The psychological detective āRememberā (2000), by leading film director Christopher Nolan, immediately after being released, sharply rose to the leading position in film ratings, marking a new round of cinema in the direction of psychic superreality.
Full immersion in the elements
Recently, the most eminent directors in the active search for innovative delights have made attempts to deconstruct the thriller and detective story - canonical Hollywood genres, which in the last century joined the film noir subgenre. Brian De Palma made a remake of the classic āScarfaceā, the Cohen brothers intrigued the viewer with deceptive camera movements and flexibility of narration. Furious David Lynch, prompting him to admire his directorial dexterity and audacity, led the viewer on a journey through the mystical background of the genre. It seemed impossible to come up with something new, but Quentin Tarantino came, and it became interesting again. The cult director turned the scruff of the neck, reversed the story, began the narrative with a denouement, intriguing with a climax, but made it clear that the tragedy was behind us. Tarantino, as if mocking, destroyed all the principles, distorted the structure, ignored the canons of the genre. A significant contribution of Christopher Nolan was the atmosphere of complete immersion in the style of "perverted detective." His film "Remember," the reviews of film critics unanimously ranked this innovative subgenre of modern cinema.
Producer
The Englishman Christopher Nolan, whose films have long been considered classics of the world film industry, is a true cinema prodigy, filming a movie from early childhood (from the age of seven) using his fatherās camera. He gained worldwide fame relatively recently, but many leading film critics, world cinema artisans and viewers already had the opportunity to appreciate his non-standard and voyeuristic tendencies in cinema. According to Nolan, the most effective fear in noir and psychological film thrillers is the fear of conspiracy theories. Fear that our whole life is controlled by someone else. Of all his works, the director considers the most successful those that touch on topics close to ordinary people, such as conspiracy theology. The film "Remember", reviews of film gourmets are proof of this, filmed with the exploitation of this particular human fear, close to the director himself.
The main intellectual hit of recent decades
Memento is a film made in less than a month, and edited in a week and a half. For unknown reasons, his premiere was unnoticed, his screening took place only in 11 American cinemas, and not a single film critic wrote a review of him. Soon, the situation changed radically, experts and ordinary spectators saw the picture, the film was awarded the Association of American Critics award. In percentage terms, cinema currently has the following rating of film critics: 92% - positive reviews in the world, 86% - in the Russian Federation. American film critics in ecstatic ecstasy call the psychological detective "Remember" (2000) the main intellectual cinema hit of the last decades.
Background
Many experts, reviewing the film "Remember," begin their reviews with the history of its creation, which has now become a similar legend. As British students, Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, on the way from Chicago to New York, driving a car, came up with a story about a detective who lost his memory from a blow to the head. According to the idea, the hero, although he stopped remembering what happened, is obsessed with a thirst for revenge for the murder of his wife. Arriving at their destination, the brothers set to work, Jonathan wrote a short story, and Christopher wrote a film about it. Just a couple of months later, Christopher Nolan, during the awards ceremony at the Hong Kong Film Festival, receiving an award for his debut work āThe Next Oneā, addressed the assembled public from the stage. He announced to all those present that he had a script for an excellent film that excels in all respects the one for which he received an award, and is waiting for funding. Before the ceremony, the efforts of those present gathered the necessary amount, which allowed the daredevil Nolan to begin production of the painting and attract real investors. So, Christopher Nolan, whose films now have a huge budget, shot the thriller Remember for a modest amount of $ 9,000,000 compared to his other works.
Plot
The plot narrative of the picture unfolds in the reverse order of the established and traditional. The main character, detective Leonard Shelby (actor Guy Pearce), is looking for the killer of his beloved wife. He remembers everything that was before the murder, the very scene of the massacre, but due to the shock experienced, the hero is no longer able to remember what happened to him literally a few minutes ago. Obsessed with revenge, the madman drives his cheap motels in his luxury car, wandering around in a vicious circle, writing down the names of witnesses and suspects on scraps of paper, capturing everyone and everything on "polaroid" pictures. The most important notes are tattoos on your body.
By the way, the neurological disease that Nolanās hero suffers from is real. It is called anterograde, or fixative amnesia, Korsakov's syndrome. It is typical for him to instantly forget all the events that happen, and over time, the disease leads to the fact that the patient will not be able to remember anything after the moment of illness. The cause of this amnesia more often than others is damage to the frontal lobe of the brain.
