Memory Swerves

Christopher Nolan strides backward through the door -- one foot behind the other, heel to toe -- stopping at his chair. ''Cool. Well, thanks!'' he mumbles.

''No, that's about it,'' a reporter answers.

''Any more questions?'' he asks.

Before that comes the full interview with the writer-director of Memento. And before that, interviews with the stars of the movie. And before that, the triumphant screenings here at the Sundance Film Festival. We could even work all the way back to Nolan's first, halting baby step. It was adorable.

Confused? Wait until you see his movie, Memento, a whetted-razor of a noir that just happens to be told drawkcab. (The device works better on screen. Really.) Detailing the plight of an insurance investigator (L.A. Confidential's Guy Pearce) who wakes up from a blow to the head with his wife dead and his short-term memory damaged, the movie has become a serious Hollywood conversation piece. It has also rocketed the British filmmaker's career, kick-started his brother's writing career, and, after almost every studio passed on the finished film, christened a spanking new distributor. Not a bad ripple for a $4.5 million pebble, inspired, in a roundabout way, by Moby-Dick, road trips, muggings, and fistfights. (But aren't all indies, these days?)

It all began at Georgetown University in 1996, where Jonathan Nolan -- Chris' American-born brother, who goes by the nickname Jonah -- sat in a psychology class. His attention wandered until his professor mentioned a condition called anterograde memory loss, which prevents subjects from forming new recollections. ''I was drawn to it as a metaphor,'' says 24-year-old Jonah. ''A demonstration of how fleeting identity really is.''

The younger Nolan later dropped out of Georgetown for a semester -- traveling, devouring Melville, getting held up with a shiv in Madrid, and falling into drunken slugfests with New Zealand lumberjacks. ''The fights had put me in this dark place,'' he recalls, ''And somewhere they led to the kernel of Memento.'' He returned home in 1997 with the idea percolating. It bubbled out months later on a cross-country drive with his big brother, whom he was helping move from Chicago to L.A.

''Jonah told me the story,'' explains Chris, 30, who was then finishing his first film, the thriller Following (which won Best Black and White Film at 1999's Slamdance). ''It wasn't developed, just about a guy who can't make new memories who is looking for revenge. But I got excited and asked to write the screenplay.'' In Chris' version, as Leonard Shelby searches for his wife's killer, he records clues by taking Polaroids, scribbling notes on scraps of paper, and tattooing himself. His problem: After 15 minutes or so, his memory fades like a receipt put through the wash. The only outside help he gets is provided by a sultry bartender (Carrie-Anne Moss) and a shady friend (Joe Pantoliano). The biggest departure Chris takes from his brother's story of the fuzzy, often fictional nature of memory -- is relating it in reverse.