Memento

Memento (2000)
Directed by Christopher Nolan

• Conforms to many of the the conventions of a typical noir film (a type of film popular in the late 1940's, early 1950's)
• Typical noir film characters - world weary private eye/femme fatale/princess-girl in danger/the patsy or stooge/other assorted dishevelled characters
• It could be argued that this is a postmodern film noir

Memento Storyline

Leonard’s wife was assaulted by two men. He got hit on the head trying to save her and suffered memory loss from this and couldn't make new memories so forget things quickly. To remember his condition he had 'Sammy Jenkis' tattooed on his hand. Leonard’s wife had diabetes and he had to inject her insulin for her.
His wife wanted to believe he could get better so told him to give her the insulin 3 times to see if he'd remember but he didn't so she died. Leonard doesn't remember this as him but as Sammy Jenkis, he believes that his wife died when she was assaulted because this is the last permanent memory he has.

The story starts with Leonard on the phone to a police man. He tells him about the Sammy Jenkis story and then about how his wife was raped and murdered and he wants to find the person who did it and kill them. The police man tells Lenny that the murderer is going to be at an abandoned warehouse. He says his name is Teddy and Leonard takes a photo of him so he can remember him.

Lenny goes to the warehouse and kills the man, Jimmy, he thinks murdered his wife.
(This part of the film is all in black and white, is shown in chronological order and put in between the coloured scenes which are in reverse chronological order until the two time lines meet)

Teddy then shows up at the warehouse and tells Lenny that Sammy Jenkis isn't real, that he killed his wife and that Lenny already killed the real John G a year ago with Teddy's help and he thought he would remember it but he doesn't, so Teddy has been using him to kill people by telling Lenny that they are John G.

Lenny takes Jimmy's clothes and car and sets himself up to kill Teddy by taking down his car license plate number to get a tattoo of it so he thinks that Teddy is the John G. He gets the tattoo and then finds a note in his pocket, forgetting he is wearing Jimmy's clothes, to meet Natalie in Ferdys bar thinking it’s for him.

Natalie offers to help Leonard but tricks him into going after a man called Dodd. Lenny assaults Dodd and gets him to leave town. Natalie then traces 'John G's' license plate number and his driving license photo matches the one Leonard has of Teddy. He thinks Teddy is the person who raped and murdered his wife, because obviously he has forgotten what Teddy told him and who he is.

Lenny takes Teddy to the same abandoned warehouse where he murdered Jimmy, and kills Teddy.
(This is the first thing that happens in the film, and works backwards through the events that led up to this).