Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Christopher Grau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135975111
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of the most widely discussed and thought-provoking films of recent years.

This is the first book to explore and address the philosophical aspects of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Beginning with a helpful introduction that places each essay in context, specially commissioned chapters examine the following topics:

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• philosophical issues surrounding love, friendship, affirmation and repetition

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• the role of memory (and the emotions) in personal identity and decision-making

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• the morality of imagination and ethical importance of memory

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• philosophical questions about self-knowledge and knowing the minds of others

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• the aesthetics of the film considered in relation to Gondry's other works and issues in the philosophy of perception

Including a foreword by Michel Gondry and a list of further reading, this volume is essential reading for students interested in philosophy and film studies.

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION

Christopher Grau

In keeping with the spirit of the Routledge Philosophers on Film series, this volume brings together both distinguished and emerging philosophers to explore the many philosophical issues that are raised in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (hereafter Eternal Sunshine). Arguably one of the best films of the past decade, Eternal Sunshine combines the highly original visual creativity of director Michel Gondry and the sharp intelligence of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, both united and inspired by a simple but compelling idea about memory erasure first put forward by Gondry’s friend, the French conceptual artist Pierre Bismuth. Utilizing Bismuth’s conceit, the film manages to tread familiar territory in a novel way: the classic trope of a couple “divorcing” only to eventually, after some adventure, come together again is given a new twist thanks to a peculiar and powerful memory-removal technology.

The film begins with the viewer residing in the same confused epistemic position as the protagonist Joel (Jim Carrey), and only gradually unfolds to reveal that both Joel and his ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) have chosen to undergo a memory erasure process offered by a dodgy outfit called Lacuna, Inc. The procedure allows those mourning the death of a romance the chance to wipe out all trace of the prior relationship, including all memories of a former lover. Despite having purchased the “spotless mind” offered by Lacuna, both Joel and Clem fail to find much sunshine as a result. What they do find, surprisingly, is a way to nonetheless reunite, and upon eventually learning the true nature of their troubled past together, the film ends with them affirming the idea of giving their relationship another chance.

That brief synopsis does not begin to do justice to the richness, both philosophic and aesthetic, of this remarkable film. Indeed, the diversity of the essays in this collection is testament to the complexity, nuance, and depth of Eternal Sunshine. Beginning with a psychoanalytically informed interpretive essay from David Reeve in which he explores the therapeutic aspects of Joel’s journey into his own mind, we move to Troy Jollimore’s discussion of Nietzschean themes in the film, in particular the lessons the film offers regarding love, memory, and repetition. We then have Valerie Tiberius’s careful examination of the relevance of Joel’s memory loss for philosophizing about the nature of the self and the role of emotion in decision-making. Following this is Julia Driver’s philosophical analysis of how Eternal Sunshine can help us understand why being erased from another’s memory can be seen as a genuine loss to the one forgotten. Coming from a quite distinct set of concerns, Stephen White’s essay connects up Eternal Sunshine’s themes and style with other works from Michel Gondry and argues that Gondry’s cinematic innovations do much more than entertain: they challenge a number of misguided philosophical approaches to film and to perception, and they suggest the virtues of a neglected phenomenological alternative. Finally, George Toles offers a moving and personal essay that considers the ways in which Eternal Sunshine can remind us of the capacity of memory and imagination to truly engage with those closest to us.

In Noël Carroll’s introduction to the Philosophers on Film volume on Talk to Her, he helpfully distinguishes between a number of different ways in which philosophers can interact with film: while some philosophers tackle the specific philosophical questions that arise when considering film as an art form, others utilize the content of particular films as jumping off points in order to explore more general philosophical ideas, ideas that may be merely suggested (perhaps unintentionally) on the screen.¹ Others still make the case that the films themselves can philosophize: the claim here is that, while obviously not in the business of providing proofs or giving explicit theoretical arguments, some films nonetheless not only raise philosophical questions but suggest answers to those questions. Though philosophers sometimes talk loosely about such categories as though they are exclusive in nature, Carroll is clearly right to avoid this, and attempting to apply these categories to the contributions in this collection helps highlight why. Consider White’s essay: it explores some classic issues in film theory, and so in that respect it falls pretty neatly into the first category (what Carroll calls “philosophy of motion pictures”), but White also provides grounds for thinking of Gondry’s work as engaged in philosophy in its own right, and thus his essay fits Carroll’s third category (what some have called “film as philosophy”). Reeve’s, Jollimore’s, and Toles’s essays seem to me to criss-cross the boundaries of “film as philosophy,” “philosophy of motion pictures,” and Carroll’s second category (which he calls “philosophy in film”), all the while offering and defending interpretive claims that would be at home in the longstanding tradition of theoretically informed film criticism written by non-philosophers. Both Driver’s and Tiberius’s essays fit fairly well into the “philosophy in film” camp, but that label could be misleading by suggesting that they aren’t offering up original philosophical work in addition to demonstrating connections between the film and standard philosophical issues.

