Memento

I.Intro

Memento is about a guy named Leonard who has lost his short term memory and is on the hunt for his wife’s killer while relying only on his notes in pictures, and tattoos.

II. Characteristics and Conventions of the Film that Link it to Classic Film Noir

1.                              Leonard plays the role of the detective in this film, even if he doesn’t wear a drench coat and a         fedora. He acts like one by going around asking questions and taking pictures while carrying a gun. He even talks like one, saying, “I got a lead on a place” (Memento).  Richard Armstrong argues in his article, Somewhere in the Night: Memento, that “Leonard Shelby is actually an anti-detective, not resolving a crime but implicating himself the more he investigates” (123). He investigates and that makes him the detective as he would be in classical noir but the fact that he doesn’t get anywhere makes him the anti-detective like Armstrong names him. 

2.                           The femme fatal is another attribute to classical noir and is present in this film. Natalie is the femme fatal who uses Leonard to her advantage. She is very well aware of his condition and uses him to get rid of a guy for her. She takes him over to her house trying to sound nice and helpful but soon she starts telling him how stupid he is, and when she starts talking about his wife, he smacks her across the face, leaving her a bloody lip. Before walking out of the house, she hides all the pens and he desperately looks for one to write down a note saying not to trust her. When she slams the door on her way back in, he has forgotten everything and she lies saying it was another guy, and Leonard offers to help.

III.Elements of the Film that Deviate from Classic Film Noir and Link it to Neo Noir

1.                         Memento provides the viewers with a non-linear narration with three types of scenes: color, black-and-white, and flashbacks. The color scenes are presented in reverse chronological order and the black-and-white ones are presented in normal chronological order. This first color scene, in reality is the last scene of the storyline. Following the first scene, is the first black-and-white scene which is the first scene of the storyline. Leonard has two sets of flashbacks that are shown in the film. One of them is the one that are shot twice. The flashbacks that are shown twice have meaningful differences. The other types of flashbacks are fantasy.

2.                        The protagonist, Leonard, suffers from anterograde amnesia like other neo-noir protagonists. In the attempt to save his wife from burglars, he got his head smashed against the bathroom mirror and that’s the last thing he remembers. In his article Somewhere in the Night: Memento, Armstrong states that, “Leonard descends from and essential strain of noir protagonist: damaged, confused and alone” (120). Leonard’s condition causes him confusion throughout the whole film and with people taking advantage of him, there is no doubt he is on his own.

Blog Entry #7

Out of the four short stories included in part four of “Los Angeles Noir”, Scott Phillips’ “The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones” is the best example of noir. The ambiguous character is introduced right away on the first page of the story. The way he talks about his female co-worker makes us believe instantly that he’s going to do something stupid for her. “I have a great big boner with Cherie’s name on it, and if she asked me to shovel shit I’d ask her how fast she needed it shoveled” (287).  That’s also when we figure that she is the femme fatal in the story. It is evident that he’s a sucker for her. When she calls him over from where she is staying, he doesn't even insist on knowing what she wants from him. As he drives to the address she has provided, the roads are lonely. Making the story more nerve-racking is the presence of the cop car on the same road as him, “the only moving vehicle in sight an LAPD cruise that crosses in front of me just before my right turn onto Via de la Paz” (288). The house is dark and he starts to feel uneasy about why she would be in this nice house. The room where she takes him to is erotic “with framed gold record and what looks like dark red velvet” (291). She knows he’s into her and she uses that to her advantage.  Though he does not end up helping her get rid of the almost dead body, the story still continues to be the most familiar to any noir story. With use of the femme fatal, the weak protagonist, the darkness, the murder, and the setting, it is certain that this is a work of noir.

The least associated with noir would be Diana Wagman’s “What You See”. This story is gruesomely corrupted for many reasons but especially with the use of the human head being in the case that’s being delivered, “A head, a human head, launched out of that suitcase like a sixty-yard pass into the air” (347). Corruption is written all over this story but there aren’t many characteristics of noir found besides that. The qualities are definitely nightmarish and cruel but other than that there’s nothing.  As a protagonist of noir he should be fighting between good and bad but he’s just a sad guy who has just lost his mother and is looking for a friend, “Then she died and I stayed in my room and she went to heaven” (331). This friend who he ends up calling his “girl” is no femme fatal. She doesn't drag him into doing anything; it’s more like he drags her into her death. 

