Don’t forget (re: Lenny’s wife) that the website (if you want to put weight into that) is fairly explicit that his wife died during the attack (actually, it was subsequently after).
[sub]I can’t believe I just waited 45 minutes to post that…[/sub]
For the last time, she doesn’t say “what’s this,” she says “What about here?”
Certain kinds of misperceptions are commonplace: imagining that you hear a bump in the night; mishearing what someone says. But if you cannot see something that is plain as freakin’ day - such as a tattoo on your chest - then you must be insane or delusional. Although Leonard has a memory impairment, I don’t think there’s any evidence that he’s insane or delusional.
I just reread my last post and realized it comes across as rather rude. Didn’t mean it to sound that way, Ping. But my point still stands. 
Munch, where on the web site does it indicate that Mrs. Shelby died in (or shortly after) the attack? The only reference I see is in the newspaper clip, where it says she was “in critical condition” after the break-in.
Sorry for the triple post, folks, but I keep looking back and seeing additional things I want to comment on.
Where do you see this, GilaB? I don’t see any specific reference to the date of her death…only the fact that the attack was in 2/97 and Leonard’s initial diagnosis was 1/16/98 (which in itself is interesting, however).
I just saw the movie for the first time, so my theories aren’t entirely well formed, but I picked up on something, and I can’t believe no one else has mentioned it. At the end, after Lenny has killed Jimmy and is leaving, he writes FACT 6: (license number). How the hell did he know that it was Fact Number Six, and not just “Another Fact”? I know Facts 1-3 were tattooed on his left arm, but weren’t 4 and 5 tattooed on his leg? What, did he drop trow sometime between the abandoned building and the car to check, “Yup, on to Fact 6”? I also seem to remember him writing, specifically, “FACT 5,” where he’s on the phone with (Teddy?) and he changes the fact from “Involved with drugs” to “Drug dealer.”
So, there are three possibilities: (a) It was a mistake, (b) I missed him checking his leg, and it was apparently REALLY important that he get the number of the fact right (boggle), or (c) He has moments of lucidity, where he CAN remember. I don’t think I even want to go down c’s route. Shudder. You gotta love a good mindfuck movie, though. I’ll have to get my roommate’s take on it; she’s a huge David Lynch fan, so she’s good at getting her mind fucked.
Quix
Make sure you have shockwave installed, and it will indicate the clickable text you should be finding. If you don’t have shockwave, and are using the html site, try to find the hyperlinks (there are 7 or 8 of them). Most notably, click on the word “forgetful” in the last newspaper column. There are several mentions that his wife is deceased.
Yeah, the whole “what’s this”/“what about here” discussion took place after I started to post my comment. Working off a 56K modem here. Anyway, regarding insanity: it’s possible to narrow that down to a more specific diagnosis. Two books that are full of true-yet-wacky cases are * Toscanini’s Fumble * and * The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat *. And if we step outside of reality into movieland, “Fight Club” and “Sixth Sense” are also relevant. Anyway, I agree that Leonard’s insanity/delusions are probably much broader than a simple perception thing. He’s got this egomaniacal thing going, like he’s some holy avenger, and he makes this completely concious decision to keep killing (Teddy). I wonder if this type of disorder could develop after one single traumatic incident, or if maybe it was sort of developing his whole life.
Based on lots of help from all involved, here’s my shot at it.
NOTE: This is filled with speculation! I use it to explain things we see on film.
Sammy tries to scam the insurance company. Lenny learns about brain disorders, including the physical and psychological differences, and exposes him.
The attack happened on 2/24/97. There are two attackers. This is backed up by the newspaper story. The last thing Lenny sees (before passing out) is his wife dying. This implies to him she died. But she lives.
The physical trauma and emotional stress cause Lenny to crack. He forms an alter ego to help himself cope. The evidence of this is the two different styles of hand-writing he exhibits in the hospital, even the self-referencing sentence, “You recognize this hand-writing, don’t you?” And he says ‘later’ how important it is to have notes in his own handwriting. The ‘good’ Lenny and the ‘bad’ Lenny now exist. Good Lenny is repressed and made to believe (by b/Lenny) that he has Sammy’s ‘condition’.
Though his wife is alive, b/Lenny pesters the lead cop (Teddy) to help him find the ‘killer’. Though I think revenge for the rape is reason enough for him to help.
Sympathetic, but wary because of Lennys condition, Teddy gives Lenny a doctored version of the police report.
Now on the trail, b/Lenny lets g/Lenny take over. This is why the Lenny we see seems sincere (he wouldn’t talk to himself the way he does otherwise). It’s also why he has a ‘condition’.
This dual personality explains some apparent contradictions in the movie such as remembering his condition, writing “FACT 5:…”, etc. He wouldn’t be able to remember what fact he was up to or even that he had a list of ‘facts’ if he had a real condition and were it not for b/Lenny nudging him on these matters. But it’s subtle so g/Lenny doesn’t notice.
