Topic 2 Narrative Structure

The events of Memento (2000) are shown in reverse chronological order, with the very first scene actually being the final moment in the plot. This unique technique disorients us, the audience, and helps put us into the mind of the protagonist who suffers from short term memory loss. The first moment in the film is the brutal killing of a man, Teddy, by the protagonist. This moment is our initial introduction to the world, although it actually takes place in the climax of the plot. We can’t help but trust the narrator, Leonard, even if he doesn’t really know himself. In many films, the protagonist is immediately trusted because the audience doesn’t know anything else. As the preceding scenes are shown, we’re introduced to Leonard’s confused world and the characters around him, including the man slain in the opening scene. Given the initial moment before, we immediately take Teddy as the villain of the story and try to piece together how Leonard narrowed his search for revenge down to him. As more details surrounding the investigation are revealed, we slowly begin to lose our trust in the narrator. Leonard is an example of an unreliable narrator who sways our view of the events within the story. His voice-over narration moves between a first-person narration of the story, addressing himself, and addressing the audience, specifically as he explains his unique memory impairment. If the plot were depicted in chronological order, we would not trust Leonard from the beginning, as we would understand his twisted take on the events surrounding his wife’s murder and the ways in which he was manipulated by Teddy and Natalie. This film’s narrative structure is unique in that it completely defines our trust in the characters. Most of the film takes place within the span of a few days, but we jump back in time as Leonard recalls a client of his, Sammy Jankins. These jumps back in time are shown in black and white, which makes it clear to us that these take place much before the plot of the film begins. There is a separate timeline for these events as the film repeatedly jumps back to this account through Leonard’s narration, although this timeline is shown in chronological order. Thus we slowly learn more about Sammy Jankins and his relevance to the story of Leonard, eventually leading to the revelation that they are in fact the same person in the final moment of the film, or really, the very beginning.

Adaptation (2002) uses a somewhat more conventional linear narrative in that the events are mostly shown in the order they happen to the characters. The difference here is that there are multiple timelines occurring simultaneously that bring us back and forth between present-day and 3 years prior. With a different narrator for each timeline. Charlie Kaufman’s first-person narration represents his inner thoughts as he works through completing a screenplay in the present. His narration addresses himself mainly, as he belittles himself and tries to beat his writer’s block. Susan Orlean’s narration represents her thoughts as she spends time with John Laroche several years prior. Orlean’s narration is unique in that it’s actually supposed to be coming from the book she wrote on this experience, that Kaufman is reading in the present. Her narration isn’t so much addressing herself as it is working through the thoughts that she has while experiencing the research for her book. These simultaneous timelines and multiple narrations put us into the minds of both of these characters, but it is all supposed to exist within the mind of Kaufman who struggles with adapting this book he is reading. Orlean’s timeline jumps around as we see Kaufman reading different portions of it, and Kaufman even repeats some of Orlean’s lines to himself, almost trying to make sense of it just as the audience is. There is a scene in which John Laroche explains flower pollination to Susan Orlean and we see a visualization of this process with a bee sitting on top of a flower. This could be seen as existing in either John Laroche or Susan Orlean’s mind, but I feel like it really exists within Charlie Kaufman’s mind, imagining this for himself as he reads this moment from Susan’s book. There’s multiple layers and sublayers of reality that we’re shown throughout. But it all eventually stops as both timelines merge together in the present and the characters are finally put face to face in the climax. The scope of the story here is vast, with multiple characters and different time periods, locations around the country, and a duration of multiple years, but the plot is actually of a pretty small scale, with a plot duration of closer to a few weeks or a month. The plot is really just based around one man’s struggle to write a suitable screenplay for this very difficult and meandering book. These jumps between time periods and narration disorient the audience here, similarly to how Memento disorients the audience through its structure. We’re further disoriented as Kaufman begins incorporating pieces that we’ve already seen in the film into his screenplay, and incorporates the narration we’ve already heard into it as well. Charlie Kaufman, the actual screenwriter, mixes reality and fiction to the point that we’re watching the character Charlie Kaufman write the very movie we’re watching. The narrative structure in Adaptation doesn’t define our trust in the characters, but defines our very understanding of the events unfolding and the multiple layers of reality in which they all take place. 

Adaptation and Memento are similar in that they both use restricted narration that only presents the audience with the information that the protagonist knows to be true. Both of the main protagonist’s in these films, Memento’s Leonard Shelby, and Adaptation’s Charlie Kaufman have a single goal, and they talk to themselves through their journey towards this goal, putting us right inside their head with them. We’re sort of locked in with the characters as they struggle to make sense of the world around them, both similarly losing and trying to maintain control of their minds.