Month: October 2015

NEIL

“A guy told me one time: don’t let yourself get attached 
to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds 
flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”

(Mann, M., ‘Heat’ 1995)

Beyond the dollars and guns and women and violence and double-crossing and heists is a complex and much-analysed story of two men; Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) and Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro). On first viewing, these two men are protagonists in one of the oldest of story genres, ‘cops and robbers’. As Ari Mattes notes, “…both know, and admire and respect, the other as their nemesis, nullifying, in Mann’s film, any reading in terms of a Manichean structure (that is, good hero versus evil villain).” (Mattes, 2014, Issue 4)

 LEONARD

“No. It’s different. I have no short-term memory. I 
know who I am and all about myself, but since my 
injury I can’t make any new memories. Everything 
fades. If we talk for too long, I’ll forget how 
we started. I don’t know if we’ve ever met before, 
and the next time I see you I won’t remember 
this conversation. So if I seem strange or rude, 
that’s probably...
(beat)
I’ve told you this before, haven’t I?”

(Nolan, C., 2000, ‘Memento’)

This movie is often described as confusing the audience but I think Memento more aptly creates within the audience a vivid sense of uncertainty. Based on the short story (by his brother, Jonathan Nolan) ‘Memento Mori’, Christopher Nolan’s film explores the space in and around the human memory while at the same time telling a tale of revenge and its ultimate futility.