...Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie released in 2004 and directed by Michael Gondry. It is a 21-century example of the genre called “comedy of remarriage,” which is a subgenre of American comedy films of the 1930s and 1940s. Comedies of remarriage usually display a characteristic view of the reconciliation of troubled relationships. The plot of the movie revolves around the idea of erasing selected memories from people’s minds. In the film, the two main characters – Joel and Clementine – with the aid of Dr. Mierzwiak and his peculiar technology, decide to undergo a process by which they have the memories of each other erased. The idea of altering memories is controversial and it has led to many doubts and questions about morality and possible consequences of such procedures. First, there is the ethical aspect of erasing someone’s memories. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind raises the question: are there ethical reasons to try to stick to certain memories? Analyzing the movie, we can conclude that the answer is “yes.” Accodring to Professor of Philosophy Avishai Margalit, human relations are divided into thick and thin ones. The idea is that memory serves to connect us to others, and is necessary for thick relations. Trying to hold on to these thick relations and certain memories is one basic requirement of human flourishing. Although the movie justifies the decision to erase memories, as its aim is to lessen the pain those memories cause, the act of deliberate...
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...Mariano, Ryan Martin, L. BSIT 0556-0512-12013 Philosophy and Logic/TTH/3:00-5:00pm In the film entitled Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I will argue to the claim about the minds inconsistency in making decisions and why do people tend to escape from their destined life, the emotions conquering our decisions that we are making, and so, also some thoughts and points that I would like to argue about the film. The First or rather striking part is that Joel who met Clementine at the Montauk. Draw from their different personalities they became lovers. And an argument follows which results or makes a life decision and that decision is to erase all of their memory about Clementine and as so Clementine did it before he has done it... In that case they have both tried to become strangers in a way of erasing their memories... Secondly is Joel’s dreaming part in the movie, or in which case is, the memory clearing part. It automatically strikes me as a viewer that Joel try to escape from the real situation, even if his memory is being cleared and even it is not possible to bring it back or to stop it, he still fought for his feelings, and I’ll be arguing also with the following topics... Thirdly is what happened to Joel and Clementine at the start and at the end of the said. At the first cycle is that it so happens that they had a bad relationship which resulted in to forgetting each other. And at the second cycle they’ve become strangers again and so finding out what...
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...The poem “Eloisa to Abelard” was written in 1717 by Alexander Pope, the main characters are Peter Abelard, a wealthy scholar and Eloisa, Abelard’s mistress. Abelard and Eloisa fall in love and get married; Eloisa’s family is not in favor of this and castrates Abelard. After the assault, even though Eloisa and Abelard had a child, they decided to go to monasteries. Eloisa is tortured by the separation and is constantly contemplating weather to live the simple happy life and follow God, or to follow her heart and pursue Abelard. The movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is a romantic fantasy about Joel and Clementine who both have procedures to have their memory of each other erased but meet each other again and fall in love again, the movie ending says that they hear tapes of what happened in the past and they learn from their mistakes and live happily ever after. The relationship between art and happiness is that the art and happiness are more effective when Eloisa and Abelard remember each other and choose a life together. In the poem, Eloisa says “Not on the Cross my eyes were fix'd, but you: Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call, And if I lose thy love, I lose my all.” Eloisa marries Abelard because she is truly in live with him and wants the life that is natural to every human. Wanting to find someone to spend the rest of your life with is part of human genetics, healthy human genetics. She says that her eyes were not fixed on the cross, but her eyes were...
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...Mary and Dr. Mierzwiak have had a relationship that she did not remember. Mary had decided to have her memories erased meaning that she would be able to live her life without remembering that she almost broke up a marriage. However between 1:18:34 and 1:21:23 in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry) Mary finds out what has occurred since she is reliving the past without knowing it and Alice Mierzwiak lets her know that she can have her husband since she doesn’t desire him anymore. This scene takes place before sunrise meaning it is extremely dark which is what everyone's minds would be as if they didn’t have memories to look back on. Throughout the movie, whenever Joel is having a memory taken away from him they start...
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...Elma Dzubur English 2450 12/3/15 Sound In this particular scene from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Joel is trying to cling onto his memories with Clementine as they are being erased by technology. This sequence is unique because it lacks clarity and structural formula however this helps the viewer understand how Joel feels during his treatment. The music and sound effects are very important during this scene because they help display what Joel is feeling as he tries to hold onto the memories. Many Hollywood movies use the same guiding principle to create sound however, in this sequence, the principle is thoroughly brushed aside in order to support the concept of erasure, which in this case is Joel’s memories. The sequence begins with Clementine and Joel laying under a blanket. There is soft, non-diegetic music playing as they talk to each other. Non-diegetic sound is represented as coming from a source outside the story space. The music is soft to help the viewer understand that Clementine and Joel are content with each other but it also serves as a happy, romantic memory. However, shortly after that, the scene becomes dark and Joel is seen crawling on what seems to be blankets. All that is heard is Joel’s breathing and the sound of his body crawling against the fabric. The music...
