The Wretched Of The Earth Essays - Marxist Humanists,

The Wretched Of The Earth Fanon's book, "The Wretched Of The Earth" like Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" question the basic assumptions that underlie society. Both books writers come from vastly different perspectives and this shapes what both authors see as the technologies that keep the populace in line. Foucault coming out of the French intellectual class sees technologies as prisons, family, mental institutions, and other institutions and cultural traits of French society. In contrast Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) born in Martinique into a lower middle class family of mixed race ancestry and receiving a conventional colonial education sees the technologies of control as being the white colonists of the third world. Fanon at first was a assimilationist thinking colonists and colonized should try to build a future together. But quickly Fanon's assimilationist illusions were destroyed by the gaze of metropolitan racism both in France and in the colonized world. He responded to the shattering of his neo-colonial identity, his white mask, with his first book, Black Skin, White Mask, written in 1952 at the age of twenty-seven and originally titled "An Essay for the Disalienation of Blacks." Fanon defined the colonial relationship as one of the non recognition of the colonized's humanity, his subjecthood, by the colonizer in order to justify his exploitation. Fanon's next novel, "The Wretched Of The Earth" views the colonized world from the perspective of the colonized. Like Foucault's questioning of a disciplinary society Fanon questions the basic assumptions of colonialism. He questions whether violence is a tactic that should be employed to eliminate colonialism. He questions whether native intellectuals who have adopted western methods of thought and urge slow decolonization are in fact part of the same technology of control that the white world employs to exploit the colonized. He questions whether the colonized world should copy the west or develop a whole new set of values and ideas. In all these questionings of basic assumptions of colonialism Fanon exposes the methods of control the white world uses to hold down the colonies. Fanon calls for a radical break with colonial culture, rejecting a hypocritical European humanism for a pure revolutionary consciousness. He exalts violence as a necessary pre-condition for this rupture. Fanon supported the most extreme wing of the FLN, even opposing a negotiated transition to power. His book though sees the relationship and methods of control in a simplistic light; he classifies whites, and native intellectuals who have adopted western values and tactics as enemies. He fails to see how these natives and even the white world are also victims who in what Foucault calls the stream of power and control are forced into their roles by a society which itself is forced into a role. Fanon also classifies many colonized people as mentally ill. In his last chapter he brings up countless cases of children, adults, and the elderly who have been driven mad by colonialism. In one instance he classifies two children who kill their white playmate with a knife as insane. In isolating these children classifying there disorders as insanity caused by colonialism he ironically is using the very thought systems and technologies that Foucault points out are symptomatic of the western disciplinary society. Fanon's book filled with his anger at colonial oppression was influential to Black Panther members Newton and Seale. As students at Merrit College, in Oakland, they had organized a Soul Students' Advisory Council, which was the first group to demand that what became known as African-American studies be included in the school curriculum. They parted ways with the council when their proposal to bring a drilled and armed squad of ghetto youths onto campus, in commemoration of Malcolm X's birthday, the year after his assassination, was rejected. Seale and Newton's unwillingness to acquiesce to more moderate views was in large part influenced by Fanon's ideas of a true revolutionary consciousness. In retrospect Fanon's efforts to expose the colonial society were successful in eliminating colonialism but not in eliminating the oppression taking place in the colonized world. Today the oppression of French colonialism in Algeria has been replaced by the violence of the civil war in Algeria, and the dictator of Algeria who has annulled popular elections, a the emergence of radical Islam

Comparison between Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby and Jack Claytons cinematographic adaptation Essays

