Wishful Thinking

A long time ago, I discovered I was lactose intolerant. However, I was sure that this diagnosis could not be true. So I continued to drink milk and eat ice cream and cheese. Naturally, I continued to get sick. However, I always made up various excuses for why I was getting sick. I refused to believe that I was lactose intolerant. One day I realized I could not deny it any longer. Even though I truly believed I wasn’t lactose intolerance, the reality of the situation was that I was lactose intolerant. It is often said that we only believe what we want to believe. We choose to see and hear only certain ideas and opinions, while blocking out all other ideas that are unfavorable to us. Memento explores the ramifications of this wishful thinking by illustrating the devastating effects on a man who literally lives his life only believing what he wants to believe.

Leonard, the main character, has short-term amnesia. Therefore, he keeps a physical record of every “fact” he wants to remember. Unfortunately, he wanted to believe that Teddy, an undercover cop, was lying, so he recorded Teddy to be a liar. As a result of believing that Teddy was a liar, Leonard based many of his decisions upon this knowledge, which led Leonard in a downward spiraling path leading to the death of Teddy. This murder of Teddy occurred because Leonard actually fooled himself into believing Teddy was a liar.

Our minds are so powerful that, sometimes, when we tell ourselves to believe in things that aren’t true, we actually start believing them. While Leonard is an extreme example of this phenomenon, he effectively demonstrates how easily our brains can accept falsehoods as truths. The bad consequences occur when we begin acting upon this false notion of truth, like when I continued to consume dairy, which was detrimental to my health. As this movie demonstrates, the ability of the mind to fool itself is quite powerful.

Maybe Lenny needs to “investigate” himself?

Teddy: You don’t know who you are anymore.

Leonard Shelby: Of course I do. I’m Leonard Shelby. I’m from San Francisco.

Teddy: No, that’s who you were. Maybe it’s time you started investigating yourself.

Though I remain unsure if anything Teddy says is in fact true, he does raise a valid point here, regardless. Leonard’s entire life ever since his memory disability revolves around his mission to find the man who raped and murdered his wife. To compensate for his unreliable memory, he spends every waking moment sorting through piles of notes, police reports, Polaroid photos and tattoos each new piece of “true” evidence to his body. But what if the mystery is not who raped and murdered Leonard’s wife? What if, as Teddy hints, the real mystery is Leonard’s identity? The skepticism in this movie can easily be unbalanced and swayed in Leonard’s favor since, after all, the audience spends 113 minutes through his point of view. Everyone and everything but Leonard is questioned and doubted. Perhaps the questions and doubts have been hugely off target. Perhaps there are some key facts that go against Leonard’s story. As if Memento needed more layers to its confusing and mysterious storyline, here are two holes in Leonard’s identity as he tells it.

It first becomes evident that Leonard is anything but ordinary when he unbuttons his shirt to reveal a tattoo on his chest that reads: “John G. raped and murdered my wife.” Later Leonard reveals that his final memory was of his wife dying. We are immediately introduced to Leonard’s memory impairment, which evokes sentiments of pity and sympathy. No one intuitively questions the “victim.” The film, however, does not show his wife dead. There is no proof of a corpse, a funeral, or a tombstone—no visual evidence whatsoever supports Leonard’s claim that his wife is in fact dead.

There are several zoomed in camera shots of his wife trapped inside some sort of plastic bag throughout the film but, in each shot, her eyes are clearly moving and blinking. His wife could indeed have been in the process of dying, but her death, is an assumed fact, not a verified one.

Teddy’s statement that Leonard needs to start “investigating himself” is highlighted at the end of the film when Teddy admits he helped Leonard track down and kill John G. over a year ago, that Leonard’s wife actually survived the rape, and that she is diabetic. Teddy even shows Leonard a Polaroid photo he took of Leonard smiling after he murdered John G. Leonard, before he forgets, decides to continue the hunt for his wife’s murderer. He scribbles “Don’t believe his lies” on Teddy’s photo, ultimately tricking himself into killing Teddy. So now the man with the handicap has gone from “victim” to “victimizer.” When reflecting on Leonard’s character arch throughout the film it becomes even more difficult to take his side and believe him, especially since most of his behavior is based on his own notes. He could easily have invented everything. As Leonard says it himself, “Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They’re just an interpretation, they’re not a record, and they’re irrelevant if you have the facts.”

