Let The Sunshine In
7/26/2005
I recently viewed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and I must say that I really liked it. More than liked it actually, I loved it. In fact, after watching 15 minutes of “Troy” before slipping in the DVD, I would say it has restored my faith in American cinema.
If you haven’t seen this movie yet,
The film will have a much greater impact if you know absolutely nothing about it. The story should unfold before your eyes without you anticipating or expecting any kind of a plot twist.
The plotline, in a nut shell is an assuming guy, Joel, one day after an argument, finds out his girlfriend, Clementine, is not only mad at him, but actually acts as if she doesn’t even know who he is. After much hand ringing and crying he finds out from their mutual friends that Clementine had a “procedure” done that “erased” her memory of him out of her brain.
Infuriated Joel storms down to the doctor’s office and decides to have the operation done on himself. The doctor (Tom Wilkinson) explains that what they do at the office is use some sort of computerized cat scanning machine to create a “map” of the brain that color coats any area of the brain that contains a memory of the person who the patient wants to remove.
The doctor tells Joel to physically remove anything in the house that could remotely suggest Clementine (“A CD you use to listen to together, Things you bought together,” etc.) and puts Joel through a battery of tests. Joel is then required to make a tape recording, documenting his feelings towards Clementine. Needless to say, they are not very flattering.
Finally he is told to “…go home, take these pills and go to sleep. When you wake up you will have no memory of Clementine.” When Joel asks about the possibility of brain damage, the doctor says, “Technically, the procedure IS brain damage. But don’t worry, it is nothing serious. It will be like having a slight hangover.”
After Joel goes to sleep two technicians come into his house, apply a machine that looks like an old hair dryer to his head and begin the erasing process. What follows is a trip through Joel’s mind as, unbeknownst to the technicians; he changes his mind and realizes the erasing process is a terrible mistake. Inter-cut with Joel’s attempt to “wake up” and stop the operation are scenes involving the other characters in “the real world.” Shot are intertwined so the viewer is sometimes caught off guard as to what’s “real” and what is, literally, imagination.
At this point it is necessary to mention the star of the movie Jim Carrey.
I confess I never liked this guy or his particular brand of humor. Now don’t get me wrong, I always thought he was talented, going all the way back to his “In Living Color” days. But his performances always seemed forced to me. The over the top mugging for the camera. The manic style of speech. The all too often reliance on cheap flatulence or shit jokes.
While others saw zaniness, I always saw the sadness and the anger behind these antics. He looked to me like he was trying to hard. As if he desperately needed us to love him.
When “The Cable Guy” came out, Carrey’s performance as a psychologically deranged man obsessed with one of his customers was supposed to be a departure for him. I thought it was just the logical conclusion of all his other characters.
Even in his more mature, subdued work, that needy trait had a way of rearing its ugly head. There were scenes in “The Truman Show” that reeked of Carrey retreating into his protective cocoon of wacky faces and broad gestures whenever the camera was getting to close to the truth.
With that track record, I never thought I would be writing the following:
Now some of the credit for his performance must go to the director, Michael Gondry. He successfully kept Carrey reigned in whenever he started to drift towards ridiculous pantomime. I counted at least twice when the lead was in danger of falling back on old habits.
Another part of the credit goes to Carrey’s co-star, Kate Winslet who plays his slightly weird girlfriend, Clementine. She is flighty without being ridiculous. She is moody without being unreceptive. She is strong willed without being domineering. She plays a perfect foil for Carrey’s character, the lacking in confidence, shy, Joel.
But, with all that said, I overwhelmingly salute Carrey for the portrayal of the character Joel, an everyman whose emotions range from hate to love and finally tremendous regret and loss, as he fights to hold on to the memories of the woman he loves.
I say this because, although there are several inventive editing sequences as we tour the inner most mind of Joel, the strength of the movie lies in the facial expressions and dialogue scenes that play straight with nowhere for the actor to hide.
Unbelievably, Jim Carrey was up to the task.
Consider the scene when Joel is remembering the first time he and Clementine met at a beach party. Knowing that his memory of her is fading, which is tantamount to a death sentence, he confesses that Clementine’s free spirit and boldness, the very things he loved most about her, initially frightened him so much that he had to run away.
The way this scene is performed is perfect. Joel’s admission is at first reluctant to confront his cowardice and then full of sorrow for his foolishness. Finally Joel’s tone changes to one of great acceptance. He comes to terms with the reality that he is never going to see her again and realizes that any petty differences they might have had, pales in comparison to the bond they shared.
