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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American drama and romantic comedy by French director Michel Gondry. The film uses a science fiction element to explore the nature of memory and love. Opening in North America on March 19, 2004, the movie grossed more than US$70 million worldwide.[1]
It is directed by Michel Gondry, who worked on the story with Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth, a French performance artist, with all three winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2005. The film stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet and features Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood, Jane Adams, and David Cross. The movie's title is taken from the poem Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope which was the story of a tragic love affair.
Plot
Emotionally withdrawn Joel Barish (Carrey) and dysfunctional free spirit Clementine Kruczynski (Winslet) strike up a relationship on a Long Island Rail Road train. They are inexplicably drawn to each other, despite their radically different personalities.
Although they apparently do not realize it at the time, Joel and Clementine are in fact former lovers, now separated after having spent two years together. We learn that after a nasty fight, Clementine hired a New York firm – Lacuna, Inc. – to erase all memories of their relationship. (The term "lacuna" means a gap or missing part. Lacunar amnesia is a gap in one's memory about a specific event.) Upon discovering this, Joel is devastated and decides to undergo this same procedure himself. However, while unconscious and having these same memories erased, he rebels, realizing he wants to hold on to his memories of Clementine and himself after all.
Much of the film takes place in Joel's mind as he struggles to preserve at least some memory of his love for Clementine. We watch their love and courtship go in reverse. The memories are slowly erased while Joel tries his best to resist the procedure and hide inside his own mind.
In separate and related story arcs, the employees of Lacuna are revealed to be more than peripheral characters in scenes which further demonstrate the harm caused by the memory-altering procedure. Mary (Dunst) turns out to have had an affair with the married doctor who heads the company (Wilkinson), a relationship which she agreed to have erased from her memory when it was discovered by his wife.
Once Mary learns of this, she steals the company's records and sends them to all of its clients. Joel and Clementine come upon these records just after having re-encountered each other. They struggle to understand the documents, given that they have no clear memory of having known each other, let alone having had a relationship and electing to have the memory erased. In the end they are drawn together despite their forgotten history.
Detailed linear chronology
Sometime during or before 2002: Lacuna's Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), who is married, and his receptionist Mary Svevo (Kirsten Dunst), who has developed a "crush" on him, have a sexual affair. When it goes bad, Dr. Mierzwiak pressures Mary into having her memory of their relationship erased.
Also sometime during or before 2002: Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) meet at a beach party in Montauk, New York, and subsequently become romantically involved. In late 2003, their relationship begins to take a turn for the worse.
Sometime in January or early February 2004: Joel and Clementine have a nasty fight. Clementine comes back at three A.M. very intoxicated and having damaged Joel's car. They have another nasty fight and she storms out.
Soon after this, and before Valentine's Day, Clementine impulsively gets Joel erased from her memory by Lacuna. Patrick (Elijah Wood), one of Lacuna's technicians, falls for Clementine and uses the mementos of her relationship with Joel that she has surrendered to Lacuna to seduce her.
Three days before Valentine's Day: Joel attempts to apologize to Clementine and goes to the book-store where she works, but Clementine fails to recognize him, and he sees her kissing Patrick. Joel learns that she had her memories of him erased and is deeply hurt by this.
Just before Valentine's Day, Joel arranges with Lacuna to have his memory of Clementine erased as well. He is told to bring any mementos that might remind him of Clementine to Lacuna. However, in his haste, he doesn't get them all (leaving a painting of Clementine as a sort of skeletal figure on the River Styx). Patrick acquires Joel's items as well. Additionally, the scratch on Joel's car is another thing he didn't get rid of, which is why when he discovers it after having Clementine erased, he leaves a note on the car next to his, thinking they were responsible for it.
That night, February 13, after 8:30 pm, Stan (Ruffalo) and Patrick go to Joel's apartment to do the procedure. There is an incomplete erasure of Joel's memory of his meeting with Dr. Mierzwiak. In his dream-like state, Joel is also "aware" of what is happening and is sometimes active in this dream-like world.
Meanwhile, Mary has come over to see Stan. Patrick calls Clementine and finds out that she is upset about something. He asks Stan for permission to go see her, and once Stan realizes that this will leave him alone with Mary, he tells Patrick to go.
As these events unfold, Joel continues to watch his memories being erased and they gradually shift from the bitter, bleak ones related to his break-up with Clementine to the moments they had together where they were both truly happy. Joel decides that he wants to cancel the procedure and begins actively resisting the erasure by "hiding" his memories of Clementine in memories unrelated to their relationship (such as his childhood).