He begins to write notes on his body, leading him towards a suspect. This is revealed by his snapping remark to Natalie, “Haven’t you ever written a phone number on your hand?” But it’s not a good system. The notes wash off. This is alluded to several times buy watching him try to wash the ‘Sammy’ tattoo off. This is why he says later he needs a better system. His wife is growing frantic but continues to try to help. He transposes this onto the Sammy story.
Meanwhile, his buddy, the cop (while undercover) sees a way to use Lenny to kill a drug dealer and pocket the cash, and does. Teddy takes the photo. Lenny writes, “I did it” on his chest. This explains the scene towards the ‘end’ of the movie, he and his wife together with the ‘I did it’ written on his chest. He is remembering back.
Realizing what he has done (because of the ‘I did it’ scrawl), his wife is now a threat. B/Lenny uses her diabetes as a weapon against her and purposely injects her and kills her. B/Lenny twists this around and also works it into the Sammy story inflicting ‘his’ contrived ‘memories’ onto unsuspecting g/Lenny.
This turn of events causes Lenny to be hospitalized for observation in Jan of ’98. Trapped, b/Lenny reveals himself to g/Lenny through a set of letters to himself and coaxes him to escape. The evidence for this is the use of the “we” and the second-person style of writing. And we know it’s the b/Lenny because ‘he’ keeps re-enforcing to g/Lenny that his brain is damaged and he wouldn’t remember anything anyway.
His dual personality also explains why he sometimes asks for his wife but writes to himself she is gone.
So in Sept ’98 he/they break out.
He now resumes where he left off not remembering he was even hospitalized. Teddy lures him away from CA to keep him from being caught and to further his manipulation of him.
Lenny institutes his better system by using tattoos instead of writings.
Together, they kill several drug dealers (despite several not fitting the “facts”).
Teddy turns Lenny on to Jimmy and sets a drug buy. G/Lenny kills Jimmy. B/Lenny greedily takes his clothes. Teddy shows up for the money temporarily bringing out the g/Lenny again. He confuses and angers him with the truth. Head spinning, g/Lenny gets into Jimmy’s car to leave. Realizing what is happening, he asks himself, “Can I afford to forget what you’ve just told me?” b/Lenny grins and says, “For you, Teddy. I can.”
Dodd (Jimmy’s ‘boss’) threatens Natalie. She uses Lenny to get Dodd off her back. In return, she helps him find John G. via the DMV connection. This leads him to Teddy. He kills him.
Movie starts.
Okay so I read a lot of your theories and from what I’ve read I’ve constructed this. It has some holes in it, but they all seem too. I think that’s the point, multiple interpretations. But I never thought of it this way before reading this thread so, maybe you guys can adjust/add to mine.
I assumed that the end scene was symbolic. He killed the man who killed his wife so this is a perfect world where he gets her back. Like saving his princess from the dragon, he gets her back (even though it can’t be like that because she is dead).
But let’s say that memory is real-but obviously Leonard can’t remember this.
So after the accident his wife lives and he finds John G with the help of Teddy. Gets the tattoo and gets to cuddle his wife knowing everything is okay. (That scene with the I DID IT tattoo)
Except, everything is NOT okay. He still has this condition which drives his wife mad to the point where she can’t take it anymore and she makes him kill her with an overdose of insulin. In his grief he can’t remember anything he just knows he did it. (But what else is in that tattoo, does it say he killed John G?- this is also assuming where he got the name john g was valid. Let’s assume it is because teddy probably gave it to him and I don’t think he’d want to have any possibility of becoming the next John G(since it’s his name) -I only say teddy gave it to him because he is a cop and has the resources to get a name).
So, in his grief he only has a I did it! Tattoo on his body but the last thing he remembers is his wife dying. What did he do? Did he kill her? No that can’t be. That man behind him killed her. He gets even MORE unstable and eventually gets the tattoo removed -because it severely confused and messed with his mind because at least when his wife was alive the I did it only can work towards killing the man who raped her. Now it can mean he killed her -which he did). So with the tattoo removed his memory is only that she got raped and fell on the floor. He has no memory of her regaining consciousness and NOT dying so why wouldn’t he assume she died? Because he is so unstable at this point he gets admitted to an institution -after having killed his wife and removed the tattoo- and decides he is going to get revenge for the rape and murder of his wife- something that isn’t true but he can’t remember that.
He leaves the institution -which, how can he even do that we don’t know- and Teddy takes pity on him, knowing that now he has no reason to live so he decides to help him find a new John G to give this new life without his wife purpose, even though they already killed him. Leonard gets the tattoo and begins his search.
That would mean that Sammy Jenkis IS a conman in this scenario which means the institution and the insulin is a lie that Leonard transfers to Sammy. How? He seems to need the story to help his fragile memory state so perhaps, we already know he is good at conditioning, Teddy somehow helps skew his already known story of Sammy -the conman- to be his own story- the man no one believed- because it helps him stabilize and explain his own condition. But how can he make him remember a whole story via conditioning?