The scene is the epitome of poignancy.
As far as Jim Carrey is concerned, this movie is a revelation. If, for some unfortunate reason, he goes back to his old ways of butchering any subtlety out of any script he touches (and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) suggests he is.) years from now, he is going to look back at this film with a great deal of remorse and ask “…what could have been?”
Like other Charlie Kaufman works (“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich”) “Eternal” is a tad “off-kilter” but yet completely believable. Besides the obviousness of the subject matter, I believe there are two other things at play adding to the film’s oddness:
1) The Setting
The movie is set on Long Island with several major scenes taking place in Montauk which is on the very tip. There is nothing unusual about that but, interestingly; the story takes place around Valentine’s Day in February. At that time of year that part of New York is usually deserted. The weather is bitterly cold and gray. The beaches are not enjoyable and certainly not picturesque. To center the action in a place that, although does exist, is rarely photographed in these conditions very subtly keeps things primed for the viewer to accept more “unbelievable” premises.
2) The Casting
If you were to read this script cold, and disregarded any gender issues, you would immediately assume that the roles would be reversed. That Winslet would be the reserved, somewhat dour person and Carrey the impetuous, somewhat crazy guy. Scene after scene would play to his “strength” as an energetic physical actor with Kate reacting to his silliness. The choice to make Carrey subdued, and the belief he could pull it off, deserves some kind of mention and, again, works subtly with the audience, playing against our subconscious type casting, making the more outlandish stuff seem more believable.
The obvious villain of the movie is Stan(Elijah Wood) a sleazy computer technician who, we find out in a juvenile confession, after assisting in the erasing of Clementine’s memory, steals her panties and later starts hitting on her. He also uses Joel’s old love letters and gifts that the doctor told Joel to remove, in his attempt to woo Clementine.
In the unlikable department, the deck is stacked against this character.
But what of Mary (Kirsten Dunst), the young receptionist who “pops up” during Joel’s erasure? She proceeds to get high and have sex with the chief technician Patrick (Mark Ruffalo) while he is performing the procedure. He screws it up so badly that he has to call the Doctor to the apartment to take charge of the operation. After a little time, Mary starts coming on to him as well.
These actions can be choked up to hormones for all the characters involved but what follows is particularly interesting. As it turns out, Dunst was “erased” herself, deleting any memory of her own affair she had with the Doctor.
When she finds out she is horrified.
How does she react? She quits her job, which is to be expected, but takes all of the names and addresses of everyone who had the procedure performed on them. She then mails the cassette tapes that the patient made right before the operation detailing all the horrible things thought of their partners soon to be the “erased person.”
Let’s think about this for a moment. What she is thinking is a “good” thing will probably be devastating to the recipients as is shown when Clementine, after miraculously meeting Joel again after they both have been erased, plays the tape in front of him not suspecting what it is.
What if the person has a new girlfriend/boyfriend and is completely happy? By opening up old wounds, Dunst is either dooming the new lovers or at least making it harder on everyone involved. But she thinks she is doing the right thing so our concerns are squelched.
Also her actions play into a subtext I felt throughout the whole film. The old standby, “Man should not play God” and “whatever was meant to be was meant to be” theme. I say I only felt it because it is never flat out said but in the sympathetic portrayal of Mary and the end results of these operations depicting emotional “half people,” the writer makes his feelings known.
In other words, the film considers the question once pondered by St. Augustine:
But, in my opinion, that angle is only a sideshow.
The majority of romantic movies, the genre “Eternal” is firmly entrenched in, prior to this one usually involve some form of “Boy meets girl/Boy loses girl” scenario. The audience is kept in suspense through the plot with the payoff being either a tear (Casablanca), a cheer (An Officer and a Gentleman) or a smile (The Philadelphia Story). They are all well crafted and acted superbly but in the end; they are all just entertainments.
Although, like these films, the plot is important and involves a degree of suspense pertaining to the fate of the lovers, Kaufman does so much more.
Instead of addressing the traditional concerns of a “love story” which are:
He asks the simple, but yet infinitely more complex question,
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Charlie Kaufman uniquely and cinematically demonstrates the emotion of love, an emotion whose absence so often creates anger and bitterness; whose quest is the basis of passion and vitality; and whose discovery usually leads to happiness and contentment.
But he never attempts to explain it.
This is a beautiful film.
Sixth Army
I recently viewed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and I must say that I really liked it. More than liked it actually, I loved it. In fact, after watching 15 minutes of “Troy” before slipping in the DVD, I would say it has restored my faith in American cinema.
