Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: A Missed Masterpiece
"Remember me. Try your best. Maybe we can."
"Come back and make up a goodbye at least. Pretend we had one."
"I wish I'd stayed too. Now I wish I'd stayed. I wish I'd done a lot of things."
Charlie Kaufman is a brilliant writer. A type of writer who actors love to work with. Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Nicholas Cage, and John Malkovich are all actors who've worked with Kaufman. With Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which won Kaufman the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey bring Kaufman's characters to life.
The film features Clementine (Kate Winslet) and Joel (Jim Carrey) who go their separate ways only to find their paths entwine again. The second time they meet, however, they don't remember they were once together; they each underwent a medical procedure that deleted all memories of each other. This clever premise enables the film to raise and explore a lot of interesting questions. Questions that went over my head when I first saw it back in the sixth grade.
How does the pain and sadness we carry inside define us? Are our memories with people who've hurt us worth holding on to? And if those memories are worth holding on to, should we fight to overcome the pain and keep those people in our lives or should we just let them go altogether? These are questions that Kaufman poses and answers in the film. In other words, Eternal Sunshine is a really clever piece of screenwriting.
The acting is also strong. Kate Winslet was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Clementine, and although Jim Carrey wasn't nominated, he certainly delivers an Oscar worthy performance. And even with minor supporting characters, you can feel a rich story underneath.
Unfortunately, the brilliant writing and acting in the film are let down by a directorial work that leaves something to be desired. Of course, directing is ultimately a subjective craft. So it's easy to conflate what you wish the director had done with what the director could have done better to realize their vision. That said, let me show you how I think, as far as directing goes, Eternal Sunshine could have been stronger. Or at least in one scene -- the most pivotal scene -- how the directing falls short of the craftsmanship we see from the auteurs we've explored here on this blog.
"Come back and make up a goodbye at least. Pretend we had one."
"I wish I'd stayed too. Now I wish I'd stayed. I wish I'd done a lot of things."
Charlie Kaufman is a brilliant writer. A type of writer who actors love to work with. Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Nicholas Cage, and John Malkovich are all actors who've worked with Kaufman. With Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which won Kaufman the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey bring Kaufman's characters to life.
The film features Clementine (Kate Winslet) and Joel (Jim Carrey) who go their separate ways only to find their paths entwine again. The second time they meet, however, they don't remember they were once together; they each underwent a medical procedure that deleted all memories of each other. This clever premise enables the film to raise and explore a lot of interesting questions. Questions that went over my head when I first saw it back in the sixth grade.
How does the pain and sadness we carry inside define us? Are our memories with people who've hurt us worth holding on to? And if those memories are worth holding on to, should we fight to overcome the pain and keep those people in our lives or should we just let them go altogether? These are questions that Kaufman poses and answers in the film. In other words, Eternal Sunshine is a really clever piece of screenwriting.
The acting is also strong. Kate Winslet was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Clementine, and although Jim Carrey wasn't nominated, he certainly delivers an Oscar worthy performance. And even with minor supporting characters, you can feel a rich story underneath.
Unfortunately, the brilliant writing and acting in the film are let down by a directorial work that leaves something to be desired. Of course, directing is ultimately a subjective craft. So it's easy to conflate what you wish the director had done with what the director could have done better to realize their vision. That said, let me show you how I think, as far as directing goes, Eternal Sunshine could have been stronger. Or at least in one scene -- the most pivotal scene -- how the directing falls short of the craftsmanship we see from the auteurs we've explored here on this blog.
Scene: "I want you to wait for just a while."
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| Shot 1: "Wait!" |
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| Shot 2: "What? What do you want?" |
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| Shot 3: "I want you to wait for just a while." |
Scene link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpux-Drk6EY
This is more or less the last scene of the movie. Clementine has just heard something deeply hurtful and decided she can't get back together with Joel. On the other hand, Joel believes no matter how painful the past was, they deserve a second chance. Put another way, Clementine is the one that's hurting and Joel is the one who's reaching out.