Meanwhile, Patrick arrives at Clementine's apartment to find her distraught, evidently over her own altered memories. Impulsively, Clementine decides that she wants to go with Patrick to the frozen Charles River, where Patrick tries and fails to reenact the magic of the night that Clementine had described in a love letter to Joel, which Patrick found in Joel's mementos. It is as if Patrick's use of previous happenings is triggering a sense in Clementine's mind that something is terribly wrong.
Back at Joel's apartment, Stan and Mary have just finished having sex (omitted from released version) , and are very stoned after smoking marijuana on the job. Suddenly, an alarm from the machine sounds and Stan discovers that somehow the process has gotten derailed (due to Joel's subconscious resistance). At Mary's insistence, Stan calls Dr. Mierzwiak at his home, where he is sleeping in bed with his wife, and informs that he needs help with the case. Mierzwiak agrees to come over and take charge of things. As Mierzwiak leaves the bed, his wife's eyes open with a look of suspicion.
Once the doctor arrives, Mary shows that she is still very attracted to Dr. Mierzwiak. Noticing this and feeling uncomfortable about it, Stan excuses himself to the firm's equipment van outside, leaving the two alone with Joel. After some awkward talk demonstrating Mary clearly has a crush on Mierzwiak, Mary kisses the doctor. Mierzwiak initially tries to fend her off, but he succumbs and begins to kiss her back.
Standing at the firm's van outside, Stan sees this transpiring inside through a lit, uncovered window just as Mierzwiak's wife erratically pulls up in her own car in front of the van, exiting the car disheveled and in a robe. Stan honks the van horn, Mierzwiak and his wife see each other through the window, and during the ugly scene that follows, Mary learns of her prior history with the doctor, initially exposed by Mierzwiak's wife and then explained by Mierzwiak himself. This is an enormous shock to her and she walks off.
Despite the distractions and Joel's continuing resistance, Mierzwiak and Stan are able to get the erasure process back on track. The very last memory we see is that of Clementine and Joel's first meeting at Montauk, where they sneak into a house. As the memory crumbles around them, Joel stays with Clementine beyond the point of the original memory to tell her that he loves her. She whispers, "Meet me in Montauk."
Valentine's Day 2004, Joel wakes up with his memory erased. He impulsively decides to skip work, takes the train to Montauk (unwittingly acting on the instruction that his memory of Clementine gave him), and (re)meets Clementine there. They travel back on the same train and are drawn to each other. Back in Rockville Centre, Joel offers Clementine a ride back to her apartment. She invites him in for a drink and he leaves shortly afterwards with her number, promising to call her. When he does, they make a date to go to the frozen Charles the next day, unwittingly reliving one of the high points of their now forgotten relationship.
Meanwhile, Mary has quit her job and starts mailing out the memory files and tapes that she stole from the office to Lacuna's clients (including Clementine and Joel). The morning after their meeting on the Charles (i.e., February 16), Joel drives Clementine back to her house. She asks if she can come over to his place to sleep and then goes inside to get her toothbrush. While she's inside, Patrick approaches Joel and expresses puzzlement over why he is with Clementine after having his memory erased.
Clementine picks up her mail (which includes the file that Mary sent to her the morning of Valentine's Day) and Joel and Clementine drive off. They listen to the tape of her bitterly recanting the end of her relationship with Joel to Dr. Mierzwiak prior to her erasure. Joel, hurt and bewildered, pulls the car over insisting that Clementine is messing with him and she gets out. When Clementine gets back to her apartment, she yells at Patrick, and it is clear that their short relationship is over.
Later that same day, Clementine drives herself to Joel's apartment. She finds him there listening to his tape about her, which he found in his mail upon getting home (this apparently also caused him to ransack his apartment looking for evidence of their relationship and discover the "skeleton" painting that he did of her). Clementine insists upon listening to Joel's tape, reasoning that it's only fair considering he heard all the hurtful things she said about him on her tape. But Clementine is deeply wounded by what Joel has to say on the tape and decides to leave. Joel follows her into the hallway and asks her to wait, not knowing what to do.
Clementine tells him that their relationship is doomed to fail because of their respective failings, but Joel simply shrugs and says, "okay" (indicating that the possible future doesn't matter as much as how he feels right now). For a moment, Clementine looks bewildered and then says, "okay" suggesting that she feels the same way. The movie ends with them playing in the snow on the beach, with the same shot being repeated again and once more as the screen gradually fades to white.