Comparison between Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby and Jack Claytons cinematographic adaptation Essays Comparison between Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby and Jack Claytons cinematographic adaptation Paper Comparison between Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby and Jack Claytons cinematographic adaptation Paper A good story can be told in many different ways. That is what happens with our oral narrative. It goes from mouth to mouth and each narrator gives to it a teaspoon of personal taste. The same occurs when a novel is transformed into a script for a movie. Movies give us the chance to see with our physical eyes what we have pictured in our minds. Words take human form and carry us along the story. Yet, what we see is very limited, our approach to the characters and events is determined by the purpose of the director; what we see is what he wants us to see. In the case of The Great Gatsby, the story is followed very loyally, but emphasis is put on different aspects, for the movie differs in its objective, and appeals to a different audience. There is a clear difference between Fitzgeralds purpose and the one of Jack Clayton. For the former one, The Great Gatsby is an instrument to criticize the American dream and uncover the shallowness of society. While he introduces Gatsby as someone who respresented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn, he still finds that there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity for the promises of life(p8). For the director of the movie, Gatsby is more literally a man with a romantic readiness that distinguishes himself from the rest. He is a tragic heroe, someone whose romantic blindness finds no place in society. Yet, the movie does not blame society for Gatsbys destruction; no- he is a dreamer, he is deaf to a reality that speaks loud enough. Fitzgerald, through Nicks voice, condemns society very clearly since the beginning and with the most cruel words. Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwide elations of men. (p8). While the writer uses the characters as a bridge to discovering Gatsbys life and as an instrument of disillusion, Clayton puts emphasis on each character as an individual; he embodies in an abstraction what Fitzgerald describes with an artistic pastiche of actions and reactions. In the book, everything we see is seen through the eyes of Nick Carraway. An evidence, and an excellent literary technique, is when Nick has had some many drinks and images in his memory start to be blurred: It was nine oclock- almost immediately afterward I looked at my watch and found it was ten. (p38). The movie, on the other hand, shows us images we can decipher for ourselves. We can see, or at least assume, Nick is tipsy because we see how many drinks he has had, and we observe in his face the lost look of someone who is starting to feel the effect of alcohol. When Nick describes the whiteness of the house and the dresses, he loads his description with similies and visual images. Clayton, on the other side, creates this image phisically; everything in the setting is horribly white, and with a short glance he substitutes the magic of Fitzgeralds words. Nevertheless, his method is not less effective in its purpose, though it is a different one. The book appeals to hypocrisy through the contrast between white and the immorality with which everyone is stained. The movie stays with the superficial meaning of white as the dream in which Gatsby is submerged, the whiteness he creates by filling Nicks house with white daisies and dressing in a white suit. Although the story in the movie is presented by Nick in first person narrative, the movies structure has more to do with the structure of a comic series, where the narrator is only an introduction to the setting and/or the action taking place. Whilst in the book Nick is a filter through which we receive an account on the events, in the movie his intervention between us and the story is very little; he abandons his outsider perspective and plays here a character in his own. This is a resource used by Clayton to emphasize again the importance of each character, including his narrator, as an individual. When drunk, sad or happy, it is not through his voice (internal) that we get to know about his state, but through observing externally his actions and judging for ourselves. Whenever he makes an assumption in the book Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one (p90), Clayton replaces that thought for an action in itslef, an action in which Nick has no intervention, the sad look in Gatsbys eyes is something we become aware ourselves, with no need for words. This happens very often, another example is when Nick narrates the moment when, five years ago, he kissed her(p107). Clayton replaces this thoroughly described moment and all its mistery with a romantic dreamlike environment created by Gatsby and Daisy in their moments of reminiscense: D:-I wish you had your uniform G:-I do still have my uniform D:-Then, you are a sentimental man. Yet, everything we see is as imagined by the director, the visual image is therefore imposed on us, in contrast to the image we create ourselves from the reading of the book. Another difference in structure is the chronology of the story. Both of them apply a retrospective view. Yet, the movie follows a circular construction, starting with a walk through Gatsbys house once he is dead, glancing at the collection of pictures and articles of Daisys life, breathing the still air of a house that has held its last party. Then the whole story is told from the beginning, when Nick arrives in Daisys house till we are driven back to the empty house with its lugubrious stillness. This is, once more, a choice made by Clayton to achieve his aim, to portray the romantic aspect of the story. The book on the other hand, is a deliberate criticism born in the interior of a mans soul. It is more of a psychological structure, a telling of the story as it comes to mind, Reading over what I have written so far, I see I have given the impression that the events of three nights severa weeks apart were all that absorbed me (p56), as it makes sense. Nick admits this when he says: He told me all this very much later, but Ive put it down here with the idea of exploding those first wild rumours about his antecedents (p97). Symbols play an important role in both book and movie. Yet, the latter neglects some of the symbols originally found in Fitzgeralds piece. This is the case of the clock that represented the passing of time that Gatsby so foolishly denied. Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers, and set it back in place, then he said I am sorry about the clock (p84). In the movie, ho wever, the clock never falls. The reason for this is that this symbol does not satisfy the directors purpose. Instead, a bird is presented as a symbol of the love between Daisy and Jay. This feathered creature appears when both of them are together in the poolside. Its second appearance is toward the end, when Daisy is gone forever. Gatsby turns back hoping to find her there, he calls out her name, but the dream is over; the bird flies away abruptly. There is a saying in my country: bird that ate, flew away. This could be a second interpretation, although not as romantic. Movie and book tell the very same story in very different ways, making emphasis in what will contribute to achieving their respective purposes. Both of them are very successful in that and, whatever the choices and changes made by Clayton, they can be easily indulged for he presents to us another aspect of Great Gatsby: the greatness of his individuality. Gatsby dies and is purified, he is a romantic heroe that needs no excuse for he has lived a life in pursue of a dream, which he owns. Both writer and director condemn this illusion: one sceptically calls it hope, the other very superficially calls it love. Fitzgerald lies the blame on society: society killed Gatsbys dream and with it, everything that Gatsby meant. Clayton portrays him as this romantic figure who gives up everything for an illusion. Yet, his means to reach that blind illusion that has no shape nor content any more, that something that was but will never be again, are very distorted in the context of his humanity. What makes him such a special individual is, ironically, what erases any individuality in him, what in the end, kills him for he has no aim any more.

