*** Official "MEMENTO" Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[TimSniffin]

But if the problem were, in fact psychological, like it was with the Sammy character, then the entire rest of the movie is not possible. Lenny would not be able to learn anything, would not be able to have a system, he would just sit around all day watching TV like Sammy did, unable to function in any way. I thought that the whole point of the Sammy character was to explain how someone like Lenny could function and someone like Sammy could not. Now, if you are arguing that Lenny's condition was psychological (like Sammy's), then it is all a moot point because Lenny could never "learn" anything.
Do you think Sammy remembered his wife's death? I don't think he did, hence he was shown in the mental hospital (where he would have been remanded for care after her suicide) still "faking" a look of recognition to get a pat on the head from the doctors. So, even conceding (momentaritly) that Lenny's problem could have been psychological, if it mimicked Sammy's condition at all, it is still a moot point, he still would not remember killing his own wife & hence no guilt, no transferance, no serial killer-like killing spree.

Before I respond, I'd just like to point I out I never saw the website. I got all my interperation from the movie.
1. Time and time again the movie, Lenny tells us that he's "not Sammy." He keeps notes and photos so he can remember, so he can "learn." Of course, in the end, we find Spoiler:that his life has been going in the same circles for the last two years. So has he learned anything? Remember, throughout the course of the movie, Teddy is trying to get him to leave town. Whether its to cover Jimmy's murder, or because he really got a guilt complex about how he used Lenny (as he said), evening go so far as giving him the photo showing Lenny by the real murder's body. Lenny makes a decision at the end of the movie to rid himself of Teddy and continue doing what he's doing...hunting for his wife's murderer, because he doesn't want to believe that he actually killed her (accidentally or not). At the beginning of the film, right before Lenny kills him, Teddy tells him, "Why don't you go down to the basement and see what you've become." 'Course, its your interpretation whether he ends it with Teddy or continues.
2. As far as Lenny remembering his wife's death, my point was that he doesn't. As he explains, he wakes up each morning thinking she's alive, but finds himself in a strange plance and then sees the message scrawled across his chest (which is acted out in the movie). His anger is born anew each day. He even leaves reminders to himself(thus, the scene with the hooker; when Lenny opens the bathroom door, I got the feeling that he expected to see his wife). Since he got into the habit of taking notes, it would be very easy to twist the real memory of his wife's death into Sammy's story and have her "death" in his mind at his last real memory. All Lenny has to do is take Teddy's picture and write on it: "Don't believe his lies." 'Course, everything that Teddy told him in the movie wound up being the truth (what is the real significance of "Remember Sammy Whatisname"? Sammy was a con man; is Lenny conning himself?).
Remember, the real Sammy was a conman who faked his condition. Lenny, in telling us his version of Sammy's story, was really telling a corrupted view of his own. The entire movie is from Lenny's viewpoint. The audience is only seeing Lenny's side of the story (thus, the backwards structure). We don't know what Lenny doesn't know, even about himself.
Memento wasn't just about drug deals, vigilantes, and serial killers. It was a movie about memory; how it shapes who we are, how we react, how we think and feel. And just how unreliable and dangerous it could be.

 

[Alex Spindler]

I believe that Sammy (Edit : Aaaaarrrrgggghhh....I mean Leonard)loses consciousness at the point that he thinks his wife is dead. During the first few months that he is back home, I'll bet that he though immediately that she must be dead, and was reassured to see her around him. Remember hat during his walk to the bathroom door he saw flashbacks of the incident, meaning that even in the carefully created hooker fantasy (with mementos from home and the slept-in side of the bed), he still knows something has happened. I believe that the entire hooker situation was an attempt to wake up and not believe that the incident had just happened. It failed, so he leaves to burn her items.
I continue to admire this movie, even after five or six viewings (can't remember how many )
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Bombardment Society - Member

 

[Dave White]

Alex,
Five or six viewings and you still can't remember that the protagonist's name is Leonard? Maybe you need to start getting some tattoos.

