Memento is a film directed by Christopher Nolan. The protagonist is
Leonard Shelby. A man who has a condition named anterograde amnesia that gives
him the inability to recreate memories, after his wife was attacked. The film
opens with a reversed scene of a man who we later learn is Lenny shaking a
Polaroid picture of a man who has just been killed which is later revealed to
be Teddy. The reverse filming makes it so the Polaroid is fading back into
white. The black and white clips are in chronological order, while the colour
scenes are in reverse order in between different black and white scenes. The
audience sympathize with Lenny when they first hear his story, before the story
of what Lenny has done is fully revealed. At the end of the movie, the audience
tend to have mixed feelings on how the feel about Lenny. The layout of the film
puts the audience in the point of view of Lenny and the audience will learn
something new at the same time as Lenny learns it. This helps the audience to
relate to how anterograde amnesia affects Lenny’s mind. Not only do we learn
information as Lenny does, we also follow Lenny for the entirety of the movie
and we hear his thoughts.
By the end of the film, it is unknown if the audience learn everything
there is to know about Lenny's story. The audience are left wondering who is
telling the truth and who is lying. The audience’s feelings towards Leonard
change due to how the film ends. Teddy claims that Sammy Jankis is a fraud and
that Leonard's wife survived the attack and is also diabetic. Leonard chooses
to forget everything Teddy has told him and decides to choose Teddy as his next
target. After learning that Leonard has killed previously, and seeing him kill
Jimmy Grantz, we are left with a lot of unanswered questions. Did Leonard cause
his wife to overdose therefore killing her? Is his wife still alive? Was Teddy
lying the whole time?
The sympathy the audience has for Leonard at the beginning and during
the film dramatically changes towards the end of the film after discovering
what according to Teddy, 'really' happened.
Leonard's condition is interpreted in a number of different
physiological theories, one of these theories being Sigmund Freud’s theory. Freud
believed that there are three stages we go through as we grow up. The first
being the Id, the pleasure principle which we are born with. During the first
few months of life, when babies have a need such as being hungry, thirsty or
just want attention, babies will cry for it until their needs are met. Babies
are not aware at this point of other people's needs.
The second stage is the Ego. This begins to develop during the third
year of life. The child will begin to be more interactive and they will begin
to develop more of a personality. The ego is based on the reality principle.
The child will begin to understand that people have needs of their own and that
being selfish can be harmful in the future.
The third stage is the Super Ego. This develops from the age of five and
above. This is the end of the conscious development. The superego is the
moral part of a person. The moral and ethical part which considers everyone
else's needs.
As a grown up, we will often find our Super Ego and Id will clash
against each other. The Super Ego works as the role of the represent as it is
the moral side of us that helps repress things that the ego wants. For example we might want to do a certain act
that we know would hurt someone but our Super Ego will fight against this need
because of the result the act would have.
In terms of Lenny, we can see that due to his condition, he has lost the
use of the Super Ego. There is a possibility of Lenny still having his Ego, but
it is over ridden by the pleasure principle which is for him to avenge his
wife's death. In the unconscious are the repressed memories. Lenny seems to
purposely repress certain memories and tries to forget them to create an
alternate reality for himself to live for. Those memories being the apparent
truth about what happened to his wife, that he had already killed John G and
the truth about Sammy Jankis. This links back to the end of the film. 'Do I lie
to myself to be happy?' We see Lenny burn the photos of Jimmy Grantz and the
photo Teddy claimed to take after Lenny killed the real John G.
It can be argued that Lenny does no longer have a Reality Principle as
he is only focused on his task of killing John G in his Pleasure Principle.
There is also the argument that Lenny has created his own reality with
information that he believes to be true, linking with repressed memories. He
blocks out the truth and makes up his own.
Since Lenny can only remember a few minutes at a time before forgetting
completely due to anterograde amnesia, his method of remembering is by taking
pictures with a Polaroid camera and writing important notes on them. Another
method he uses is tattooing key words and 'facts' all over his body to create a
‘fact file’. However, the ‘facts’ he puts on his body, may not be completely
true. Which links to his repression. It is likely that Lenny repressed certain
facts to manipulate the story to how he wants to believe it. By tattooing fake
facts on his body, he is creating his own reality and totally disregarding the
truth.
Carl Jung was a supporter of Freud because of their shared interest in
the unconscious. Initially Jung followed Freud's theory of the unconscious but
later developed his own theory on the unconscious to include some new ideas.
The most important is the archetype which structures the collective
unconscious, which Jung believed is not developed but rather inherited. The
archetypes are pre-existent forms created by everyday forms such as the
parents, husband or wife.
