How editing is used in Memento

In Memento editing is very important to our understanding of how the film works and what stories are being shown. In the first few seconds the credits are projected over a hand and a close up of the picture. We can see in the picture there is a gory image. First a character that was holding the picture was guilty of a crime because the picture contains what looks like a blooded corpse; we can infer that the character was a serial killer. The first noticeable bit of editing is the picture and how it fades out and disappears. The scene is in fact reversing back time we can see how the picture is being shaken back. Everything is placed back into its starting position, gun returning to killer and glasses flying back onto the face of victim. This is done to help us understand what has happened and establishes a path for us to be able to see how this murdered man was finished.
The whole of the next scene is edited. It begins with a close up of the characters eye and then to a close up of the keys. This is a sequence of shots because instead of panning down from eyes to keys the decision has been made to edit and jump the shot down. This is done with a commentary from who we assume to be the man the scene is focused on. He talks of his "amnesia" and the editing is done to mirror his mind. Editing is used in this film to help us understand the complex base to it.
The following scene starts on a close up of a totally different picture on the same Polaroid film as before, the shots are then edited to help us understand the conservation that starts between the first character and a new one who has entered. A close up of a pair of glasses in the first scene help us understand that the new character was the dead one beforehand. Throughout the following scene we begin to learn the first character seems to be a detective. In the scene there are wide angle shots, firstly of a city and then of a lone house in the middle of no-where it give us an idea of the environment our characters are operating in. One hugely important area to this scene is the close up of the man’s gun. This infers there is going to be killing and murdering soon to come. There is a close up of a picture with "Kill him" written on it. During the next sequential shots a fight arises and I can take notes of editing called "invisible cuts" this is where each edited moment runs so smoothly it appears that it hasn't changed. This has been done so as not to distract the audience so they don't think "This isn’t realistic at all." We see this in the sequence we saw at the beginning, but this time not in the eyes of an “amnesia” ridden detective. Close ups are essential in a film, especially one as confusing as Memento. But they are important parts of editing because without individual close ups. For instance when our character is conversing with a man behind a counter, who we assume to be the hotel owner, we see a close up of the Polaroid picture. Edited shots are put into films to help us understand them. We learn in this scene, through editing that our character from the start is guilty of the murder we saw at the beginning.
Each new monochrome scene links on from the last monochrome scene. Whereas the colours ones don't connect with each other until points overlap. The black and white scenes move forward throughout the film and the colour scenes move backwards until they meet somewhere in the middle of the plot. Editing in Memento is used to let people understand what is happening and is continued to be used like that throughout the rest of the film. Memento is a very confusing film so therefore editing is vital to enjoyment of an audience, without editing in the film the audience would struggle to understand the plot.