jenkis” killed his wife, perhaps he only made up sammy jenkis to help cope with the loss that he killed his wife, and yet his only memory was of her being “Killed”.
    Actually, there is a frame shot spliced into the movie (If you’ve seen fight club you know what I’m talking about) at the scene where Lenny is talking about Sammy Jenkis being in the mental institution. There is an orderly walking by, and right after he walks by there is a frame of Lenny sitting in the chair and not Sammy Jenkis, I’m guessing this is foreshadowing, playing with our subconscious minds that sammy jenkis is really Lenny. So the answerer above me is probably right, where she missed the old Lenny, and, thinking he is faking, has him inject her with the shot.”

    4) “Teddy was a cop that felt bad for Leonard, and after he helped Leonard find and kill the “real killer”, he had to keep finding other bad guys for Leonard to kill, since Leonard didn’t remember.

    Leonard wasn’t happy that Teddy told him he wouldn’t remember killing the “real killer”(and Teddy said that he thought Leonard would, but afterwards he didn’t), so Leonard made up clues to later make it look to himself like Teddy was a suspect.

    Leonard’s wife died by accident by Leonard’s hand all along. The key is in the story Leonard kept telling everyone in the movie about “Sammy”…..”

    what the fuck!!!

  5. Baba Ji 12 years ago

    Why does Jimmy whisper “Sammy” when Leonard is dragging him downstairs?

    The movie is not explicit as to why, but it appears to be an attempt to try and convince Leonard that they have met before and that he is not who Leonard thinks he is. Whether this was its intent or not, it seems to work this way on Leonard as it does seem to convince Leonard that Jimmy was not the second attacker. It is too late to save Jimmy because he is dead by the time Leonard pieces this together. Some have speculated that Jimmy is already dead at this time and Leonard only hears it in his imagination. While it is possible that anything we see in the film may be in Leonard’s imagination, there is nothing to suggest that only he heard it as the audience hears it (it is even on the subtitles and in the script as well) and the film also seems to show a shot of him breathing a few seconds before the shot of him whispering “Sammy…”

    anyone else agrees?

  6. Baba Ji 12 years ago

    a request to all members,intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals :

    please write a short summary in your own words of what you thought the story of memento was.

    • hithere 12 years ago

      Lets make you “pseudo-intellectuals ”
      Watch following:
      No Country for old men
      Mulholland Dr..

      • Author
        sputnik 12 years ago

        I liked No Country for Old Men upto a point and Javier Bardem’s acting in it but after the motel scene I just could not understand what happened.

        Mulholand Drive is another movie that I could not understand.

        • hithere 12 years ago

          After Baba graduates from above two, He should watch Inland Empire which I haven’t finished till date 🙂

          Sputnik – Some scenes are symbolic. Read IMDB.

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            will pass…. such films are made to kill time and start fruitless debates.

  7. Baba Ji 12 years ago

    let me write in short what i thought the story was .This is after first viewing:

    lenny used to love his wife.his wife never had diabetes.during the incident,her wife gets killed,lenny kills the killer but he is hit by a man from behind and he gets amnesia problem.To fight this problem and also to kill the other intruder,lenny uses his experience with sammy whome he met during his insurance career .sammy had same problem.teddy was probably not a cop but a drug dealer and jimmy was his partner .teddy wants him killed so he convinces lenny that he was the other intruder and has him killed.but later lenny realises that it was not jimmy but teddy who was the guy he wanted to kill.teddy then tries to confuse lenny that he has already avenged his wife’s death and his sammy memories are his own life’s memories.but lenny knows John g was teddy (he had checked teddy’s driving license copy ) and kills him.

    • hithere 12 years ago

      Killer was killed long time back. Teddy used him to kill many John Gs for his drug money. Lenny liked to solve puzzle as it gave him something in life. The movie was essentially about killing “Nth” John G.

    • Bored 12 years ago

      Baba – you are yet to learn the basic rule of watching Nolan movies:
      “You need to watch it multiple times carefully to understand it.”

      • Baba Ji 12 years ago

        bored – i think nolan himself doesnt like to write complete stories.May be bcos he likes to confuse the audience or wants audience to use their own version to the story which can initiate a debate.he wil keep giving clues to a particular plotline and leaves it to the imagination what possibly might have happened.

        I have already given dozen versions of the film from various users in this thread and the other review thread.ppl continue to believe the way they saw the film is the right version.

        • Bored 12 years ago

          Nolan expects his audience to be intelligent. His stories are not incomplete or open for multiple interpretations. He is exact but unfolds the story as a puzzle.

          His success is due to his unique way of story-telling. Its not just timepass entertainment.

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            many fans saw raavan as a puzzle and a film that had hints which ppl didnt get.The story they say was exact ,not vague as Indian critics might say 😉

          • Bored 12 years ago

            Baba its ok to get it wrong sometimes.
            I was just pointing out what makes Nolan tick; not trying to rub you. Ratnam has his own pros, but his strengths are not even in the same direction as Nolan’s.

            Not many people I know actually understood Prestige completely.

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            if you are sure of your take on memento,please write short summary of the story (not the review) as i had requested.it is interesting that none of the members even tried!

