I figured it was backwards so he could read it in the mirror, but nobody else could – it’s kind of a disturbing tattoo to see someone wearing. (Of course, so is “Find Him And Kill Him”, etc…)
One thing that still confuses the hell out of me: In the end we see a brief scene of Lenny with his wife in bed. Lenny is tatooed.
I just finished watching Memento, like within the last 3 minutes. Let me get all of this down here so we can have it to reference.
First off, We all agree that the movie “As is” is backwards…Yet Lenny has his tattoos going forward. This deliberately throws the Audience off, we can’t know for sure when Lenny knew what.
Next, Lets Assume that Teddy(John Gammel) is telling the truth. Lets Also assume for the time being that he is indeed a cop. (I find both of these are true with out assumptions, but I will give the posters the benefit of this doubt)
Teddy Knows EVERYTHING about Lenny before we see the first “as is” scene, he also knows everything after we see the last “as is” scene. Therefore, He knows how to use/ handle Lenny at all times.
Natalie on the other hand, is almost the reverse of Teddy to a T.
Natalie needs to confirm Lenny’s condition, and does so with the drink with the spit in it. ‘After’ Natalie knows this, she sincerely wants to help Lenny. Yet after Lenny talks to Teddy, Teddy becomes aware of Jimmy Grants and Dodds Drug deal. Teddy then comes after Dodd, and Natalie knows Lenny is to blame. At this point, disgusted with Lenny’s ignorance, she decides to use Lenny and get him to kill Dodd. (Dodd is after Natalie b/c he thinks Natalie tipped Teddy off.)
Teddy always advances the plot forward, Natalie, for a greater part of the film, moves the plot backwards. (away from the “real” solution) Lenny is selective with what he records (From his conditon or whatever He moves forward and backwards, two steps in one direction, three steps the other. This works in a series of Happenstance/Missed Meanings/“F ing bad luck” (as Teddy/John Gammel Puts it) and for a larger part of the movie we are taken for a ride.
Still assuming that John G is legit. Everything said about Sammy is Correct…except that it works out to be Lenny. (Last ten minutes of the movie). If we accept all of what John Gammel/Teddy is saying the resulting information fits.
Since Teddy/John G knows Lenny, he uses him to kill Jimmy Grants (Natalies Boyfriend) for the money. John offers this to lenny as killing two birds with one stone.
When John and Lenny first meet, John offers the name Teddy. This is the pivitival fact that stacks and knocks over the dominoes.
Frustrated with the Misinformation being a Undercover Cop (John is investigating the Drug Deals going on at the Discount Motel) Lenny makes Teddy the Prime target.
In the End, it works out to be like a Rubiks Cube or sorts, We all have to ““forget”” as it where that certain things are true for a limited time, to accept other facts. Once we do this, and allow for only the facts needed to solve the puzzle to be “forgotten” can it all be solved.
If I can only say one thing to defend John G/Teddy… aside from his drug bust, what Information does he ever give that is false?
Babba, Lenny is Purely Fantisaizing at this point. He has just talked/thought about for lack of better words “the best of all possible worlds”. He Knows that he has a plan that will work for him to bring closure, an infinte amount of times - to combat his conditon. This in itself being solved… Allows for Lenny to think/fantisize that he Came out in the best possible senario.
(As to why the wife is in the shot, Assume that Teddy/John G is correct (see my above poset) in saying that Lenny’s wife survived the asault… have this “half” of the puzzle fit with the fact that lenny recalled that indeed he did do it. (from the first time he did it… when Teddy/John G Took the picture…)) These two halves form the whole that is that fantasy.
Hmmm. I don’t remember this. I’m not doubting you, I’m doubting my own conclusion that Lenny had no active part in his wife’s death (in contrast to Sammy).
So I don’t have to go home and watch the movie tonight, can someone flesh this scene out with some context?
Again I agree, however as you know writers/directors often make compromises in order to reduce how long the film is or because a shot isn’t as great as they thought or whatever. Missing information isn’t always a matter of predetermination, but of necessity.
Sometimes because they have the answer, they assume that the audience will figure it out too…forgetting that they have may have denied the audience **all ** the information or that their film is flawed…and no real answer can be found through a veiwing alone.
There’s been many a movie, that seeing the deleted scenes made a big difference to the meaning of a movie and I often wonder why the director/editor cut that scene and left the other…but it’s not my vision.
Those additional materials to more than just show that Lenny may have spent time in an institution. They also question when his wife really died. They also show that Lenny has always seemed to have the ability to hide the truth from himself, as he does when he decides to make Teddy the killer.
I can only imagine at what steps Lenny would go to forget he killed his wife.
I’m very sorry if this sounds condescending, because I don’t mean it to, but…that’s not conditioning. It’s merely responding naturally to stimulus. Conditioning involves modifying the participant’s behavior by causing them to associate one stimulus with another, so the natural (unconditioned) response to one stimulus becomes the participant’s conditioned response to the other stimulus. If he’d started flipping off the doctor before he touched the objects then that would have shown conditioning at work. But Sammy’s behavior never changed. That’s how they knew he couldn’t be conditioned: his behavior never changed.
One of the brief memories of Leonard’s wife that we see shows her sitting on the bed in her underwear. Leonard pinches her thigh and she says “Ouch!”
After Teddy tells Leonard that it was his wife, not Sammy’s, who was diabetic, we see this memory again and then a different version of the same scene in which Leonard gives his wife an injection in the thigh instead of pinching her.
Both scenes are presented in exactly the same way, and I don’t think it’s possible to say for sure which one is “true”. Did Teddy’s story cause Leonard to briefly remember that his wife was diabetic, or did it merely cause him to briefly imagine such a thing?
LIke CarnalK, I find the idea of an older woman being willing to risk the “diabetes gambit” more convincing than a young woman doing the same, but all we really have to go on here is that Leonard says his wife wasn’t diabetic and Teddy says she was…and neither of these men are particularly reliable!
Thanks Lamia, I appreciate the response.
I think I’ll remain skeptical that Lenny actually killed his wife via insulin injection. I don’t trust Teddy. And I prefer a metaphorical relationship rather than a “Sammy is Lenny” explanation.
Certainly, “it is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” (Winston Churchill)
Well I find it hard to believe Leonard, he is one of the most unrelaibale narrators you could have, he cannot even remember what happened five minutes ago and he himself condemns memory as being unreliable.
Meanwhile, why wouldn’t Teddy tell Leonard the truth? He knows Lenny will forget anything he tells him, so he could lie or tell the truth, but why would he make up the story he did? Teddy has little motivation to lie at that point, as far as I can tell.
I think not wanting Leonard to kill him would be a pretty powerful motivation to come up with some strange story that would confuse Leonard long enough to make him forget what he was planning to do.
Or Teddy could honestly be stating his own theory about the death of Leonard’s wife…without necessarily being correct. After spending time with Leonard and hearing the Sammy Jankis story again and again, he may have come to the conclusion that the story was “really” about Leonard. But how much does Teddy know for sure, and how much is he guessing at?
Hey, guess what? I don’t care if Teddy was telling the truth. I don’t care if Sammy Jenkis was real. I don’t care if Lenny was faking it. Memento was too cool a movie to sit around picking it apart like this, IMHO. Opal said eveything that needs to be said about this movie:
Whoa indeed, Opal.
Memento rules.
Picking it apart is part of the fun, silly!
What I think spoils the fun is the idea that there’s one right answer to all the mysteries of the film, but I guess some people consider that fun too.
Either way, Memento has managed to spawn numerous lengthy discussion threads here, and not every movie can say that.