Memento and License Plate Number
“Memento” Memento is a movie directed by Christopher Nolan, the story is based on the short story Memento Mori by his brother Johnathan Nolan. Memento is a story about a man who loses the ability to make new memories after he witnesses his wife being raped and murdered. The film is told in two different stories: one is in black and white and told chronologically, and the other is in color and told backwards. Leonard Shelby wakes up one night and notices his wife is missing from their bed. He hears grumbling and moaning coming from the bathroom. He proceeds to the bedroom closet and retrieves a pistol; he loads it and walks toward the bathroom. He barges into the bathroom where two guys are raping his wife. He shoots one and the other knocks him into the bathroom mirror knocking him onto the ground. Causing him to have a head injury, where he cannot make any new memories. The last thing he remembers is lying on the ground next to his wife who is wrapped in a shower curtain suffocating. Though his memory problem obstructs his ability to endure lengthy activities, Leonard manages to focus his energies on searching for the second assailant and avenging his wife’s rape and murder, reminding himself of important facts by carrying a police file of the crime, taking notes and pictures, and even going so far as to tattoo the most vital details about his mission throughout his body. Along the way, a couple of characters take advantage of his revengeful and forgetful state of mind, deceiving Leonard into murdering several people other than his wife’s assailant. Leonard wakes up in a motel room at the Discount Inn, stunned and muddled as to why he is there. The phone rings and Leonard answers. He starts telling the unknown caller about his circumstance, anterograde amnesia, which means he cannot create new memories. Anterograde amnesia is defined as "a selective memory deficit, resulting from brain injury, in which the individual is severely impaired on learning new
Cited: Memento. Dir. Christopher Nolan. 2000. DVD. "Memento." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2013 “Memory Loss & the Brain.” Memory Loss & the Brain. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2013.