eternal sunshine de l'mind spotless..

[A Matter Of Chance]

Saw it, loved it. They knew exactly what they wanted their message to be, and they found the perfect story to convey it. Great movie.

Did anyone else think of the Kauffman-penned line from Adaptation, "You are what you love, not what loves you," during/after the movie? I did.

[Stefen]

I felt this movie was kind of sad in the sense that they should not be togehter. Clementine is an alcoholic and Joel is a jealous asshole. Of course Joel wants to be together with Clementine because by the time he realizes it they have already erased all the bad times they had together. The drinking, the jealousy and everything. So the only memories left are from when they first meet onwards till things got bad. So Joel can not see what is to come. All he sees is the good and how much fun they had together in the beginning of their first relationship. Not what comes next. If the second relationship between them could take place only in their minds it would work. Sadly to me it seems it is doomed to fail all over again in reality. I enjoyed this movie immensly. It was so sweet and tragic at the same time. Kate Winslet is a doll and Carrey gives his most subtle performace and it is his best in turn. Gondry is coming into his own as a feature director and the score was spot on. I don't even need to say anything about Kaufman. Definetely a once in a blue moon utterly fantastic film. A plusses all around.

[grand theft sparrow]

Sadly to me it seems it is doomed to fail all over again in reality.

I agree, I think they're headed for disaster but it's still a happy ending.  It doesn't come from the implication that they could live happily ever after, but from the fact that they got a second chance.  What they do with that second chance is irrelevant in the confines of the story.  They have the power to keep from making the same mistakes and we should be happy that they do because none of us ever get that.

[SHAFTR]

Sadly to me it seems it is doomed to fail all over again in reality.

I agree, I think they're headed for disaster but it's still a happy ending.  It doesn't come from the implication that they could live happily ever after, but from the fact that they got a second chance.  What they do with that second chance is irrelevant in the confines of the story.  They have the power to keep from making the same mistakes and we should be happy that they do because none of us ever get that.

kind of back  to the old, "it's better to be loved once and failed than to never be loved"
or something to that liking.

[bonanzataz]

FINALLY saw this tonight. awesome. i don't think i can say anything that hasn't already been said.

[grand theft sparrow]

from the imdb.com trivia section for Eternal Sunshine:

The original script featured a cut beginning and ending sequence that took place in the future. In the end, an older Clementine comes in to have the procedure done and a look at her screen shows that she's had the procedure done multiple times and all of them involved Joel. At the very end of the script, an older Joel calls Clementine to ask why she hasn't called, but the technicians performing the procedure erase his message. Other cuts in the original script include a montage of memories people wanted erased, including a soldier seeing his dead friend on a battlefield and a girl who was raped at a young age.

[MacGuffin]

from the imdb.com trivia section for Eternal Sunshine:

http://www.beingcharliekaufman.com/spotless.txt
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Make Some Headway into the Mysteries of Spotless Mind with 15 Things You Gotta Know

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is just another Jim Carrey movie, right? Hardly. It's a head-tripping amalgam of writer Charlie Kaufman's mixed-up characters running amok in one man's brain...as envisioned by a French filmmaker with an affinity for Legos.

But all you need to know right now is the basic plot: When his impulsive ex-girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), uses a cutting-edge neurological procedure to erase him from her memory, Joel (Carrey) decides to do the same thing--but has second thoughts midway through the process. We'll handle the rest with our handy primer. So, relax, open up your mind, and let the Sunshine in.

1. My Dinner with Gondry: The film's concept was proposed to French director Michel Gondry over dinner several years ago. An artist pal suggested the scenario: What if you received a card in the mail stating you had been erased from someone's memory and should no longer contact them? Gondry asked Kaufman to write a script, and three years later: Voilà!

2. Getting Ahead of Himself: Kaufman claims he was sidetracked with many projects--such as penning Adaptation, producing Gondry's feature Human Nature and even finishing Being John Malkovich--before he could focus on his own Spotless Mind. Then they had to make the darn thing!

3. Blessed by the Pope: Alexander Pope, that is, not that guy with the big pointy hat. The film's title is lifted from a line in Pope's 18th-century piece "Eloisa to Abelard." Scribe Kaufman admits to stumbling upon the line in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations before eventually reading the entire 350-plus-line poem. (That whole thing would never have fit on a poster.)

4. The Science of Fiction: The film's memory-plucking laboratory, Lacuna Inc., has a pretty convincing Website, complete with testimonials and evaluation forms. But rest assured, doctors cannot erase your past. Not legally, anyway.