Blog Entry #6

The neo-noir genre is all about finding one’s self. The protagonist or detective in the story is always in the hunt to find the truth about him and searching for things he has trouble understanding. But, because of many factors surrounding the protagonist, their journey only becomes difficult and confusing. Beside physical factors there can be psychological factors affecting the protagonist’s hunt.   According to Abrams, one of them is amnesia caused by a shocking event in their lives. There are three types of amnesia that the protagonist may be dealing with that he states in his article: “Retrograde amnesia, in which the detective cannot remember past events, or anterograde amnesia, in which he cannot form new memories, or lacunar amnesia, which involves the loss of memory about a particular event” (pg.10)  One of these is taken place in most neo-noir protagonist’s lives. In total contrast to the protagonist being introduced in neo-noir, the one in film-noir is much more slick and seems to have all the answers at the top of his head while having a corrupted side to him. In past neo-noir the protagonist struggles with spiritual beliefs, either with finding any evidence that god exists or with finding the way to the hell like in the movie The Ninth Gate (Roman Polanski, 1999). Abrams explains how the protagonist, Dean Corso (Johnny Depp), is on an investigation he got hired to do on some books supposedly written by Satin years ago. During his investigation, he gets caught up into the stories after finding out those books make one book and figures the devil has really chosen him to find the gate into hell. Abrams states the following: “For Corso has been “converted,” and he is now searching for his own demonic salvation—his own otherworldly dark power” (pg.11). Future neo-noir is all about future technology and advanced science. The protagonist must find himself with high technology in the way making things harder. One of the films used as an example in Abrams article for future neo-noir is Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2002). In this film the protagonist, John Anderton (Tom Cruise), “must go on the run, effectively “running from himself ”—indeed, from a system he helped create”(pg.14). The protagonist-being chief of a new form of law to prevent future attacks being seen in the present by drugged geniuses called Pre-crime- discovers that he will soon commit a crime. Off course, the present is between the past and the future, making present neo-noir the best one of all; not being too sci-fi but the protagonist still having issues with himself. Fight Club (David Fincher,1999) is great example for present neo-noir. The protagonist hates his usual life until he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a reckless young man who is revealed at the end to be his own self. Tyler Durden reflects the bad side of him he always wanted to be and after finding out of the truth he wants to get rid of him, but how if it’s himself.  Abrams states: “But, with seemingly no options left, he goes for broke and shoots himself through the mouth, killing Tyler and somehow saving himself” (pg.18). The film examples by Abrams in his article Space, Time, and Subjectivity in Neo-Noir Cinema were useful for a reader to better understand the genre of neo-noir.

Blog Entry #4

#1

Both the endings of the novel and the film are in a way appropriate for film noir and somewhat not appropriate. I was excited on watching the ending of the film hoping it would be better than the novel’s but I stayed in the middle; liking and disliking both. To start off, the ending of the novel portrayed Phyllis as the femme fatal way more than the film’s ending did. In the end of the novel she talks about how she’s going to meet with the love of her life, referring to death. I don’t know about you but that gives me the chills. She’s seen as a crazy death-loving woman in that ending. On the other hand, in the film’s ending she doesn’t seem as reckless as a femme fatal. Of course her plan is to kill Walter Huff but she chickens out after she misses to kill him in the first shot. She does not just withdraw from the attempt to kill him but confesses to him that she is madly crazy in love with him.  A real femme fatal, as they are described, would have shot him again without thinking twice about it and she would have definitely not confessed any sort of love to the man she was using to her advantage. Now, about the way they died, the ending of the film was most appropriate. Phyllis needed to beg for mercy at her time of death instead of making her own choice about it and that’s how it happened in the film. Overall, the ending of the novel was the most appropriate for film noir for the reason that Phyllis was portrayed as the femme fatal until the end as Walter the weak ambiguous protagonist who falls too easy. Though that was the most appropriate, I believe the novel would have been perfect if Walter Huff would have got away with his plan to kill her in the park.

#4

Actor Barbara Stanwyck was appropriate for her role in the novel. Barbara Stanwyck was clearly the women I was imagining for the role of the femme fatal while reading the novel. She is an attractive woman with a thin fit figure. Her facial features seem very sweet and innocent, fooling anybody into thinking she’s an angel but with a lift of one eyebrow the image you once had of her turns to something uncomfortably evil. From the beginning to the end of the novel, Barbara Stanwyck stuck to her role and did a great job. She was fit for the role as a femme fatal. In contrast, Fred MacMurray was not who I was expecting to do the role of the protagonist. First of all his voice didn’t sound of a man who would be weak for any women who gave him an eyebrow lift. He also didn’t seem to me as a guy who would be single at that age but more of a family guy who would do no harm. In my opinion, a taller guy with finer cheek bones like for example, actor James Franco would have fit the role perfectly.