Remember Sammy Jankis

I have read a few posts written this week that have addressed the ending of Memento and the possible entanglement of Leonard’s own story with that of Sammy Jankis. Throughout the novel, Leonard repeatedly comes back to his tattoo, “Remember Sammy Jankis”. He claims that he uses the story of Sammy Jankis so other people can relate to his, Leonard’s, condition. However, I think the more important role of Sammy Jankis is for Leonard to have an external means of portraying his condition to himself. He often compares his own lifestyle to Sammy’s. He assures himself that his conditioning, his tattoos and his drive to find his wife’s killer will allow him to do something that Sammy never could do, continue living his life. Of course, his constant contemplation of his Sammy tattoo is, itself, a conditioning technique. This close comparison of his own story with Sammy’s may help explain the entanglement. Leonard has preexisting memory of Sammy yet preexisting memories can often be distorted, especially when there used to illustrate another story. They are highly unreliable. Leonard tells us this bit of knowledge early in the movie, something he picked up during his career in insurance. This means that to fully understand the movie, we have to consider flaws not only in Leonard’s short term memory but also his long term memory. Hence the confusion regarding if his wife had diabetes or the fast shot of Leonard in the chair where Sammy is sitting.

We know now that Leonard was not able to keep the facts straight. He is a victim of his own emotions that drive him to write lies that allow him to continue his search long after his wife’s murderer is dead. Essentially, he is setting himself up for a cyclical adventure of tracking down John G’s until he gets caught. There is only one flaw that will get in his way. It’s his tattoos. Some of his tattoos like the license plate are very concrete pieces of evidence that Leonard will not be able to ignore in the future, yet they are sure to contradict with any further investigation. The first time I watched this movie, the realization that Leonard had planted false information and killed an innocent man trying to help him made me believe that Leonard is the bad guy in this film. However, I think closer consideration leads me to find this realization much more morally ambiguous. It is certainly wrong for him to plant lies that eventually kill Teddy. However, I think many people would go to extremes to feel they have avenged the death of their wife. Leonard’s short term memory loss also means that he never has enough time to rationally walk himself through the moral complexity of his actions. We all have the advantage of being able to rethink our decisions in the future. Leonard, however, will never come back to the morals of his decision because he will remember what he did. What I’m trying to get across is that we all make bad decisions sometimes but we can change the outcomes. Leonard cannot and so his decision to harm an innocent man is carried out because he doesn’t feel the guilt that he should.

So meta, so deep...

The cover of the DVD case for Memento just got me thinking… Could you get any more meta than a photo in a photo in a photo in a photo? Essentially Memento is a collection of a swirl of moments. Unable to form memories, Leonard must somehow photographically record each important moment to the best of his ability before he forgets. Once he forgets, he has his own moment archives to sort through, like Polaroid memories. The only flaw in this recording system is that each moment can easily be incorrectly recorded and manipulated into something it was not. Natalie plays a key role in this manipulation when she convinces Leonard that he must murder Dodd, a violent drug dealer. She also provides John G.’s—Teddy’s—license plate number. This explains why Natalie is the other character on the DVD cover. Without her, the story would never have reached its climax in the scene where Leonard confronts Teddy and proceeds to shoot him.

Another important characteristic of the DVD cover is the quote “Some memories are best forgotten.” This goes along with the thesis of one of my last posts discussing that it is human nature to avoid anything that makes us feel negative. If there is a negative memory, we prefer to either block it out completely or disguise it as a positive memory. Although Leonard may have a rare memory condition that few people suffer from, his behavior nonetheless represents the flaws of human nature as a whole.

