Lewis Herd!

How are thriller codes and conventions used in Memento to represent

characters as morally ambiguous and socially or emotionally unstable?!!!Christopher Nolan’s ‘Memento’ is a characters study of Leonard Shelby, a man with short term memory loss whose purpose in life is to avenge the death of his wife. Throughout the narrative (which plays out in reverse order) we learn more about the motivations of the three main characters (Leonard, Natalie, and Teddy), uncovering new information through the eyes of the protagonist. Due to this, a central theme of the film is moral ambiguity, as characters repeatedly jump the line between good and evil through the twists and turns of the plot. Nolan shows this by using thriller codes and conventions such as colour, score, and recurring imagery.!!Leonard Shelby is a deeply emotionally unstable man. Deriving a sense of purpose in life from his never-ending hunt for his wife’s killer, he spends his days collecting information that he hopes will lead him to vengeance. Throughout most of the film the audience is led to believe that his intentions are pure, and that he is simply a victim of circumstance. In the final act we learn that Leonard was the perpetrator of his wife’s accidental death, and that he hunts down innocent men to achieve a sense of purpose in his life. It is hinted at that there is more to Leonard than meets the eye during the black-and-white sequences intercut with the main narrative, where the convention of colour is used to differentiate these scenes from the main plot. A suspenseful score is also used in these expositional scenes to suggest that there is something mysterious about the character of Lenny.!!Another morally ambiguous character is Natalie. When we first meet Natalie she is portrayed as a protagonist, but we later learn that she is using Leonard to kill people for her own personal gain. This is revealed in a scene near the middle of the film, in which Natalie self-inflicts injuries and claims that a drug dealer gave them to her. Since her spit lip had been present in the film up to that point, the revelation that she gave it to herself is satisfying for the audience. The recurring imagery of the split lip initially makes Natalie appear as a victim, when eventually we learn that she is actually a villain. This is an example of mise en scene and character representation to show moral ambiguity.!!The third morally ambiguous character in ‘Memento’ is Teddy. Teddy is introduced in the first scene of the film — the opening credit sequence, in which Nolan uses reversed footage to create suspense. We see a Polaroid photo undevelop, a bullet fly back up the barrel of a gun and Teddy come back to life briefly after the sound of the shot. The next extended scene finds Leonard

meeting Teddy at his motel and then traveling to an abandoned building, whereupon we see Leonard shoot Teddy again. This repeated imagery of Teddy’s death builds him up as an antagonist right from the first scene (the final scene chronologically). The audience knows that Leonard will eventually kill him, but we don’t learn the reasons why until the end of the film, when it is revealed that Teddy is on Leonard’s side, and is helping him track down his wife’s killer.!!Christopher Nolan’s ‘Memento’ can be difficult to follow — sometimes requiring multiple viewings to fully understand the various plot and character threads. The three main characters (Leonard, Natalie, and Teddy) have constantly changing motivations, and those that we think have altruistic intentions are later revealed to have only their own benefit in mind. Nolan uses a range of thriller codes and conventions to effectively represent these characters and create a successful instalment in the thriller genre.