Cast
Targeted memory erasure
Targeted memory erasure is a fictional non-surgical procedure. Its purpose is the focused erasure of memories, particularly unwanted and painful memories, and it is a mild form of brain damage comparable to a "night of heavy drinking". The procedure is performed exclusively by Lacuna Incorporated. The characters of Joel and Clementine used this procedure to erase their memories of each other. As part of the screenwriting and promotion for the film, a backstory for the technology was made, including a spoof website for "Lacuna Inc." which is the source for the following information.
Depictions of the memories
Throughout the film we see a wide range of film techniques used to depict both the destruction of Joel's memories as well as his transitions from one to another. These range from quite subtle to extremely dramatic:
- The picture quality and sound resolution of the memory simply deteriorates (one example being when Joel talks with his neighbor in the lobby of their apartment building).
- Subtle details fade from view – examples of this being when Clementine's name fades away from the Lacuna postcard that Joel has in his hand or when the books in the Barnes and Noble gradually turn white.
- In one case, time and perspective seems to "loop" (the scene where Joel tries to make up with Clementine after she stormed out of his apartment, Joel finds himself unable to get from one end of the street to another – this also combines the elimination of details such as the displays of stores) Also in this scene, we repeatedly see reflections of the lamp in Joel's apartment floating in the air.
- Overt disintegration of the memories (examples of this include the car falling from the sky, the disappearance of a car that Joel and Clementine are in, the disappearance of a fence, and perhaps most elaborately, the falling apart of the beach house that Joel and Clementine were in).
- Vanishing of the characters (Clementine fades out while in the car with Joel, she also is seemingly pulled away from him on the frozen Charles, she also transforms into a faceless woman in the deteriorated memory of Lacuna's offices); also, there is an elaborate sequence where Joel and Clementine run through Grand Central Terminal (from a memory of visiting her grandmother) and all the people around them "wink out".
- Cycling between the adult actors and their younger selves (when Joel recalls a humiliating memory of being forced by bullies to hit a dead bird with a hammer, the footage switches back and forth between young actors playing Joel and Clementine and Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey). Joel is apparently able to visualize Clementine's youthful appearance because he had seen a picture of her as that when they were still together.
- Scenes of the movie use a trompe-l'œil (or forced perspective) effect, enabling the actors to be seen by the audience as life-sized, yet their characters are existing in a smaller world. Examples are when Joel and Clementine are in the kitchen sink, or when Joel hides from his mother and aunt/Clementine under the table in his memory as a child.
Frames of reference
There were numerous frames of reference in Eternal Sunshine. One was reality, shown in the group of scenes at the beginning and end of the movie that take place just before, on, and after Valentine's Day. The rest of the scenes could be broadly classified as taking place in Joel's memory, but these can be subdivided into:
- Memories that Joel gets to relive as if they were really happening (e.g., the date on the frozen Charles).
- Memories in which Joel narrates in a voiceover (e.g., the "dining dead" meal).
- Memories which Joel watches take place and with which he can and does interact.
- Memories in which Joel is a participant but can "break character" and change the way the scene turns out.
- Memories in which Joel relives various moments of his childhood with Clementine in the place of one of the people in the memory.
- Memories that had been erased and lingered on in a degraded form (e.g., the faceless beings in the Lacuna offices).
Some events that actually took place during Joel's erasure (i.e. technicians Stan and Patrick's conversation about Patrick's stealing Clementine's panties) bleed through to memories Joel is reliving.
Finally, a useful indicator for when a particular event is taking place is Clementine's hair color. Any time she is shown with blue hair indicates something in the present or a memory from the recent past (from about the time of the couple's disengagement). Clementine has green hair during the couple's first encounter, and shortly changes it to red when they become romantically involved. She then changes her hair color to 'tangerine' orange as their disengagement nears.
Ending
Kaufman made it very clear in an interview included with the published shooting script [1], that the story ended with the final scene of Joel and Clementine in the hallway, in which they appeared to have agreed to give their relationship one more try. He said it was up to individual members of the audience to decide what would have ultimately happened. This "unfinished" resolution of the story is foreshadowed with the following dialogue in the scene where Joel relives the memory of approaching Clementine at the bookstore where she worked after they first met at the beach party:
Joel: It would be different if we could just give it another go-around.
Clementine: Remember me. Try your best. Maybe, we can.
There is debate as to what the repeated scene of Joel and Clem playing in the snow right before the credits means. In an interview also included with the published shooting script, Gondry said he wanted the scene of them playing in the snow to loop throughout the credits. This desire apparently sprang from the initial intent that the movie ends with the depressing revelation that Joel and Clementine spent the rest of their lives meeting, parting, and getting erased, only to meet again. However, Gondry said that this was not done, because it would ultimately detract from the credits.
