Sunday 16 January 2011

How is suspense created in the movie Memento

Memento is an American psychological thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan in 2000. The movie it self made a gross revenue of $39,723,096,and has been nominated for an acadamey award for original screen play and film editing. Below are images and a trailer of the movie.

      

Supense is one of the movies most successful aspects as the entire movie is based on suspense, by using the use of false plateau, bomb theory and normanity.

The movie itself begins with a rather interesting image of what seems like a murder, which as an element welcomes suspense right from the beginning which follows through right towards the end. We as the public realise an sense from the opening scene that this movie appears to be based on a rather psychoogical thriller. The opening itself consists;camera techniques such as;close ups, zoom and cut off. There are also a rather interesting  editing technique used such as the black and white effects, used to signify what has happened in the past. The opening itself has the use of a range of sounds such as; screams, voice overs/conscience talking, the theme tune and the traditional orchestra. which all combine together and provide the essence of suspense.

Towards the middle of the movie we see the use of the bomb theory, where we as the audience know something that the character does'nt creating a dramatic irony,in this case we assume that Teddy  has actually murder & raped leanard's wife, who he is in search for to obtain revenge from, however towards the end we see a rather interesting twist in which we come to know that Lenards wife is not actually dead. The middle scene it self has the use of sounds, such as;shrieks,screams, door slams and the sound of heavy breathing and heart beats. The camera effects consist close up, far shots tilting and crosscuts.

False pateau is another technical element that is consistent through out the movie. The use of the false pateau is used to create suspense by suggesting to the audience something that should/will occur, however as it is stated in its name (false) we as the audience are actually decieved, how ever towards the end the exact beliefe is shown/occured, but at a point where any thing can happen. For example in this particular movie we observe the accounts of Leanard Shellby hunting down for his wifes rapist/murderer,unfortunately due to his poor memory and lack of rehearsing his short term memory in to long term memory he tends to forget who he is in search of, we as the public at this point realise that the person he is in search of is actually possibly his mate, who he most likely ain't going to be able to take revenge from. However towards the end of the movie we actually realise that Lenard in fact has already taken revenge for his wifes rapist, However due to his lack of stable memory, he tends to forget. We also realise from the use of flash backs and the build up of music that he is actually Sammy!



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