5. Genre Bender: Wait, so is this a love story or a science-fiction thingy? It's both. Duh.

6. Method Man: Known for immersing himself in offbeat roles (remember the Man on the Moon nuttiness?), Carrey relied on childhood memories to help his character probe the past. The green Mustang bicycle used in the film is the same one Carrey had as a tyke. As for singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in the film's rain sequence, Carrey confesses, "I used to sing that on my aunt's porch when it rained." Awww.

7. Wiggin' Out: Despite sporting a myriad of hair colors, Winslet's mop never saw a drop of dye during filming. Those are all wigs. However, she was able to add them to her own personal collection after production completed. Oh, and in case you're wondering, she says, "Red's my favorite." We asked.

8. Something Borrowed, Something Blue: Those indigo locks may not be Winslet's real hair, but her character's apartment is filled with personal items belonging to the actress. That little aluminum-foil chalice on the shelf? Kate made that.

9. Sketch Comedy: Speaking of personal touches, artist Paul Proch created the sketch diary Joel keeps throughout the film--but look closely, and you'll notice some of the artwork and entries were done by Carrey.

10. Synthesize Matters: Gondry, the veteran music-video director behind the White Stripes' Lego-driven video "Fell in Love with a Girl," immediately hit it off with Sunshine's multitalented composer, Jon Brion (Punch-Drunk Love). To create the film's fragile score, Brion used his vast, eclectic collection of musical keyboards, including one called a Clavioline, which was--wait for it--invented by Gondry's grandfather, Constant Martin.

11. There's No Business Like Snow Business: The film's final sequence, shot in upstate New York, called for lots of snow. When the crew arrived, there wasn't a flake to be found. Kaufman cut all mentions of the white stuff, but when cameras finally rolled, it fell nonstop. How's that for special effects?

12. Other Direct Effects: A longtime fan of camera trickery, Gondry relied on old-school techniques such as forced perspective and giant props to make Carrey seem as small as a four-year-old during one scene. To make the actor appear in two different places at once for another scene, Gondry asked him to run behind the camera as it panned to the other side of the set. When a frustrated Carrey protested, "I can't do this. It's impossible!" Gondry simply asked the big-money comedian, "How do you know if you don't try?"

13. Quelle Surprise! Much to the cast's dismay, the director avoided such traditional cinematic customs as, well, calling "action" or "cut." He preferred to capture the spontaneity of the actors, often keeping the cameras rolling without telling them. While shooting a Spotless scene in which the main characters are watching elephants on parade, Gondry went so far as to whisk Winslet away without Carrey's knowledge to get a natural reaction to her disappearance. Those sneaky Frenchmen!

14. Frodo's Mojo: After achieving worldwide fame with the Lord of the Rings cycle, Elijah Wood agreed to a Hobbit-sized role in Sunshine because of his desire to work with Kaufman and Gondry. "I'm a huge fan of both," says Wood, whose wish list of collaborators also includes Wes Anderson (Rushmore), Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream) and Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich).

15. The Almighty Dollar: Likewise, Carrey was so eager to work with Kaufman and Gondry that he took a smaller than usual salary (heck, the movie's whole budget was just $35 million). Gondry slyly admits, "You get more out of actors when they get less money." Shhh, don't tell Hollywood. This Gondry guy might be on to something...

[©brad]

ooooooh my gaaaaaaaaaaaawd, i'm gonna do an ebeaman freak-out here.

i haven't seen a movie in two months (no lie) and i've been really stressed out in life with a bunch of shit, and this movie was god damn theraputic.

brilliant brilliant brillant metaphor of modern relationships, the movie works b/c it has a heart!!!

i've avoided this thread b/c of spoilers and to tell you the truth i really don't have the time to read through it all so i'll say this; to everyone who loved it, i agree w/ everything you said. to those who didn't, you're really just plain, well, dumb.

dude, the whole time i was sitting there thinking "i wish i wrote this." in fact, i've thought that about his two previous films as well, and i'm sure even filmmakers think that too.

i feel so much better now.

[Myxo]

I just saw this tonight.

I must say, I wasn't impressed.

It was good, but I didn't feel like I was in good hands, as Tarantino would put it.

More later.

[pete]

read this month's American Cinematographer for juicy tidbits on the power struggle between DP Kuras and Gondry--mostly with the lights and whatnot.

[MacGuffin]

Even if you don't recognize Michel Gondry's name, chances are you're familiar with his fantasies. As a music-video director, he's produced some of the past decade's most visually arresting slivers of MTV ubiquity: Bjork freaking out in a tank ("Army of Me"); Bjork freaking out in a rustic interspecies fantasia ("Human Behavior"); attack of the cloned Kylies ("Come Into My World") and a certified classic: the animated-Lego rendering of the White Stripes' "Fell in Love With a Girl."

