Memento

The opening sequence I will be doing fits into the Mystery Thriller genre so as a group we decided to each watch a movie from the same genre and analyse main themes, ideas and cinematography that appear in the movie which are either typical of the genre or that we could use in our opening sequence.

The movie focused on a lot of objects or facial expressions/emotions which linked to the narrative or characters so close ups were used many times.  

When following the main character around following shots were used to show the action as one big continuous sequence.

There was a lot of dialogue in the movie not just a few words spoken before the murders like a villain typically does but very long and detailed conversations and even small talk.

The movie has scenes in which the main character is seen waking up or thinking about something so voice over monologue’s are used to show the character’s opinion and thoughts.

When something is being hugely emphasised multiple angled shots are shown.

To add humour to the movie many pop culture jokes are made to link in with the outside world. The humour when told from the main character is always awkward to show their serious nature/tone it creates a weird atmosphere to emphasis this isn’t the normal behaviour of the character.

The main character is meant to be the “good guy” but isn’t completely good and their actions aren’t innocent.

The main character seems to be conducting his own investigation over a plot-line from his backstory and a typical convention is that the police enforcement don’t seem to backing him up meaning he has to do it on his own. 

The main character is dressed smartly in a suit especially compared to his job of killing people and finding out information

When conversations are occurring an over the shoulder shot or two shot is used to show the meeting of the characters and to make the audience feel as if they’re part of the meeting.

When no action is happening or to build up to the action scenes the pace of the movie is very slow to add to the suspense and tension atmosphere.

The movie has an aggressive nature so the characters are quite angry and so most of the conversations are just the characters arguing.

The movie has a unique narrative structure concept in which the movie is split into two different types of scene. Black and white scenes start from the past and is when the movie’s story starts whilst the coloured scenes start from the end and move backwards. Eventually the two different scenes meet at the end. The concept of having 2 plot structures that are distinctly different shows that the movie in general is unique.

As it’s a mystery thriller there is a lot of blood and gore in it. The protagonist throughout some parts of the movie is covered in blood splatters and is also looking rough etc with an unshaken beard.

When the protagonist is running or doing something frantically there is an emphasis on his breathing or surrounding noises to show his fear.

Pictures are from the Internet