 

[Tyson]

Teddy only wants Lenny to leave town so they don't get caught. He has no intention of discontinuing Lenny's little killing spree. He says as much at the end of the movie, so I ask again, why would Lenny kill him? He already has a perfect setup if he really wanted to keep killing people. Also, I find it interesting that so many people are willing to so easily take the word of a guy that is a liar and manipulator (Teddy). "Well, he seemed sincere." is the response of most people. There were other times in the movie that Teddy lied that he seemed sincere too.
Also, didn't any of you notice the very odd manner that Lenny was shown administering the insulin? Lying on the bed while jabbing the needle in to her hip? Very contrived, IMO. The "pinch" is much more believable than the shot.
Also, no one has come up with a really good explanation for why Lenny would have selective memory in the first place (as opposed to complete short term memory loss). Did he suffer from a memory condition from the attack? If so, then he would NOT have guilt for killing his wife w/insulin (for the reasons I stated above). Or are you saying that the memory loss is caused by another incident? If so, what incident? There was not even a hint of another incident in the movie. And I ask again "IF HE DID NOT HAVE MEMORY LOSS IN THE FIRST PLACE WHY THE HELL WOULD HE OVERDOSE HIS WIFE W/ INSULIN?". If someone could just answer this one question for me, then I will concede that my interpretation is way off base.
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"Remember Sammy Jenkins"

 

[Seth Paxton]

"About this movie, does everyone now agree that:"
1. Leonard is Sammy.
YES
2. Jimmy was Natalie's boyfriend.
YES
3. Because Teddy used Leonard to kill Jimmy, Natalie helps Leonard to kill Teddy.
YES, once she starts to put the pieces together of what has happened to Jimmy and realizes that "this Teddy guy" used Lenny to kill Jimmy. I don't think she knew Teddy before hand, at least very well if at all. She was NOT in on anything with Teddy, ie. killing Jimmy
4. Leonard makes Teddy a John G simply to manipulate his future memory. He can be manipulated simply by writings on paper.YES. The story seems to be about how EVERYONE manipulates Lenny to get what they want, including Lenny himself. Nat gets rid of Dodd and helps him get rid of Teddy, Teddy is using him as an assassin, and Lenny is trying to maintain his comforting lies. He obviously intentionally sends himself after Teddy
I also think the toward the end we see his mental blocking breakdown a bit and some of the truth breaking through (like that he is Sammy). This makes me doubt the tattoo of "I've done it" before his wife was dead, unless of course he escaped, killed the rapist with Teddy, then was reunited with his wife once found. His actions and behavior then make her crazy with dealing with him and she decides to test him. Then he invents Sammy to deal with her death.
He knows his condition by repetition and mental conditioning as he explained about Sammy in the film.
And I think running Dodd out of town was good enough for the situation at hand. Just enough to get him off Nat's back which is all she wanted there.
The fact that I have Moulin Rouge above Memento speaks volumes about the quality of MR. These 2 films stand out so far above the crowd that it's ridiculous. They are all-time classics in my book. I fully expect them to be referenced and remembered for a long time to come.
Just wait till it hits video and a whole new wave of people catch it. Resevoir Dogs was like that which helped lead to Pulp's success, slow on film but grew big on video once it got out where people could see it.

 

[Brett_B]

so I ask again, why would Lenny kill him?

I am not sure if I understand your question or not, but here is how I view it.
Leonard wanted to get revenge for his wife's rape and murder plain and simple. Teddy was the cop assigned to his case and helped Leonard track down and kill the second intruder. Teddy thought this would help Leonard's condition, but it didn't. When Teddy realizes this, he decides to make a little money by tracking down drug dealers (or whoever) with the name of John (or James) G. When Teddy finally fills Leonard in on what he (Teddy) is doing, Leonard feels used and manipulated. Leonard figures that the only way to stop Teddy from using him is to set him up (remember that Teddy told him that his real name is John Gammel) as the John G. he is looking for.

