Frantz 1

I believe that authors of either film or literature can construct their narrative to create
what I call a synthetic affective memory which allows the audience to resonate empathetically
with a character situation. Furthermore, I argue that spontaneous situational empathy from
synthetic affective memory invites the audience to identify with a character. The implied author
of Memento uses two techniques to create synthetic affective memory: (1) the construction of the
sjuzhet (plot order); (2) the manipulation of information/memories given to the audience.
First, more about reader reception of empathy must be investigated. Dr. Zillmann talks
about empathy in the book Responding to the Screen: Reception and Reaction Process. He
describes how the audience splits themselves when presented with an opportunity for an
empathetic response:
[Individuals] who experienced fire as a threat to personal welfare should respond more
strongly than those lacking such experience with inferno-like situations. This should hold
true whether fire is presented in vivid images or presented verbally, because affective
memory should be revived in both cases. (Zillmann 139)
He argues that verbal (written or spoken) representations can both instill empathy within the
audience equally; he also suggests that the audience members who have had similar experiences
in the past are the ones who will have the strongest responses. This means that a narrative
experience requires the flesh and blood audience to have an affective memory for them to
properly resonate empathetically with the situation/character. Without this, the reader is left with
a sympathetic response, which is distinct from empathy in that a reader is unable to place
themselves in the character’s shoes. The strength of the reader’s response is dependent on the
ability of the flesh and blood reader to relate (in real-life) to a character/situation.
What I want to do now is make clear my own distinction between synthetic affective
memory and actual affective memories—something common discourse has yet to examine.

Memento manipulates the information given to the audience visually and verbally to
confuse the audience about which of Lennard’s memories holds are true and which are false.
This manipulation is a synthetic affective memory because it instills within the actual audience
the doubt Lennard feels. When the black and white segments transition to the color scenes at
1:42:49, Lennard confronts Teddy about why Teddy had him kill the wrong guy (Jimmy Grants).
Teddy explains that Lennard cannot trust his own memories; at 1:42:49 he suggests to Lennard
that his wife survived the attack. Immediately after he says this, Lennard (and the audience) get a
flash of her eyes blinking underneath the shower curtain which is contradictory to the image of
her lifeless eyes that we got earlier in the film. the contradictory memories not only confuse
Lennard (and thus the audience); Teddy’s narration of past events is convincing enough to throw
Lennard’s entire past into question.
 Frantz 2

For Memento, the plot order is what defamilarizes and disorients the audience, forcing
them to work harder to find the relation between cause and effect; this is what opens them up to
an empathetic response. This occurs for most (if not all) of the color segments. However,
audience members who do not suffer from anterograde amnesia are actually able to connect the
dots as the color segments continue and eventually overlap with the future (end of previous color
segment) because they have context of the future.
The overlap of the color segments (and the moments leading up to the overlap) tend to
create closure on the level of cause and effect for the audience—muffling the initial strength of
the beginnings of the color segments. For example, in the scene I chose to examine, the audience
begins to realize that Lennard will end up in Dodd’s bathroom waiting to jump him; it is at that
point that the audience gets a sense of not only where he is going, but where he has been.
Lennard, on the other hand, does not have this advantage. So, although a large portion of the
audience cannot literally identify with Lennard, they can still get a sense of identification because
of how disorienting the plot order is.

My research suggests that audiences do not need to have experienced something exactly
like a character in order to empathize, although this would lead to stronger empathetic response.
A synthetic affective memory embedded within the narrative plot order creates spontaneous
situational empathy that invites character identification and an empathetic response. I have
outlined two strategies which Memento uses to achieve this type of response—memory
manipulation and plot order disruption. Perhaps only certain types of empathetic responses can
be achieved; for instance, unreliable memory and disorientation (situational states) are present in
my examples, but other types of responses like happiness, grumpiness, or anger (emotional
states) might be unachievable with synthetic affective memory. Additionally, I have shown how
closure on the level of cause and effect dampens the empathetic response that the audience
experience specifically in Memento. It is imperative that limitations like these are investigated
further to better outline how empathy functions in narrative and what roll synthetic affective
memory plays.