New Ideas- 'Memento'

I was having a conversation about Christopher Nolan movies at supper last night with Stephen Crane. We were having a conversation about which film of his was our favorite, his being 'The Dark Knight' mine being 'Inception.' I described 'Inception' being Nolan's 'Memento' of Hollywood. In both films Nolan gives us new ideas. one of the best ways I believe a filmmaker can succeed is when there movie gives out new ideas.




Inception does this by going inside dreams and not only that but making multiple levels of dreams. Genious! Nolan's new idea in this film is how he told the story. Unlike the traditional movie where we wait for the end to see what happens, in 'Memento' we start from the end of the movie and go through the movie backwards. This works in 'Memento' because the main character in the film has short-term memory loss. After a couple of minutes he forgets everything. So he leaves him selves notes to keep track of what is going on, or what he thinks is going on. This technique is absolutely genius! Here is a graph of how the film is laid out:



There is no doubt that Nolan is a great storyteller. He knows how to capture his audience and hold their interest until the very end of his films.