Blog Entry #3: Detective

There are many elements associated with film noir; Many of them including an ambiguous protagonist, a femme fatal, fatalism, and corruption but these are just a few of the many. A detective is also another element associated with film noir. A detective in a piece of film noir may or may not be referred to as a detective but many certainly obtain the qualities of one. In the novel of Double Indemnity one of the characters takes on the roles of a detective though never in the novel is he referred to as one. Keyes works in an insurance company which is nowhere near being a detective but his job in the company is to investigate who the phony clients are. In the beginning of the novel Mr. Huff describes some of the ways in which the reader can assume that he will take on the role of the detective. Like a detective, he is very slick at his job. “You can’t even say today is Tuesday without he has to look on the calendar, and then check if it’s this year’s calendar or last year’s  calendar, and then find out what company printed the calendar, and then find out if their calendar checks with the world Almanac calendar.” From this quote on page 7 of the novel, we can clearly assume that this man does not just let everything pass him by. A detective is very much like that; careful in every step he makes. Mr. Huff states the following about him: “But he’s a wolf on a phony claim.”(pg.8) Meaning he will hunt down the truth and there’s no way to hide from it with him. Later in the novel we see his role as a detective in action when he senses that the Nirdlinger’s case was a murder. A detective is always asking questions, either to himself or to others. Keyes says to Mr.Huff, “This is murder…So they covered the porter, did they. Nobody went out there. How do they know somebody didn't swing aboard from outside? How do they know-”(pg.66) Keyes role as a detective is very important for this novel as a detective would be to any other piece of film noir. Though Keyes’ suspected murderer and story was incorrect, his role in the novel is still valued as a detectives.

Blog Entry #2: Double Indemnity

James M. Cain’s novel, Double Indemnity definitely has the various definitions that describe a film noir. Numerous people have stated their definitions of film noir; mostly all leading to characteristics that may be considered facts about this type of style. For example, in the article, “Towards a definition of Film Noir”, Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton state that “film noir is [crime] from within; from the point of view of the criminal. In Double Indemnity this statement would be classified as correct. The novel is told in first point of view by one of the criminals, Mr.Huff. The first chapter starts off with “I drove out to Glendale…”giving the reader hope that he or she will be getting the insight scoop from the criminal himself. Though the reader has no idea at this point Mr.Huff is the criminal in the novel, he is later recognized as the criminal when he offers to help Mrs.Nirdlinger with a devious crime. “You are going to do it, and I’m going to help you” is what he tells her. Throughout the novel, Mr.Huff lets the reader in on every detail of the crime in process or as he says, “…while this thing is cooking…” pg.35. Mr.Huff and Phyllis Nirdlinger are plotting Mr.Nirdlinger’s death “accident” and the reader is in on it from the beginning. We learn from Mr.Huff in chapter one of the novel that Mrs.Nirdlinger is quite an intriguing women. He states the following: “I saw something I hadn’t noticed before. Under those blue pajamas was a shape to set a man nuts…” pg.6. In this part of the novel, Mr.Huff has just introduced the femme fatal from his point of view. The femme fatal is another element that is used to define film noir. The reader quickly assumes Mrs.Nirdlinger is the femme fatal because of the way Mr.Huff refers to her in his mind. From the website Filmsite, the article “Primary Characteristics and Conventions of Film Noir: Themes and Styles” delivers the following statement about a femme fatal: “Usually the male protagonist in film noir has to inevitably choose (or have the fateful choice made for him) between the women-and invariably he picks the femme fatal who destructively goads him into committing murder or some other crime of passion.” Those words are perfect words to describe Phyllis as a femme fatal. Her rocking body as described by Mr.Huff makes him desire her and as a result, do whatever it takes to have her. In the novel, she asks him for the reason why he wants to help her kill her husband and he replies with a bold response and says, “You, for one thing.” He later also says that he’s doing it for the money as well. Reading a novel from the point of view of the criminal is the best way to make it more exciting because you know the criminal’s every thought, making you feel guilty as if you knew something you probably shouldn’t know of. Given the quotes above from two types of sources we can assume that the novel fits with the various definitions of film noir.

Blog Entry #1

The article of “The Neo-Noir 90s” provides quite a good description of the content and visual elements that film noir included during its classical period. After reading the article I got a better understanding of film noir. The style of film noir got its starts during good times in the US when storytellers stopped worrying about cheering up the country during depression. The style of this film evoked feelings of suspense and dread to its viewers with its settings, costuming, and dialogue. The visual style was inspired by Germans and Austrians who fled the corruption of the Nazis bringing with them a sad corrupted image of history. The settings of these films are always dark and gloomy where the name “film noir” may have been derived from. Dark places full of sins and illegal actions like bars, nightclubs, or lounges may be the pinpoint settings of film noir. It is certainly not a bad thing to assume that in a film noir it will always be dark and no doubt there will be rain. One of the most common elements in a film noir is the “femme fatale”, a provocative dangerous woman who knows how to get what she wants by seducing and trapping men into doing what she desires. The plot will always include some type of crime that would lead to investigation carried on by a private slick detective who may be wearing a long black suit and a fedora. And as of the dialogue, it is quick and smart; hard to keep up with but worth it in the end.