Cap task 3 step#1 Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cap task 3 step#1 - Term Paper Example A majority of the clients that patronize this hospital are women and children. Diagnosis of breast cancer is one of the most common diagnoses done in the hospital. Shockingly, 15% of women who die in this hospital are diagnosed with breast cancer. How is the problem affecting the client/organization? List or describe the issues the problem is causing. (How is the problem showing up in the organization?) When did the organization become aware of the problem? What actions have been taken to mitigate the problem? Use of ineffective methods to diagnose breast cancer has caused significant damage in the hospital’s image as well as made its operations more costly. Ideally, the state of New York recognizes failure to diagnose as an offense in some situations, and as a result, the hospital has paid huge sums of fines in lost suits whereby clients complain of poor or ineffective diagnosis. This has also created some bad image of the hospital and hence losing clients to other hospitals that use sophisticated and more effective technology to diagnose breast cancer. What is even more shocking is the fact that use of ineffective methods to diagnose cancer leads to delay in treatment and hence affecting the patient’s prognosis. Furthermore, the longer cancer goes untreated, undetected, or poorly treated, the greater the risk to the patient. In extreme cases, these failures can cause the patient’s death. Following a sequence of customer complaints for the last 5 years, the hospital management led by the President and Chief Executive Officer convened a board meeting to strategize on the way forward in regard to this menace. At the board meeting, a committee was constituted and mandated to foresee the research on new and more effective method of diagnosing breast cancer. To mitigate this problem, the committee proposed implementation of image segmentation, which will potentially determine diagnosis, tissue volumes, localized pathology as

Tiananmen Square Massacre Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Tiananmen Square Massacre - Essay Example On April 15 of 1989, Hu Yaobang, former Communist party chief and a leading reformist, died of a heart attack. He was a popular figure among anti-communist citizens and his death was a catalyst for the protests leading up to and culminating in the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Mourners begin to gather in Tiananmen Square to express their sadness and protest the slow pace of reform in China. (History.com, 2009) In the following days, numbers of protester in Beijing grow into thousands, and demonstrations begin appearing in cities and universities nationwide. Students and workers protest for greater freedom and democracy and an end to what they called dictatorship. Protesters complain about inflation, salaries, and housing issues. Tens of thousands of students gather outside the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square on April 22nd as Hu Yaobang’s memorial service is held in spite of the city government's previous warning that they would risk severe punishment.

