Essay:
Eternal Sunshine of The
Spotless Mind, directed by Michel Gondry, is created to provoke a
certain response from the audience. The opening scene sees the
protagonist (Joel) waking up for work in a blandly coloured
environment. Gondry uses metronomic music which signifies routine and
passing of time. The natural light that shines through his window
represents a basic and starkness feeling towards his life. When Joel
sees the dent in the side of his car, this portrays what looks like
the beginning of a unfortunate day. When Joel decides to skip work,
his day suddenly takes a spontaneous turn, and the dialogue tells the
audience it is out of character and an unusual thing for him to do.
Everything the audience sees in the opening scene builds a certain
mood for them to feel. The colours and weather correspond together as
they are both very plain and simple, the weather is dull and bleak,
while all of Joel's clothing is black and neutral. Whilst Joel is on
the beach, the weather is bleak, and the snow enables the viewer to
feel the coldness that he is feeling emotionally. As the establishing
shot introduces the character Clementine, the shot brightens up and
her outfit stands out from everything else in the shot. This shows
that she brings colour to the scene and to Joel's colourless
existence. This could also signify that Clementine is about to make a
change in Joel's life.
The following scenes
that include the brightly clothed character Clementine, differ to the
previous scenes that show Joel on his own. Clementine's bright orange
jumper stands out from everything else seen in the shot and catches
the audiences eye. Gondry may of clothed her this way to represent a
change in Joel's current mood and to portray a possible alteration to
his future. There is a big change within the choice of music as
Clementine begins to speak to Joel. An upbeat, different and happier
tune is played in the background of the two talking. This can tell
the audience that Joel is now feeling a little more accompanied,
content and chattier as he speaks to Clementine. Clementine's hair
goes through several colour changes through out the film, blue,
orange, red, green, and brown which seems to be her natural hair
colour. This helps the viewer keep track of where her relationship
with Joel corresponds to the plot.
In a later scene where
Joel is now situated in Clementine's flat, the atmosphere is very
different to the beginning scenes of the film. More relaxed and
vibrant colours are used within the scene which could indicate how
the two of them are feeling, and I also noticed how the colour blue
is used frequently within the scene. Blue represents the unconscious
part of the mind in the Jungian theory. So the blue of Clementine's
hair and the presence of the colour in her flat, i.e the the
surrounding objects and the drinks named blue ruin they drink
suggests she is still in Joel's subconscious mind, even though he had
tried to erase her from his memory. Although Clementine blatantly
feels very relaxed and friendly towards Joel, he seems to feel a
little awkward and uncomfortable around her, which tells the audience
what kind of person he is, or has been in the past. He often frets to
leave and states that he has work early the next morning, but
Clementine doesn't want him to leave. In further scenes, they both
feel comfortable with each other and Joel seems to get on with
Clementine more.
In a latter scene, Joel
is shown driving in his car quite obviously crying and looking upset.
There is a change in the colour, the music, and in the camera work.
All of the colours are very dark, plain and gloomy, expressing the
way Joel feels about something. The music playing over the scene
could be described as sad and depressing, which could go alongside
the atmosphere within the scene. Most of the camera work is close ups
of Joel's face whilst he is crying, making sure the audience can see
there's been a big change within the mood and atmosphere in previous
scenes.
Throughout the whole
opening scene, some clues are hinted to give the audience an idea of
the things that could be connected with the memory erasing process
that takes place in the film. Firstly, as Joel wakes up, we hear a
car door slam shut and drive off, this is the character Stan leaving
Joel's house after finishing his memory erasing. Another clue is when
Joel is writing in his journal, he notices that pages are ripped out,
and doesn't remember doing it. The pages are ripped out because they
were filled with memories of Clementine and he needed to get rid of
them in order proceed the memory erasing process. When Joel
impulsively decides to skip work and travel to Montauk, it's assumed
he does it randomly, but in the final memory Joel has erased of
Clementine, she tells him to meet her in Montauk, because he realises
he doesn't want to forget her. Also, in the train scene where Joel
and Clementine are talking, she sings him a song which is often used
to make fun of her name, but Joel is not familiar with the song. This
is because when Joel is having his memory erased, he pans off into a
different memory which has nothing to do with Clementine, in order to
cancel the process, but the memory is eventually erased. The memory
is of his child hood when his mother is singing the song (that
Clementine is singing) to him.
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