Manipulating Leonard (close reading on Leonard/Burt dialogue)

As one of many first-timers watching Memento, the alternating chronological order, choppy scene sequences, and mysterious plot line caused total and utter confusion in the beginning of the film—mainly because it is a narrative style that is not frequently used in film. One particular scene, however, helped put some of the pieces together and revealed important clues to the rest of this puzzling film. This scene takes place when Leonard Shelby checks in at the Discount Inn and Burt Hadley, the man at the front desk, escorts Leonard to his room.

Burt’s boss instructed him to take advantage of Leonard’s memory condition by renting out a second room to make a larger profit. However, Burt’s scheming strategy fails when he accidentally brings Leonard to his old room inside which Leonard recognizes his own handwriting on the front of a brown paper bag. This causes Burt to clumsily blurt out that Leonard has a new room, thus revealing his boss’s plan to “rip him off.” Ironically, as a man incapable of trusting anyone who is not a part of his Polaroid collection, Leonard appreciates Burt’s honesty. But when Burt’s says, “Well you’re not gonna remember anyway,” Leonard retorts, “You don’t have to be that honest, Burt.” Through this exchange, though brief, the audience discovers valuable clues regarding others’ manipulation of Leonard and Leonard’s manipulation of himself through his short-term memory loss. Burt charging Leonard double at the Discount Inn is a perfect example of how easy it must be for everyone and anyone to manipulate Leonard into doing just about anything. Leonard may be in search of the truth, but even he admits that some truths are just too harsh to be known, which is why he prefers Burt to refrain from being that honest. It becomes apparent that Leonard’s notes, Polaroid pictures, and even tattoos depicting the “truth” are not as objective as we may have thought. Leonard’s reaction to Burt’s hurtful reproach goes to show that perhaps even Leonard prefers certain truths, certain honesty, to remain hidden and undiscovered forever if too harsh to face.

The full dialogue referred to:

Burt Hadley: Oh shit. This is the wrong room. You’re in 304 now. I'm sorry. I fucked up.

Leonard Shelby: This is not my room?

Burt Hadley: No, come on, let’s go.

Leonard Shelby: Why is this my handwriting?

Burt Hadley: ...This was your room, but now you’re in 304.

Leonard Shelby: When was I in here?

Burt Hadley: Last week. But then I rented you another room on top of it.

Leonard Shelby: Why?

Burt Hadley: Business is slow. I mean, I told my boss about the—your condition and stuff, and he said try and rent him another room.

Leonard Shelby: So how many rooms am I checked into in this shit-hole?

Burt Hadley: Just two, so far.

Leonard Shelby: Well, at least you’re being honest about ripping me off.

Burt Hadley: Well, you’re not gonna remember anyway.

Leonard Shelby: You don’t have to be that honest, Burt.

Manipulation

Memento is not only a well produced, well-acted and scripted movie, but it also plays into the psychoanalysis of the mind and why people do the things they do. As we see in the end of the film, Leonard makes the conscious decision to keep searching for John G. even though he killed the original criminal already. This quest makes his life worth living, the same way that elderly get pets so they have a reason to wake up in the morning. Because Leonard lost everything due to his disorder, it is easier for him to forget that he was the cause of his wife’s death and live blissfully ignorant of his deeds. There are several clues that this ending was coming; when he is burning his wife’s possessions, he states that he probably did this act before with loads of her things to try to forget her. While typically seen as a sign of mourning, we ignore the fact that he has had a life before this and we do not know all that he has done or even how much time as passed since his injury; he does not even know this information.

More clues that are easily glossed over are when Natalie tries to rip the picture of Donn, and he states that to get rid of them, you have to burn them. He has experience; it is not common knowledge that you cannot rip polaroids. Another clue is the fact that he knows how to fill a syringe; if you put Leonard in Sammy Jankin’s place; one would have to for his wife’s insulin shots. One final clue that is often overlooked is the scene that shows Sammy sitting in a chair in a hospital. At the end of this scene, there is a split second frame that shows Leonard in the chair. It is not easy to catch, but the small detail puts everything together for the viewer, or even subconsciously makes them begin to think in this way. This movie tells us what is going to happen from the very beginning, as the opening scene is Leonard killing Teddy. When we see the details we cannot ignore them and we realize how the movie subconsciously was gearing us toward a certain way of thinking with subtle hints throughout.

