In Memento (2000), Leonard’s fractured perception and the film’s nonlinear structure combine to determine what the viewer knows and when it becomes knowable.
Establishing Shot
Arrangement refers to the selection and ordering of rhetorical elements to produce a particular effect. In Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee describe arrangement as the process of choosing which arguments to use and how to place them for maximum persuasive force. This process is shaped by the rhetorical situation, including audience, context, and timing. Arrangement therefore does not follow a fixed formula; rather, it involves strategic decisions about what to present, what to withhold, and how to guide an audience’s understanding.
Key Scene
In Memento (2000), Leonard Shelby relies on tattoos, photographs, and handwritten notes to compensate for his inability to form new memories. These artifacts function as an external memory system that he consults to make decisions as he seeks revenge for his wife’s death. In a stylistic echo of the plot, the film itself is structured in reverse chronological order, presenting events in a sequence that withholds their causes until after their effects are shown.
Framing
The film demonstrates that arrangement determines both the order in which information is encountered and the conditions under which it can be interpreted. Leonard’s system selects and preserves certain details while excluding others, and he treats these records as stable evidence. Because he encounters them in isolation, without the ability to revise them over time, their arrangement produces a closed system of interpretation in which earlier conclusions cannot be reconsidered. The film’s reverse structure extends this effect to the viewer. By presenting outcomes before their causes, it restricts the audience’s ability to anticipate or contextualize events, so that each moment must be understood with incomplete information. In both cases, arrangement shapes what can be known and when it becomes knowable.
Continuity
Arrangement works with extrinsic proofs, with Leonard’s notes and tattoos functioning as selected and ordered evidence that guide his actions. Their persuasive force depends on both their content and how they are encountered. In this way, arrangement works alongside other rhetorical concepts to structure the relationship between evidence, timing, and interpretation.
Stakes
Arrangement is central to rhetorical study because it governs how information is made available and meaning constructed over time. The same materials can produce different conclusions depending on how they are ordered. As Donnie Sackey argues in “Without Permission: Guerrilla Gardening, Contested Places, Spatial Justice,” arrangement can also operate beyond discourse, shaping how physical spaces are organized and interpreted. By selecting and placing elements within a space, gardeners – like rhetors – can alter how that space is understood and used. Understanding arrangement reveals how meaning is produced through both what is said and how information and environments are structured.
Passion Project
I recognized the importance of arrangement in a film class, when we watched the 2002 Firefly episode “Out of Gas.” The episode weaves together three timelines: the present, in which Mal drifts alone on a failing ship; the recent past, which explains how he came to be alone and injured; and earlier moments that depict how the crew first came together. Although these timelines are presented out of order, the episode makes their relationships legible through visual cues and transitions. Scenes set in the present are marked by cold blue tones, while earlier moments appear in warmer colors. The segues between them clarify shifts in time. As I followed these transitions, I became aware that the episode was rearranging events to guide the audience’s understanding.