If you haven’t seen this movie yet,
DO NOT READ THIS!!!
The film will have a much greater impact if you know absolutely nothing about it. The story should unfold before your eyes without you anticipating or expecting any kind of a plot twist.
The plotline, in a nut shell is an assuming guy, Joel, one day after an argument, finds out his girlfriend, Clementine, is not only mad at him, but actually acts as if she doesn’t even know who he is. After much hand ringing and crying he finds out from their mutual friends that Clementine had a “procedure” done that “erased” her memory of him out of her brain.
Infuriated Joel storms down to the doctor’s office and decides to have the operation done on himself. The doctor (Tom Wilkinson) explains that what they do at the office is use some sort of computerized cat scanning machine to create a “map” of the brain that color coats any area of the brain that contains a memory of the person who the patient wants to remove.
The doctor tells Joel to physically remove anything in the house that could remotely suggest Clementine (“A CD you use to listen to together, Things you bought together,” etc.) and puts Joel through a battery of tests. Joel is then required to make a tape recording, documenting his feelings towards Clementine. Needless to say, they are not very flattering.
Finally he is told to “…go home, take these pills and go to sleep. When you wake up you will have no memory of Clementine.” When Joel asks about the possibility of brain damage, the doctor says, “Technically, the procedure IS brain damage. But don’t worry, it is nothing serious. It will be like having a slight hangover.”
After Joel goes to sleep two technicians come into his house, apply a machine that looks like an old hair dryer to his head and begin the erasing process. What follows is a trip through Joel’s mind as, unbeknownst to the technicians; he changes his mind and realizes the erasing process is a terrible mistake. Inter-cut with Joel’s attempt to “wake up” and stop the operation are scenes involving the other characters in “the real world.” Shot are intertwined so the viewer is sometimes caught off guard as to what’s “real” and what is, literally, imagination.
At this point it is necessary to mention the star of the movie Jim Carrey.
Shocking
I confess I never liked this guy or his particular brand of humor. Now don’t get me wrong, I always thought he was talented, going all the way back to his “In Living Color” days. But his performances always seemed forced to me. The over the top mugging for the camera. The manic style of speech. The all too often reliance on cheap flatulence or shit jokes.
While others saw zaniness, I always saw the sadness and the anger behind these antics. He looked to me like he was trying to hard. As if he desperately needed us to love him.
When “The Cable Guy” came out, Carrey’s performance as a psychologically deranged man obsessed with one of his customers was supposed to be a departure for him. I thought it was just the logical conclusion of all his other characters.
Even in his more mature, subdued work, that needy trait had a way of rearing its ugly head. There were scenes in “The Truman Show” that reeked of Carrey retreating into his protective cocoon of wacky faces and broad gestures whenever the camera was getting to close to the truth.
With that track record, I never thought I would be writing the following:
Jim Carrey was FANTASTIC in this role and quite possibly deserved the Academy Award for best actor.
Now some of the credit for his performance must go to the director, Michael Gondry. He successfully kept Carrey reigned in whenever he started to drift towards ridiculous pantomime. I counted at least twice when the lead was in danger of falling back on old habits.
Another part of the credit goes to Carrey’s co-star, Kate Winslet who plays his slightly weird girlfriend, Clementine. She is flighty without being ridiculous. She is moody without being unreceptive. She is strong willed without being domineering. She plays a perfect foil for Carrey’s character, the lacking in confidence, shy, Joel.
But, with all that said, I overwhelmingly salute Carrey for the portrayal of the character Joel, an everyman whose emotions range from hate to love and finally tremendous regret and loss, as he fights to hold on to the memories of the woman he loves.
I say this because, although there are several inventive editing sequences as we tour the inner most mind of Joel, the strength of the movie lies in the facial expressions and dialogue scenes that play straight with nowhere for the actor to hide.
Unbelievably, Jim Carrey was up to the task.
Consider the scene when Joel is remembering the first time he and Clementine met at a beach party. Knowing that his memory of her is fading, which is tantamount to a death sentence, he confesses that Clementine’s free spirit and boldness, the very things he loved most about her, initially frightened him so much that he had to run away.
The way this scene is performed is perfect. Joel’s admission is at first reluctant to confront his cowardice and then full of sorrow for his foolishness. Finally Joel’s tone changes to one of great acceptance. He comes to terms with the reality that he is never going to see her again and realizes that any petty differences they might have had, pales in comparison to the bond they shared.
