While its fantastic premise provides a poignant metaphor about love and loss, it has become in the last 13 years more science than fiction. As Slate’s David Edelstein explains, “Like the greatest science fiction writers, Kaufman is using a bizarre futuristic scenario to tell us something about the here and now: about the loss of our most vivid loves to the impermanence of memory and about the life we lose when, to go on living, we force ourselves to forget.” Part sci-fi brain teaser, part hip rom-com, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s narrative creates a sort of Mobius strip connecting our desire to understand the limitations of our world to our need to feel our heart’s emotions. That scene “was not a ‘film moment’ anymore,” Gondry recounted. During production, there was a section where Joel boxes up Clementine’s items after the break up that Gondry feared might feel “a bit like a ‘film moment’.” While editing the film, however, his hesitation completely disappeared when he found himself doing exactly the same thing after his girlfriend broke up with him. Yet, despite its ability to incite the most fascinating inquiries into the nature of love, identity, and memory, the story is deeply rooted in real life and emotion, as the director himself discovered during the making of the film.īy a cruel twist of fate, Gondry found himself acting out a scene from the film in his own life. Scott, “ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind treats it as a subject for extended philosophical inquiry.” The film itself has borne the scrutiny of such deep examination, from a Nietzschean interpretation to a full casebook of essays as part of Routledge’s “ Philosophers on Film” series. “While most movies reduce love to a greeting card sentiment,” notes The New York Times’ critic A. Consistently picked by sites from Bustle to Techhive as the perfect film to watch on Valentine’s Day, Eternal Sunshine was recently named by the Huffington Post as “truly the love story of our time.” The film starts on February 14, as Joel takes off work to visit Montauk, cynically noting, “Valentine's Day is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.” Despite such sentiments, the film has come to be adored as a smart person’s rom-com. The phrase, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” comes from Alexander Pope’s 1717 poem “Eloisa to Abelard,” the sad lament of a women, now a nun, remembering her impossible love for Abelard many years before. To those in the know, the film’s title makes clear both its literary pedigree and complex take on love. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which became a classic by rewriting all the rules, is one worthy of celebration this and every year. From Paste Magazine to the BBC to Time Out NY, film pundits have placed it among the top ten films of the first decade of the 21st century.Īs Focus Features prepares to celebrate its own 15th Anniversary, we find ourselves revisiting some of the titles that define us as a studio and continue to move us. Club put it at the top of their list of the best films of the aughts, noting, “It’s the rare film that shows us who we are now and who we’re likely, for better or worse, forever to be.” Writers Guild of America ranked Charlie Kaufman’s script 24th in their list of the “Greatest Screenplays” of all time, just above The Wizard of Oz. And its position as one of the great films of the 21st century has grown more certain. Its insights into desire and memory have inspired lovers and philosophers alike. The science it took as fiction has started to come true. In the 13 years since it was released, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has grown even more rich and rewarding. But just as Lacuna’s team (played by Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, and Kirsten Dunst) goes to work scrubbing his memory, Joel has a change of heart, escaping deep into his own subconscious to try to rescue his memories of Clementine. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) of Lacuna Inc., he decides to expunge her as well. When he discovers that his ex-girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has erased him from her memories with the help of Dr. Written by Charlie Kaufman - who along with Gondry and Pierre Bismuth, won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay –– the film follows the labyrinthine path of Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), a lovelorn soul grappling with the complexity of love. Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman exclaimed that it “may be the first movie I’ve seen that bends your brain and breaks your heart at the same time.” Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind hit theaters on March 19, 2004, as a triumph of emotion and imagination.
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