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Film 50: History of Cinema

Wednesday, May 7, 2008
3:00 p.m. Memento
Christopher Nolan (U.S., 2000)

Lecture by Marilyn Fabe


“A remarkable psychological-puzzle film, a crime conundrum that explores the narrative possibilities of noir, Memento turns its detective hero Leonard Shelby into a surrogate for the spectator, its backward narrative logic forcing us to embark on the kind of investigative work Shelby is engaged in. Shelby—played utterly convincingly by Guy Pearce as a combination of dogged determination and gaping bewilderment—is a former insurance investigator who, since his wife’s rape and apparent murder, suffers from a condition that makes him unable to form new memories. But despite his severely limited powers of recollection he has vowed to find his wife’s killer. . . . The final scene, which seemingly completes the narrative jigsaw . . . is a stunning tease, a tantalizingly ambiguous note on which to sign off, one that scatters our sense of certainty as we rerun the events of the past two hours in our heads.”

—Sight & Sound

• Written by Nolan, based on a story by Jonathan Nolan. Photographed by Wally Pfister. With Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Jr. (113 mins, Color, 35mm, From Newmarket Films)

Preceded by short:
The Red Book (Janie Geiser, U.S., 1997). Geiser’s elliptical and evocative short creates a world of coded languages in which women attempt to reconfigure their utterances and their environment. (10 mins, Color, 16mm, From Canyon Cinema)

• (Total running time: 123 mins)