Gondry's videos take you inside alternate universes and impending central nervous system breakdowns. His second film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is a near-perfect expansion of his M.O., extrapolating plenty of universal truth about the ways that love can suck. It's the story of Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), a schlub who discovers his ex-girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has undergone a memory-erasing procedure to fully rid herself of their relationship. Devastated, Joel tries to do the same, then changes his mind halfway through the process. As he hovers in kind of coma, reliving his memories of Clementine before they're zapped into oblivion, he discovers there's no going back. Or is there?

Gondry's direction matches Charlie Kaufman's script, stylistic quirk for stylistic quirk; the film lurches and rewinds seemingly at random. But beneath the technical smugness is a warm, beating heart — albeit one that's been forcibly removed from an accident victim with rusty tongs.

The film is a personal one for Gondry (who based his video for Radiohead's "Knives Out" on his girlfriend's struggle with leukemia and their breakup after her recovery). Despite a slight language barrier (he's, uh, French), we discussed this, Sunshine's lack of sex, his next film and his fear of porn. — Michael Martin

At its core, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a love story. Are you a romantic? Because many of your videos range from antiseptic to nightmarish, I wouldn't guess that you were.
Yeah, I guess I am romantic. I have a lot of . . . emotion. But I don't like the way romanticism is presented in films or music videos, so I don't use them too much in my videos. But they definitely have more feeling than the average, I would say.

Is Sunshine a response to romantic-movie treacle?
I didn't think of other movies, really. I thought of my own experience more: being left by my girlfriend, all the problems to make a relationship work. All the things that everyone who wants to be with someone encounters.

What relationship would you erase from your memory if you could?
I don't think I would erase any, to be honest. The erasing happened to me. It's an image from the day you find out that your girlfriend decided in an arbitrary way that she doesn't love you anymore. It's very devastating news. There is a sense of denial of all the good times, of all the times she told you you were unique, and now you're not unique anymore. To me, the erasing in the movie represents that. I don't project myself into the position of erasing someone.

The "Knives Out" video addressed your relationship also. Do you feel that, after doing this movie, that you've worked through that?
No. I certainly don't think I've worked through that in terms of solving that problem in my life. It's just become worse. But at least I think I did a movie that talked about the subject, and it shows that I care.

You once said in an interview about Bjork, "I'm always jealous when Bjork works with someone else. I see our relationship like those '70s marriages. The husband and wife would have sex with other partners to preserve their marriage."Was your relationship with Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet a threesome or voyeurism?
It was more of a threesome. I was very connected to them. I don't give necessarily precise direction, but I make sure that I create a mood that would make them be themselves and connect to each other. And I had to give each of them different direction; Jim didn't react to direction in same way as Kate. To get the same tone between them, I would convey to Kate that she had to be bigger and more broad, and tell Jim he had to be darker and more dramatic. It was like a parent-child relationship. Sometimes you have to tell different things to different children.

A simplistic question: where the hell do your ideas come from?
I have quite accurate memories of dreams. Also, I developed an ability to let my brain be permeable: if I see an image, it might remind me of something else. Or I'll get it confused with something else, because I don't see it properly, and it becomes something new. So I decide I can use it. Like one afternoon, I was at this occupation center for bright children. They played a game where you put a painting on a turntable and spin it around, and it produces lots of great shapes. The problem, I thought, is that you don't see the creating, because it's moving too fast. I thought, wouldn't it be funny if the camera shot at the same rate. Then you wouldn't see the spinning, but you would see the shape being created. It's how my brain works. Finding a solution to a problem is a very important process for me.

Are hallucinogenic drugs involved?
Not at all. I'm scared of them.

Does being called a genius make it easier or more difficult to get out of bed in the morning?
[laughter] I don't believe it. Some people use this word, but it would only apply after I'm dead.

Your vision is often described as childlike. Do you find that reductive?
No, I think it's good. I work a lot with the sensations I had when I was a kid. Our brains and sensors are more receptive when we're young. There's way more fresh space. As we grow older, we see the world through a window that grows smaller and more steamy. I always try to remember a time when I was very receptive to the world around me.

You once said, "My family was like the families you could see in progressive sex education books at the end of the '60s. On the first page, you'd see the whole family out in the woods in flared blue jeans and then you'd turn the page and they would all be standing naked, to let you know how good they were feeling together." Explain.
I was very lucky growing up. My family was very creative. My father liked jazz music and we would play Duke Ellington and rhythm and blues, and my mother played piano and was a music teacher. We didn't have much money, we were very average, but now my brothers and I are all doing very well, and I think it's because we were drawn to pop culture so early.