Well done, Memento, you successfully manipulated most of us, at least the first time through the movie.

"You're living a dream kid."

First off, I just wanted to say that Memento has the single most mindfucking ending I've ever seen. From what I understood, Leonard's wife survived the attack and he mixed up the story between Sammy Jankis and himself. He then added the imaginary feature that it was the initial attack that killed her, to make the story more simple. Right? Correct me if I'm wrong because I'm still confused.

Leonoard is subconsciously in denial; he doesn't really want to know the truth. Like Teddy says to him at the end of the movie, "You don't want the truth. You make up your own truths." He needs this lie (i.e. his wife died from the attack) so that his life can continue and have purpose. I find it very interesting that a lot of the times we make up stuff and lie to ourselves because the alternative, reality, is just too depressing to fathom.

In The Man in the High Castle, Philp K. Dick's characters do the exact same thing: they create this alternate reality in which the Allies lost World War II. Another similarity MTHC and Memento have is their characters' reaction to the revelation of truth. When the characters realize that they are living a lie, they go into panic mode. In Memento when Lennie discovers that he was already killed the real John G a year ago, he makes the conscious decision to kill Teddy and set him up as John G. He does this because Teddy is a representation of the truth, and that doesn't fit with the story he plays in his head. He clearly does not want to know the truth. In MTHC, Tagomi has a meltdown after he discovers that his reality is actually a lie.

We discussed in class once that reality is the problem and people need to create a separate world from the the truth to find a solution. But is reality that bad? I feel like inevitably discovering the truth is a worse than reality could ever be. I guess I'm just wondering why we continue to do this to ourselves? Why is it so hard to accept the truth? Why do we always wish to "live in a dream" as Teddy says? So many questions!

Memento and Cat's Cradle

"We lie to make ourselves happy, everyone does it."

"Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy."

After watching the end of Memento, I now understand how the film relates to our class. First and foremost, this line reminded me of Cat's Cradle, where the San Lorenzans choose to base their lives around lies in order to make themselves happy and avoid facing the misery of their dismal conditions. Leonard also lies to himself in order to escape the depressing truth: that he accidentally killed his wife, and that he killed the man who raped her and no longer has anything to live for. Without the goal of revenge, Leonard has no motivation to keep track of his life. He would fall apart and become disorganized and empty, the way Sammy Jankis did (according to Leonard). Leonard understands the truth but chooses to reject it, taking advantage of his condition to manipulate himself the same way others manipulate him. He believes that keeping himself busy will keep him sane, so he creates his life's trajectory as an endless cycle in order to maintain the illusion of sanity, at least to himself.

The irony of Leonard's story is that he actually does remember what happened to his wife, but he projected it onto someone else. Leonard's wife was convinced that she could make him remember, if only he would allow himself to. So in the end, she was right about Leonard's condition; he made the memory of killing his wife with insulin, but he would not allow himself to associate it with his own life. But it was her obsession with discovering the truth about Leonard that caused her misery and lead to her death. If she had made herself believe that Leonard could not recover, perhaps she could have found a way to cope with his condition and continued to live happily, or at least not miserably. This also has a parallel in Cat's Cradle: when people cannot or no longer want to lie to themselves in order to cope with their desolation, they kill themselves.

Portraying Ourselves

Sometimes, without meaning to, I say a white lie instead of the truth as an automatic response to a question. It’s not exactly something to be proud of, but it continues to happen even when there is really little difference between the consequences. For instance, when my friend asked me if my secret Santa was a girl and whether the bracelet I was making was for her, I automatically lied and said that it originally was supposed to be a bracelet, but I would have no problem changing its shape and make it appropriate for a guy. That was a blatant lie: if I wanted to make another pattern, I would have to take the whole thing apart. It didn’t matter if my friend knew who I got at that point: he had already guessed who his secret Santa was and was just curious.

So why did I lie? I automatically thought it was because I wanted to maintain an air of mystery. It was supposed to be kept secret, after all. But even I couldn’t believe the lie. If you don’t believe in the lie to some degree, it’s hard to convince others to believe it.