This is just a theory constructed from all of your comments.
I got really confused when i realized that Sammy is faking how does Leonard remember a story that happened after he got his anterograde amnesia?
And, why did Teddy make him check-in at the inn twice?
This never occurred to me until after I watched it in chronological order. He is in the hotel, he shaves his thigh goes and kills John G, gets the tattoo of the license plate, sees Natalie, goes to her house, goes in his car and sees Teddy who tells him to get a room at the same inn he is already staying at (which Burt admits later when he brings him to the wrong room) but why?
1- Burt doesn’t correct him when he tries to check in again because he figured he’d get him to pay more
2- he said he told his boss…wouldn’t it be a bit crazy if Teddy was his boss? Why else would Teddy tell him to go there again if he already knew Leonard had a room (he kept calling him there, after all) that would actually add to the Teddy is a crooked drug dealer cop theory who has more connections than we realize
And on that note
3- why DOES Teddy keep calling Leonard? To get him to tell his whole story again on the phone? He says the cop who does it is bad and thinks it’s funny but if it’s him then why? To see how far Leonard is? To help him get to the drug dealer angle and go after Jimmy Grantz? Then why tell him about the ‘bad’ cop? If the prior sentence is true then it isn’t that bad a thing to do, to get Leonard to kill someone to help him gain some sense of closure.
4- why keep the photo of him killing the real John G? The only real explanation is Teddy wanted money so he kept finding rich John G’s to kill and when he wanted it to stop give Leonard the picture like he just took it out of the camera and wait for him to forget so it looks like it’d be plausible he was dressed/bloody like that? Or he realizes the only thing Leonard has anymore is vengeance so he keeps the picture so that Leonard can keep going.
5- why does he even have the picture. Leonard would haven wanted it, wouldn’t he?
I apologize this is so long. I think I got a little excited.
Welcome to the SDMB, Aorlando12. This is a really, really old thread – like, more than a decade – and many of the original participants are no longer around.
I’ve moved the thread to our Cafe Society forum (which didn’t exist when this thread was new), where we discuss movies, etc.
Hopefully someone will come along who’s seen the movie somewhat recently and can discuss it with you.
Again, welcome – hope you’ll poke around a little and find some other conversations to jump in on!
twickster, MPSIMS and Cafe Society moderator
Good movie. Haven’t watched in quite a while.
Don’t feel bad about resurrecting a zombie IMHO. I’m on the cusp of doing the same thing.
I’m glad to see this one resurrected as well. Last Christmas I asked for, and received, the Memento DVD which includes the option of seeing it with the scenes in chronological order. I haven’t yet taken the time to do so, but plan to very soon.
Watched the movie again the other day. This is a tough thread to take in so I stopped at #25 with the intention of going back. Don’t want to wait to ask these questions though:
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Didn’t it seem like Dodd opened the shower without even realizing that anyone was inside and the water was running?
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Seems like Natalie was very quick to take advantage of Leonard’s condition. I’d think that she would have needed a little time to figure out how to.
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Do we know how the Remember Sammy Jankis tatoo came to be?
This thread gets better every decade I read it.
Any way we could get the mods to reverse the posts so you have to read it backwards?
OK, but I have to say that your linking scene is not as good as Teddy getting popped in the head, or whatever gangster types say:
This thread gets better every decade I read it.
Teddy is the central manipulative bastard in the whole thing.
A John G. did rape Leonard’s wife but did not kill her, she survived only to die in the insulin overdose that Leonard falsely attributed to Sammy and his wife. It was really Leonard’s wife who tested him and died. Sammy was just a con man that Leonard investigated as part of his insurance job before his injury. Sammy became a mental stand-in to fill in Leonard’s memory of his own wife’s death. A guilt transference or replacement.
Teddy was the real cop who originally helped Lenny find, and kill, the person who raped his wife. The original John G. After that Teddy began to use Lenny’s mental issue for his own gain and led Lenny to kill several John Gs after the original one. The fact that Teddy is also a John G is a red herring. Not relevant except that Lenny finally kills Teddy at the beginning/end.
Natalie’s Jaguar driving drug dealer boyfriend is just the latest in a long line of targets that Teddy has steered Lenny toward, for the money. Natalie was just a sharp girl playing both ends of the deal once she realized Lenny’s weakness. She was also quite aware that Lenny had killed her boyfriend, was driving his car, wearing his clothes, and probably still had the money. She wanted the money and used Lenny to take out Dodd, whose money it really was.
The guy at the motel was just making extra money by renting rooms to Lenny that he wouldn’t remember.
Dodd is just the upper level drug dealer the Natalie’s boyfriend owes the money to. Natalie wants him taken out and then get the money from Lenny.
There are several red herrings and mis-directions in this movie that don’t all tie together. But it is a very good attempt.