MY MOVIE SHELF: Memento

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 200  Days to go: 204

Movie #177:  Memento

Memento was kind of a flash in the pan, and undeservedly so. It should’ve been a phenomenon. Yes, it launched the careers of Christopher and Jonathan Nolan and skyrocketed Guy Pearce into the briefest glimpse of superstardom (before he fizzled out his leading roles and settled into a regular Hollywood routine of various supporting roles, from love interest to villain to villainous love interest), but it should’ve been so much more. It should be considered a landmark film. Instead it’s an interesting piece of trivia.

The reason for this huge discrepancy in the film’s remembered status as a unique gimmick versus its potential as a groundbreaking piece of storytelling is due, I think, to the fact that people didn’t really get it. Sadly, people are stupid.

Memento‘s structure is intricate and complex. It requires attention to detail and nonlinear thinking. It is an extremely satisfying and mind-blowing viewing experience, and it pays off in greater and greater amounts with each subsequent screening. Unfortunately, I think most people saw it once, remarked favorably on the backward storytelling structure, and then didn’t give it another thought, when in reality there’s so much more there.

The bulk of the story is told backwards, yes. All the scenes of Leonard (Pearce) that are filmed in color are shown in reverse order — the final scene, the penultimate scene, the one before that, and so on, not to the chronological beginning of the events in the movie, but close to it, to the inciting event that puts Leonard on the path he currently takes. The scenes in black and white, however, filmed almost entirely in Leonard’s hotel room with him talking to an unheard person on the phone, travel forward. They start at the actual chronological beginning of the movie’s events and lead to that same inciting event the technicolor scenes are moving toward. They meet at the climax, when all is made clear.

Not only is this structure innovative and clever, it’s also clearly delineated (by the use of color versus black and white) and an excellent way to mimic Leonard’s short-term memory loss. As every scene begins, we are disoriented, as he is. We have no idea where he is or how he got there, and neither does he. Our only advantage over Leonard is that we know what happens next, but we’re still puzzling it together, just as he is. It’s really exquisite when you look at the big picture.

The things we’re puzzling, of course, are not quite the same things Leonard is puzzling. He wants to know who raped and murdered his wife (Jorja Fox) and he has a bunch of tattoos proclaiming “facts” to lead to the killer. We the audience are interested in that as well, because it is Leonard’s driving purpose, but it’s more abstract. What we really want to figure out are the motivations of Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss). It becomes obvious they’re both using and manipulating Leonard, taking advantage of his condition the same way the hotel is by charging him for two different rooms, but what are they using him for? What are their ends? Their motivation?

The fabulous, shocking, beautiful part is not their manipulations, though, but Leonard’s. He’s manipulating himself as much as anyone. More so. He’s been manipulating himself and taking advantage of his condition since his wife’s death, actually. It all comes together in one shining, crystallized moment, and it’s amazing. It’s phenomenal. It’s spectacularly brilliant.

So why is Memento a footnote in film history instead of its own chapter? I just can’t understand it.

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Dark Knight

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 297  Days to go: 283

Movie #80: The Dark Knight

Funny story:  Somehow I’ve lost Batman Begins. I know for a fact I used to have it, because my husband and I had this big discussion about whether it and The Dark Knight should be shelved in their respective alphabetical locations — separated from one another — or if they should be shelved together. (Obviously, the correct answer is alphabetically and apart. If they wanted them together they should’ve named them accordingly. I am not a crackpot.) Anyway, so I insisted they be separated, but I never realized until just recently that Batman Begins was missing because, until I’d come up to The Dark Knight, I’d completely forgotten it existed. No disrespect to Katie Holmes.

I also never got around to buying The Dark Knight Rises, despite my undying love for Anne Hathaway as Catwoman (I AM NOT A CRACKPOT), because … reasons, probably. (You might say this would’ve been easily ascertained upon my next post, but since blu-rays are in an entirely different section of my shelving for sizing conformity, that’s not necessarily the case. After all, I still own the first two Toy Story movies from the DVD set I bought ages ago, but Toy Story 3 I have on blu-ray. Sadly, I can’t just upgrade all my old DVDs to blu-ray and be done with it, though it is in my Top 5 list of things to do once I win the Powerball. But I digress.)

