Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Key Quotes from the Film.
By Keyan Taheri
This essay discusses several key quotes from the film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. In this blog, I will discuss why these key quotes are essential to the storyline and development of the characters from the film.
“Why do I fall in love with every woman I see that shows me the least bit of attention.” — Joel Barish
After finding out that a private firm Lacuana
Inc. in New York, had been hired to completely remove the memory of their
relationship from an ex-girlfriend, Clementine. Joel Barish decided to have the
procedure done to himself after falling into depression over the relationship.
One psychologist even asks if this might be a metaphor for
Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) known to alleviate depression in patients.
Bastos
(p.3) argues “Kilbourne (the director) explores the links between trauma,
repetition and memory using Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Joel’s
trauma causes him to make the same decision as Clementine and leads him to have
all his memories systematically erased.
“You know me, I’m impulsive.” Clementine
Kruczynsk
Clementine Kruczynsk is extroverted,
spontaneous, impulsive, and adventurous, while Joel is quite the opposite of
these personality characteristics. The film leaves us wondering if in
relationships: “do opposites attract?”. Their unique relationship is probably
why so many people feel they resonate
with this film. While not properly confirmed in the movie, the character
Clementine can be said to have a variety of mental health issues or the common
traits of borderline
personality disorder. Or even trauma or
PTSD. An entire blog or article could be written solely dedicated to this
characters’ personality traits from a medical perspective. It could even be
considered that Clementine is just an outward perspective of Joel, invented by
Joel as Kaufman, the director, suggests on an interview in the DVD extras Clementine is simply “Joel
talking to himself in his memories” and that Clementine is something within
himself, a sort of personality being directed outward.
“Please
let me keep this memory, just this one.” — Joel Barish
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a science fiction, romance and drama film about loving, forgiving, remembering and forgetting relationships.
The film had many Freudian related themes interwoven throughout the film.
Carel, H. (2007 p.1071) argues “Freud distinguished mourning from its pathological counterpart, melancholia, claiming that there is a normal way to grieve, mourning, and its degeneration into an abnormal pattern, melancholia.” Melancholia, is a deep sadness which is what Joel was going through.
Joel is trying to grow from these memories of grieving in a healthy way, as he realizes he had positive memories of the relationship.
Joel wishes to keep at least one positive memory of Clementine and their relationship during the erasure procedure and finally regrets having the procedure done. By trying to keep the memory of Clementine during the procedure, Joel unsuccessfully tries to hide her in various faucets of his memory, such as in his childhood or right back to his first memory of being bathed by his mother. The procedure was ultimately halted, but unfortunately for the protagonist, the boss of Lacuana Inc. is called and the entire system is restarted, therefore successfully completing the removal of all the memories Joel and Clementine had together.
In conclusion, Kaufman work Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was thought provoking and worthy of recommending to others looking into delving into the unique genre. We are left asking ourselves how we can grow from our trauma.
References:
Bastos, P. B. Memory
(Enhancement) and Cinema: an exploratory creative overview.
Carel, H. (2007). The return of the erased: Memory and forgetfulness in Eternal
sunshine of the spotless mind (2004). The International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 88(4), 1071-1082.
Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind. (2004)., Directed by Michel Gondry., USA: Focus Features, This
Is That Productions
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