Agreed Ways of Working Essay Example for Free

Agreed Ways of Working Essay Agreed ways of working is following the companies’ policy and procedures within the care plan given to each service user and care plans within The Manor. The policies and procedures document will give you all the information you need to know within your role and place of work, it explains how you should do your job, for example it translates policies into working practice such as a manual handling procedure will tell you how to undertake a risk assessment and will cover all the stages of the process. It’s care workers duty of care to keep service users safe by following policies and procedures and working within their job role. The Importance of Having Full and Up-To Date Details of The Agreed Ways of Working: You are required by law to ensure that policies and procedures in your work place are followed correctly; it is your legal responsibility to do so by a number of laws and regulations that govern practice in the workplace which include, The Health and Safety at Work Act, The Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations and The Date Protection Act. They should be updated during supervisions and staff meetings and social care workers should make themselves familiar with the policies and procedures provided as they are updated. Why It Is Important That The Social Care Workers Follow Guidance About The Limits Of Their Job Role: It is important that the social care workers follow the guidance about the limits of their job role to ensure the safety of all concerned such as the social care worker themselves, colleagues and others at all times within your work role. Safeguarding the individual from any harm or/and abusive situations to protect the individual. Ensure that you have been trained to the right level of standards that your clients need so that they receive the best possible care whilst in your care to suit their needs.

Scrooge in A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens Essay example -- Charl

A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens Scrooge is represented from the beginning as a miserable old man being described as a "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!" I think this a perfect description of him in one sentence. People know Scrooge well and avoid him, this suites Scrooge because he does not like other people and not a big fan of being sociable. The name 'Scrooge' was created by Dickens and is now well known in the dictionary as someone that is mean, this is basically what Scrooge is in the novel, a symbol of meanness. It is described that the people know Scrooge well and avoid him as much as possible. Although this suites him well because he does not like other people, and is not sociable in any way. Dickens makes you dislike Scrooge from the very beginning by using a number of methods such as, the described setting and Scrooge, how he treats the poor, the language used etc. The setting he's in is just like him, cold, gloomy, small and cheap. His treatment to the poor is appalling as when he is asked to give a donation for them he replies, "Are there no prisons?" "And the Union Workhouses?" this is very harsh and selfish, because he is basically saying they should be put in prison instead of trying to get money off of him, this instantly creates bad impression on him. His counting house is described by Dickens to be like a "dismal little cell", this gives the impression that it is cheap, dark and cold because the fire he describes is so small its as if it only has one coal. Being so cheap and not wanting to spend anymore money than he has to he only employs one person Bob Cratchit (... ...ery clear that, is you are not kind to people then you will have something bad happen to you in your afterlife. This is proved clear when Marley's ghost appears, and explains to Scrooge that there is "'No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse'" as he when he was living acted just as Scrooge does. Dickens portrays Scrooge in many different but excellent ways and makes you feel a real sense of hatred for him by doing this. By setting the novel in the Victorian era it helps to create an image of the destitute poor and how badly people like Scrooge treat them. The actual setting he is in is similar to Scrooges personality and features, the use of similes and other descriptive language all add to Scrooges nasty nature. To sum up what the reader is encouraged to feel in the first chapter is basic hatred for Scrooge.

