Prometheus Unhinged: Deleuze, Delusion and Deterritorialisations in Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000)

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Contents 1 Introduction 2 Fragmented Memories 3 Monstrous Memories 4 Memento Mori and Mores 5 References

[edit] Introduction

A superficial explication of Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2001) might leave individuals with the impression that this motion picture’s premise is purely just a gimmick. The basis of the movie is, after all, rather uncomplicated in its approach – as it is primarily the account of a husband seeking justice for the rape and apparent murder of his wife. Where the film deviates from this, is in the fact that protagonist Leonard Shelby suffers from Anterograde Amnesia, an illness where the victim cannot formulate or preserve new memories. As a result of an attack on both his and his wife’s person, the damaging, and ultimately the dysfunction of Shelby’s hippocampus is highlighted early in the diegesis. This is in direct opposition to the oft time laughable, almost obligatory, and certainly ubiquitous Retrograde Amnesia - where character(s) cannot remember events prior to cranial trauma. However, Nolan’s utilization of Shelby’s amnesiatic condition is employed with a great deal of originality, which, all gimmickry aside, also serves as an essential narrative contrivance at the same time.

[edit] Fragmented Memories

Memento is fundamentally a cinematic exercise in subjectivity and temporal fragmentation. Director and screenwriter Nolan provides audiences with a deliberately and disjointedly skewed vision shared with Leonard Shelby. Because of this, we are denied the privilege of knowing what exactly is going on, other than being afforded the protagonist’s distorted sense of the world around him:

In a rare example of scientific correctness in Hollywood, the reality of anterograde amnesia was depicted with reasonable accuracy in the 2001 film Memento. The filmmakers applied the concept of reverse chronology to mimic the effects of the condition, allowing viewers to share in the protagonist's confusion regarding prior events. (Bellows)

It is not until much later, when there is an active narrative shift and the audience, in due course, capitulates to a more objective, omniscient point of view. The benefit of this is twofold. First, it not only presents viewers with a more thoroughly cinematic experience by prolonging the suspense. What is more it offers a deeper elucidation of the filmic text by allowing viewers to firmly situate themselves within Leonard’s fractured psychological state leaving Leonard (and audiences) intrinsically trapped in what Gilles Deleuze might consider an endless state of becoming. Shelby is on an incessant mission for retribution - a revenge he could never sate, sadly, because he would never mnemonically connect to the event happening in the first place even if he wanted to. This is precisely why Teddy Gammell, police officer and supposed friend, decidedly uses Leonard for his own sinister agenda as Gammell instantly recognizes the virtue of retaining such an ‘innocent’ killer. Unbeknownst to Leonard, Gammell exploits Shelby by using him as his own personal assassin thereby placing Leonard in continuous “moral ambiguity” (Colebrook 130). Shelby is the perfect killing-machine since he is guiltless in his conviction and resolute in his actions.

[edit] Monstrous Memories

In a perverse twist on the Frankenstein allegorical conventions of hubris and (lack of) humility, Leonard Shelby is quite literally both an amalgam of Dr. Frankenstein and Monster for paradoxically he must ‘create’ himself in order to perpetuate his very own existence. Part of the Frankenstein mythology is overwhelmingly incumbent upon the consumption of the dead in order to bring about the existence of the Monster. That is, the Monster can only exist at the expense and lives of others, except Leonard’s reality is poached from the identities and bodies of such ne’er do wells as a drug-dealer and crooked cop. From their death comes Leonard’s life. It is only after the demise of Jimmy, the epithetical drug dealer, and Teddy Gammell that Shelby symbolically comes into being. When Leonard shoots Teddy Gammell in the back of the head at the beginning of the film, it is at this textually protean moment he is truly (re)born in what Deleuze labels the “monstrous birth” (Colebrook 57) . In his circumstance of continuous instability, he now has no one left to challenge his actions and he can continue on his reckless quest to find John G. unabated. As Prometheus is perpetually bound to his rock, Leonard as well is cursed in a task he can never complete but doomed to repeat. Leonard can never just be, he must continually become. Deleuze writes and this applies to Leonard, that “it is through repeating the past which allows one to transform the past” (Colebrook 64). Before his death, Teddy reminds Leonard of the one un-tattooed space just above his heart, so that when true justice is meted out, a tattoo indicating the completed event could be inscribed. Conveniently, Leonard chooses not to write this down, even though a Polaroid of him pointing to that very spot is shown to him, connoting that he has already fulfilled the gory task.

[edit] Memento Mori and Mores

Deleuze believed that expressions of life were manifestly transmitted through the synthesis of images and memory (Colebrook 6), and it is in this fashion, Leonard must perform the same in order to ostensibly remain ‘incomplete’. In an effort to remain fixed in this state of “self in flux” (Colebrook 5), Nolan’s protagonist plainly and figuratively inscribes his own future with dozens of cryptic tattoos scattered all over his body. The tattoos are Leonard’s own personal and bodily memento mori, which he must come to terms with, every time he peers in the mirror. However, this is no accident, since Leonard wilfully makes the decision to choose arbitrarily which tattoos to be inscribed upon him. He does this all in an effort to create, corporeally, some degree of purpose in his life by literally writing his own future. As Shelby gradually disrobes the tattoos are also exposed, and so too is Leonard’s meta-narrative pursuit for vengeance. Without such purpose, his life would unquestionably be incomplete. Completion for Leonard, a man who lacks the ability to construct new memories, means not only the death of his purpose but also his psyche not because he cannot attain genuine transcendence, but because he would never remember it in any case. The adage of an epiphany being worth a thousand prayers serves no function for him. More accurately with Leonard’s situation, an epiphany is less of a prayer and more of a curse. A memento mori is both a symbolic and tangible souvenir of mortality and by natural extension; it is a reminder of life. If Deleuze believed that all life creates itself and expresses itself through images and memory – this is certainly something Leonard can ascribe (or to be precise inscribe) to. Unlike the Cyborg who overcomes mortality by conquering flesh, Leonard attains transcendence through his delusional state, making him the perfect Deleuzian “schizo” (Colebrook 5) - forever existing vicariously in the “chaos of life” (Colebrook 4).

[edit] References

Bellows, Allan. “Living in the Moment.” Damn Interesting, June 6, 2007 (Accessed April 1, 2008). http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=861

Colebrook, Claire. "Becoming." Gilles Deleuze. London: Routledge, 2002. 125-45.

Colebrook, Claire. "Machines, the Untimely and Deterritorialization.” Gilles Deleuze. London: Routledge, 2002. 55-67.

Colebrook, Claire. "Why Deleuze?" Gilles Deleuze. London: Routledge, 2002. 1-8.