Memento (movie)
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Memento is a 2000 American mystery-thriller movie written and directed by Christopher Nolan, and produced by Suzanne and Jennifer Todd. The movie's script was based on a pitch by Jonathan Nolan, who wrote the 2001 story "Memento Mori" from the concept. Guy Pearce stars as a man who, as a result of an injury, has anterograde amnesia (the inability to form new memories) and has short-term memory loss approximately every fifteen minutes. He is searching for the people who attacked him and killed his wife, using an intricate system of Polaroid photographs and tattoos to track information he cannot remember.
| Memento | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Christopher Nolan |
| Screenplay by | Christopher Nolan |
| Based on | "Memento Mori" by Jonathan Nolan |
| Produced by | Suzanne Todd Jennifer Todd |
| Starring | Guy Pearce Carrie-Anne Moss Joe Pantoliano |
| Cinematography | Wally Pfister |
| Edited by | Dody Dorn |
| Music by | David Julyan |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Newmarket |
Release dates | September 5, 2000 (Venice) March 16, 2001 (United States) |
Running time | 113 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4.5 million |
| Box office | $39.9 million |
The movie is presented as two different sequences of scenes interspersed during the movie: a series in black-and-white that is shown chronologically, and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order (simulating for the audience the mental state of the protagonist). The two sequences meet at the end of the movie, producing one complete and cohesive narrative.
Memento premiered at the 57th Venice International Film Festival on September 5, 2000, and was released in the United States on March 16, 2001. It was acclaimed by critics, who praised its nonlinear narrative structure and motifs of memory, perception, grief, and self-deception, and earned $39.9 million over a $4.5 million budget. Memento received numerous accolades, including Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. The movie is now widely regarded as one of Nolan's finest works and one of the best movies of the 2000s. In 2017, the United States Library of Congress deemed the movie and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