In the end what matters most to me about all of the essays here is not which of these categories they best fit, but that they each help to show, often in quite different ways, why Eternal Sunshine is a film that is not just worth seeing but worth dwelling on, puzzling over, and living with through repeated examination. Of course, one need not be a philosopher to reflect usefully on a film such as Eternal Sunshine, but what the essays in this collection all have in common is a serious and sustained passion for rigor, truth, and the uncovering of value that is the hallmark of good philosophical writing since the time of Plato. I hope you’ll agree that when this philosophical spirit is directed at a film as rewarding of reflection as Eternal Sunshine, the results can be impressive.

David Reeve begins his essay “Two Blue Ruins: Love and Memory in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” by acknowledging that Eternal Sunshine naturally prompts viewers to dwell on philosophical questions raised by memory erasure, but he suggests that the film itself is not primarily engaged in that particular investigation. Rather, he argues forcefully that the direction of the film’s own thought is towards love and its roots in childhood. Adopting a broadly Freudian focus, Reeve provides an interpretation that highlights the ways in which Eternal Sunshine repeatedly and carefully lingers over such topics as the role our childhood plays in forming our capacity to love, as well as how that same childhood shapes our conception of who it is we are most inclined to love. Not surprisingly, he is particularly interested in those sequences of the film in which we return to Joel’s youth and are shown his formative childhood anxieties and desires. Reeve also explores how these same psychoanalytic themes crop up throughout the film and are embodied in connections as subtle as the one between Joel’s admission to a fondness for his childhood Huckleberry Hound doll and his (not altogether ineffective) tendency to adopt a “wounded puppy” pose when dealing with Clementine.

Surely part of the appeal of Eternal Sunshine for many viewers is that it provides its own spin on the traditional Hollywood tactic of playing on the deep-seated wish lovers often have for second chances. Many a classic romantic comedy has followed the formula of offering us visions of couples who end up getting that inspiring (if improbable) chance to “do it all again,” and we root for them to succeed in the replay that is so rarely available to us in real life. Eternal Sunshine is complex and ambiguous enough that there are a variety of ways in which a viewer can interpret the possibilities for renewed and improved love offered to the couple. Those of a pessimistic bent are likely to see Joel and Clementine as simply doomed to repeat the same mistakes yet again (and perhaps again and again and again …). Most, however, see the film as offering a more hopeful vision, but even here there’s room for disagreement over why hope is in place.

Perhaps the most straightforward interpretation is centered on the notion that optimism is justified because the couple’s memories of each other went deeper than Lacuna could ever reach, and thus, post-erasure, they are still in a position to genuinely benefit from their shared past and some knowledge of their previous mistakes. Reeve offers support for such an analysis in pointing to both the implausibly radical scope of Lacuna’s goals and the slipshod nature of their actual operation. However, the heart of his essay explores the more interesting possibility that hope is warranted primarily because of a beneficial therapeutic transformation achieved in the course of Joel (self-consciously) undergoing the memory erasure procedure. In other words, the unusual opportunity offered to him to relive and rework the past puts him in a better position to recognize both Clementine’s actual worth and the reasons why his own psychic limitations had previously led him to distort her nature and her importance to him.

