Goose Egg Marathon Film #12
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(2004, Michel Gondry)
Well, technically speaking, it’s brain damage, but it's on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss…Film lovers have come to count on brands to deliver predictable quality. For the Coen Brand, it’s a universe of fringe characters with overreaching motives. The Tarantino brand, its elegant tension-building dialog punctuated by black-comic violence. The Herzog brand – a single-minded protagonist collapsing under the weight of a mother nature that pays him no mind.
In this movie we have two great “brands” blended together to make a film only these two can make. The Kaufman trademark of personality arcs subterfuged under some conceit of time and space, and the Michel Gondry heraldry of dark imagery and dreamlike sensibility. It was a heroic effort to pull this script off the page into a consumable form. Gondry made the terribly complex look simple on the screen – resulting, in my mind, in one the most digestible of Kaufman’s scripts. It’s a good marriage. Gondry has shown a keen awareness of how which cord of an audience’s psyche will be plucked upon presentation of new material – the order and sequencing invoking the perfect connotation, and the ability of a singular image to replace three pages of dialog. Meanwhile Kaufman writes audience agnostic – whether as a result of the overwhelming prospect of analyzing the endless permutations of how an “average moviegoer” will react – or out of a self-imposed optimism that audiences are smarter than the Hollywood suits (and his own director!) gives them credit for.
Dissecting a Scene: “Creating the Map”(The exercise here is not to highlight the “great scene” – rather one that gives me an opportunity to speak intelligently about the nuance that elevates good material to great material. )
The scene is Joel’s 2nd trip to the Lacuna company. First, let’s consider Kaufman’s choice to make the place kinda a low-rent clinic. We’ve seen this kinda thing done 100’s of times as either a gorgeous state of the art facility (think – Total Recall) or like a back alley operation (the new eyes in Minority Report, for instance) . So what does this choice tell us? The Tom Wilkinson character, an unarguable genius, has only enough percentage of his brain left at the end of a day to consider such trivialities as moving to a bigger place, perhaps hiring some more qualified and responsible staff, and even reconsidering the choice to supply pennysaver coupons that expire just before Valentine’s day – their busiest day of the year.
At one point in the background Mary responds to a caller “no, I’m sorry you can’t have the procedure done three times in one day”. That line for me is the heart of the film. More on this later (under “Characters”)
In this scene a great deal of amount of exposition is necessary: how does this work? What’s the science? What is the patient’s experience? How does a patient even approach having faith in such a process that is self-admitted “Brain damage”.
Joel comments “this doesn’t exist”
The beauty and simplicity of Kaufman dialog – not finding the perfect words, but freely associating the first words that come to his characters’ heads. The reaction from the Doctor, immediate “it does”, but punctuated perfectly by Mary (Kirten Dunst) who had inexplicably hung around the room for a second. It’s that second “it does” that makes the scene work and the technology believable.
Fast forward. At once Joel is at home having the process started, and in his own head recalling the visit to the office. “I’m already inside my own head”. At this point Gondry deftly conveys both the out-of-body duplicitous experience, and a dreamlike – creepy quality by managing to still keep the audience in the picture (Lynch could take a lesson). The pile of wires on the floor from Joel’s head to the computer and great wink at the audience as if to say, “ya’ know we’re not going to bother trying rationalize the science here” Good choice – attempts to explain it would be distracting and grounded it yet more things that would need to be explained! We have to just believe it works
The CharactersI saw this went the DVD first came out years ago. We started it at around 11:00PM after my wife and I had a decent fight. I was already pissed off, the last thing I needed was ANOTHER impulsive free spirit with an asterisk that read “you know me, I’m impulsive” floating over her head like a get out of jail card. I think I hated Kate Winslett’s character from the second I saw that blue hair. I think we got about 45 minutes in and fell asleep with little interest to pick things back up the next time.
This time, I went in prepared to be bugged by Clementine. It was a great surprise by the end of this, to see my wife and I in that couple – perfect for each other but destined to forever live in a cycle of redemption and disappointment. Clementine is the extreme of the qualities Joel despises but can’t help to be drawn to. As an audience member, Kate Winslett became that for me.
I would like to spotlight Kirsten Dunst’s character, Mary. Comic book fans may let out a collective sign in me saying this, but Dunst is what bugged me the most about the Spiderman franchise. But HERE she is a revelation, and perhaps the heart of the picture: smart, vunerable, making unwise choices, but turning the tables on everyone in the end.
The Bird in the Wagon:During the commentary, Kaufman and Gondry briefly referred to the difficulty they had with the studio to keep the bird in the wagon scene in. I find it pretty ironic with all the violence: torture, rape, global catastrophes – hell Lars von Trier’s entire cannon – that THIS is the scene that gives’ exec heartburn. Oh how progressive a society we have become.
Heart vs MindLike Herzog, I suppose I like to see how far my heroes will go before his circumstance digest him. So I will always consider Synecdoche, NY Kaufman’s magnum opus. Eternal Sunshine is more head than heart - despite how well we get to know the characters we are still a arms length from their emotional core. The specific hangup for me with respect to this is – with ALL the procedures done Lacuna, what was it about Joel that made him able to run away from the process? How are we to believe his connection to Clementine was that much greater than the old woman erasing a lifetime with her husband? Was it his strength of mind? That question is left unanswered – which made me just a bit unsatisfied.
ConclusionGreat film – great ideas about relationships and human’s tendency to gravitate towards the same mistakes. I might suggest this be a required film for those marriage classes people take. That last scene in the hallway says it all. Minor hang ups keep this from entering my top 100, but it is outside the window making faces at the moment, so we’ll see.
Verdict:
Jonze captured wonderfully on film one of the most complex screensplays ever in a digestable and thoroughly satisfying way.
Grade: A