Editing: Memento

Explain how editing is used in Memento

Editing in Memento is vital to our understanding of how the film works and what themes and stories are being presented within it. In the opening clip the credits role over the sequence being played and we watch only a hand and a  close up of the picture. We can see in the picture there is a gruesome image on display and this brings me to my first point, how editing can change the viewers opinion. At first I believed that the character who was holding the picture was guilty of a condemnable crime and from the gruesomeness of the picture, was a serial killer. But editing can change this and I'll come to this later when I comment on the use of monochrome scenes.

The first noticeable bit of editing is the picture and how it fades out and disappears. The scene is in fact reverting back in time be we notice how the picture is being shaken back. Everything is pulled back into its starting position, gun returning to killer, glasses returning to victim and even the piteous cry of the man returning to his throat. This is done to help us understand what has happened and establishes a path for us to be able to see how this murdered man was finished.

The next scene is one I have already mentioned previously, it is a monochrome sequence of shots. I have called it a sequence of shots because the whole scene is edited. It starts with a close up of the characters eye and then jumps to a close up of the keys. This is a sequence of shots in that instead of panning down from eyes to keys the decision has been made to edit and jump the shot down. This happens again and a shot of The characters face is parallel and squarely sat in the middle of the camera. This is done with with a commentary from who we assume to be the man the scene is focused on. He talks of his "amnesia" and the editing is done to mirror his mind. Editing is used in this film to help us understand the complex base to it.

The next scene starts with a close up of a different picture on the same type of Polaroid film as before, the shots are then edited to help us understand the conservation that arises between our character and a new one who has just walked in. A close up of a pair of glasses in the first scene help us understand that the new character was the dead one beforehand. Throughout the following scene we learn our original character seems to be a detective of some variety with the lines "I've found a lead." I am focusing on the important aspects within the scenes and commenting on them. Mainly close ups, yet there is a number of shots I haven't yet commented on. These are wide angle shots, firstly of a city scape and  then of a house individually placed in the scene to give us an idea about the environment our characters are operating in. One very important aspect to this scene is the close up of the mans pistol. This gives away murderous intent. As well as a close up of a picture with "Kill him" written on it. Throughout the next few sequential shots a "scuffle" arises and I can reference editing called "invisible cuts" in that each edited moment runs so smoothly it appears that it hasn't changed. This is done so as not to distract the audience so they don't think "Oh I'm watching a movie." We see replayed to us the sequence we saw at the beginning, but this time not in a  confusing backwards time lapse. It seems I have just kept talking about close ups but they're are vitally important in a film, especially one as mentally taxing as Memento. They are significant bits of editing because without individual close ups, audiences could easily miss snippets of information of vital importance to the understanding of the scene and therefore to the film. An example is when our character is talking to a man behind a counter, who we assume to be the hotel owner, we see a close up of the picture. If this sequence of shots had been filmed differently and we had both characters center screen as well as the picture being referred to it would be easy for the information to be lost in translation, so to speak. By this I mean it might be easy for us to miss what is being said and the relevant references being made to the picture, therefore leading to us misunderstanding. Edited shots are put into films to let us understand them. We learn in this scene, through editing that our character from the start is guilty of the murder we saw at the beginning. 

Each new monochrome scene links on from the last monochrome scene. Whereas the colours ones don't connect with each other until points overlap. The black and white scenes move forward throughout the film and the colour scenes move backwards until they meet somewhere in the middle of the plot. Editing in Memento is used to let people understand what is happening and is continued to be used like that throughout the rest of the film. Memento is a mentally taxing film in that it seems endlessly confusing so therefore editing is vital to enjoyment of an audience.