Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Michel Gondry
Produced by Anthony Bregman
Written by Michel Gondry
Charlie Kaufman
Pierre Bismuth
Starring Jim Carrey
Kate Winslet
Kirsten Dunst
Mark Ruffalo
Elijah Wood
Tom Wilkinson
Jane Adams
David Cross
Thomas Jay Ryan
Music by Jon Brion
Cinematography Ellen Kuras
Editing by Valdís Óskarsdóttir
Distributed by Focus Features
Release date(s) March 19, 2004
Running time 108 min.
Country Flag of the United States
Language English
Budget $20 million
Gross revenue $72.2 million

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American drama film by French director Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and love.[1] Opening in North America on March 19, 2004, the movie grossed more than US$70 million worldwide.[2]

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.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Note: the following is told in chronological order.

Emotionally withdrawn Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and dysfunctional free spirit Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) meet each other for the first time at a beach party in Montauk, New York, and subsequently become romantically involved. However, two years into their relationship, they fall out of love with each other. Clementine discovers the services of Lacuna, Inc., a firm led by Dr. Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) that claims to be able to erase all specific memories from a person's mind. Clementine opts to have Lacuna erase Joel from her mind, handing over all of her possessions relating to their romance. When Joel seeks out Clementine the next day to try to make up, he finds she is completely unaware of who he is and is being wooed by Patrick (Elijah Wood), a technician from Lacuna who became smitten with Clementine and is using her past memories and the items given to Clementine by Joel to seek her affection. Joel investigates further and discovers Lacuna, opting to have his mind wiped of Clementine, giving them all the items he believes came about from his relationship with her.

The Lacuna technicians, Patrick and Stan (Mark Ruffalo), arrive at Joel's apartment to perform the mind wipe as he sleeps, an all-night process; Mary (Kirsten Dunst), Stan's girlfriend who is also a Lacuna employee, shows up later. Patrick leaves the apartment to spend time with Clementine. Stan and Mary are left to mind the machine but instead have sex and get stoned. Inside Joel's mind during a lucid dream, Joel discovers his memories of Clementine are being erased in reverse order, and as he experiences the earlier, happier times with her, he becomes aware that he wants to stop the procedure and keep the memories, and begins to fight the mind wipe by trying to hide Clementine in deep memories of his mind. Joel's resistance causes the machine to fault, and Stan and Mary are forced to call Dr. Mierzwiak to help finalize the procedure. While Dr. Mierzwiak is able to restore the process to normal, his arrival brings about several awkward feelings between himself and the stoned Mary. Shortly later she learns that she had her mind wiped of her former affair with Dr. Mierzwiak. Joel finds he cannot stop the process, but before his last memory of Clementine at the Montauk beach house is erased, she tells him she loves him and to "meet me in Montauk."

Joel wakes up the next day and decides to skip work, instead taking the Long Island Rail Road train to Montauk where he happens to meet Clementine. Neither aware of who the other is, they quickly bond and begin to form a new relationship. The same day, Mary quits her job and steals the client files from Lacuna and mails them back to their clients. After returning to the city, Joel drives Clementine to her home to get her toothbrush so she can spend the night at his place, but is met by Patrick, who is there to continue to woo Clementine and wonders why Joel is still seeing her. When Clementine returns, she finds her Lacuna file in the mail and plays the tape from it for her and Joel, causing Joel to think that she is toying with his feelings, after which he forces her to leave his car and drives off alone. Patrick attempts to cheer Clementine up but she verbally lashes out at him and breaks off their budding relationship. Clementine travels to Joel's apartment to find Joel with his own Lacuna tape and holding a drawing from their former relationship that he missed when handing over his possessions. They both become aware of the truth of their former relationship. The two recognize that their relationship may have problems based on their past, but decide not to let those failings prevent them from seeing other, and the movie ends with them in a teasing snowball fight on the Montauk beach.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Targeted memory erasure

See also: Selective memory loss

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.

Though the procedure in the movie is fictional, recent research has shown it is possible to successfully erase selective memories in lab mice. Such a procedure may lead to cures of post-traumatic stress.[3]

[edit] 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 deteriorate (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 seem 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).
  • 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.)

