Just saw Memento...

[Panther]

Wow. Best movie I've seen in a while. But of course I've got a few questions about the ending (who doesn't) so be warned SPOILER below.















********************Begin SPOILER********************************************






I think I've got the basic idea of the movie down; that Lenny was Sammy Jenkis and did in fact unwittingly kill his wife and the point being that he was creating his own reality to try and believe otherwise. But then, what motive does the cop (Teddy) have for stringing him along from John G. to John G.? Why doesn't he just get Lenny institutionalized?

 

[syzygy]

correct moi if i'm wrong but i don't think the cop is stringing lenny along. the narrative
works elliptically because its confined within the short-term memory deficits of the character.
he keeps forgetting, misrepresenting, and confabulating due to the effects of his brain injury.
his perceptions repeat constantly but never in the same exact form each time around. which i why
this leads to murder eventually. does this make any sense ?

i think that under ever tighter scrutiny the film's internal logic begins to leak.

 

[Panther]

yes but at the end where Teddy gives his big speech (the abandoned building just after Lenny murders the drug-dealer) he says that they got the guys who actually raped his wife (the polaroid of lenny bloody and smiling) and since then, Teddy has been leading him around in the hunt of other John G's because Lenny can't ever remember exacting his revenge. Apparently (according to the polaroid) Lenny got his revenge. So why does Teddy keep helping him track down John G if he knows that there is no John G.

 

[samarth]

<< yes but at the end where Teddy gives his big speech (the abandoned building just after Lenny murders the drug-dealer) he says that they got the guys who actually raped his wife (the polaroid of lenny bloody and smiling) and since then, Teddy has been leading him around in the hunt of other John G's because Lenny can't ever remember exacting his revenge. Apparently (according to the polaroid) Lenny got his revenge. So why does Teddy keep helping him track down John G if he knows that there is no John G. >>



thats the whole point of the movie, to make you wonder....why?

 

[Panther]

is there an answer? otherwise it seems pretty silly to me for 'the point' to be such a seemingly minor part of the movie. :frown:

 

[syzygy]

the film ends pessimistically, no ? lenny is doomed to repeat his blind pursuit when
he loses the memory of the murder he just committed. he's a perpetual victim because
he's unable to retain the memory of his actions. if he could remember, he's appears
to be moral enough not to continue and possibly if not for the injury he would never
have engaged in the vigilante pursuit. to carry this theme further, lenny becomes a
victim of others too. he is manipulated by all the people he forms even a passing
relationship with, from teddy to carrie anne moss' character to the desk attendant
at the hotel (including the attendant's manager who is only mentioned), who teddy
catches charging him for two rooms.

 

[Panther]

<< lenny becomes a victim of others too. he is manipulated by all the people he forms even a passing
relationship with, from teddy to carrie anne moss' character to the desk attendant at the hotel >>




I understand this point, and all of the people's motives are clear (natalie wants to avenge her boyfriend's death, the desk attendant wants to make some extra money), but now, why on earth would Teddy want to take advantage of lenny? This is my one problem, I can't see a motive for him helping lenny to continue his search for John G.

 

[d0ofy]

I could have sworn that Teddy was in it for the mob money from that guy Lenny killed.

 

[Panther]

ahhh, I think you're right. He was planning on taking the 200k from the (recently deceased) drug-dealer.

 

[Platypus]

I believe that he was sammy. Its up to you to make your own conclusions, which I think is awesome.

 

[jinglingxl]

Another question arose was that...if Lenny had short term memory lost, and he couldn't make any new memories...the last memeory he had was seeing his wife dying..so he's looking for the killer. Then how does he remember he had the condition of short-term memory lost?? Obviously Sammy (who Lenny suppose to represent)was never awared of his own condition.

 

[Panther]

edit: just thought of something


couldn't he still learn via conditioning? in otherwords, if he has a note telling him he has this memory thing, or even just people telling that he had this mental condition would make him &quot;learn&quot; it, no?

 

[Phokus]

At the end, Lenny decides to write &quot;Do not trust his lies&quot; (or something like that) on Teddy's picture, knowingly that Teddy WASNT the John G. he was looking for (because Teddy explained that they already got the rapist). The reason is because (as Teddy explains), Lenny is never satisfied (because of his memory loss), so he accidentally 'loses' some of his notes, and creates lies to find the 'john g's' of the world. So in essense, Lenny isn't that innocent himself.

