Memento - Genre

Whilst there are many elements of Memento that could be considered as typical of the noir genre, the attention is drawn to the general connotations of noir, in particular it's association with death.  Nolan, the director, stresses the importance of crime, violence and death in Memento which is why this film is identified as a noir:

"moral ambivalence  criminal violence and the contradictory complexity of situations and motives combine to give the audience a genuine sense of anxiety or insecurity, and this is the hallmark of the film noir in our era.. the vocation of film nor was to create a specific malaise."

                                                                               (Borde and Chaumenton 1955:15; my translation)


The opening scene of Memento gives a perfect example and gives the audience a taste of what is yet to come. The first thing the audience see is a Polaroid picture of a bloody dead man developing backwards, by this we grasp the scene is in rewind. The amount of blood on the wall and the gun indicate criminal violence and in addition, by making the scene in reverse adds the complexity to the film.

Another element that is considered as typical of the noir genre is the complex narratives, they are often confusing because of the heavy use of flashbacks and first-person voice-over narration. Using these features frequently allows Nolan to explore the characters in more depth as we see Leonard's past in the flashbacks. However this can often be confusing as the flashbacks in this film are not in chronological order. A particular type of complexity is built into most stories of detection. As Ponder - following Todorov (1997) - explains:

"The detective formula requires a particular kind of plot structure. the forward moving plot is separate from the underlying crime. Works conform to the detective formula have, as a formal characteristic, a double plot structure. The activity of detection is the action of thriller, and in what Maureen Turim calls 'psychological melodrama' (1989:143) 'interiority' - or 'vulnerable interiority' is, in other words, a 1940's trend, a trend by no means a restricted to films within the category or canon of film noir."

                                                                                                                                   Todorov (1997)


Memento's narrative begins at the very start of the film and ends in the middle, this can confuse the audience massively. Leonard's flashbacks are in black and white which move forward in the narrative, the double plot structure eventually collides when he kills Jimmy as the scene subtly changes from black and white (flashback) into the main narrative. The voice-over is Leonard thinking to himself, and as he is the main protagonist, we trust that is the truth. However this confuses the audience as we start to question Leonard's actions.