Erwin Fortuin wrote: ↑September 18th, 2010, 10:30 pm
Dear AAA,
I'm sorry, but you're completely missing the point. Please see my post 'The true chronological story of Memento' for the true chronological story of Memento. I haven't written the whole story down in words, but I've summarized it in a single frame.
But here here some spoilers:
- Teddy plays three roles:
1. Corrupt cop (he leads Lenny)
2. A victim of Teddy 1 who takes over (he cooperates with Lenny)
3. A victim of Teddy 2 who takes over (Lenny leads him)
- Lenny is sent to a mental hospital three times
1. First time after Catherine (his first wife) takes an OD of the stash she took from a drugdealer Lenny killed for her.
2. Second time after he killed Teddy 3 because he hears him taking a piss in the bathroom
3. Third time after he stangled Natalie (his second wife) in the bathroom under a shower curtain (after having sex).
- Lenny has three rooms in the Discount Inn (which symbolize the three mental hospitals)
- The most important scene of the movie is a single frame in which his five 'friends' are depicted.
- The most interesting scene is not in the movie. It is in the short story by Jonathan Nolan ("The clouds part, the planets get in a neat little line, and everything becomes obvious."). It is the middle part of scene 18 in my frame (the '666' scene). It is when Lenny realizes he's been used al this time (he sees scene 1 to 17 of my frame in one line). The last part of scene 18 is in the movie ("How can I heal if I can't feel time?"). Lenny realizes the only thing that makes him happy is chasing the rapist/murderer of his 'wife'. So he creates his own 'friend'; a foe. He makes up the story of Sammy Jenkis (who was a fraud) as the guy who killed his own wife and now is in a mental hospital. And he (or better said: Christopher Nolan) creates a character who does not exist at all: Dodd. All memories/sounds/feelings of his murders before are in his story so he can justify all these bad memories to himself. He was looking for 'the one that got away'.
- His first John G. is a gay warden from the third mental hospital who rapes him all the time. Lenny can't resist as he is in a straight jacket ("If I could just reach out and touch her side of the bed I could know that it was cold, BUT I CAN'T.")
- In the end he decides to chase a female foe (Jane G.) because some stupid hooker didn't play her part right in his next recreation of a new John G. She doesn't leave as she is supposed to and so she dies. Lenny 'wakes up' over a new body and justifies this new corpse to himself as (from now on) he is chasing a female foe so it's alright he has killed this woman.
If you've studied the movie as I have (for many years) I hope you will understand at least part of my frame. If not, I'm quit happy to answer any questions.