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...red pill” (215), or as I like to call it “drug”, was created by Memory Pharmaceutical based off of Eric Kandel’s experiments and discoveries that he made. Memory Pharmaceutical makes a new class of drugs that help people forget memories and help us remember little things that we might have thought were long gone. Even though people have gone through some tough and horrific memories, memory-altering drugs can ultimately cause further damage because not only we will lose our memories and forget, but also we will never learn from our mistakes and repeat them over again which can consequently make us unhappy. Deleting memories can severely alter our brains and cause future problems that we may consequently regret. In the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Joel and Clementine meet at a train, but what they do not know is that in the past they were in a relationship and ended up quite badly to the point that they had each other’s memories erased. Clementine is the first that decides to...
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...M.A. Digital Culture and Technology Digital Effect Dissertation Proposal Introduction The aim of this dissertation is to question the nature of digital cinema and its relationship to analogue filmmaking. I would like to argue that “pure” digital or analogue cinema does not exist anymore. Even films which are shot and edited using digital technology, in most cases, eventually will be printed onto film in order to be projected. I am interested in the transformation of storytelling and narration caused by digital revolution. I will analyse the shift that occurred in cinema after 1997, when the video techniques became more popular. I would like to avoid simplifying or dismissive statements about the aesthetics developed by digital techniques. It is a very rare occurrence for a film to be entirely analogue or digital. Therefore, I intend to talk about the intersection of digital and analogue techniques and the effect that digital practices have upon the tradition of storytelling. In their analysis of new media, Anna Everett and John T. Caldwell describe this intersection of analogue and digital with a term “digitextuality”. This fusion of “digital” and “intertextuality” illustrates the process in which old media acquire new shape and form: M.A. Digital Culture and Technology New digital media technologies make meaning not only by building a new text through absorption and transformation of other texts, but also by embedding the entirety of other texts (analogue and digital)...
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...Eternal Sunshine Summary In Bad Memories, Good Decisions, And The Three Joel’s by Valerie Tiberius, she explains how memories distort the past and can cause you to make impulsive decisions. She makes a reference to Eternal Sunshine of how distorting memory can affect you. “When Joel wants to have Clementine erased from his memory, he is remembering the worst of their times together, one of which is their time together.” (Tiberius 63) This statement supports her thesis of how memories can distort the past. The film also gives us the visual point of view of how it can affect you as stated in Tiberius’s essay she also points out how there are three different types of Joel’s present in the movie. Tiberius explains how the movie shows you three different types of Joel’s, the bitter Joel, the spotless Joel, and the sadder but wiser Joel. She explains how all these Joel’s mistakes can affect their future. First Tiberius’s explains how the spotless minded Joel whose mind is clear, no worries and yet no past experiences to learn from. This can affect any relationship that could possibly happen with Clementine because they would head down the same road that they have just previously left for a reason. She states how this Joel is not wise at all and incapable of making good decisions for himself. Tiberius’s talks about the bitter Joel which is one whom is upset with Clementine and acts on impulse to have her erased from her memory because she did it, he was acting based off emotions...
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...Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind The most significant dream element that I see in this film is the fact that time becomes fluid. It does in fact become fluid throughout the whole film. Past, present, and future all become mixed up and happen at the same time. When the film begins, we see what we believe, and the characters believe to be their first encounter. “Have we met before?” Clementine asks, and Joel says that they haven’t. Clementine keeps feeling like they have, and Joel brings up that he has seen her at her place of work, Barnes and Noble. Looking back, this is significant because we later realize that this is not the first time that they’ve met, and they actually knew each other quite well. We find out not long after this scene that Clementine has taken means to erase Joel entirely from her memory. To spite Clementine, Joel decides to do the same. Throughout the rest of the film, time becomes very fluid. Past memories, and things that are currently happening in the room are seen from Joel in a dreamlike state. He is asleep, and getting his memories erased. Throughout the dreaming, he is aware of Clementine, and he decides that he does not want to get his memories of her erased. In order to try to keep her in his memories, he goes back and forth while dreaming from the present to different times in his past. Some of the memories stem all the way back to his childhood, the most embarrassing memories that he long tried to forget. The dreams...