 

[Dave White]

About this movie, does everyone now agree that:
1. Leonard is Sammy.

Not at all. That's a theory that works to some extent, but it is no more feasible or incontrovertible than various other theories.

 

[TysonN]

Brett,
Yes, exactly, that is precisely the conclusion I am trying to advance here. Within the logic of the movie itself, this seems to be the view w/the least ambiguity (although even this conclusion is LOADED w/ambiguity, which is surely the intent of the film makers. Many people seem to be filling in the "gaps" of the Lenny story w/their own interpretations, which may or may not have any correspondence to the movie itself, which I think is a beautiful illustration in real life of what the film was about - how much do we trust our own memory and how much are we willing to change reality to fit our ideas of how things "should" be). Looking at the responses here, it seems many people "want" Lenny to be a serial killer, and are willing to twist the movie into more of a pretzel than it really is in order to make the theory "fit". Does no one else here see the irony in this? OTOH, I think this is precisely what the film makers WANTED to happen. That is why I said the film is a bit of a Rorshrash test, in that the film comes to mean whatever you want it to mean. The ONLY reason I come down on the side of Lenny being a good guy is that I can't see a way around the delima of him not killing his wife if he is not already afflicted w/memory loss.

 

[Brian_J]

Also, didn't any of you notice the very odd manner that Lenny was shown administering the insulin? Lying on the bed while jabbing the needle in to her hip? Very contrived, IMO. The "pinch" is much more believable than the shot.

Yes! and this is the main reason that I was so discombobulated (sp?) at the end of this movie. I really had to sort out what I just saw and at first it made me quite angry because I am used to leaving the theater and either saying "I knew what was gonna happen half way through" or "I was totally surprised by that ending." I really didnt know whether I was surprised or not because I was not sure what happened.
Brian
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Zed's Dead Baby...

 

[Matthew R]

Now that the DVD is out in region 1, I thought I'd bump this thread back to the top (given that the search function is usually disabled-- I had to hunt through thirteen pages to find it).
--Matthew

 

[JayDerek]

Great, GREAT film!
Did anyone else noticed that a couple times Teddy was trying to get the Jaguar (w/ all the cash in the trunk) from Leonard??
Right at the beginning of the film when Teddy points out to Leonard that his window is busted " I can get that fixed for ya.."
Near the end of the film at the Tattoo parlor Teddy says something about parking the car in the back for him.
did anyone notice this?
`Jason

 

[Eric Bass]

I've only seen it once but I do recally Lenny refusing to lend Teddy his car at once point. Interesting....

 

[JayDerek]

just watched it again and found another 'refusing to let Teddy have the car moment'
While Lenny is putting Dodd in his truck Teddy wants to drive his Jag, and is shot down.
After they let Dodd go Teddy makes a comment about why Lenny didn't take Dodd's car and offers to trade cars w/ him.
very cool
~Jay

 

[Eric Bass]

Just purchased and watched tonight, Teddy is all over that car from beginning to end...or end to beginning, however you wanna look at it

On the first watching I really wanted to believe that Lenny was not Sammy, but the g/f caught something I missed, when they show Sammy in the hospital pretending to recognize people to make the doctors happy, there is a brief moment where it's not Sammy they show, but rather Lenny.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

This is the craziest friggen movie i've ever seen! It makes other 'mind bending' films like 'Total Recall' seem about as simple to understand as an episode of 'Beavis and Butt-head'! And I love it, but i'm not even going to attempt to discuss it until I see it a couple more times. I'm going to print this thread out too.
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"How can I heal, when I can't feel time?"
Leonard from Memento

 

[Rob Willey]

If Teddy's "all over the car from beginning to end", how come he's sitting in it waiting for Leonard to come out of Natalie's house? Wouldn't he just take off with it? Or break into the trunk and take the money?
Also, in watching the DVD for the first time, I caught further evidence that Leonard is Sammy that I didn't notice in the theater. In one of the shots of Sammy in the institution, someone walks across the shot in front of Sammy and when the person clears, there's about three frames of Leonard in Sammy's place before it cuts to a different shot.
Rob
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"That suits me down to the ground."