My next guess is presentation. Isn’t that why we all say we’ve “started” papers when all we’ve actually done is thought about the topic longer than a minute? We don’t want to appear as the worst student in the bunch, but then again we can’t set the expectations too high for what we’ve done. We just don’t want to appear last.

Of course, there are times when we’re truthful. If anyone had asked me why I hadn’t posted my blog sooner than now, I would have told them that I was unable to think of any topic. There was really nothing that came to mind until now. (This is not hypothetical, either. I did tell someone this dilemma of not knowing what to write.)

Was there a difference? In the first case, I attempted to keep an air of secrecy that has probably been destroyed by this point as everyone knows at least a few of the giver-receiver pairings. The second case makes me look kind of procrastinating and idiotic for still putting off something because I hadn’t managed to try to think of every possibility that could be done. Was it the friend that I was telling? The importance of the information? My emotion?

Most of it becomes how I want to present myself in that particular moment of time. The other person knows my situation through what I am telling them. They most likely don’t have any background information, and even if they did I have the ability as the “narrator” to twist the information. I want present myself as what I can with whatever I’m given. I provide the information. If you’re going to question the information, you’re still hesitant because I should know the “truth” of the matter the best. It involves me the most, so I should know the most.

So we shape our own reality by what we say. We want to present ourselves as something to the highest degree, even if it’s limited by other factors beyond our control. It affects self-esteem, if anything at all. And we all want to feel good about ourselves, right?

The Role of Time

I have never seen Momento before and so far I love it. Over Thanksgiving break one of my friends was talking about the movie to someone else and I overheard him say that everything is in reverse. I thought the movie was spoiled for me because I thought that I now knew a key fact we wouldn’t know until the end. But as soon as it started I realized that knowing that had spoiled nothing for me. The movie starts off very clearly in reverse and then continues that theme by the events occurring chronologically backwards. To me the flow of time does not (so far) seem to be the main focus of the movie anyway, it seems to be more about Lenny’s lack of memory and his struggle to find the truth when he can only go by his notes to himself and the tattoos on his body.

The time “issue” seems to be more of a way to convey meaning to viewers. If the events in the movie occurred in a normal chronological order I don’t think we would get the same experience from watching the movie. In a way, going in reverse order puts viewers in a position similar to Lenny’s; from the start we don’t know what has already happened, just what happens at the moment in time that we are seeing it play out. For example, in the beginning we see Lenny kill a man but we have no idea what happened right before he did so (just as Lenny doesn’t remember what happened before that moment either). This also definitely helps to draw viewers into the plot of the movie right from the start even though we really don’t know what just happened. Octavia Butler employs a similar technique in Kindred; like the movie this novel starts with the end (with Dana losing her arm). We are drawn in right from the very start and become more invested in the story. Kindred also deals with time “issues” (time travel) but is not focused around this idea. Time travel was really only a way for Octavia Butler to better convey meaning in the novel. No matter how much we argued about it and its impossibilities/possibilities, I think we all eventually came to the conclusion that time travel was not the central focus of the novel.

I’m very interested to see how the rest of Momento plays out. I am curious if Lenny will be able to stick to the “truth” or if he will follow a path that he believes to be the “truth” but that is not. I also want to see exactly how/why the aspect of time was messed around with. It could be that I’m totally off in my view of time in the movie so far, but I guess I’ll find out soon!

Temporal Distortion as a Form of Manipulation

Temporal distortion, a characteristic of postmodernism, has become increasingly popular in films. In Vantage Point, the director uses temporal distortion to provide the viewer with an understanding of the various viewpoints of the characters, without piecing the entire movie together. Instead the viewer is left with many "aha" moments and a few surprises at the end. Temporal distortion allows the director to give the clues to the watcher, while simultaneously confusing him and forcing him to miss a few clues. This provides a more dramatic and unexpected conclusion to the movie.

Memento also functions around temporal distortion as the viewer is only provided with short snippets of time that are gradually pieced together for him. This forces the reader to be more attentive and active when he tries to piece together a linear timeline for the events.