          • Bored 12 years ago

            OK will do it for you when I get time.
            In the meantime you can take cues from many comments here and revisit the movie instead, if you are interested.
            Also, if you revisit TDKR you may find explanations for what appeared as plotholes after your first viewing (going by your previous post).

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            plotholes post was written by mihir fadnavis,not me and many of those points are true.check comments on his blog,it has over 220 comments.

            I had written other issues about the film which didnt have anything to do with the story but more about the cliched stuff done in superhero films.you have probably not read my comment on tdkr.

  8. Author
    sputnik 12 years ago

    @Baba,

    I thought you are smart but you disappointed me. Your explanation is so Bollywood 😉 I was expecting Memento bashing from you but was surprised that you liked it. I thought that you got the movie but alas.

    You thought Teddy was one of the intruders and that’s why Lenny killed him. Everyone thinks that from the very first scene. But what happens in the last scene – what Teddy tells him and how he wrote “Don’t believe in his Lies” and all the dialogues at the end – that’s the twist and that’s the most important thing in the movie.

    Its not silly. Its philosophical. You should stick to watching Aamir’s intelligent “Ghajini” then 😉

    • fearlesssoul 12 years ago

      sputnik – seems like you are taking your revenge of kill bill :rofl:

      • Author
        sputnik 12 years ago

        LOL

      • Baba Ji 12 years ago

        FS – what spuntik has said is merely one of the interpretations,chek FAQ of imdb.there are 100 different interpreatation versions given for each scene.My version is also talked about in one of the FAQs.

    • Bored 12 years ago

      LOL

      I sometime wonder what Murgadoss understood when he viewed Memento, same with Aamir… Ghajini may well be their own interpretation of Nolan’s work 😉

      • hithere 12 years ago

        haha that is funny. Memento did 25 Mil in initial limited run. Since then it has acquired cult status. If they make movie like this in bollywood..it would be getting Dhobi Ghatish numbers. We are hardwired to like Rowdy Rathore and Bodguards 🙂

    • Baba Ji 12 years ago

      i didnt like ghajini too.The story i said was what i intended it to be 😀 the story which i interpreted is a sensible story with a pay-off,never mind bollywood-ish.

      If lenny had already killed the killer,and if there was no intruder,then how he got hurt?

      • hithere 12 years ago

        He got hurt first time. But he kept on finding John Gs. Why? Last line of the movie.

        • Baba Ji 12 years ago

          did he manage to kill the “real” john g or kept finding the wrong person! btw ,who was the real john g if not teddy? 😀

          • hithere 12 years ago

            He probably killed him long time back. Rest of time Teddy was using him to do all dirty work in drug business. It doesn’t matter who was real John G 🙂

            Now watch the movie again and you might still have a different interpretation.

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            the biggest problem with memento is that everything is just “probable”. lenny “probably” killed other intruder long back though there is never a hint of that.teddy “probably” is the drug dealer and not a cop.”probably” it doesnt matter who was john G.

            “probably” this film wasnt brilliant as i had said earlier 😉

          • Bored 12 years ago

            Baba – The point of Memento is not on Bollywoodish revenge – but on human psychology.

  9. fearlesssoul 12 years ago

    So much confusion in understanding the movie and you call it extraordinarily brilliant? movie is brilliant but didn’t understand many things so is it called extraordinarily brilliant?

    • Baba Ji 12 years ago

      fs – i liked the way i saw it,but then sputnik and others say it wasnt that way! i hated his version of the story!

      • cr7 12 years ago

        baba ji-u should stick with ur own interpretation then 🙂 write a topic on imdb..u will find many agrees with ur interpretation too. 😆

        suffered same experience with two movies..primer and mullohand drive. i was kind of confused at the end of shutter island too .

        • Baba Ji 12 years ago

          cr – better stay away from such films.Here the director intentionally doesnt give away the exact details.There are many reasons.There can also be special cases where director himself is confused how to end the film so he takes the open end approach – a simple example can be reservoir dogs or basic instinct.

  10. Author
    sputnik 12 years ago

    Nolan’s Interview on Memento

    ‘”Memento” is very clear to most people, even if they hate it. It’s like we try to put you in his head and that’s why the story is told backwards, because it denies the information that he’s denying. So in a way, it was much more straightforward and organic.’

    https://www.indiewire.com/article/decade_christopher_nolan_on_memento

  11. Author
    sputnik 12 years ago

    Ok found the scene I talked about earlier. Watch from 22 seconds when the nurse passes by very carefully. I have the screenshot too.

    • Baba Ji 12 years ago

      Throughout the picture Leonard recounts the story of Sammy Jankis, a man with apparent short-term memory loss who accidentally kills his diabetic wife with an overdose of insulin. Yet, according to Teddy most of this isn’t Sammy’s story at all; it’s Leonard’s. Leonard’s wife survived the assault. She was the diabetic. She was the one who tested his short-term memory loss by demanding extra shots of insulin, which he gave her, and which ended up killing her. Leonard has such trouble digesting this information that he decides to cover it up by killing Teddy.