In addition, several photo-stills that were from footage that wound up on the cutting room floor show Joel and Clementine sitting together on the steps to Joel's building with their arms around each other (and dressed in the same clothes that they wore in the hallway scene). It is unclear whether these were pictures taken for promotional purposes or from footage cut from the final scene at Joel's apartment.
Deleted and moved scenes
The shooting script — which has been published as a book (ISBN 1-55704-610-7) — and early drafts contain a fair amount of material that was either left on the cutting room floor or never shot.
A major change that came in editing was that the scene in the beginning with Joel and Clementine on the frozen Charles (the second time they'd been there chronologically) got moved from near the end of the movie to the beginning. According to the Kaufman interview published with the shooting script, this was done to make sure the audience liked Clementine, as without it, their initial impression of her, based upon scenes from the end of Joel and Clem's first relationship, might have been too negative.
Dropped scenes included dialogue on the train, scenes with Joel and Naomi (the girlfriend he had before Clementine, portrayed by Ellen Pompeo), Joel in the Lacuna office describing his negative feelings about Clementine in more detail, and scenes showing Joel and Clementine on their first "date". The dialogue from the deleted Lacuna office scene is used later, when he is listening to a tape of himself describing Clementine's personality flaws, and some of the dialog from their first "date" is used in the last flashback scene, where the beach house is crumbling around the two of them. In fact, much of the content of the film was moved around in editing. A fair amount of scenes were changed on-the-spot by director Michel Gondry, including scenes showing the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus in the streets of Manhattan. During this scene, people actually tried interviewing Jim Carrey. You can hear someone say something like "Speak to me." Another dropped scene was one that took place in a bar where a very drunk Clementine tried to make Joel jealous by coming onto another man (which might have prompted Joel's claim in his taped interview with Mierzwiak that Clementine was very promiscuous).
Another deleted scene that appears in the special two-disc DVD set is an extended scene in the doctor's office when Mary Svevo is listening to the tape of her file. Mary is saying in the tape why she should have the procedure done, especially after having to get an abortion.
Awards and recognition
Kaufman, Gondry, and Bismuth won the 2004 Academy Award for best original screenplay for Eternal Sunshine. Winslet was also nominated for best actress but lost to Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby.
It was nominated for and has won various other awards, including:
- Australian Film Institute: Best Foreign Film
- BAFTA Film Awards: Best Editing (won, Valdís Óskarsdóttir), Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay (won), David Lean Award for Direction
- Boston Society of Film Critics Awards: Best Screenplay (2nd place)
- Czech Lions: Best Foreign Language Film
- César Award for Best Foreign Film
- Golden Globe Awards: Best Musical or Comedy, Best Actor (Musical or Comedy), Best Actress (Musical or Comedy), Best Screenplay
- Gotham Award: Best Film
- Grammy Award: Best Score Soundtrack Album
- London Critics Circle Film Awards: British Actress of the Year (won), Screenwriter of the Year (won)
- National Board of Review: Best Original Screenplay (won)
- Online Film Critics Society Awards: Best Actress (won), Best Director (won), Best Editing (won), Best Picture (won), Best Original Screenplay (won), Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score
- Screen Actors Guild Award: Best Actress
- Seattle Film Critics Awards: Best Original Screenplay (won)
- Toronto Film Critics Association Awards: Best Director (won), Best Screenplay (won)
- Writers Guild of America Award: Best Original Screenplay (won)
Roger Ebert commented, "Despite jumping through the deliberately disorienting hoops of its story, "Eternal Sunshine" has an emotional center, and that's what makes it work."[2]
Time Out summed up their review by saying, "the formidable Gondry/ Kaufman/Carrey axis works marvel after marvel in expressing the bewildering beauty and existential horror of being trapped inside one's own addled mind, and in allegorising the self-preserving amnesia of a broken but hopeful heart."[3]
In 2006, in issue 201 of Empire magazine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was voted #83 in their 201 Greatest Movies of All Time poll as voted for by the readers.
Kate Winslet's performance as Clementine was included in Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time at #81.
In 2007, critic site Rotten Tomatoes dubbed it the #2 on a list of top Sci-Fi films.
The Simpsons aired a spoof of the film, called "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind".
The film was number 38 in movies for Entertainment Weekly's New Classic list.
Music and soundtrack
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The soundtrack album for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was released by Hollywood Records on March 16, 2004.
