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"It's Like Waking": Making Meaning in and of Christopher Nolan's Memento

"It's Like Waking": Making Meaning in and of Christopher Nolan's Memento “It’s Like Waking”: Making Meaning in and of Christopher Nolan’s Memento phillip novak “are you watching closely? ” This line, de­ Many of Nolan’s films, like The Prestige, livered in voiceo ­ ver, accompanies the enigmatic compel this attentiveness by means of struc­ opening image—a collection of identical top hats ture, turning on last­minute revelations that lying scattered incongruously on the ground in revise earlier understandings and effectively an unidentified wood—of Christopher Nolan’s force the viewer to replay events, in mind if The Prestige (2006). The status of the comment, not in fact, and to reconsider—in a sense to as well as that of the image, within the diegesis rewatch—what she has seen. Near the outset of is uncertain, since the image relates to nothing The Prestige, just after the opening sequence that immediately follows, and the comment, previously described, one of the two main though voiced by a character, is addressed to no characters, Robert Angiers (Hugh Jackman), one in the film. The line does connect in ways to dies while performing a magic trick. During the the narrative content, which concerns magic and movie’s concluding sequence, we learn that magicians, and it does bear on the dialogue http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Film and Video University of Illinois Press

"It's Like Waking": Making Meaning in and of Christopher Nolan's Memento

Novak, Phillip
Journal of Film and Video , Volume 71 (4) – Dec 4, 2019
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Publisher
University of Illinois Press
Copyright
Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.
ISSN
1934-6018

Abstract

“It’s Like Waking”: Making Meaning in and of Christopher Nolan’s Memento phillip novak “are you watching closely? ” This line, de­ Many of Nolan’s films, like The Prestige, livered in voiceo ­ ver, accompanies the enigmatic compel this attentiveness by means of struc­ opening image—a collection of identical top hats ture, turning on last­minute revelations that lying scattered incongruously on the ground in revise earlier understandings and effectively an unidentified wood—of Christopher Nolan’s force the viewer to replay events, in mind if The Prestige (2006). The status of the comment, not in fact, and to reconsider—in a sense to as well as that of the image, within the diegesis rewatch—what she has seen. Near the outset of is uncertain, since the image relates to nothing The Prestige, just after the opening sequence that immediately follows, and the comment, previously described, one of the two main though voiced by a character, is addressed to no characters, Robert Angiers (Hugh Jackman), one in the film. The line does connect in ways to dies while performing a magic trick. During the the narrative content, which concerns magic and movie’s concluding sequence, we learn that magicians, and it does bear on the dialogue

Journal

Journal of Film and Video – University of Illinois Press

Published: Dec 4, 2019

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