Memento: A Narrative Analysis

A woman lies dead on the floor; the flash of the reporter’s camera brings us to a darkened room with an undisclosed location. Ronnie, a man with a shady past and a criminal record is being interrogated for the murder of a young woman. As the charismatic good cop questions Ronnie, we learn fragments of that night, told through memories of drinking, smoking and gambling. With Ronnie not co-operating and the good cop loosing his cool, the bad cop within finally emerges to corner poor Ronnie and get out a confession.

I plan to use conventions of the crime genre throughout, such as venetian blinds, smoking, gambling and characters including cops, suspects and a femme fatal. The flashback sequences will be in black and white, with obscure angles
I also hope to use music in the background to steadily build tension before the climax, however unlike LA confidential I wish to deviate from a typical score with something darker or perhaps electronic as seen in Drive (Nicolas Refn 2011) This would be to make the film more part of the present and I prefer the ominous tone it presents.

For the flashback sequences, the main source of inspiration comes from Memento (Christopher Nolan 2000)

The black and white scenes are used to tell the story of what previously happened. The black and white is used to give narrative structure amidst its confusing plot, rather than for he purpose of adding “visual richness” (however it serves to do that too)

The flashback scenes in my film will be shot in black and white, while becoming slightly blurred with low-key lighting. This is to differentiate it from interrogation scene occurring in the present (which will be in colour). I too inspiration for irregular framing, a common convention of Noir cinema from the Third man (seen right) This will all add to the supposed confusion the suspect is experiencing. The use of black and white in my film will also be used as reference to film