Memento question ***SPOILER ALERT!!!*** (1 Viewer)

[James D S]

I don't know if this has already been discussed and I can't remember it being addressed in the film but:
If Leonard's memory problem only affected him after the 'incident,' how does he remember he has a memory problem? He is quick to remind people over and over again that he has a memory problem without getting that info from a tatoo every time he meets a person, so how does he remember he has the problem?
Seems a tad like a plot hole.

 

[James D S]

Contd.
It's not like the problem would be self-evident to the person experiencing the memory loss - It just wouldn't occur to someone they've forgotten anything. How can someone establish a pattern of knowing they forget things if they are not capable of learning to remember?

 

[Doug R]

Well, he made it clear he can "learn" through conditioning and repetition. Both principles may have helped him learn that he has a memory problem.
I'm sort of in the camp that believes everything said about Sammy's conidition applied directly to Leonard. Sammy's condition was described as being mostly psychological. I believe Leonard is the same way. I think he's physically capable of making new memories. He just doesn't. But all that's debatable.
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[Greg Ambrose]

Hi everyone - I'm another big fan of this movie, caught it twice in the theater and just picked up the DVD. I've seen a lot of the same questions popping up, and I've thought about it myself: what really happened to Leonard and his wife, and how did she die? I know you can check out the website and the supplemental DVD info, but I like to think of the movie as its own entity.
My own thought is that Leonard really has two separate mental disorders by the time we catch up with him. First of course he got hit and lost his ability to create short term memories. But I do also believe that it was Leonard's wife who tested his memory and unfortunately died from repeated insulin injections. And this is where I think the second disorder pops up (speculation begins here): I believe Leonard could not accept the guilt of killing his own wife, albeit accidentally. This resulted in a kind of mental breakdown, and during his stay in the mental facility, he 'pushed' those memories on Sammy, who created the insurance fraud he uncovered earlier. So, the upshot of all this is that while Leonard can't necessarily create new memories because of his original disorder, what memories he has of earlier events are also suspect because of his inability to cope with his killing of his wife. I know this is a stretch, but it seems to bear weight.
You might be able to poke a hole and say, how could be traumatized by killing his wife if he would forget doing so in a quarter hour? But I think this is taking the 'unable to create new memories' thing a little too literally; I think certain events would be so big, so disastrous that they would make themselves evident in your memory even if only subconsciously, possibly. Please note that I am not a psychologist, and any reader who knows more about such things than I do could very well make a more informed opinion than I could.
PS: Matt, your signature is great. But now I'm troubled by seeing it, since I am not supposed to look directly at Happy Fun Ball.

 

[Doug R]

I like Greg's ideas too.
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[Chad R]

But doesn't anyone think that Leonard makes a startling decision to keep looking for John G. even after Teddy convinces him that he's already succeeded.
Leonard, since he has the condidition, needs something to give his life purpose. So, he rushes to the tatto parlor to reinvent his journey. Teddy tries to get a hold of it again and use him as his own personal assassin, but loses control of him.
I'm not disagreeing with the other stuff raised here, I just wanted to raise this other aspect of the movie. It's so complex that there is so much more to it than 'what happened.' There's the very interesting 'why it happened.'

 

[Craig Chatterton]

I think out of all the people "using" Leonard in the movie, the worst one is himself. I didn't really get that sense until the end, though, when Leonard starts putting on Jimmy's clothes and takes a picture of his car. I kept thinking "OK, I can understand the car, but why did he take Jimmy's clothes?" And that scene with the prostitute - why did he set it up that way? It was all to give his "future" self an ID to work from. With Jimmy's clothes, it was so his "future" self would think he was a successful insurance salesman. With the prostitute, I'm not sure, but it was to manipulate his future self in some way. And of course there was the note he wrote on Teddy's photo and the license plate.
And if you look at the website and the supplemental material on the DVD, you see the notes Leonard gets in the hospital are very condescending and accusing - he's called a coward and stupid and a freak. But Leonard himself wrote those notes! It's as if he hates the guy down the road (his future self) who won't remember what he'd done in the past. Maybe he does, maybe that's his way of dealing with the fact that his condition was responsible for his wife's death.
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[Brian_J]

I have not seen it mentioned here. Did everyone see the scene in the movie where Sammy is sitting in a chair at the mental hospital and there is a quick take in which it becomes Lenny in the chair (ala Brad Pit in Fight Club). That one scene made it clear to me that Lenny is Sammy.
Brian
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Zed's Dead Baby...

 

[Patrick Sun]

Yep, the quick cut was even covered in Entertainment Weekly when the movie came out earlier this year.
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[Adam Lenhardt]

I just finished watching this movie. I really enjoyed the journey... piecing things together. However, the ending left a bad taste in my mouth. I have to believe that people would be fundimentally good enough to accept responsibility for their own actions. In a way, the entire movie is about how corrupted society really is.
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[Seth Paxton]

Doug R's timeline is dead-on.
And Craig emphasizes the other key point. The story is all about the manipulation of Lenny by everyone, especially himself.
It's about how we deal with things, all of us. We have several pieces of dialog and many scenes depicting how we deal with our issues. His biggest problem isn't that he forgets things, but rather that he cannot go forward with his life and with the healing process. He admits as much to us.
Therefore he has to take advantage of himself just like everyone else does in order to "carry on". But we all make compromises to deal with issues, we all have our "methods". His are just more unique.
I think it's an amazing bit of storytelling to find out that he has put himself onto Teddy trail.