Film Noir Elements in the movie Memento Essay

There is yet to be a definition to be created to accurately capture the genre of â€Å"Noir† in film. The concept was first coined by French film critics who â€Å"noticed the trend of how ‘dark’, downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war†(â€Å"Film Noir†). The term ‘noir’ is a French word which literally means â€Å"black† or â€Å"dark†. The connotation attached to the term later on came to be those films which depicted crime, strangeness, cruelty, brutality, violence and similar other attributes. The period for Noir films flourished in the 1940s up to the 1950s, which were aptly called the â€Å"classic noir† period in movies. Later on, from the 1960s up to the current times, other types of â€Å"noir† films were conceptualized like the â€Å"neo-noir† and the â€Å"science fiction noir†, all concepts of which were derived from or echoed the original â€Å"classic noir† genus. â€Å"Memento† is one movie which typifies the â€Å"film noir† genre in that it has numerous elements which categorically makes it as one. Primarily, the existence of a lonely, confused and troubled protagonist (Schoenherr) is there. Add to this the other elements like the black-and-white scenes, the struggle, the seemingly bleak situations, the crimes perpetrated, the underground investigations, the voice-overs of the lead character, evil, paranoia and deception among other things. An interesting feature of this film though is the story unfolding from its end going up to the supposed initial scenes which took place. It is not narrated exactly in a circular motion but rather they are presented in chunks of about 10 minutes each. Aside from this, there is the alternate presentation of the colored and black-and-white formats to add narration and further expound on the sequence of events. Film noir operates on specific social, cultural and historical contexts. In this particular film, the social context used is that of the protagonist becoming a different man after the rape and murder of his wife. Leonard or Lenny loses his memory after he shoots his wife’s rapist and he is shoved and clubbed by the rapist’s companion. His head hits the bathroom mirror, and from then on, he becomes afflicted with Anterograde Amnesia or not being able to retain his short-term memory. Lenny’s memories before the accident are intact and his last memories are of his wife being murdered, hence, his ever- enduring quest to avenge her death. Most people now think of Lenny as a freak for not being able to remember thoughts, names, faces and events which are a regular part of the memory of â€Å"normal† people since he forgets his thoughts and the things he does after 15 minutes or so. However, Lenny struggles to keep his sanity by taking Polaroid pictures and immediately labeling them, writing down his ideas, and tattooing the more important thoughts on his body. Having no family to call his own, he lives in a motel room and is suspicious of everyone. His life’s direction is motivated by vengeance and a major part of the film is spent on this desire to kill. The cultural context of the film is the type of culture that was used in the movie. The setting is sometime during the 2000s in Nevada. It is not shown if the protagonist had a lot of friends before the incident which led to his ‘condition’, but it is presumed that it was probably a case of not wanting to be identified with someone with a stigma of mental illness. The only friend who was identified as someone who knew Lenny immediately after the accident was Teddy, who was the one who helped Lenny to find and kill the original murderer of his wife, and then again Jimmy G. who was also killed by Lenny. As such, it meant that the culture held a discriminating attitude towards this mental illness. Pertaining to historical context, the practice of tattooing as a body art was prevalent from the late 1990s up to the 2000s. This was a period when tattooing was no longer considered as objects of diversion done in prison cells but rather as an art form to express oneself. In the movie, the lead character made use of tattoos on his body to remind himself of essential facts/details which he always wanted to be reminded of. Although not used as an art form, the existence of tattoo parlors in the locality denoted an acceptance of the practice of self-expression, which worked quite well for Lenny. It was also a time when Polaroids were popularly used and Leonard fully exhausted the Polaroids’ capability to assist him in remembering people and places with his depressing mental condition. According to Filmsite. org, â€Å"the primary moods of classic film noir were melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt, desperation and paranoia† (â€Å"Film Noir†). These themes are evident in the seclusion, isolation and omnipresent monologues of the lead character who wanted to establish the links to find meaning in his life. A wide array of emotions ranging from suspicion, confusion, naivete, loneliness, alienation, hatred, and bewilderment among others were efficiently delivered by the lead actor to the viewers who empathized with him in his daily struggle to survive. Noir movies characteristically have a protagonist who is usually reclusive, generally disturbed and commonly pessimistic. The lead character in â€Å"Memento† is not the typical protagonist since he lives his life everyday like a clean new slate. Just like the first part of this movie where a Polaroid picture was being undeveloped, Lenny lived his life always careworn to find out what he had been doing and what he should be doing next. His ultimate aim was to find his wife’s killer, a task which Teddy assists him with. Although he is somewhat of the withdrawn type, Lenny is still enthusiastic about life and is confident that his Polaroids, notes and tattoos are taking him somewhere. Different noir styles were also apparent throughout the film. One is that â€Å"storylines were often elliptical, non-linear and twisting† (â€Å"Film Noir†) which connotes the unique presentation customarily associated with noir. Regular films are often presented in a manner where the story unfolds conventionally from beginning to end. The story told backwards