Memento (Nolan, 2000, USA)

When Memento starts, the first thing the audience is made aware of is the music. The music is slow and atmospheric and gives the audience the feeling of death and sadness. Sound plays an important part in creating tension in the opening, as the next sound we hear is the first diegetic sound, and is of the main character shaking the photograph. This is significant as it draws our attention to the photograph where we see a lot of blood, which makes the audience aware there has been a violent death, and possible murder of someone. We then ask the questions of: who this man is and why has he been killed? Who is the person with the photograph? Was he the person who killed him? And why does he have a picture of it? Other sounds that we hear are the camera taking a picture, the gun being fired and the loud shout of Teddy at the end, all of which is diegetic and hyperbolic and breaks the silence, making it seem more dramatic and made the audience feel uncomfortable.

As well as the photograph we also see other props, such as the gun, the empty bullet shell and the glasses that have blood on them. These are objects, especially the weapon, that we associate with murder and death and this clearly lets the audience know that something bad has happened, the question we have now is; what has happened and why?

In regards to costume, the man who we assume to be the murderer is wearing a suit, which makes him look respectable and makes the audience doubt that he would kill someone.

Camera shots are also effectively used to show this is a thriller, when we start with a black screen and are followed by a close up of the hand holding the photograph. Because it is a close up we can clearly see the blood and are focused on that, however, we can only see the hand of the person, not their face, and this keeps vital information from us and immediately makes us wonder who he is. This happens again when we see the images of the gun, bullet and glasses which reinforces the idea of the murder. Lastly, we see a low angled shot when the gun fly’s back to the main characters hand, giving him authority and making the audience fear him.

Memento is a typical thriller in the respect that it makes the audience ask many questions and information of the antagonist is slowly reveales throughout, making the audience ask questions and try to figure it out for themselves.

The idea that more information was given to the audience in the form of flashbacks was an idea that myself and my group really liked. We have decided to use this idea in our own thriller, changing it so that information is slowly revealed to the audience through a series of dreams. We hope this will be successful as, in Memento, the audience is constantly changing their minds about who the murderer (in our case, stalker) is everytime they get more information, which keeps them asking questions throughout and also keeps them enticed and watching at all times.