      But if the second half of Sammy’s story is actually Leonard’s, then Leonard shouldn’t remember it, since he was already suffering short-term memory loss at the time. Yet he does remember it; he tells it incessantly. That would mean Teddy could be lying about the whole Leonard-Sammy connection.

      • Author
        sputnik 12 years ago

        Just watch the movie again and this time pay attention to every scene every dialogue especially in the final scenes.

        As Bored said above ” The point of Memento is not on Bollywoodish revenge – but on human psychology.”

        The point of the movie is that Lenny kills Teddy and everyone would assume that he was the killer/intruder but we find out in the last scene that Lenny tricked himself into creating a puzzle whereby he would kill Teddy.

        This is what I said above – “He is just conditioning himself mentally by repeating that Sammy Jenkis is some other guy who accidentally killed his wife.”

        Read this from IMDB FAQ.

        https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/faq#.2.1.29

        https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/faq#.2.1.9

        • Baba Ji 12 years ago

          well,its a case of selective amnesia then! very convenient of Mr Nolan 😀

          • fearlesssoul 12 years ago

            @baba – if you watch carefully when teddy explains him at the end, lenny recalls of him injecting insulin to his wife and suddenly he distorts the same scene with a pinch instead of injecting insulin.

            If you go back again during initial narration teddy argues with lenny about facts and memories and Lenny says memories can be distorted not facts…

          • Baba Ji 12 years ago

            an anti retrograde amensiac person shouldnt remeber the events after the accident. but nolan showed that its possible somehow.it is debatable.

            anyway,most of the comments from me was after i watched it for the first time and i had not read anything about the film. once u read stuff ,you get what nolan wanted to show.

  12. Serenzy 12 years ago

    I cud predict the Ending of Shutter Island & Psycho Exactly as it is even den I loved both(Espc. Psycho).

    Baba,
    Here u go…Try these in Years to come…

    Se7en
    Fight Club
    Usual Suspects
    Sixth Sense
    Zodiac
    13D(Madhvan & Neetu Chandra)
    Prestige

    Also check out Ihab’s Thriller Thread on NG for sure…. I hv Recco that Post(& Milind’s Top100) to Endless People on the Net and to Many f my Friends.

    ………….

    Waiting to c what kind of a ‘Mindfuck’ Talaash myt turn out to be!

    😛

    • Baba Ji 12 years ago

      I didnt like milinds top 100 movie post,he has copied imdbs top 250 list and arranged it in his own order.

  13. Author
    sputnik 12 years ago

    This is a dialogue from Gulzar’s unreleased movie Libaas and it looks like it applies perfectly to Nolan’s movies. Thanks to Pavan Jha.

    “Baat to tabhi hai na, jab aap keh bhi de.n aur koi samjhe bhi nahin. karte rahe.n apni apani interpretation”

  14. fearlesssoul 12 years ago

    The best thing to watch a movie in a Blu ray is that you get everything straight out even if its as hard as to understand a film like memento… Brilliant film… Agree with what Serenzy has said and Sputnik’s interpretation…

  15. Baba Ji 11 years ago

    For thos who had this query in memento ,

    “in memento at the very end when he is imagining his wife laying across his chest it says on his left peck “I’ve Done It” when in the rest of the movie it doesn’t show it tattooed on him?”

    the answer:

    “I’ve Done It” Tattoo – is it real?

    There is a scene in the final part that Leonard is lying alongside his wife, with a tattoo of “I’ve Done It” on the chest. Based on the entire film the scene does not appear to be a “flashback” at all since the scene shows a tattoo “I’ve Done It” which he does not have at all in the film and in addition there is no sign that the tattoo was removed (and we do see a closeup of his chest). Since it is not a flashback, and it appears to be something in his mind that he is thinking about, it appears to be a fantasy / daydream / wish. It seems most likely that Leonard is driving and is looking for a tattoo parlor to tattoo fact 6, which he at this point believes is the 2nd attacker’s license plate. He believes that he is close to finishing his quest and he daydreams an (ironic) fantasy: his quest fulfilled and his wife still alive. It is probably meant to be ironic, since without her death there would have been no quest. It is even hinted by the film that she could have been still alive if he had shown the drive he shows with the quest while she was alive. It is possible that the image is a clairvoyant vision of the future, but we see no indication that Leonard has any prescient visions elsewhere in the film, so this does not seem reasonable.

    It has been suggested that the scene could be not a vision in Leonard’s mind at all but just a “future scene” (a flash-forward). This does not seem likely unless Nolan and/or Dody Dorn made a huge mistake. If it were a future scene, then the scene should come before we see Teddy shot and there should be a black and white scene after it that takes place before the 2nd scene in the film. There should also be an “overlapping” segment at the beginning of it that matches the end of the Teddy being shot sequence (and in all likelihood, the Teddy being shot should not be in reverse, but that would just be another error made.) Supporting that it is meant to come from Leonard’s mind and is not a shot mistakenly put here, is the foreshadowing of the shot several times earlier in the sequence, when we get short glimpses of the scene. [In support of the “daydream” interpretation is that, when the movie is watched in “Chrono-order” on the DVD, this scene still is shown in this location, it is not placed after Teddy is shot at the end of the chrono-version.]

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