Memento Opening

Opening Titles:

Memento starts off with a black screen and blue text appears in a bold but normal font. 'New Market Presents' The text fades in and out.

The sound is eerie and slow but gets louder as the title of the film appears on the screen, but then fades away.

We see someones hand, they are holding a Polaroid picture. The audience assumes that it is developing. The character is waving it about every few second, as if helping the ink to develop. We still have the blue text appearing on the screen over the character and the photo.

The photo gradually become less clear, it doesn't seem right, we know that something is wrong, yet may not be able to put our finger on it. After a few seconds, the Polaroid turns white, this is the point that we realise, or confirm our ideas to the shot being played backwards. The Polaroid gets sucked back into the camera, and the camera put inside the man's pocket. By this stage we are certain that it is being played backwards.

We cut to a close up of blood on the floor flowing backwards towards the victim and the gun on the floor flew into the man's hand; the backwards motion of him throwing it on the floor.

The man slowly leans backwards, getting up, instead of falling. The bullet which was lying on the floor gets pulled back into the gun, the gun moves back to the victims head. We know by this point exactly what is going to happen, or has already happened. The music has faded away and now he hear mostly digetic sound. There is a build up of a 'suction' like sound as the gun is brought to his head, this build tension as to what just happened.

Mise-en-scene:

The black background and blue text tells us that it is a thriller.The cold and sad music hit the audience's emotions and we begin to understand and feel the situation that is being shown to us. Along with the image of the blood on the polaroid, we understand what must have just occured.

The music fades in and out, to allow digect sound to be heard.

The man in the scene is wearing a pale suit. He has a long matching jacket, almost like a detaive look. The man is unshaven and has a cut on his face, we get the idea that he is un prganised or a man who does what he must and doesnt care for appearnece. He could be a rough man, who kills people on a regualr bases and dresses in a suit to look important and in charge of a situation.