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Quotes

Leonard Shelby: You know, I can remember so much. The feel of the world... her. She's gone. And the present is trivia, which I scribble down as fucking notes.

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Mistakes

The top of the writing desk has different items on it, including a ceramic pot with pens. When Natalie comes home she takes the pens out of the pot and slips them in her handbag. The existence and/or position of the things on the top of the desk change within the previous and following shots of it, including when Leonard searches for a pen. See more...

Trivia

The movie plays out in alternating color and black and white scenes. Chronologically, the black and white scenes are first, in the order they are in the movie, and the last black and white scene fades into color because it is perfectly continuous leading in to the color scenes. See more...

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Memento (2000) - 17 corrections

Directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Guy Pearce, Joe Pantoliano (add more)

Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Final scene - Leonard pulls out a piece of paper to write the next clue - he starts with "Tattoo Six..." With his "condition" how could he have remembered he was now on tattoo six without stripping down and going through all his other tattoos? [For the same reason as all the other "with his condition" questions: Leonard's amnesia is psychological, not physical. He chooses the limits of his memory, and so knows what he wants to.]
Edit
In the trailer park scene, Leonard is running at random when he has one of his memory lapses. But he gets back to his car without any apparent effort. [He uses the alarm tone as a way to find it.]
Edit Corrected by SexyIrishLeprechaun
In the film, Leonard is unable to make short term memories because of his condition. This has only effected him since the incident when he and his wife were attacked. However he is constantly able to remember that he has this condition so he can tell people about it. Surely, he would have no recollection of the doctors telling him about it. [But he doesn't remember it correctly. The memory is triggered by his tattoo to remind him of the guy who had the same problem. But it is all a fiction created in his head by misleading information, he isn't actually remembering it.]
Edit Corrected by Soylent Purple
The name of this film is a pun. "Me mento" in Latin translates as "I lie to myself." These are the words Leonard writes at the end of the film on the scrap paper with Teddy's license plate on it. [I can find no Latin verb that would have the form mento. The correct Latin for "I lie" would be "mentior" as the ment- stem verb for "lie" in Latin is a deponent verb (an irregular verb that takes the passive form even though not passive).]
Edit Corrected by Myridon
When Leonard goes back to the Discount Inn to pick up his room key he finds the check-in clerk, Burt, has scammed him into unknowingly renting two rooms. Burt says, "It's not like you're gonna remember it anyway." Then Leonard replies, "You don't have to be that honest, Burt." Because Leonard cannot remember anything due to the short term memory loss, how did he know Burt's name was Burt? It was never said in that scene, he did not have a Polaroid of it and Burt was not wearing a name tag, so how did he know? Possibly there was more dialogue between Leonard and Burt that was cut or it was a true oversight by the makers of the film, either way still a mistake. [Actually, it's entirely likely that Leonard asked Burt what his name was while they were walking to the room. ]
Edit
When Leonard is at Natalie's house she shows him a picture of her and Jimmy Grants. In the picture, Jimmy has a mustache. Later, when he gets out of bed and looks at the picture Jimmy doesn't have a mustache in the picture. When he writes "She has also lost someone. She will help you out of pity" on the polaroid of her, he lifts the polaroid up and you can see the picture of her and Jimmy, now with a mustache again. [They are two different pictures. While in both, Natile is hugging Jimmy quite close, the backgrounds are different, the positions of her arms are different, she isn't smiling and, one is in a photo frame, the other isn't. It isn't inconcievable that someone would have more than one picture of their boy/girl friend in their house.]
Edit Corrected by SexyIrishLeprechaun Time
In the scene where Leonard has woken up in Natalie's bed, he dresses and as he is leaving Natalie tells him "Lenny, before you go, can I have my shirt back please?" and throws him a blue shirt. He proceeds to take off the shirt he is wearing. It is a dress shirt and the buttons are on the right. Women's dress shirt buttons are on the left. [The shirt belongs to her boyfriend who Leonard killed earlier. He stole his clothes and is wearing them. That's how she knows he killed him. She just wants to have Jimmy's shirt back from the man who killed him.]
