Memento

Leonard is the main character. He is an insurance investigator whose memory has been damaged by a head injury he sustained during the murder of his wife. He has his old memories but is unable to make new memories. He tattoos notes on himself and takes pictures with a Polaroid camera to help remember important facts. Leonard wants revenge for his wife's murder, but there may be little points that he don't remember and its hard for him to have closure. The movie is in flashbacks to help the audience get inside Leonard's head a little. In flashbacks, each one earlier in time than what we've just seen, the two men's pasts unfold. We meet the characters Teddy and the seductive Natalie (a barmaid who promises to help) and we glimpse Leonard's wife through memories from before the assault. Leonard also talks about Sammy Jankis, a man he knew with a similar condition. He thinks he finds the killer but how can he be sure. If he shots a man will he remember and if he doesn't then will he hunt down another victim? You'll just have to watch Memento.

In chapter six we talked about short term memories and how to create and store new memories. Information is processed in three stages: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. The sensory memory holds information long enough for it to be processed further. If the person does nothing with the information than it is lost after a second. Then that memory would move to short-term memory and hold it there in the consciousness for a bout 18 seconds. If the memory is further processed it moves to the long-term memory and retains that information for a longer period of time. In Memento Leonard didn't have a working memory. Our working memory allows us to mentally work with the information being held in short-term memory.