(If this dynamic sounds familiar, it's because this is the same dynamic between Ruth and Bob in the scene from Ain't Them Bodies Saints that we explored in the post, Less is More: Ain't Them Bodies Saints and the Beauty in Restraint. Trying watch the two scenes without any sound and see which does a better job of dramatizing the emotions of the characters.)
(If this dynamic sounds familiar, it's because this is the same dynamic between Ruth and Bob in the scene from Ain't Them Bodies Saints that we explored in the post, Less is More: Ain't Them Bodies Saints and the Beauty in Restraint. Trying watch the two scenes without any sound and see which does a better job of dramatizing the emotions of the characters.)
In Shot 1, Clementine is walking away after telling Joel it's over. But the camera is keeping her at a distance, which in and of itself is not a problem. In fact, keeping a character deeply in pain at a distance can sometimes amplify the pain. The problem, however, arises when the camera cuts to a medium close-up (Shot 2) of Clementine right after Joel says, "Wait!" (To be fair, the camera closes in on Clementine as she turns around. But the camera is still closing in from a relatively short distance.)
The problem here is that of incongruous perspective; the perspective that is set up for a shot clashes with the actual perspective of the shot. And by perspective, I'm talking about the character through which we take in the shots. (Perspectives can also be third-person, but that's another story. It'll make the post way too long, so we'll pretend it doesn't exist.)
Because Joel is the active character -- the character who speaks -- in Shot 1, the perspective with which the audience takes in the subsequent shot (Shot 2) is Joel's. If Clementine was much larger in the shot and in focus, Joel would no longer be the protagonist of the shot; the main story of the shot would be Clementine being asked by Joel to hear him out, not Joel wanting Clementine to stay and hear him out. But Clementine is neither in focus nor close to the camera. Admittedly, she is closer to the camera than Joel. But she isn't close enough to be established as the protagonist of the shot when Joel is taking the dramatic action of telling someone who has just told him it's over to wait and hear him out.
So with Joel as the character through which we see Shot 2, it doesn't make any sense for the shot to be a medium close-up of Clementine. Shot 2 is supposed to present Clementine from Joel's perspective: Clementine who has just pushed him away by telling him it's over and walking out on him. But the medium close-up of Clementine does everything but mirror how withdrawn and distant Clementine feels to Joel by presenting her at an intimate distance. (Not all medium close-ups are intimate. But they are when the previous shot was a long shot.)
We also run into problems with Shot 3. A scene doesn't have to stick to the perspective it started out with. In fact, the mark of an auteur is the ability to switch and weave perspectives seamlessly to best dramatize the scene. (Richard Linklater in the Before Trilogy is one example.) But when you do want to switch perspective, the switch in perspective has to be both earned and justified. And having a character (Clementine) utter a few reactive words in a medium close-up (Shot 2) that actually reflects the other character's perspective -- albeit poorly -- doesn't cut it.
All of that is to say, Shot 3 should be reflecting Joel's own perspective on himself at the moment: open, vulnerable, and emotionally invested. In other words, a low angle close-up would have done the job. You could argue low angle is optional although I can't remember the last time David Fincher didn't use a low angle for a first-person perspective shot of a vulnerable character at the most pivotal and high-stakes moments in a scene. What you can't justify though is Shot 3 being a medium shot.
Because Joel is emotionally invested in getting Clementine back, he can't appear to be uncommitted. But that's precisely what having Joel in a medium shot does. For a first-person perspective, the bigger the character is in the frame, the louder their emotions and desires (not always true, but true for this scene). By having Joel in a medium shot, the director is inadvertently turning the volume down on Joel's desire to get Clementine back.
There's another reason that putting Joel in a medium shot becomes problematic. Because both Clementine and the camera lie in the same direction to Joel, when Joel is far away from the camera, it invariably creates the impression that Joel is not all committed to "closing the distance" between them. If he is, he should be trying to be as close to Clementine as possible (i.e. close to the camera).