In Memento the temporal distortion is necessary in order to inhibit the viewer similarly to Lenny. Lenny's condition severely inhibits him from being able to piece together clues in order to realize what is happening to him, who his wife's murderer is, and who he can trust/how he is being deceived. Because the temporal distortion of the movie prevents the viewer from forming a reliable timeline of events, and only allows the viewer to see certain clips of events at a time, he is similarly inhibited and is left questioning what is happening to Lenny. While the viewer does have the power of memory, which allows him to piece together the snippets he is shown, he is only presented confusing bits of information, and therefore left questioning just as Lenny is. The viewer, therefore, doesn't have much more knowledge than Lenny does and is still subject to the manipulation of the director.

Memento

I have seen Memento before but when I watched it for the first time it was for a psychology class and we obviously viewed through a psychological lens. We analyzed Lenny’s psychological condition and things of that nature. Now, watching it in this class it’s almost like watching a whole new movie. Im no longer paying attention to his symptoms and behaviors but instead find myself focusing on how Lenny finds the truth in his everyday life. Because Lenny “has this condition,” he cant remember things for himself so he must rely on hand written notes to get by. As you can see, this can get kind of messy. People can easily manipulate Lenny into thinking something is true even when its blatant lies. Lenny’s truth is in his tattoos and hand written notes, a lot of which he got the information for from other people i.e. the license plate number given to him from Natalie. Lenny trusts that she is who she says she is and therefore takes the information as the truth. So Lenny’s truth is almost entirely dependent on other people.

In a way, this is similar to O’Brien’s truth in The Things They Carried. In his text, O’Brien changes his stories in order to “make the stomach believe” and cause his desired emotions in his audience. So O’Brien’s truth too is sort of dependent on other people. If they walk away from the water buffalo story with feelings of love, grief for human life, and an understanding of how close young boys get when they are in battle together then his story is perfect. If not, and they feel sorry for the buffalo and feel that war is brutal then he will change the details in his story in order to get them to feel the way he wants them to because “it wasn’t a war story. It was a love story” (O’Brien).

The Facts

It's hard writing about a movie that you've already seen not wanting to give away any specific details yet to come. Ignoring that, I think the best summation of the first half of Memento as I remember watching it my first time was just the sheer confusion that the viewer experiences regarding the structure. Told in a format that consistently goes back in time, the audience is left piecing together facts of the events that lead up to the climax.

Regarding the condition of Leonard, the amnesia that impacts his short-term memory, fear must immediately strike the hearts of anyone who witnesses the dramatic effects of this condition. Instead of losing memories of the long-ago past, the condition makes it so that you simply can't remember things from a very recent time ago. This discussion of memory brings up possibly my favorite quote from the movie as uttered by Leonard,

"Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts."

Leonard makes this statement as a depiction of the seemingly poor possibilities of memory to ever have any real effect. It is this memory that seems to sway so many individuals in the wrong directions and cause problems when attempting to decipher the truth. As Leonard states, memories can indeed change and be corrupted which lead to the end of the truth. However, how much can memory be ignored along with the facts? Memory is indeed a notion that becomes questionable when considering these concepts because the facts are vitally connected to memory. Without a memory, it becomes much harder for Leonard to have the facts of the situation himself.

Momento

The title of the film “Memento” reminds me of the Spanish word “momento,” as in a moment, but the title and the word it reminds me of have different meanings. The way the story is told makes me think that the main character is stuck in a moment in time. He can’t form new memories; he can only recall what he learned before the accident because his thoughts are erased. For example, in the scene in the bathroom, the man couldn’t recall that he intended to use as a weapon the bottle he was holding.


The movie also takes us back farther in time, rather than progressing forward as would be natural in a movie. I would guess the film does this because in the beginning it gives the viewer the impression that the story starts near the end. So it must work itself backward for us to fully understand what is happening. Regardless, I am enjoying “Memento.”

Habits

"I know what that's going to sound like when I knock on it. I know that's what going to feel like when I pick it up. See? Certainties. It's the kind of memory that you take for granted"

"Sammy Jankis wrote himself endless notes. But he'd get mixed up. I've got a more graceful solution to the memory problem. I'm disciplined and organized. I use habit and routine to make my life possible."

