Memento Mise En Scene Analysis

To manipulate one’s audience, one must “give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.” Award-winning director, Christopher Nolan clearly portrays this in his films through his trademark directorial style of editing with specific use of non-linear narrative and mise en scene to create tension for his audience Through closely analysing the open scenes of Nolan’s Memento (2000) and Inception (2010), the audience can understand Nolan’s directorial style and the recurring theme of the protagonist’s struggles. Nolan’s trademark techniques are effectively used to manipulate and entertain his contemporary audience and making them question their own identity, existence, and morality through the problems that the …show more content…
Nolan begins the film with the protagonist, Dom Cobb, experiencing an ellipsis. Cobb is lying on the beach, attempting to work out how he has ended up there. An eyeline match is also used to support the ellipsis of time to allow the audience to engage with what the protagonist is viewing as he slowly looks up after hearing laughter of children. A frame of two children playing on the beach is then presented, but the image is slightly distorted combined with slow motion. This portrays that these children are either a dream, a hallucination, or a memory, and that this isn’t actually occurring in real life, just in the character’s head. This represents Nolan’s trademark editing of non-linear narration through a flashback. This helps the audience to relate with the confusion of the protagonist due to event happened prior to him being washed up on the beach. Moreover, the children could possibly he his own, or a him as a child playing with a sibling or friend. This again, adds to the narrative enigma, because he could have been brought back to this location for a particular reason, but the audience are made to ask questions such as, will the children appear again later? Are they haunting him? Is it a clue? Additionally, the following scene depicts Cobb being dragged into a Japanese palace, where he meets ancient Saito. The scene then cuts to when Cobb and Arthur, are deceiving Saito, in the same Japanese palace, the only difference in Saito’s age. This scene may appear to the audience as the end of Cobb’s flashback. However, Nolan cleverly integrates his directional technique of editing thus allowing the audience to observe the film as an extended flashback nested within Cobb’s memory, as he rescues Saito from the Limbo at the end of the film. Through the opening