 

[Bob Morgan]

I've watched this movie twice so far and I will watch it again and again.
I was also wondering why Teddie was all over the car, but didn't take it when he was in it(he's a cop so you figure he'd know how to hotwire a car).
And I do think Leonard is Sammy(isn't that why you get that fleeting scene in the mental hospital of Leonard?I mean why would the director put that there?)
Great movie. I hope I can get my wife to watch it with me this weekend(I'll be watching my horror DVd's alone).I'd like her to see it. Hear Jane Sixpack's view on it.

 

[JayDerek]

Teddy probably didn't want to cause a 'scene' in front of Natalie's house ( he probably doesn't want to be seen by her and be associated w/ Jimmy's dissappearance anymore than he has )by breaking into the trunk.
Teddy probably figured he could somehow get Leonard to trade cars or at some point let him get in the trunk.
Watching the beggining of the flick it was pretty funny how stubborn Leonard was in not letting Teddy drive it.
~Jay

 

[JonZ]

My 2 cents:
1.I agree Lennys wife is attacked but survives.
2.Lenny kills her with the insulin shots went she tests him.He is sent to a institution.Its unclear how,but he most likely escaps.This last memory is of his wife dying so he has no reason to believe other wise.Lenny warps the Sammy story in his mind-he can learn by conditioning ot instinct.
3.John G IS the person who raped his wife and Lenny kills that person with the help of Teddy.
4.Teddy says "I took that picture of you" "I was sure youd remember" For this I think Teddy took the pic and kept it for himself, and Lenny without any evidence that he finally got revenge forgot and it started all over again.
5.Teddy uses Lenny to make some cash with James G(notice the tatoo on Lennys right forearm that has "....or James" a tatoo Lenny added himself(from the clues Teddy had been giving him)
6.Lenn kills James(Natalies b/f).Teddy tells Lenny everything so Lenny writes down clues to lead to Teddy so he cant be used by Teddy again.
7.Dod thinks Natalie has the money(thats in Lennys trunk).Afraid of what Dod will do, Natalie uses Lenny to get rid of Dod.
8.Natalie does realize it was Lenny who killed Jimmy, but since its no fault of his own and hes obviously been used she helps him kill Teddy since hes behind it.
9.I also believe with the death of Teddy, the cycle was broken and doubt there would be another John G.
If you remember when Nataie puts her hand over his heart he says somthing about saving that spot. Thats where the "I Did It" tatoo is. I think thats also to represent he did what he set out to do-but he realized as long as Teddy was alive he could be manipulated-so Teddy was the last John G.
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"....With that in mind,I humbly add my own prophecy of
what the dawn of the new millennium shall bring forth-
one thousand more years of the same old crap" Jose Chung
[Edited last by JonZ on September 07, 2001 at 02:46 PM]

 

[Lance_R]

I don't think Lenny and Sammy are the same people, the reason Sammy was giving his wife the shots is because he was a doctor before is brain damage.
Lenny was never a doctor so why would he be giving shots to his wife?
I have only watched the move twice so my view could change, but after reading 5 pages of comments and 2 viewings I do not think Lenny = Sammy.
I do think Teddy has used Lenny for several murders.
The reason Teddy doesn't drive off in the car in front of Natts house is he doesn't have the keys, Lenny has the keys he just forgot to lock the car.
Another thing I wonder about is in one point of the movie someone asks Lenny why he drives such a nice car and wears nice cloths, he says he got the Money from Insurance after his wife died, why did he make that comment up? Their is no way he could remember what he got after his wife died.
Great movie tho!
[Edited last by Lance_R on September 07, 2001 at 07:17 PM]