Analyze the film Memento by answering the questions below.

Your paper should follow this structure:

Part One. Write a short description of the film’s setting and plot, and introduce the film’s principle characters. This should be very brief, between 100 – 150 words. Once this is done there is no need, within your other answers, to continue summarizing what happened in the move. Don’t go beyond a quick reference to some scene, event or action from the film, as a lead in to the point you are going to make. In other words, don’t dodge the questions I am asking you by substituting description for analysis. I am wise to this trick! Note that this film has a very unique narrative style. The scenes are in reverse order! This means that you see the last scene of the story at the beginning of the movie. And then you work backwards, one scene at a time, until at the end of the movie you are at the beginning of the story! The point is to put you into the same frame of mind as the film’s principle character. You cannot interpret what you are seeing now based on any memory of what happened before. Give it a chance! The film intrigues most everyone I know who has seen it.

Part Two: Analyze the film by answering the questions below. Your answers should be at least 300 words each and they should make explicit reference to ideas that we have been reading and discussing in class.
Question One: Typically, the viewer’s experience when watching Memento, both from the story it tells and from its narrative construction, is that there is no clear difference between our perception of reality and any so called reality “outside of” perception. Yet we also have the belief that some of our perceptions are “closer” to reality than others are. Leonard has this belief as well. He insists that when he closes his eyes reality is still there. And when he opens his eyes he returns to the same reality that he left. Presumably, he feels the same way each time he begins to develop a fresh perception of reality, after he loses his memory of everything that has transpired prior to the formation of this fresh perception. Is there any good reason for either Leonard or for us to believe that it is possible to escape perception and see reality for what it truly is?
Question Two: Leonard has a problem not only with getting a hold on the reality that is outside of him, but also with grasping the reality of whom he is. In philosophy, this is called the problem of “personal identity.” Teddy tells Leonard several times that he knows who he was, but he has no clue as to who he is. Leonard never accepts this judgment. He says, “I know who I am. I am Leonard Shelby from San Francisco. I am looking for the man who killed my wife.” In one of his final statements within the film he says, “We all need mirrors to remind us of who we are.” As he says this, we see a point of view shot of mirror-like reflections in storefront windows, as Leonard drives past them down the street. Curiously, because of the speed that he is driving, we get a very distorted reflection from these windows/mirrors.

Consider Leonard’s problem of personal identity as it is presented and developed within Memento. Who do you think is closer to the truth with respect to the question of “who” Leonard Shelby is — Teddy or Leonard? Bring in some of the philosophical points made by David Hume in his analysis of personal identity, as well as some of the points Dr. Katherine Tietge makes in her paper “A Memento for My self.”