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...Doctor Mogford English 15 8 April 2012 Internal Sunshine of the Indecisive Mind Were you ever in a situation where you did not know what you wanted; and that you were so indecisive that you made the wrong decision but could not take it back? Well throughout Michael Goundry’s 2004 Film “Internal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, Joel Barish the main character was indecisive throughout the entire movie. One of the many themes that were pointed out was indecisiveness by not only Joel, but the other main character Clementine Kruczynski. To be indecisive one has to lack the ability to make decisions quickly and effectively. From the moment the two characters met the viewers could see that both characters were never really sure what they wanted. “Every day people make decisions. Some are small.... Others are more important, affecting people’s lives, livelihoods, and well-being. Inevitably, we make mistakes along the way.” People make decisions that they regret every day, wishing they could take back whatever they did back. During the movie when Joel realized he had made a mistake by having Clementine erased from his memory it was already too late. Moreover, nobody is perfect and making a bad choice can happen but always making decisions that leave a person uneasy is not good, it is better to go with a gut feeling then to always second guessing something; indecisive people flat out do not trust themselves and are always asking other people for advice and verification even though...
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...On March 23th, 7:30pm, I watched the thought provoking southern circuit film screening: Embers direct by Clare Carré in Williams hall. After watching this movie, I only have one word to say, mind-blowing. This film is based on a world that was devastated by a global neurological epidemic that wiped out the majority of human population, and those who survived had lost their memory. In short, there is no past for these people. In addition, I found out that there are five intertwined stories which delineates five different aspects of life, which are: love, family, morality, learning and freedom. For the first element of life presented in the movie: love, we see the story of Guy and Girl. Both Guy and Girl do not know their own name everyday they wake up, but they are aware that they are couple and are meant to be together. We can see that both of them go through the ritual of bafflement and questioning every morning they wake up, and the only thing they definitely know and appreciate is that they have each other. Mrs. Carré showed us the concept of love by portraying their unyielding love to stay with each other although they don’t have the sense of identity, and it is love that ties the human race together. In short, the guy and girl present the challenge of...
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...The film A Beautiful Mind follows a brilliant mathematician through his gradual unraveling due to paranoid schizophrenia and later his pursuit to overcome it. The film begins in September of 1947 on John Nash’s first day at Princeton University as a graduate student. Nash who is recognized as a genius among geniuses, never once attends class saying, he instead spends his time at Princeton searching for “a truly original idea”. Nash forms a close friendship with his roommate, Charles Herman, an English student and a competitive friendship with four other math and science graduate students. Mid-way through his final year of school Nash comes up with his “truly original idea” which is considered a breakthrough of great magnitude. Upon...
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...On Love and The Human Condition Devin Conway Philosophy In Film 06/11/2015 In mankind’s never-ending search for truth, purpose, and meaning, at the very center of the human experience, lies a universal longing for an unconditional love; bound not by circumstance or subject to change, an exclusive relationship to be molded by acceptance and solidified by an impenetrable barrier of trust and understanding. Our personal relationships, in reality, do not reflect this perversely romanticized notion of true love. Generally speaking, people are emotionally volatile beings with ideas and desires that are constantly evolving to accommodate newly processed information and experiences. When you combine this emotional instability with the continuous adjustments being made to our basic dispositions, you get individuals who rarely compliment one another in any compatible manner, let alone in a functional intimate relationship. Given these circumstances, it’s easy to see why so many people cling desperately to the love that they do happen to find in this world, that the search for love serves as fuel for our endlessly burning desires, and how the pain of a love lost can twist an innocent soul, driving many towards radical and even reckless behavior, often in the direction of a maddening state of emotional oblivion. Since the earliest developments in man’s creative pursuits, the concept of love has played an essential role in...
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...in his screenplay for "Adaptation." Kaufman, the most gifted screenwriter of the 2000s, is concerned above all about the processes of thought and memory. His screenplay for Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich" (1999) involved a way to spend 15 minutes inside the mind of another person. Michel Gondry's "Human Nature" (2001) is concerned about the Nature vs. Nurture theories of our behavior: Do we start this way, or do we learn it? Jonze's "Adaptation" (2002) contrasts the physical evolution of orchids (which assume fantastic forms to earn a living) with identical twins, one who writes from his nature and the other from his nurture. In George Clooney's "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" (2002), he shows the game show creator Chuck Barris leading a double life as a deadly CIA assassin (Barris believes this story is factual). Kaufman's first film as a director, "Synecdoche, New York" (2008), is his most challenging. He attempts no less than to...
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...it is the cause that produces the effect; the effect cannot come by itself; and unless the causes are exact, proper, and powerful, the effect will not be produced. Once the ideal is chosen and the means determined, we may almost let go the ideal, because we are sure it will be there, when the means are perfected. When the cause is there, there is no more difficulty about the effect, the effect is bound to come. If we take care of the cause, the effect will take care of itself. The realization of the ideal is the effect. The means are the cause: attention to the means, therefore, is the great secret of life. We also read this in the Gita and learn that we have to work, constantly work with all our power; to put our whole mind in the work, whatever it be, that we are doing. At the same time, we must not be attached....
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