The score was composed by Los Angeles musician Jon Brion. Other songs featured are from artists such as Jeff Lynne's E.L.O. ("Mr. Blue Sky" was featured in trailers and television spots but not used in the film), The Polyphonic Spree, The Willowz, and Don Nelson. Beck, in a collaboration with Jon Brion, provides a cover version of the Korgis' "Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime".
Notably, many of the vocal songs either revolve around memories or the sun.
During the scene where Clementine enters Joel's Apartment finding Joel listening to the tape about Clementine while staring at the skeleton painting of Clementine, the underscore is a poignant arrangement of "Oh My Darling Clementine." The harmonic voicings are such where the melody is clear up until the point of the line "you are lost and gone forever," where the arranger opted for use of dramatic diminished chords in the harmony thereby understating the fact that the two are gone and lost forever having no memory of each other.
Three songs from old Hindi movies can be heard played in the back ground. "Mera Man Tera Pyaasa" (My mind yearns for you) from the movie "Gambler" performed by Mohammed Rafi, "Tera Sang Pyaar Mein" performed by Lata Mangeshkar, "Wada Na Tod" (Break not the promise) by Lata Mangeshkar from the movie "Dil Tujhko Diya" (Gave my heart to you), (when Clementine invites Joel to her apartment for a drink). All the three songs are listed in the original soundtrack credits.
The musical score from the film's opening scenes have also been used in television and cinema adverts in the UK for mobile phone company Vodafone.
Music relating to the movie
Many bands have referenced the movie in song, including Bayside in the song "Montauk", Of a Revolution in the song "Love and Memories", Christmas Fuller Project in the song "Meet Me in Montauk", and Circa Survive in the song "Meet Me in Montauk" as well as several other songs on their 2005 album, Juturna. Also, Backseat Goodbye mentioned the movie in the song "Technicolor Eyes": "...Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, stands strong in my favorites of all time..."
Film setting and locations
The film is set largely in the New York City suburb of Rockville Centre and Montauk, Long Island, and in New York City, the Charles River scene is filmed in FDR state park in Yorktown , NY.
According to the end credits, it was filmed in and around Brooklyn, Manhattan, Montauk, Mount Vernon, Wainscott, and Yonkers, New York; also Bayonne and West Orange, New Jersey. The Barnes and Noble scenes were filmed at the Columbia University Bookstore.
All of the train scenes were shot aboard a Metro-North Railroad train along the New Haven Line, and the Mount Vernon East train station substituted for the Rockville Centre station.
DVD
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is available in the U.S. in separate anamorphic widescreen and full screen editions as of September 28, 2004. Both widescreen and full screen editions carry English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, English DTS 5.1 Surround and French Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks.
It is available as a one disc Widescreen Collector's Edition worldwide. Bonus features included on this disc is[4]:
- A Look Inside Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Step into the mind of the filmmakers in this behind-the-scenes look at Eternal
- A Conversation with Jim Carrey and Director Michel Gondry - Witness an unparalleled discussion between Jim Carrey and Michal Gondry as they reflect on their favorite moments from the making of the film
- Feature Commentary with Michel Gondry and Writer Charlie Kaufman
- Deleted Scenes
- The Polyphonic Spree "Light & Day" Music Video
- Lacuna Infomercial
A special 2-disc widescreen Collector's Edition DVD was released in the U.S. on January 4, 2005. Bonus features include[5]:
- Award Winning Screenplay Book
- Feature Commentary with Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman
- A Conversation with Kate Winslet and Michel Gondry
- A Conversation with Jim Carrey and Michel Gondry
- A Look Inside Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Inside the Mind of Michel Gondry
- Deleted/ Extended Scenes
- Anatomy of a Scene with Jim Carrey and Michel Gondry
- The Polyphonic Spree "Light & Day" Music Video
- Lacuna Infomercial
The film was released on HD DVD on April 24, 2007. Its bonus features consist of[6]:
- A Look Inside Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
- Step into the mind of the filmmakers in this behind-the-scenes look at Eternal Sunshine.
- Deleted Scenes and Extended Scenes
- A Conversation with Jim Carrey and Director Michel Gondry
- The star and director reflect on their favorite on-set moments.
- A Conversation with Kate Winslet and Director Michel Gondry
- Inside the mind of Director Michel Gondry
- Feature Commentary with Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman
- Anatomy of a Scene: Saratoga Avenue
- Polyphonic Spree "Light & Day" Music Video
- Deleted / Extended Scenes
- Lacuna Commercial
See also
References
External links
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