Of course, a medium shot -- or even a long shot -- would make perfect sense if Shot 3 was about Clementine's perspective. But as mentioned previously, Shot 1 established the scene from Joel's perspective and Shot 2 continued that albeit poorly. If the director wanted to establish the scene from Clementine's perspective, Clementine should have been in focus and much bigger in Shot 1. And if the director wanted to switch to Clementine's perspective in Shot 2, Clementine should have said something much more substantive than "What? What do you want?" Lastly, if the director wanted to switch to Clementine's perspective in Shot 3, it should have had Clementine in the frame. An over-the-shoulder shot would have worked as well as an extreme low angle shot where we see some portion of Clementine's lower half of the body with Joel way off in the distance. (Orson Welles would have probably opted for the latter.)
Although I'm not a mind reader, I have a pretty good guess at what the director had in mind. He most likely misconceived Shot 1 as Clementine's perspective (or perhaps a neutral perspective). Because we see Clementine walking down the hall without Joel in the frame for some time at the beginning of the scene (about three full seconds), I can see why he felt that way. But because Joel's action -- saying "wait" to someone who told him it's over -- is such a proactive action, even if the scene started out with Clementine as the protagonist, Joel becomes the protagonist the very moment he tells her to wait.
If you are still unconvinced that Shot 1 is about Joel's perspective, here's some additional proof: the shot that this scene cut from is a close-up of Joel's face (Shot 4) during which it becomes clear that Joel is going to go after Clementine who has just left. (Unfortunately, it's not part of the scene I have linked to above. So you'll just have to take my word or watch the whole movie yourself.) Put another way, Shot 4 predisposes us to take in the following scene from Joel's perspective. And three seconds of seeing Clementine way off in the distance walk down the hall without Joel in the frame is not strong enough to offset that predisposition and firmly establish Clementine as the protagonist let alone keep Clementine as the protagonist after Joel says, "Wait!"
There are other ways in which the scene could have been stronger. But the post has already gotten pretty long. So I'll just briefly go over one.
Notice how the camera pretty much always shows the character who's speaking. When it's not, it's either a relatively inconsequential line (e.g. "okay," "I don't know") or only for a brief moment (we see Joel and not Clementine for the first few words of Clementine's line: "I'm not a concept, Joel. I'm just a fucked up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind. I'm not perfect.")
If you recall our previous discussion of the car scene between Jesse and Celine in Before Sunset, you'll remember that Richard Linklater has Jesse as the shot's protagonist when Celine fully admits her feelings to him for the first time. And you'll also remember how that choice actually strengthens the scene. The same goes for Clementine's line above.
Here are some examples of another auteur -- Paul Thomas Anderson -- deliberately showing the character who's doing the listening for dramatic effect.
The Master: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otLDuy0ToFg
There Will Be Blood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyKNmvJYO7o
Magnolia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0JIohn0pfU
Phantom Thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHQZhYadNwQ
As much as I believe the directing in the film could have been stronger, I still recommend it if you haven't seen it yet. It's not the catchiest title, but the really strong writing and acting make it a worthwhile watch.
So with Joel as the character through which we see Shot 2, it doesn't make any sense for the shot to be a medium close-up of Clementine. Shot 2 is supposed to present Clementine from Joel's perspective: Clementine who has just pushed him away by telling him it's over and walking out on him. But the medium close-up of Clementine does everything but mirror how withdrawn and distant Clementine feels to Joel by presenting her at an intimate distance. (Not all medium close-ups are intimate. But they are when the previous shot was a long shot.)
We also run into problems with Shot 3. A scene doesn't have to stick to the perspective it started out with. In fact, the mark of an auteur is the ability to switch and weave perspectives seamlessly to best dramatize the scene. (Richard Linklater in the Before Trilogy is one example.) But when you do want to switch perspective, the switch in perspective has to be both earned and justified. And having a character (Clementine) utter a few reactive words in a medium close-up (Shot 2) that actually reflects the other character's perspective -- albeit poorly -- doesn't cut it.
