Friday, January 14, 2011

TODAY'S NUGGET: #100 WGA Script of All Time - Memento (2000)

[Quick Summary: A man who has lost his short term memory tattoos clues on his body, & wakes up each morning hoping to solve the mystery of who killed his wife.]

Um, this script is gut-wrenchingly raw.  For that reason, I found it hard to read. 

Yet I powered through because:

1) It's told backwards, which is risky, & I wanted to see how it's done; and

2) On p.3, Leonard (the lead) reminds himself to kill Teddy (who seems to be a friend, but maybe not). I couldn't shake the need to resolve this conflict. 

For the rest of the script, this conflict builds & builds.  I had to finish the script to find out what Teddy did to Leonard.

I can't say I understand Leonard 100%, but I did see his reasoning & that was satisfying.

WHAT I LEARNED:  To build conflict, hand out bigger & bigger pieces of the puzzle.

Especially give glimpses of WHY a character makes the decisions he does. 

Memento (2000)
by Christopher Nolan
Based on the short story, "Memory Mori," by Jonathan Nolan

No comments:

perPage: 10, numPages: 8, var firstText ='First'; var lastText ='Last'; var prevText ='« Previous'; var nextText ='Next »'; } expr:href='data:label.url' expr:href='data:label.url + "?&max-results=7"'