[edit] 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:

  1. Memories that Joel gets to relive as if they were really happening (e.g., the date on the frozen Charles).
  2. Memories in which Joel narrates in a voiceover (e.g., the "dining dead" meal).
  3. Memories which Joel watches take place and with which he can and does interact.
  4. Memories in which Joel is a participant but can "break character" and change the way the scene turns out.
  5. Memories in which Joel relives various moments of his childhood with Clementine in the place of one of the people in the memory.
  6. 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.

[edit] Ending

Kaufman made it very clear in an interview included with the published shooting script,[4] 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 (expressed in an early script) that Joel and Clementine spent the rest of their lives meeting, falling in and out of love, getting their memories erased, and then repeating the cycle. 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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:

[edit] Critical reception

The movie has a 94% certified fresh rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website based on 211 reviews. The consensus is that the film is "a twisty, trippy, yet moving take on love, Kaufman-style."[5]

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."[6]

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."[7]

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. Claudia Puig, reviewer of USA Today said about her performance that "Winslet is wonderful as a free spirit whose hair color changes along with her moods. She hasn't had such a meaty role in a while, and she plays it just right."[8]

In 2007, critic site Rotten Tomatoes dubbed it the #2 on a list of top Sci-Fi films.

The film was number 38 in movies for Entertainment Weekly's New Classic list.

Carol Vernallis points out that Gondry's experience in directing music videos contributed in the film's mise-en-scene and sound design. Vernallis describes some threads of the visual, aural and musical motifs through out the film, and how some motifs can work in counterpoint.[9]

[edit] Music and soundtrack

Main article: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (soundtrack)

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 filmi songs from old Hindi movies can be heard playing in the background. "Mera Man Tera Pyaasa" (My heart is thirsting for you) from the movie Gambler (1971) performed by Mohammed Rafi, "Tera Sang Pyaar Mein" performed by Lata Mangeshkar, and "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.

[edit] Music relating to the movie

Many bands have referenced the movie in song, including Breaking Benjamin in their song "Forget it", Bayside in the song "Montauk", OAR in the song Love and Memories, Christmas Fuller Project in the song "Meet Me in Montauk", The Autumns in the song "Clem", and Circa Survive in the song "Meet Me in Montauk" as well as several other songs on their 2005 album, Juturna. Rapper Jay Electronica sampled songs from the soundtrack on his song, "Act 1: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)." Your Ex-lover is Dead by Stars is also a reference to the movie, and the video to the song is also reminiscent of the film due to the band performing laying down on an iced over lake.

[edit] 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. Some of the scenes in Yonkers were filmed along Riverdale Ave and Valentine Ln.

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.

[edit] 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:[10]

  • 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:[11]

  • 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:[12]

  • 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

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Slant Magazine. http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/dvd_review.asp?ID=460. Retrieved on 2008-10-27. 
  2. ^ "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=eternalsunshine.htm. Retrieved on 2007-06-02. 
  3. ^ "Power of the Memory Molecule". http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-power-of-the-memory-molecule. Retrieved on 2008-11-23. 
  4. ^ Amazon.com: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: The Shooting Script (Newmarket Shooting Script Series): Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry: Books
  5. ^ Rotten Tomatoes, Main Page of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind reviews
  6. ^ :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (xhtml)
  7. ^ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind movie review - Film - Time Out London
  8. ^ Puig, Claudia, 2006. USA Today, Movie Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  9. ^ Vernallis, Carol. "Music video, songs, sound: experience, technique and emotion in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Screen. 49.3. (2008) pp.277-97.
  10. ^ "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". DC-DVD.net. http://www.dc-dvd.net/index.php?action=details&item=Eternal%20Sunshine%20Of%20The%20Spotless%20Mind%20%28Region%202%29. Retrieved on 2008-06-13. 
  11. ^ "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". DC-DVD.net. http://www.dc-dvd.net/index.php?action=details&item=Eternal%20Sunshine%20Of%20The%20Spotless%20Mind%20%28Special%20Edition%29%20%28Region%202%29. Retrieved on 2008-06-13. 
  12. ^ "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". DC-DVD.net. http://www.dc-dvd.net/index.php?action=details&item=Eternal%20Sunshine%20Of%20The%20Spotless%20Mind%20%28High%20Definition%20DVD%29. Retrieved on 2008-06-13. 

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
X2: X-Men United		 Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film
2004		 Succeeded by
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
v • d • e
Films directed by Michel Gondry

Human Nature (2001) · Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) · Dave Chappelle's Block Party (2005) · The Science of Sleep (2006) · Be Kind Rewind (2008)

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