Narrative structure
In the film of Nolan, the detectiveās rigid scheme is complicated by a mental defect and turns inside out. The beholder is invited to independently establish the logic and course of events, identifying himself with the main character. The viewer is invited to penetrate the skin of the main character, experience his pain, excitement, an irrepressible thirst for revenge. This happens often in classical cinema, but in this case, Nolan offers potent doping. Moving step by step to the long-awaited clue, the beholder suddenly discovers that she was behind, what was supposed to be the ending, was told at the very beginning. The ingenious puzzle invented by the director unfolds in the reverse order: each scene ends with where the previous one began. Understanding whatās going on in the movie is not easy. But this was done intentionally by the creators in order to encourage the viewer to review the film several times. This is how Christopher Nolan created the movie Remember. Reviews of experts appreciated his innovative move and the extraordinary structure of the filmās narrative.
Lead actor
Prior to casting, the producers of the film for the role of the main character Leonard Shelby considered the candidacy of Thomas Jane, Brad Pitt, Charlie Sheen and Aaron Eckhart. But as a result, she received an English-speaking actor living in Australia, Guy Pearce. He is known to a wide audience by the films āThe Secrets of Los Angelesā, āThe Lord of the Stormā, āThe King Speaks!ā, āMildred Pierceā, āIron Man 3ā and, of course, āRememberā. Actors working with Guy had the opportunity to appreciate his acting talent, the ability to create an incredible atmosphere of lightness on the site. The actor surprisingly subtly felt the image of Leonard, gave an exhaustive interpretation from the first take. According to the director, Guy Pearce is the dream of any film director.
Best Supporting Actress
Before the role of charming Natalie was played by the Canadian actress Carrie-Anne Moss, the director considered diverse actresses for this role, among which were Ashley Judd, Angelina Jolie and Famke Janssen. Carrie-Ann gained worldwide recognition and fame after the Trinity image was embodied in the Matrix trilogy. After the Wachowski brothers trilogy, Moss played in the comedy The Team along with B. Reynolds and R. Dreyfus, after which she took part in The Red Planet, making an impressive duet to Val Kilmerom. Also an important picture in the filmography of the actress should be considered the Oscar-winning "Chocolate". But Carrie-Ann received the award in the nomination "Best Supporting Actress" only for her role in the film "Remember." The actors - partners in the filming of the independent thriller - strongly supported Moss, inspiring advice and friendly guardianship.
Acting Ensemble
Among the second-rate actors, the attention of reviewers was drawn by Mark Boone Jr., who played the role of Bart. The actor Joe Pantoliano, winner of the Emmy Award, who embodied Teddy on the screen, did not yield to him in professionalism. Pantoliano is known as a performer of the roles of vile antagonists - a traitor in The Matrix, Sifaretto in The Soprano Clan. The actor has an impressive filmography, which includes more than a hundred films and series.
Stephen Tobolowski was one of the most experienced actors in the Remember project. His character Sammy did not require much dramatization, the actor coped with the embodiment of his image without difficulty, which is not surprising. Since the beginning of his creative career, Stephen has been given predominantly episodic and minor secondary roles in such films as āConfession of the Invisible Manā, āBasic Instinctā, āBird on the Wireā. Stephen Tobolowski gained world fame and recognition after participating in the 1993 comedy project Groundhog Day. Now the stage master has in his account more than 200 acting in TV projects and films.
The director Jimmy in the film āRememberā Larry Holden liked the director so much that after completing the project Nolan invited the actor to his subsequent work: āInsomniaā, āBatman: The Beginningā. Perhaps their cooperation continued even further, but in 2010 the actor was given a disappointing diagnosis of cancer. In February 2011, Holden passed away.
Attention test
āMementoā is a provocation film, a test film in which the director invites everyone to watch their attentiveness, memory and analytical abilities. According to experts, even having a unique visual memory and watching a movie is not the first time, having entered the cinema 30 minutes after the start, it is impossible to determine which episode will be next. All this positions the picture as an exciting psychological attraction, inviting the viewer to feel the insecurity of memory, the relativity and illusory nature of truth, the existential loneliness of the individual, who every moment is forced to recreate his life in separate fragments.
Innovative approach
In his project, Christopher Nolan managed to go beyond the limiting clutches of the experiment, combining its advantages with the potential energy of the plot action. Britain is the country of a Gothic novel and classic literary detective, the USA is the patrimony of film noir. The Anglo-American detective thriller āRememberā proved to the cinema community that the voyeurism of traditional cinema, in order not to oversaturate the sophisticated audience, needs a weighty dramatic drug of the new director's generation. Until the eminent European and American filmmakers realize this, they will continue to make cold, routine films.