Arts Explorer #5: Watch an ‘art film’ and chat about it

Discussion of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Megan: Hi

Figure 1

Ellaine: Hey. So - what did you think of the film?

Megan: I liked it.  How about you?

Ellaine: I liked it too.  It was interesting to watch and entertaining too

Megan: It was definitely a movie that you had to pay attention too.  The time line bounced around quite a bit.

Ellaine: Yes.  You have to suspend your confusion and have faith that it will all come together in the end.  Which it did, don't you think?

Ellaine: I looked up the title because i was curious what it meant.

Megan: What did you find?

Ellaine: It is a quote from a poem by Alexander Pope just like they said in the film.

Megan: Oh right...

Ellaine: The poem is about Abelard and Eloise.  The story is a little long... give me a sec.

Megan: Sure.

Ellaine: Eloise is writing to Abelard about her love.  I think it is based on two real people.  He was her teacher and they fell in love.  They married and had a child.  But her family was against it.  They castrated him.  He went to a monastery and she became a nun.  Because he was castrated, he didn't feel tortured by their love but she did. She is writing about her feelings.

Megan: “How happy is the blameless Vestal’s lot!
                The world forgetting, by the world forgot;
                Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
                Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.”

Ellaine: The poem is a long one but the part about the Spotless Mind is about how easy it is for a caste virgin to have a pure mind the virgin can forget the world easily have a happiness.

Megan: I think that the film is saying that relationships have good and bad and that people are both good and bad.  You can't forget the bad without losing the whole person.  It's not worth it because then there is just emptiness. "The world forgetting, by the world forgot"

Ellaine: They are both quite flawed people but they are better off together than just forgetting that they ever happened to each other.

Megan: Do you think you would erase your memory?

Ellaine: No - really for everything that you regret in life, there is the depth of relationships and the impact that events and feeling have on who you become.  How can you forget without erasing the person that you are.

Megan: I agree. When you erase that bad, you also erase the good.  I think that experiences and memories shape our personalities.  I mean, I can see the benefit in erasing something that just makes you feel awful but really, eventually everything passes.  Things that were really important to you several years ago are not necessarily something that is really important to you now.

Ellaine: I think that Joel and Clementine realize that as well.  They hear the worst that the other thinks of them but they cannot go on without each other.

Megan: Yah, even though he knows all the things that bothers him about her, he is willing to have a relationship with her anyways because he still sees all the good things about her.  Clementine admits that she is impulsive.  I think that the Lacuna Corporation takes advantage of that which affected both her and him.

Ellaine: I like the way the film represented his memory being erased... things just disappearing.

Megan: I agree.  I loved how they depicted memory loss by things just melting away.  I also love how memories became entangled in each other, because with the passage of time that is what happens.

Figure 2

Ellaine: I also think the film showed that it is a futile pursuit to try to forget.  Clementine still remembered things so that when the weasel guy tried to steal Joel's relationship, Clem was disturbed.  Plus they both ended up at the beach without knowing why they were there and were attracted to each other all over again.

Megan: Yes, it kind of reminds me of the sixth sense idea.

Ellaine: Plus all the work of the Lacuna Corporation started falling apart when Mary found out her memory had been erased.  And she was still attracted to Howard in the end.  It suggests that some things are inevitable.

Megan: Yes, and it also shows how a system like this can be taken advantage of.

Ellaine: What do you mean?

Megan: Well you could tell that Mary didn't exactly feel sure about having her memories erased.  She was angered.  In the tape you can hear Howard say, "We agreed this was for the best".

Ellaine: She had agreed to it I think, but perhaps she was pressured.

Megan: That's the feeling that I got out of it.  She agreed out of a pressured situation.

Ellaine: We don't get those details but can imagine from the wife’s reaction.

Megan: I know! That's most people’s reactions though isn't it?  Like Joel finding out that he had been erased.

Ellaine: I think that the secondary story is saying that betrayal is also something that can't really be forgotten as well

Megan: Yes, it was a main theme in the story.

Ellaine: The wife has never forgotten and is looking for more betrayal.

Megan: She never trusts him. I wonder if he pressured her to have her memories erased as well.

Megan: Imagine if that technology really existed.  You would never really know if you had all of your memories.

Ellaine: Except in the film it was an imperfect process... Which is the same in any sci fi type story that I have ever seen.  The process doesn't work and the problems return.  You have to deal with things in life, don't you think?

Megan: I agree. It makes us who we are.

Ellaine: Anyway, I liked the film in many ways.  The construction of the story was interesting and the themes were worth discussion.

Megan: Thanks for talking about the film with me.

Ellaine: You are welcome!

Figure 1. Joel and Clementine lying on ice. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (unknown photographer). Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/

Figure 2. Joel and Clementine in bed. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (unknown photographer). Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/