Fortunately, it matters not that I lack Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises, because The Dark Knight is indisputably the best movie of the three. Batman Begins has all kinds of setup and mythology work to do with zen master / criminal Liam Neeson, plus there’s the whole problem of silly Katie Holmes being completely out of her element. (No disrespect to Katie Holmes.) The Dark Knight Rises has Bane with an even goofier voice than Batman’s, plus Marion Cotillard’s distracting forehead mole. (She’s lovely, really, and great in the film, but it drives me nuts.) The Dark Knight, on the other hand, has Maggie Gyllenhaal taking over the character of Rachel Dawes from goofy Katie Holmes, flat-out refusing to be part of Bruce Wayne’s (Christian Bale) revolving door of women, instead choosing to give her heart to the upstanding Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Harvey Dent being charismatic and clever until he becomes terrifyingly broken and angry and insane, and Heath Ledger as The Joker, blowing all our minds.

Gyllenhaal is a strong presence, and she holds her ground well against Bale’s multiple identities and Harvey’s charming arrogance. She also portrays Rachel as a powerful prosecutor and a woman with more courage and resolve than anyone else in the film. Eckhart, meanwhile, is solid in his role as Dent — a decisive man with both a purpose and a playful side — but it’s his transformation into Two-Face that is mesmerizing, and not just for the unbelievable effects work they did on him. Ledger, though, is a force of nature.

There have been plenty of thinkpieces about the seeming abandon with which Ledger inhabits his role, and I agree with all of them on his brilliant and riveting performance. It’s so far beyond what anyone expected he was capable of, I think, that it worsens the pain of his untimely death even more.

The Joker is a menacing madman, sure, but what I find most fascinating is his genius and calculating nature. The Joker doesn’t just go around wreaking havoc — there’s a method to his madness. This is possibly best evidenced (if most subtly so) by the way he always makes up a new story for how he got his scars, knowing that people will be curious but  also knowing it should be a sufficiently crazy story to ensure people of his insanity — as if he’s not actually crazy at all. He kills at will, but not randomly. He murders his disciples as he sees fit, to further his cause and to cut any and all ties to himself. He kills others as a means to an end, attempting to provoke or evade his enemies. He goes after Rachel and Harvey to corrupt the seemingly incorruptible — to make a point, to send a message, not just for kicks.  And he manipulates people to kill innocents to underline that same message, that people are inherently selfish and will always act in their own interests over those of the greater good. Indeed, the movie gets a fair amount of side-eye about its use of invasive surveillance for “the good of the people,” but the part I find most fascinating is the stand-off between the two ferries, in which neither group of hostages chooses to sacrifice the other in order to save themselves. In that one moment, writer-director brothers Jonathan and Christopher Nolan (the latter performing all the directing duties, but collaborating on the script) are saying The Joker is wrong, and that people do have it in them to be noble and to do what is right. Amid all the bleakness that can be found in these films, that’s an incredibly positive and powerful statement to me. Have faith in people, because most of them are worth it.

The Dark Knight is also pretty spectacular because of the supremely badass way the Batcycle evolved out of the busted up Batmobile and then managed to do all sorts of switching, changing maneuvers like a boss. It’s without a doubt my favorite gadget in a pretty fantastically gadget-heavy flick. There’s also the matter of Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) being both supportive co-conspirators and sort of snidely disapproving fathers to Bruce’s schemes. They provide an amusing and centered perspective that counters the overwhelming self-seriousness of everyone else (no-joke policy or no, this movie actually has several remarks played for laughs). (Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon is also something of a co-conspirator, despite not knowing Batman’s true identity, but he’s a much more solemn and determined one.) And huge props are due to the set designers, who gave the Joker a semi-truck for a particularly exciting car chase scene. The truck’s trailer says “LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE,” and there’s a spray-painted S at the beginning, so it says “SLAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE.” That’s some straight-up genius work right there, and if more Oscar voters had noticed it, maybe it would’ve won that prize.

All in all, I’m pretty satisfied that if I had to own only one of these Nolan-helmed Batman flicks, it would be this one. The performances and story are at their strongest, the stakes are their highest, and Bruce still doesn’t get the girl, but not for the reason he thinks. (No disrespect to Katie Holmes.)