Reeve’s thesis, which brings with it the claim that Joel alone was in need of such therapy, while Clementine “already has the sort of heart that Joel, through suffering, must acquire,” is bound to strike some as controversial. It is backed up with considerable skill, however, and takes for ammunition the credible insight that when they first came together Joel too quickly adopted a picture of Clementine as a savior who would do all the necessary heavy lifting to inject much-needed sunshine into his life. Joel’s conscious absorption into Lacuna’s process of erasure, and the trip to his past it allows, gets him to see that Clementine’s real aid comes in the form of a partner who can help mend him rather than simply soothe him. As they go through assorted memories of both their relationship and his childhood we see her, as teacher and guide, direct him to adopt a healthier and more mature perspective on his life, his limitations, and his love for her. Reeve’s careful consideration of the film reveals that at the core of this narrative resides an unexpectedly curative journey of self-discovery for Joel. This is a journey that, through the talents of Gondry and Kaufman, manages to take on a thrilling and powerfully cinematic dimension for the viewer, a dimension rarely achieved in such a complex and philosophical tale of psychic renovation.

We saw that David Reeve’s interpretation of Eternal Sunshine presupposed the potential for hope at the end of the film: the couple’s affirmation and willingness to continue their relationship seems to derive in part from the expectation that things just might go better this time. Reeve’s reasons for optimism are not exhausted by an awareness of the possibility of Joel and Clem drawing on residual memories, or the access the couple has to the knowledge contained in returned tapes. Rather, Reeve suggests that the particularities of Joel’s erasure process have allowed him to come out of that procedure psychically transformed, and thus in a better position to pursue a relationship with Clementine than when they first met.

While I think many viewers do take the film to contain a “happy ending,” and I think they respond this way in part because they leave the theater thinking that perhaps Joel and Clementine will avoid some of the mistakes (and resulting heartache) that plagued them the first time around, I’m also impressed by Troy Jollimore’s audacious suggestion that there is a sense in which the film ought to be seen as ending happily even if the couple is in fact doomed to repeat every last mistake and sorrow. In “Miserably Ever After: Forgetting, Repeating, and Affirming Love in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Jollimore presents an extended discussion of Nietzschean themes in Eternal Sunshine. In particular (and as the title suggests) he focuses on the importance for Nietzsche of the idea of affirming one’s life even in the face of great difficulty.

Jollimore proposes four “affirmation theses,” derived from Nietzsche’s writings, that have relevance for our understanding of Eternal Sunshine. Briefly, these theses can be summarized as follows: 1) Affirming one’s life necessarily involves denying and forgetting certain aspects of that life and of reality more generally. 2) When one can, one ought to affirm even the painful aspects of one’s life, for denying reality is a sign of weakness. 3) To affirm certain moments in one’s life is inevitably to affirm the whole life. 4) One ought to affirm life as it is lived, in the present, and resist the temptation to evaluate the moment with reference to some general standard derived from either the past or the future.

In a wide-ranging discussion that draws on such diverse literary sources as Lydia Davis, Milan Kundera, R. W. Emerson, and C. S. Lewis, Jollimore considers the ways in which these four theses capture provocative but nonetheless genuine insights about the importance of affirmation in life and in love. Pointing out that it is far from clear that the theses can be brought together into a systematic whole, he explains that such systematization was not Nietzsche’s goal. Indeed, as Jollimore describes it, the fourth thesis contains within it a recommendation from Nietzsche that we resist the natural and strong urge to impose such a framework on either our lives or our philosophical thought. Jollimore takes this fourth thesis to resonate with aspects of Emerson’s thought, and he declares it to be both the most important and the most troubling thesis of the lot. He then considers the multiple ways in which Eternal Sunshine shows Clementine (and sometimes Joel) embodying this call to resist consistency and accept the present moment.

Jollimore ends his essay with an examination of Nietzsche’s famous doctrine of the eternal return, and draws connections between the model of affirmation presented in that parable and the endorsement and affirmation we se...

Table of contents

• Philosophers on Film
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Contributor biographies
• Note on the director
• Note on the screenwriter
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword by Michel Gondry
• Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION
• Chapter 2 TWO BLUE RUINS: LOVE AND MEMORY IN ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
• Chapter 3 MISERABLY EVER AFTER: FORGETTING, REPEATING AND AFFIRMING LOVE IN ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
• Chapter 4 BAD MEMORIES, GOOD DECISIONS, AND THE THREE JOELS
• Chapter 5 MEMORY, DESIRE, AND VALUE IN ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
• Chapter 6 MICHEL GONDRY AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF VISUAL PERCEPTION
• Chapter 7 TRYING TO REMEMBER CLEMENTINE
• Index