and in bits and pieces was a unique way of entrancing the audience into being an active participant in the life of Leonard, trying to come up with his/her own conclusions or links to previous scenes and events. â€Å"Amnesia suffered by the protagonist was a common plot device† (â€Å"Film Noir†) which was obviously the illness which the lead character was afflicted with. This sort of justified the way with which Lenny killed the possible murderers without remorse or guilt since his brain was devoid of any emotions relating to pity and mercy. Furthermore, it is said that â€Å"the protagonists in film noir were normally driven by their past or by human weakness to repeat former mistakes†(â€Å"Film Noir†) which is what happens to Lenny as the film unfolds. It is only later in the movie that it is revealed that Lenny had already killed his wife’s murderer, and Teddy had even taken a Polaroid shot of him after the said killing. It was due to his mental condition that Lenny was not able to remember the incident which Teddy later used to his advantage in getting rid of Jimmy G. who was a drug dealer. The original story of Memento was an idea brought forward by the brother of the movie’s director, Jonathan Nolan in the late 1990s. The storyline was finished after several months and director Christopher Nolan came up with the idea that he wanted to tell the movie backwards, hence the screenplay was manipulated in a way where shot sequences were cut up into small bits. In between the colored takes were the non-colored shots to denote two timelines of what was the past and the present respectively. At some point towards the end of the movie, the black-and-white scene becomes colored specifically when Lenny takes the Polaroid picture of the dead Jimmy G, who was the second murder suspect endorsed by Teddy. This signified the beginning of a new chapter in the life of Leonard, and the true commencement of the story which somehow tragically ends with the death of its instigator, Teddy. The artistry presented in the film being of a different genre is – as previously mentioned — largely seen in the story’s presentation to the viewer. The lead actor was also shown in black-and-white scenes and colored ones which showed contrasting characters – one, the rugged, unshaven, unkempt, menacing and confused character who shoots the gun at Jimmy G. in black-and-white, and the other, the suit-clad formally dressed and more confident Lenny who drives a Jaguar in colored film. This implies that the main character had good and bad traits, although the bad traits were more emphasized but later exposed to be manipulations done by some of the other characters in the plot. One of these characters is Natalie who represents the ‘femme fatale’ element in the movie, and who adds further intricacies to the plot and manipulates Lenny into a mental tug-of-war with Teddy’s statements. The cinematography of the film was excellent as emphasis was done where it was necessary, and accurate illumination was also appropriately achieved. Editing was also good especially in the cuts of the film that had to be fed in several lumps, and in two different formats of color and B&W. Continuity in the film was smooth and flowed effortlessly. The film scoring was suitable and elicited empathy from the viewer in the scenes where dialogues were not really necessary. The closest thing to special effects in the film was the way that the first sequence was presented to the viewer where the Polaroid shot was being undeveloped instead of the other way around. It goes back up to the time Lenny shoots Teddy and the latter was screaming for his life. Acting in the film was superb. Guy Pearce as Leonard was able to deliver all the emotions expected from him and thus elicited the required compassion from the viewer. Teddy, Natalie, Sammy Jankins and all the other actors also did a good job in making the plot more focused on the plight of the main character, thereby allowing Lenny to stand out. The movie â€Å"Memento† has some allusions to significant theories and concepts. One of these is the concept of Cultural Materialism. The most active proponent of Cultural Materialism is Marvin Harris and the premise of this theory is that the social life of a human being is a direct response to problems arising from his earthly existence. Leonard’s actions can be rationalized as a practice of cultural materialism because he is merely responding to his problems instead of taking a proactive role in it. This is due in large part to his illness which he cannot control and which allows him to be manipulated by some shady characters in the film. Existentialism is another concept which is apparent in this movie. The plot evolves around the lead character, Leonard, who tries to find meaning in his existence as he grapples with his affliction rendering him confused and stressed at most times. He tries hard to think and look back but cannot, and this is what leads him to try to devise ways in which he could remember things, events, places and people who have somehow played an important role in his life, after the accident which claimed his short-term memory. Lastly, there is the hint of self-determination as seen in the main character as he tries his best to make decisions without the influence of others. Unfortunately, he was not aware of the subtle approach which was used by the movie’s disreputable characters who were always one step ahead of him in his plans. Still, it was revealed near the movie’s end that Lenny was also utilizing his selective memory to manipulate the situation in such a way as to be able to create and continually re-create his motives for vengeance. Since finding the possible suspects to his wife’s murder was the only impetus which kept him alive, it was a need he had to satiate, and hence, an inspiration which kept him continually in pursuit of. References Schoenherr. Revised 4/11/03. Characteristics of Film Noir. Retrieved from http://history. sandiego. edu/gen/filmnotes/filmnoir. html Film Noir. 2010. Retrieved from http://www. filmsite. org/filmnoir. html Film Reference: Ryder, A. , Tyrer, W. & Ball, C. (Producer) & Nolan, C. (Director). 2001. Memento. United States: New Market Films.