Why is there no sex in your films?
I don't believe in eroticism in movies. It's so voyeuristic; I don't think it's necessary. I don't feel good about it. I respect pornography, but it's always been sad to watch; it gives me nightmares.

Wouldn't it have been natural for the couple in Sunshine to be shown having sex? You see so much else of their relationship.
Well, I did some. We shot some sex scenes, but they didn't make it through editing. I think sex is better in people's minds than on the screen.

You have no interest in tackling a sex scene?
There's a triangle created between the viewer and the couple having sex that is very disturbing to me. If I were to do a love scene, I would try to have the point of view of the two actors, not someone who is somebody hiding and watching. I don't know; in my work, I try to be honest, and in doing a scene that shows sex, it's hard to be honest. I would be more interested in doing an entire pornographic film. Well, maybe a short film that shows sex in a real way.

How would you do that?
Well, the actors should have sex for real. Although that would be difficult. It's hard to keep it up for a guy when you're in front of the camera, I guess. When you're behind the camera, it's hard to keep it down.

Eternal Sunshine feels like a Michel Gondry film. Your first movie, Human Nature, felt disappointingly ordinary. Why was that?
Well, maybe I learned. I don't know. I really like Human Nature, and maybe if I do more movies, people will look at what their expectations were and then what they were seeing. It's a question of timing as well. You know a band who does a first album that doesn't sell very well, and then they do a great second album that sells a lot, then the first album is reconsidered and rediscovered.

What draws you to Charlie Kaufman's writing? Are your brains twisted in the same way?
We have stuff in common: a sort of pessimism with love and relationships. We try to have some humor about ourselves and modern life. We laugh about ourselves.

Do you watch television?
Mostly the science channel.

Do you like American film?
Yeah, I like some broad comedy like Back to the Future. I love Groundhog Day. I don't like movies that look slick and are about being humans stronger than life. The best movie I saw lately was American Splendor.

Your next film, The Science of Sleep, is about man held hostage in a dream.
Yes, the main character develops a technique to control his dreams. He's in love with a girl, and he tries to use the dream to be with her in a way. But even in the dream, it doesn't work. He gets so involved in his dream that he gets stuck between the dream and real life. And the people in the dream don't want him to wake up, because they're afraid he won't come back to the dream and they won't exist anymore.

Again, this sounds very personal.
It's very personal, and I wrote the screenplay.

I think about your work — Human Nature, all the way back to Bjork's "Human Behavior" video — and there's this recurring theme of people being trapped or chased, or running from something.
I don't know, probably it's coming from my dreams and nightmares. It's a very classical nightmare, you know. Running to avoid danger and being stuck in places. It's a feeling I have in general. I don't want to be stuck anywhere.

[Bethie]

^That was cool. Thanks.

[ono]

Why is there no sex in your films?
I don't believe in eroticism in movies. It's so voyeuristic; I don't think it's necessary. I don't feel good about it. I respect pornography, but it's always been sad to watch; it gives me nightmares.

Wouldn't it have been natural for the couple in Sunshine to be shown having sex? You see so much else of their relationship.
Well, I did some. We shot some sex scenes, but they didn't make it through editing. I think sex is better in people's minds than on the screen.

You have no interest in tackling a sex scene?
There's a triangle created between the viewer and the couple having sex that is very disturbing to me. If I were to do a love scene, I would try to have the point of view of the two actors, not someone who is somebody hiding and watching. I don't know; in my work, I try to be honest, and in doing a scene that shows sex, it's hard to be honest. I would be more interested in doing an entire pornographic film. Well, maybe a short film that shows sex in a real way.

How would you do that?
Well, the actors should have sex for real. Although that would be difficult. It's hard to keep it up for a guy when you're in front of the camera, I guess. When you're behind the camera, it's hard to keep it down.

...

Do you like American film?
Yeah, I like some broad comedy like Back to the Future. I love Groundhog Day. I don't like movies that look slick and are about being humans stronger than life. The best movie I saw lately was American Splendor.

Thanks for posting this, Mac.  No surprise about him liking Groundhog Day.  Eternal Sunshine has a lot of those qualities.  Shame this guy is just now getting notoriety.  Seems as if he has a lot to say.  I really like his take on sexuality in film.

[bonanzataz]

read this month's American Cinematographer for juicy tidbits on the power struggle between DP Kuras and Gondry--mostly with the lights and whatnot.

i read it. i thought some of those shots looked dark.


BRAGGING TIME: i worked with ellen kuras over the summer. you guys didn't. HA!

[cowboykurtis]

what the fuck is wrong with the theatres they only put like 4-5 showings a day of this movie against 20 of The Passion... how the hell do they expect it to make good at the BO

r u really that naive?