The scene is the epitome of poignancy.
As far as Jim Carrey is concerned, this movie is a revelation. If, for some unfortunate reason, he goes back to his old ways of butchering any subtlety out of any script he touches (and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) suggests he is.) years from now, he is going to look back at this film with a great deal of remorse and ask “…what could have been?”
Like other Charlie Kaufman works (“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich”) “Eternal” is a tad “off-kilter” but yet completely believable. Besides the obviousness of the subject matter, I believe there are two other things at play adding to the film’s oddness:
1) The Setting
The movie is set on Long Island with several major scenes taking place in Montauk which is on the very tip. There is nothing unusual about that but, interestingly; the story takes place around Valentine’s Day in February. At that time of year that part of New York is usually deserted. The weather is bitterly cold and gray. The beaches are not enjoyable and certainly not picturesque. To center the action in a place that, although does exist, is rarely photographed in these conditions very subtly keeps things primed for the viewer to accept more “unbelievable” premises.
2) The Casting
If you were to read this script cold, and disregarded any gender issues, you would immediately assume that the roles would be reversed. That Winslet would be the reserved, somewhat dour person and Carrey the impetuous, somewhat crazy guy. Scene after scene would play to his “strength” as an energetic physical actor with Kate reacting to his silliness. The choice to make Carrey subdued, and the belief he could pull it off, deserves some kind of mention and, again, works subtly with the audience, playing against our subconscious type casting, making the more outlandish stuff seem more believable.
The obvious villain of the movie is Stan(Elijah Wood) a sleazy computer technician who, we find out in a juvenile confession, after assisting in the erasing of Clementine’s memory, steals her panties and later starts hitting on her. He also uses Joel’s old love letters and gifts that the doctor told Joel to remove, in his attempt to woo Clementine.
In the unlikable department, the deck is stacked against this character.
But what of Mary (Kirsten Dunst), the young receptionist who “pops up” during Joel’s erasure? She proceeds to get high and have sex with the chief technician Patrick (Mark Ruffalo) while he is performing the procedure. He screws it up so badly that he has to call the Doctor to the apartment to take charge of the operation. After a little time, Mary starts coming on to him as well.
These actions can be choked up to hormones for all the characters involved but what follows is particularly interesting. As it turns out, Dunst was “erased” herself, deleting any memory of her own affair she had with the Doctor.
When she finds out she is horrified.
How does she react? She quits her job, which is to be expected, but takes all of the names and addresses of everyone who had the procedure performed on them. She then mails the cassette tapes that the patient made right before the operation detailing all the horrible things thought of their partners soon to be the “erased person.”
Let’s think about this for a moment. What she is thinking is a “good” thing will probably be devastating to the recipients as is shown when Clementine, after miraculously meeting Joel again after they both have been erased, plays the tape in front of him not suspecting what it is.
What if the person has a new girlfriend/boyfriend and is completely happy? By opening up old wounds, Dunst is either dooming the new lovers or at least making it harder on everyone involved. But she thinks she is doing the right thing so our concerns are squelched.
Also her actions play into a subtext I felt throughout the whole film. The old standby, “Man should not play God” and “whatever was meant to be was meant to be” theme. I say I only felt it because it is never flat out said but in the sympathetic portrayal of Mary and the end results of these operations depicting emotional “half people,” the writer makes his feelings known.
In other words, the film considers the question once pondered by St. Augustine:
Is it better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all?
But, in my opinion, that angle is only a sideshow.
The majority of romantic movies, the genre “Eternal” is firmly entrenched in, prior to this one usually involve some form of “Boy meets girl/Boy loses girl” scenario. The audience is kept in suspense through the plot with the payoff being either a tear (Casablanca), a cheer (An Officer and a Gentleman) or a smile (The Philadelphia Story). They are all well crafted and acted superbly but in the end; they are all just entertainments.
Although, like these films, the plot is important and involves a degree of suspense pertaining to the fate of the lovers, Kaufman does so much more.
Instead of addressing the traditional concerns of a “love story” which are:
Who will fall in love?
When will they fall in love?
How will they fall in love?
He asks the simple, but yet infinitely more complex question,
What is love?
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Charlie Kaufman uniquely and cinematically demonstrates the emotion of love, an emotion whose absence so often creates anger and bitterness; whose quest is the basis of passion and vitality; and whose discovery usually leads to happiness and contentment.
But he never attempts to explain it.
This is a beautiful film.
Sixth Army
posted by Larry B | 3:47 PM
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