OK, I saw (and enjoyed) it again and I'm sticking by my interpretation. The scene you mentioned is one of the last shots in the movie, flashing briefly while Leonard is giving his soliloquy about what keeps him going in spite of it all. The woman in the shot is his wife, but she's just a dream, or fiction, of his tattoo-covered "present self"--a much-revisited image that keeps him going, like the polaroids or the notes he consults. The movie intends no "Verbal-Kint-is-Keyser-Soze" twist as in The Usual Suspects (thank god)--a last minute revelation that supposedly makes you rethink the whole movie. Memento is a better film because there's a plot reason for all the red herrings. (It did look like Leonard's tattoos were slightly different in that shot, however; more likely it's a continuity error rather than some ominous clue.)
I think that the film is intentionally filled with enough contradictions and inconsistancies to make it work in multiple "whodunnit" configurations.
I agree, but only to a point. The open questions are (i) who actually killed Leonard's wife? (it could have been Teddy, Dodd, or a "random junkie," but not Leonard) (ii) how long has Leonard been carrying on his "investigation? In other words, to what extent is the "investigation" a self-delusion on Leonard's part to keep himself going, long after the crime has been "solved," and to what extent is it being prolonged as a result of Teddy's manipulations? Clearly Teddy smells, right? Leonard's grief over his wife's murder seems genuine throughout the movie, and also his horror when he thinks he's killed the wrong person. The filmmakers are not presenting a Leonard-as-killer, or Leonard-as-split-personality scenario--those are "Teddy's lies."
I'd like to put my 2 cents in as to that last scene where Leonard is lying in bed with his wife, and he has his tattoos. I bought the DVD, and I paused it on that scene. It is indeed his wife lying in bed with him, and he has the same "John G raped and murdered my wife" across his collar, but on the left side of his chest (where it had previous been empty (remember Natalie asked "And Here?" while pointing to his chest) .... on this final scene with his wife, it read "It is done."
Now, if you get the special edition DVD, one of the page inserts is supposed to be a page out of Leonard's psych ward records. On it, it says: "Subject is depressed over the deaths of his WIVES"
PLURAL!
So could it be that more than one of his wives was murdered? This lends itself more to the theory that Lenny himself killed his wife - and that he's a serial killer.
Anyway, my 2 cents. Take it or leave it. :-)
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- tom moody 5-31-2001 3:46 am
I think that the film is intentionally filled with enough contradictions and inconsistancies to make it work in multiple "whodunnit" configurations.
- steve 5-31-2001 3:59 am [add a comment]
I agree, but only to a point. The open questions are (i) who actually killed Leonard's wife? (it could have been Teddy, Dodd, or a "random junkie," but not Leonard) (ii) how long has Leonard been carrying on his "investigation? In other words, to what extent is the "investigation" a self-delusion on Leonard's part to keep himself going, long after the crime has been "solved," and to what extent is it being prolonged as a result of Teddy's manipulations? Clearly Teddy smells, right? Leonard's grief over his wife's murder seems genuine throughout the movie, and also his horror when he thinks he's killed the wrong person. The filmmakers are not presenting a Leonard-as-killer, or Leonard-as-split-personality scenario--those are "Teddy's lies."
- tom moody 5-31-2001 6:09 am [add a comment]
I'd like to put my 2 cents in as to that last scene where Leonard is lying in bed with his wife, and he has his tattoos. I bought the DVD, and I paused it on that scene. It is indeed his wife lying in bed with him, and he has the same "John G raped and murdered my wife" across his collar, but on the left side of his chest (where it had previous been empty (remember Natalie asked "And Here?" while pointing to his chest) .... on this final scene with his wife, it read "It is done." Now, if you get the special edition DVD, one of the page inserts is supposed to be a page out of Leonard's psych ward records. On it, it says: "Subject is depressed over the deaths of his WIVES" PLURAL! So could it be that more than one of his wives was murdered? This lends itself more to the theory that Lenny himself killed his wife - and that he's a serial killer. Anyway, my 2 cents. Take it or leave it. :-)
- Windmills (guest) 7-12-2002 10:43 am [add a comment] [edit]