By contrast, Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible (2002;
screenwriter: Noé), which takes place within the
span of one day, begins with an appalling revenge
murder, after which the plot order—much of
the action is equally violent—unfolds in reverse.
The movie’s overall form is also aggressive. The
spinning, swooping camera work is disorienting;
the handheld camera gives it a documentary look
that is nullified by the fact that it is an intensely
subjective account of two men’s vengeance; and
each episode unfolds in an uninterrupted long take.
We have to ask why, aside from the novelty and
shock value, Noé has chosen to tell the story in
reverse chronological order and to use these other
techniques; why does he believe that these stylistic
aspects are more suited to telling his story than
conventional narrative techniques? Because the
work stands on its own, he does not have to answer
these questions. Nonetheless, there appears to be a
disconnect between the story and plot of his movie.
Christopher Nolan’s Memento(2000), a puzzle
movie like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense
(1999) or Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects(1995),
is a far more successful experiment with plot
order than the other two. The story itself is fairly
superficial; it’s the telling that counts. Nolan alter-
nates black-and-white sequences—which move
forward in chronological order in telling the
story—with color sequences that move backward
in an order that confuses chronology. Like
Noé’s Irréversible, Mementoends with the story’s
beginning—a structure that creates surprise and
suspense, and challenges the audience’s expecta-
tions of movie narrative. And like Citizen Kane,
Mementoasks us to pay close attention to story and
plot, challenges our basic assumptions of how wePlot order in Citizen KaneTo provide a straightforward
account of Charles Foster Kane’s life and help viewers get
their bearings within a highly unconventional plot order,
Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane(1941) begins with a fictionalized
mini-documentary. “News on the March” is a satire on the
famous weekly newsreel series The March of Time(1935–51),
which was shown in movie theaters and which mixed location
footage with dramatic reenactments. Using this culturally
familiar narrative device as an anchor for the rest of the
movie, Welles tried to ensure that viewers wouldn’t lose their
way in the overall plot.
ELEMENTS OF NARRATIVE 147Complex plot structuresSince Citizen Kane, some
movies have tended toward increasingly complex plot
structures, including Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects
(1995; screenwriter: Christopher McQuarrie). Its dense, dark
story involves five suspects in a police lineup, one of whom——
Roger “Verbal” Kint (Kevin Spacey, right)——narrates parts of
the intricate nonlinear structure. In this image, Kint
undergoes an unusually intense interrogation from U.S.
Customs Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri). Kint’s
playfulness and inventiveness during this ordeal make him a
highly unusual suspect, especially when it turns out that he
has made up almost all of the story, including the identity of
the puzzling Keyser Söze, who proves to be as much of an
enigma as Charles Foster Kane. Movie buffs will recognize
that the title is an allusion to “Round up the usual suspects,”
the often-quoted remark made by Captain Louis Renault
(Claude Rains) at the conclusion of Casablanca(1942;
director: Michael Curtiz; screenwriters: Julius J. Epstein,
Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch). The Writers Guild of
America, West, ranked Casablancaas number 1 in their list of
the 101 greatest screenplays (probably more for its
romanticism and eternal popularity with audiences, since it is
not a particularly complex screenplay). The Usual Suspects
ranked number 35. Nonetheless, movies with complex plot
structures remain very popular among movie buffs and often
attain cult status.