Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The movie is based on Nietzsche’s “Eternal Recurrence”, in which the totality of your life is affirmed or denied (whether you wish it again or do not). Nietzsche made a point that to deny anything is to deny everything, since events link to others. This movie is largely a tale of what happens when you deny a part of your life (or try to deny it). It doesn’t work very well on that level, its kind of a silly enactment.

The lines have nothing to do with a kind of random realism emerging from the mind of a early-20s office assistant but rather serves as a guidepost of a major basis for the movie itself.

I’m not familiar with Alexander Pope.

When has that stopped you before?

I jest. Anyways, Eternal Sunshine is my best movie of the year. I’m an uncultured plebeian, and know nothing of this Nietzsche character, but isn’t “to deny anything is to deny everything” well presented in the movie? I mean, Carey’s character wanted to deny the memory of Winslet, but didn’t realize that it meant denying all the good memories they shared as well.

Truely, a little learning is a dangerous thing.

They have broken hearts.

Truely, a little learning is a dangerous thing.[/quote]

Alexander pope was a little more optimistic in his world view than the majority of other “hip”, “in” philosophers, (Nietschze, Sartre, Hume), that pretentious armchair thinkers deeply entrenched in their melancholy wouldn’t have been too familiar with him.

GOD IS DEAD, IM D33P

Ok. #1: If you’re going to make a movie about Eternal Recurrence, how about doing one where people actually FOLLOW the philosophy, rather than DON’T follow the philosophy so to speak (or follow an anti-philosophy). Its like basing something on your life, but making it sort of anti-your life. Weird. I think Nietzsche would prefer a simple respect for his position rather than a tale of THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SPURN NIETZSCHE.

#2: The setup is not there, the movie makes too many assumptions. I already talked about one conceit. Another is that Joel is blinded to the identity of Clementine by his own loneliness. Frankly, I would have gone just the opposite way. AT FIRST she seemed very desperate, very emotionally fragile, lonely. None of her stated subsequent actions were out of line with her initial behavior and many were an improvement… when exactly does she GO BAD? The idea I guess is that Joel falls for her and then finds out she’s not the person he thought she was. So… why isn’t she the person he thought she was? Who did he think she was? I thought she turned out WELL, all things considered. Maybe, its not like the movie was about her identity. But she went from an initially fragile lonely person to an insightful person intimate with humanity.

The movie also paid so much attention to Joel’s mental histrionics that the Clementine/Joel relationship was almost non-existent in terms of direct detail. Since the movie was largely BASED on that relationship, to so casually treat the details (summing it up in terms of, YOU’RE NOT PERFECT, I WILL ERASE YOU!) is probably a mistake. Although it allows for plenty of Kaufman cleverness, so WELL DONE!

Ultimately, the movie is more about the tyrannical constraints of an artistic mind where everything has to be “just so” than about any personal relationship. The movie can throw in Nietzsche and the kitchen sink and other accessories to make humans think its something else. Apparently it succeeded.

To address your “to deny anything is to deny everything” remark, its treated as a sci-fi gimmick in this movie. You don’t need to have the erasing device to deal with it, but apparently the movie needed that gadget.

The denial argument is totalism, that everything you do is related to everything else in varying degrees of intimacy. For example, for Joel to like Clementine is based on his own identity, which includes his entire life. By denying Clementine, he denies his entire life. The sci-fi gadgetry just muddies the waters by introducing a false external unnecessary metaphor.

Kaufman’s cleverness is his undoing. He needs to simplify, lose the unnecessary metaphors (which hurt Adaptation as well), and he’ll make a better movie. The pretentious moviegoers may hate him for it, though.

“I pay good money to see pretentious cleverness!” {shakes fist}

Al… righty then!

They have broken hearts.[/quote]

Yes, but the people featured in the movie were not the ones who broke them. Perhaps they were so enthralled with their broken hearts that they wanted to PRESERVE them by eliminating their newer memories. Wow, if we keep at this we may make a great movie yet!

Nietzsche is a big optimist, probably the most optimistic of any well known philosopher. Of course, if you’re going to misunderstand him to that extreme its not surprising you call me “melancholy”. Just start throwing adjectives randomly and you’ll come out ahead of your current approach.

Truely, a little learning is a dangerous thing.[/quote]

<3 <3 <3

Good effort, Brian, but you’ll never top the porn thread.