Edit Time
As we see a close up of SG1371U being tattooed, Leonard says it is SG137IU. [This was not actually an error but was intentional. At a website about this movie it explains this and other things about the movie. "A hint by Director Nolan that Memory is unreliable and that we are dealing in this movie with an unreliable narrator. As Lenny puts it: "Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts." For more about this fascinating movie go to: http://www.christophernolan.net/memento.php]
Edit Time
When Lenny wakes up in Natalie's bedroom, she has a bruise on her face. She then goes to the bathroom to wash herself and when she comes back the bruise isn't there anymore. Shortly after that the bruise is there again. [The bruise is there all along, on her left cheek. Whenever it looks like it's not there, it's because you're actually seeing her reflection in the mirror - look for the other cheek, and you'll find the bruise.]
Edit Corrected by Sereenie
Early in the film, Leonard learns that Teddy is the man he has been looking for, but he doesn't realize that he must kill him until after seeing his tattoos. However, when Natalie asks him about John G, Leonard already seems to know that he was the one who raped and killed his wife. If he didn't look at his tattoos, then how did he know what John G was guilty of? Furthermore, if Leonard's wife died after he developed his condition, then how does he know she is dead? [His last memory was of his wife while she was dying. Therefore he doesn't remember that she survived and has always believed that she died that night.]
Edit
In the final scene, Leonard closes his eyes to see if the world goes on without him seeing it. While his eyes are closed he has a flash of recall showing him and his wife in bed. On his chest is tatooed "I DID IT", which he obviously removed later. However, he already has "JOHN G RAPED AND MURDERED MY WIFE". We know she was raped, but not murdered, so why does his tatoo say she was? [Because he believes John G murdered his wife. He has no memory of her surviving the attack so he assumes she was killed.]
Edit
Though we never see him waiting, when Leonard calls for an escort to come to his motel he would have to wait until she gets there. During that wait, because of his condition, he should've forgotten what he planned to do later. In the film, we see him call for the escort then in the next scene she's already there and he is explaining to her what he wants. Potential problem solved by editing? [It's said at some point during this movie that he forgets things once he's distracted from whatever he's thinking about. i.e. the scene where he realizes Carrie Anne Moss is deceiving him. He looks for a pen while repeating "Gotta keep it in my head" so if he just keeps thinking about what he has to do then he wont forget it]
Edit
How does Lenny constantly remember where he parked his car? A great example is when he is being chased by Dodd. We actually see him forget why he is running around the area, but he knows exactly where he parked. [He uses his alarm remote to figure out which car is his.]
Edit
Teddy's license is from California, and his car is registered in California, but the license plate does not follow California's pattern. The license plate is SG137IU, but California's pattern is 1 number, 3 letters, 3 numbers. [Perhaps it's a custom plate, not fair to assume otherwise.]
Edit Corrected by Timothy Conard
When Leonard is being chased by Dodd. He pulls his car over into a driveway or alley, and Dodd parks directly behind him (trapping him). Then a chase breaks out and Leonard ends up running back to his car and Dodd's SUV is no longer blocking him in. He's able to just back out and drive away. I believe Dodd was still in pursuit at that point, so when and how did his SUV move? [We can't accurately judge how much room there was behind Lenny's car.]
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If Leonard can't remember anything after the attact, how does he know he has a condition? Did they tell him that after the head injury? Wouldn't he forget why he forgets everything? [He says you can learn by repetition, and no doubt after forgetting things continuously, you'd work it out. Plus he probably had medical counselling which might have drummed that one fact into his head.]
Edit
In the scene at the film's end, after Lenny has killed Jack G, he has another relapse in memory. He runs outside and sees Teddy, whom he calls "Mister" because he has yet to look at his polaroids again. Yet, later in the scene, Lenny says something about there being $200k in the Jag, without anyone ever telling him. How did he know since he had a relapse after he killed Jack? [Leonard fakes the relapse because he realized Teddy was lying to him about who he just killed.]
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