Earlier in the film, the memories fade gradually to white, but as Joel’s consciousness fights harder to retain his memories, chunks and whole constructs are deleted rapidly. The fluidity of the consciousness is juxtaposed with increasingly choppy effects signifying the memory removal. One prime example is the scene in which Joel as an infant is bathed in the sink the scene quite literally flows to the next as the characters are pulled down the drain to the next setting. The character focused perspective offers a stream of consciousness as the setting shifts from one memory to another. The fluid transitions connecting many of the memories within Joel’s internal narrative adds to the theme of association.
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The use of cinematography underscores this feeling of loss created by the purge of even unhappy memories. The repeat of the color, titled “blue ruin,” suggests that she has reverted to her mental state prior to their meeting. When she encounters Joel after her procedure, her hair is once again blue. In the course of her relationship with Joel her hair changes from its initial blue, to red, and then orange. Her hair marks her emotions and perspective. In Clementine the procedure is seen as something of a restart button. Rather than the blissful ignorance the procedure seems to offer, Joel is conscious to his loss twice over. The presentation of both Joel’s internal memory and consciousness as aware of what is happening offers insight into his relationship with Clementine and his growing regret of having chosen to undergo the procedure. The progression is that of the paths constructed earlier and is not linear, but still traceable through Joel’s mind. This is displayed in Joel’s journey through his subconscious as the erasure procedure takes place. This helps underscore the film’s use of association as an innate structure of human memory. Just how much unweaving you would have to do in order to erase all traces of one is unclear” (Reeve, 18). One critique of the film creates this analogy, “a relationship is a loom. As it shows, the reality is not so clean those who undergo the procedure are not content with their loss, but are left instead a canvas with holes. The receptionist of the company, Mary Sevevo, recites several literary quotes underscoring this idealized bliss of the forgetful. The deletion of these memories is meant to enable the advertised “spotless mind.” The mapping shows the location of memories related to the objects shown.
#The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind quotes series
This is accomplished through a series of association with artifacts from Joel and Clementine’s relationship. Joel brain mapping through association.īefore undergoing the erasure process, a session of brain mapping is required in order to pinpoint the target memories. This suggests that even with his memory removed, the associations that persist after the procedure drive the character to change. Even as it is revealed that Joel’s memory has already been erased, the story shows that this seemingly impulsive course of action is triggered by a remnant of his past relationship. It is only after Joel encounters Clementine, a enthusiastically spontaneous character, that he begins to shed these layers of insecurity. As the story progresses, this claim shows all too true. The first scene shows Joel skipping work, he says that he does not understand why he does this, and further that he is not an impulsive person. The film plays with the ideas of of memory, society, and perception, questioning the balance of association’s effects on a character, and a character’s effect on the memories they form. Eternal Sunshine offers an intricate mix of psychological and philosophical subjects that help underscore the importance and influence of association. The film shows associations, bridges by which memories are interconnected, still persist even after the deletion of the memories to which they are tied. The word, “lacuna” itself means gap or emptiness which, as the story reveals, is exactly what the service provides.
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Both main characters, Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski, opt to have this procedure following a painful breakup- each therein erasing the memory of the other.
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Lacuna is a company in Michel Gondry’s film The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which offers a procedure to have specific events removed from one’s memory. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Memory and Association Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Directed by Michel Gondry