There are three important archetypes called the animus, anima and the
shadow. The anima is a man’s unconscious feminine image he has within himself.
This is the same for all men. At a certain stage in a male's life, he will want
to free himself from the anima fascination he has with his mother.
The animus is the opposite, a woman's unconscious masculine image.
Lenny masks himself from the outer world as vulnerable and weak, due to
his condition and the story of his wife's attack, in an attempt to gain
sympathy from others. This persona is the mask that conceals his true self.
Within his unconscious lays his Anima and the Shadow. Natalie could be
seen as the motherly figure to Lenny, therefore Lenny could arguably project
his anima onto Natalie. Another theory is that since his wife's death, Natalie
has been the only womanly figure in his life at this point. So therefore
projecting him anima on her.
Lenny's shadow is filled with repressed memories and things he is
possibly ashamed of. His shadow will contain the repressed memories of the
truth of Sammy Jankis, the information Teddy reveals to him about his wife
surviving the assault and that she had diabetes and that he had already
previously killed the real John G a year previously.
From watching the film, I think that Lenny is hiding a dangerous
personality and he is using fear and vulnerability to mask it. At certain
points in the film, I can see aspects of Lenny’s dangerous personality coming
through his mask. For example, when he murders Teddy and Jimmy, and when he
beats up Dod. Another example is when Teddy reveals everything to Lenny about
him previously murdering another John G a year previous. Lenny is not fazed by
this at all and this makes him look potentially dangerous.
Jung believed in a process called the ‘Individuation Process’. Individuation
means becoming your own self or self-realization. It is the development of
lifelong personality from birth to death. The ‘Individuation Process’ was
separated into three parts, the maternal stage, the paternal stage, and the
wholeness stage.
The maternal stage is the dependence of the parents, which can last for
up to thirty years. The parents give support and encouragement to their child
to help them develop. However, life’s tough reality can be blocked out at this
stage. By the end of the first stage, people develop to do things for
themselves that others would once do for them. This transitions them into the
next stage.
The paternal stage is where the adapting and adjusting takes place. The
reality principle is seen in this stage. Consequences for actions taken are
learnt, typically taught by the paternal figure, commonly the father. The
person is exposed to the truth of living in the world. There are consequences
and strict conditions. For the person, their world has changed from ideal to reality.
The wholeness stage consists of three tasks. Becoming an independent
individual and understanding the reality of the human existence, the ego
answering to the psyche rather than a voice from the outer world, and finding
something worth living for rather than working for survival.
In terms of the film, parts of the first and third stage of the
‘Individuation Process’ link to Lenny after the assault. He believes that
avenging his wife’s death and killing her second murderer is what he now lives
for. He does not listen to anyone around him. His ego listens to his inner
voice, the psyche and not the outer world (e.g. Teddy). Natalie can be perceived as the maternal
figure in Lenny’s life.
“She has also lost someone. She will help you out of pity.”
Richard Wollheim believed in a method called Event Memory. Wollheim had
a memory of accidentally driving his jeep into the German Line during World War
II. He said he felt ‘terrified, lost and lonely’. However, when he recalls
the memory, the emotions are ‘different from how he felt on the night it
happened as now’, he feels ridiculous that he drove his jeep into the German
Line, and he found comfort and reassurance and relief that the soldiers did not
kill him when they found him. The emotions associated with this particular
memory would be ‘anger’ and ‘embarrassment’. Time can effectively change the
emotions felt from when the event happened and when the memory is thought about
over time. So they will look back at this memory and find it funny and feel
silly for it.
However, Lenny does not react in the same way. When he remembers the
event of his wife being attacked and Lenny getting knocked out by one of the
attackers, the event will instil emotions of shock, guilt, devastation, anger,
the desire for revenge and to avenge his wife's death.
These emotions are expressed in anger, hatred, and the urge for revenge.
Normally overtime, if someone has been through this event, they would mourn
their loss, have positive thoughts about their lost one and have the feeling of
relief that they survived. However Lenny cannot make new memories or emotions
so he will always feel the initial emotions he felt when the attack happened.
‘How can I heal if I can’t feel time?’- Lenny
‘I can’t remember to forget you’ - Lenny
When watching Memento
and applying all the psychoanalytic theories to Lenny’s character, as an
audience, we can learn to understand his ‘condition’, (anterograde amnesia)
better. I think Memento manages to put us in the shoes of Lenny really well. We
learn new information as Lenny does, even with the film scattered in a
different order, new information is exposed to Lenny and the audience
consecutively.