All of that is to say, Shot 3 should be reflecting Joel's own perspective on himself at the moment: open, vulnerable, and emotionally invested. In other words, a low angle close-up would have done the job. You could argue low angle is optional although I can't remember the last time David Fincher didn't use a low angle for a first-person perspective shot of a vulnerable character at the most pivotal and high-stakes moments in a scene. What you can't justify though is Shot 3 being a medium shot.
Because Joel is emotionally invested in getting Clementine back, he can't appear to be uncommitted. But that's precisely what having Joel in a medium shot does. For a first-person perspective, the bigger the character is in the frame, the louder their emotions and desires (not always true, but true for this scene). By having Joel in a medium shot, the director is inadvertently turning the volume down on Joel's desire to get Clementine back.
There's another reason that putting Joel in a medium shot becomes problematic. Because both Clementine and the camera lie in the same direction to Joel, when Joel is far away from the camera, it invariably creates the impression that Joel is not all committed to "closing the distance" between them. If he is, he should be trying to be as close to Clementine as possible (i.e. close to the camera).
Of course, a medium shot -- or even a long shot -- would make perfect sense if Shot 3 was about Clementine's perspective. But as mentioned previously, Shot 1 established the scene from Joel's perspective and Shot 2 continued that albeit poorly. If the director wanted to establish the scene from Clementine's perspective, Clementine should have been in focus and much bigger in Shot 1. And if the director wanted to switch to Clementine's perspective in Shot 2, Clementine should have said something much more substantive than "What? What do you want?" Lastly, if the director wanted to switch to Clementine's perspective in Shot 3, it should have had Clementine in the frame. An over-the-shoulder shot would have worked as well as an extreme low angle shot where we see some portion of Clementine's lower half of the body with Joel way off in the distance. (Orson Welles would have probably opted for the latter.)
Although I'm not a mind reader, I have a pretty good guess at what the director had in mind. He most likely misconceived Shot 1 as Clementine's perspective (or perhaps a neutral perspective). Because we see Clementine walking down the hall without Joel in the frame for some time at the beginning of the scene (about three full seconds), I can see why he felt that way. But because Joel's action -- saying "wait" to someone who told him it's over -- is such a proactive action, even if the scene started out with Clementine as the protagonist, Joel becomes the protagonist the very moment he tells her to wait.
If you are still unconvinced that Shot 1 is about Joel's perspective, here's some additional proof: the shot that this scene cut from is a close-up of Joel's face (Shot 4) during which it becomes clear that Joel is going to go after Clementine who has just left. (Unfortunately, it's not part of the scene I have linked to above. So you'll just have to take my word or watch the whole movie yourself.) Put another way, Shot 4 predisposes us to take in the following scene from Joel's perspective. And three seconds of seeing Clementine way off in the distance walk down the hall without Joel in the frame is not strong enough to offset that predisposition and firmly establish Clementine as the protagonist let alone keep Clementine as the protagonist after Joel says, "Wait!"
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| Shot 4 |
There are other ways in which the scene could have been stronger. But the post has already gotten pretty long. So I'll just briefly go over one.
Notice how the camera pretty much always shows the character who's speaking. When it's not, it's either a relatively inconsequential line (e.g. "okay," "I don't know") or only for a brief moment (we see Joel and not Clementine for the first few words of Clementine's line: "I'm not a concept, Joel. I'm just a fucked up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind. I'm not perfect.")
If you recall our previous discussion of the car scene between Jesse and Celine in Before Sunset, you'll remember that Richard Linklater has Jesse as the shot's protagonist when Celine fully admits her feelings to him for the first time. And you'll also remember how that choice actually strengthens the scene. The same goes for Clementine's line above.
Here are some examples of another auteur -- Paul Thomas Anderson -- deliberately showing the character who's doing the listening for dramatic effect.
The Master: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otLDuy0ToFg
There Will Be Blood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyKNmvJYO7o
Magnolia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0JIohn0pfU
Phantom Thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHQZhYadNwQ
As much as I believe the directing in the film could have been stronger, I still recommend it if you haven't seen it yet. It's not the catchiest title, but the really strong writing and acting make it a worthwhile watch.
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