In Momento, Leonard used Sammy's inability to be conditioned as a reason to reject his insurance claim. When Leonard suffers from the same condition, he relies on habits and physical memory in conjunction with the notes to function. When he shaves, he needs a note to remind himself to shave and where his shaving supplies are, but he remembers the action. When he drives, he can't remember where he parked his car or what his car looks like, but he can maneuver it. He knows the weight to the objects around him. He knows the physicalities.

Yet, can those memories and habits really be trusted? The habits our bodies remember are action-based and don't require us to think. We can remember the familiarity of our actions, but unless we are aware of a condition like Leonard's we don't really dwell on the miniscule differences. I put my cellphone about five inches from my bed. I'm used to it. It wouldn't disturb me too greatly if it were four inches or six inches instead. But it has to be on the left side of my bed, not the right. It has to be on top of the unsightly piles of work, not next to or under it. If I'm outside, it has to be in my right butt pocket, not the left of the front one. In moments when I slip my phone in my coat pocket, I get a jolt of fear when I mechanically reach to grope my back pocket and feel nothing. It's to the point where I don't feel the phone in my pocket because I'm so used to it. I just assume that it's there and it is, most of the time. But, habits like those can be easily confused and messed up when the body is out of sync.

Take for instance, brushing your teeth. Pretty simple task, right? Wet toothbrush, rinse mouth, squeeze toothpaste onto the bristles, start brushing, spit the foam out, rinse. You do it so often you probably don't put much thought into it. A couple of weeks ago, though, when I was sleep deprived, it was late at night and though the routine went smoothly, I ended up squirting face wash on my toothbrush instead of toothpaste. I didn't even notice a difference until I didn't get the usual minty taste. Sad, I know, but true.

What if Leonard is like that? We haven't seen him muddling up his habits, yet, which makes me suspicious. For a man with short term memory and only memories before the death of his wife, his ability to do use a gun or tattoo are too precise for a man that can't remember the familiarity of talking to the same people on a regular basis.

Memory believes

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.

-William Faulkner

I’d actually never watched Memento before. I’ve watched a Bollywood movie that was supposedly inspired by it but I realized they’re quite different except for the basic plot. It was interesting to see how two movies based on the same plot can be so different because they were intended for different audiences. Each wanted to focus on the aspect of the story that the producers knew would appeal to the audience it was intended for. But, going back to the quote by William Faulkner- I remembered this quote as I was thinking about what Leonard said about memory-

“Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts.”

His idea was that facts and records outweigh memories. He probably just said this in his defense because he did not want to be pitied for his inability to form memories. But this statement just made me a little uncomfortable because I think that memories are relevant, regardless of the facts. It’s the same idea of story-truth versus happening-truth that we first encountered in The Things The Carried. Having a memory of something is more than knowing what happened. Memory is more than the sum total of facts. Memory is about the emotional truth of an experience; facts and records cannot carry such emotional weight. In fact, Leonard himself epitomizes this idea. The drive with which he pursues John G. and the “reason” he thinks he will be able to make it, unlike Sammy Jenkins, comes from his memories of his wife. As Leonard says on another occasion,

“You know, I can remember so much. The feel of the world... her.”

What he remembers is not just the mere “fact” of her existence, it’s the feel of her. It’s her memories that constantly push him towards his purpose. So, even though he denies it, memories are relevant to him. Because even when memories disguise the happening truths, they speak the emotional truth. Leonard has all the facts he needs to find his wife’s murderer, but they are mean something to him only because if his wife memories. So, it’s not memories that are irrelevant in lack of facts. It’s the facts that are irrelevant without memories.

Memory perhaps doesn’t even have anything to do with happening truths and facts. Slight digression but it’s like what Albert Einstein once said about education, that education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. Memory is what remains after one has forgotten all the facts. In the end, memory outweighs facts, it outweighs knowledge. Knowing doesn’t believe, it doesn’t inspire, memory does.