They have broken hearts.[/quote]

Yes, but the people featured in the movie were not the ones who broke them. [/quote]
What? You misunderstood the plot of this film.

They have broken hearts.[/quote]

Yes, but the people featured in the movie were not the ones who broke them. [/quote]
What? You misunderstood the plot of this film.[/quote]

[size=2]Pssst… a fiver says that he didn’t see it.[/size]

They have broken hearts.[/quote]

Yes, but the people featured in the movie were not the ones who broke them. [/quote]
What? You misunderstood the plot of this film.[/quote]

Both Clementine and Joel entered into their relationship with previously broken hearts. Joel’s case is covered, I don’t remember the woman’s name (Naomi? Marie?) but the situation is apparent. Clementine’s case is not covered that I saw, but she is giving the indications of that sort of thing.

Logically if they wanted to erase their broken heart memories, they would have erased THOSE memories and not the imperfect ones attained from their current situation.

If there in fact WERE no other people and some crazy stuff is going on, then please clarify.

Both Clementine and Joel entered into their relationship with previously broken hearts. Joel’s case is covered, I don’t remember the woman’s name (Naomi? Marie?) but the situation is apparent. Clementine’s case is not covered that I saw, but she is giving the indications of that sort of thing.

They broke each other’s hearts in Joel/Clem relationship #1 and then repeated the cycle (possibly multiple times). This is why they seek to erase Joel/Clem and not these past relationships. Any previous off screen relationships are largely immaterial to the plot, other than background life experiences for the characters.

I don’t think think Joel had his heart broken by the previous gf. He probably dumped her.

“Maybe I should get back together with Naomi. She was nice, nice is good. She loved me.”

I wouldn’y say Clementine had her heart broken by Joel. She just became bored and on an impulse went to the doctor for erasure. The recordings on her tape imply she was just bored and ready to move on. Joel, on the other hand, suffered for days before finally having the procedure. His heart seemed definitely broken.

Anazing film; have to agree with Edelstein’s “best I’ve seen in a decade.”

The erasure company has a website, hilariously: http://www.lacunainc.com/

Um, and who says the movie is based on Neitzsche’s whatever-the-hell philosophy?

I took Clementine’s words as just her tough chick routine, putting a bored face on her real feelings. Actions speak louder than words and people don’t expend money, effort and time to have memories erased when they merely get “bored” with someone. Bored people have already moved on.

There seems to be a real disconnect between our experiences of the movie’s plot. Here’s how I saw it, if your views differ please state them…

The train is the first meeting between Joel and Clementine. Either that or they are playing some elaborate game where they seem not to know each other but really do.

ON the train, where they first meet, Joel is very wary, almost paranoid, of this admittedly desperate (and/or manipulative) and possibly mentally unhinged woman. He doesn’t seem to trust his own feelings toward her, he’s ambivalent about those feelings.

Joel is acting as if he’s on the rebound, sexually uncertain. Insecure based on recently being dumped. Being the dumpee rather than the dumper leads to much greater insecurity and longing for the previous state, which Joel seems to be engaged in.

This is the movie’s problem though, since when Joel says “she was nice. Nice is good.” I agree that implies that he broke up with her because he was tired of “nice”. He should have been less uncertain and more willing to accept Clementine. If he was going to be so uncertain about someone like Clementine he wouldn’t have broken up with Naomi in the first place.

I don’t understand at all your “Joel/Clem relationship #1” and “repeated the cycle”. Besides the elements of the movie inside Joel’s memories, the movie is showing the Joel/Clementine relationship at different times, not at different relationships. How is there more than one Joel/Clem relationship?

The train is the first meeting between Joel and Clementine.

Now Koontz, before you answer this, think really really long and hard first.

Ready? Ok.

Are you sure that you actually saw this movie?

Like, were you actually in the theater when it was being shown?

I only ask because, from your discriptions of the characters and scenes, it seems like you’ve, once again, not actually viewed this one.

To answer your question Squirrel: yes, he saw it, but he evidently wasn’t paying attention.[/quote]

Perhaps now would be a good time to mention that I gleened the plot of erased memories from the trailers, so this quote of Brian’s never really proved (to me at least) that he had actually seen the movie.

No.

Either that or they are playing some elaborate game where they seem not to know each other but really do.

No again.

The train meeting was after both had had their mind wipes. In a “long term” sense, it was almost the last thing to chronologically occur in the movie.