Actually, the whole point of the movie is that Lenny majorly screwed up by writing &quot;Do not trust his lies&quot; on the back of Teddy's picture; all of his mistakes point back to that one mistake. If he trusted Teddy, he wouldn't have trusted Natalie instead.

I don't know where you guys got the idea that lenny being sam jenkins though... what happens is that lenny mixes up the &quot;insulin&quot; incident and thought it was sammy who gave too much insulin when it was in fact him who did it to his own wife. I believe Sammy is a real person.

Also, Teddy was stringing Lenny along to help him catch criminals.

 

[Panther]

I understand that Sammy is a real person. Sammy was a conartist. However all those episode dealing with Sammy and his wife were actually Lenny and his. The best explanation of why Teddy is stringing Lenny along is because he's crooked and collects alot of money from taking out those shady characters (like the 200k the drug-dealer had on him). I don't understand how he would be using him to solve crimes? Care to expound that theory?

 

[Phokus]

Where does it imply that sammy was a con artist? I completely missed that one...


And wouldn't it have been trivial for Teddy to figure out a way to steal the money back from Lenny?

 

[SendTrash]

no, wait.. he wasn't Sammy!....


why does he have memories of his wife dying with a plastic bag over her face and in the bathroom?

 

[SendTrash]

<< Where does it imply that sammy was a con artist? I completely missed that one...


And wouldn't it have been trivial for Teddy to figure out a way to steal the money back from Lenny? >>



Sammy wasn't a con artist.... its just that Lenny didn't realize that Sammy's look of recongizition was fake

 

[jinglingxl]

Sammy is Lenny...and if you remember correctly at the end, when Teddy revealed all the truth to Lenny when he's life was jeopardized after Lenny hit him on the back of his head...trying to hurt him. Teddy said Sammy is a conman, he was a fraud... and he doesnt have a wife. And quote &quot;it was your wife who had diabetes&quot;...then follows few scenes of Lenny giving shots to his wife.
Of course Lenny refuses to believe, because that would totally reverse his belief of his wife died from John G, rather survived but only to die from his own hands with his memory condition.

So he wrote &quot;dont trust his lies&quot; as a way to twist the truth he refuses to believe, and continue to search for the satisfication of finding a murderer for some sort of revenge.

But after all, no one in the movie can really be trusted...that includes Teddy. Why did he appear at the scene after Lenny killed Jimmy? that could be a setup so that he can take the money... and everything he told Lenny can also be a lie just so that he can get the money. He mentioned he was one who helped Lenny found John G, and they already got the murderer...this could be just another of way of making him to look like a good guy. After all, you gotta wonder why Teddy uses a fake name...and how possible is it that his real name John Edward Gamle could be related to John G.

 

[Phokus]

No wait, Teddy explained to Lenny that he used a fake name because he was undercover...

BTW, was the mysterious person talking to Lenny on the phone teddy?

 

[jinglingxl]

yes..it was teddy on the phone..remember he told him to meet him..and told lenny a discription of how he looks like? then lenny came out..he saw teddy..and called teddy officer

 

[DefRef]

I saw the movie and really liked it AND understood it.

After reading this thread, I'm totally confused and feel dizzy.

I'm gonna go lie down now.

 

[stonerdave]

just watched it...great movie, although somewhat depressing.

 

[Relf Lauren]

Holly shiat! I just saw this move, and it easily one of the best movies I have EVER seen!

I dont know why more people haven't heard of it!

GO SEE IT NOW!


Relf Lauren

 

[djchemistry]

I hated the movie.

Why do directors feel like they have to mess with the audience? I felt sympathy for Lenny and wanted him to find the killer but he turned out to be the killer. That bites. I DO NOT want to sympathize or to rationalize murder. Might as well excuse Manson's murders because he had a &quot;mental&quot; condition.

I just felt the ending could've tied things together a little better. And the backward thing got a little old toward the middle. Overall, however the directing and backward developing storyline was pretty cool.

 

[mollymawk]

Why do directors feel like they have to mess with the audience?

Some viewers (me, for one) love &quot;film noir,&quot; and adore a twist ending, even if it bites us in the @ss. I doubt that you would have liked &quot;The Usual Suspects&quot; either.

The greatest noir twist ever, in my mind, was the classic &quot;Double Indemnity.&quot; Wow.