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00:00Memories are a fundamental part of our identity.
00:03But what if we could erase the memories that make us suffer the most?
00:08Erase someone completely from our lives and start over as if nothing had happened.
00:21With this simple question, director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman
00:26immerse us in a surreal sci-fi journey that makes us reflect on our memories and romantic relationships.
00:33Of course, the final result that we see on screen and that we all love came,
00:37unfortunately, after a bit of drama behind the scenes.
00:42From a fragile and quite depressed Jim Carrey during filming to a Michel Gondry who ended up
00:46fighting with half the crew. They gave us a cult classic and one of the best films of the 21st
00:53century at the cost of their pain, almost as much pain as we felt watching it,
00:58in addition to giving us this mega crappy dance by Mark Ruffalo.
01:06So get comfortable and before this moment fades into your memories,
01:09don't forget to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon to see more videos like this if you liked it.
01:23In 2005, Charlie Kaufman won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and took the stage to give
01:35his acceptance speech, but he didn't do it alone. Who are these gentlemen here? Well,
01:40this one here is Michel Gondry, the director of the film, and this one here is Pierre Bismo,
01:45the man who had the original idea for what we would see on screen.
01:48One day, Pierre Bismo had the following idea. To send cards to people telling them that someone
01:55had erased their memories as part of a video art project he wanted to do to explore how we feel
01:59about memories that no longer exist. Although his project was never made,
02:05his friend Michel Gondry became interested in the idea. Together, they began developing a story about
02:11a machine that erases memories. In between, Gondry met screenwriter Charlie Kaufman through Spike
02:17Jones. Because they had worked together on being John Malkovich an adaptation. Gondry offered him
02:23to join the project and together they came up with a key scene, the protagonist trying to hide the memory
02:28of his ex-girlfriend in another corner of his mind. This idea excited them so much that it led them to
02:35continue developing together the story that would become eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
02:41Up until that point, Gondry was known above all for his music videos.
02:44And when I say known, I really am very well known, but not because of his face, but because of his work.
02:51He was the director behind some of the most legendary music videos in history,
02:55for groups like the White Stripes, the Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Bjork and Food Fighters.
03:02His surreal, conceptual and analog style made him one of the most experimental directors on a visual level
03:08during his time. He was always looking for physical solutions to create visual effects, giving his
03:14works that aura of magical realism and dreaminess. And Kaufman was receiving much critical acclaim thanks
03:20to being John Malkovich an adaptation. Charlie Kaufman had a very strong creative block when writing this
03:27script. How to show Joel's memories and at the same time Joel's reaction to those memories and at the same
03:32time Joel's interaction with Clementine regarding those memories. After several headaches, in the end
03:39they decided to write the scenes as if they were lucid dreams. In addition, there was the paradox that if
03:46Joel's memories were gradually eliminated, they could not be referenced again in the film and to solve
03:51this they proposed the degradation of the memories. Another interesting thing is how the title of the
04:00film came about. Kaufman was looking for quotes to use in Mary's dialogue with the doctor and came
04:06across this fragment of the poem Eloisa Chua Abelard by Alexander Popp written in 1717. How happy is
04:13the lot of the blameless beast, forgetting the world for the world forgotten. Eternal sunshine of the
04:20spotless mind. The poem talks about Eloisa's desire to forget Abelard, with whom she is deeply in love,
04:30but since they cannot be together, she prays to be able to forget and suffers for not being able to do so.
04:37Eternal sunshine of spotless mind sounded so long and bombastic to Kaufman that he decided to use it
04:43as the title of the film. However, when Memento was released, Kaufman panicked.
04:48The first thing he did was call Gondry to tell him that the project was over,
04:53that Nolan had made a film with a reverse narrative and that they could not do the same.
04:58Luckily, Gondry was able to reassure him. He told him that it was absolutely fine because they were
05:03going to tell a completely different story and Kaufman relented. Once the script was written,
05:09they began looking for the protagonists.
05:11Gondry first considered Bjork for the role of Clementine, because they had worked together on
05:17several music videos, but she declined the offer, considering that the tone and role of the film could
05:22affect her psychologically in a negative way.
05:26Winona Ryder was also considered, but she was also at a sensitive point in her life,
05:31as she was receiving a lot of media attention for her personal situation and mental health.
05:35Ultimately, Kate Winslet accepted the role and was very excited to play such an outgoing,
05:43neurotic, and modern character, so different from her usual period roles.
05:50Mitchell's first choice for the character of Joel was Nicolas Cage,
05:53but he was unavailable at the time, thank goodness.
05:57The next person he had in mind was Jim Carrey. Mitchell said that many actors in Hollywood
06:03suffered from the James Dean or Marlon Brandon effect, very masculine, handsome men who took
06:08themselves extremely seriously. He was looking for someone with a more childlike and playful edge,
06:15but without going all Jack Black. Jim Carrey was the perfect balance.
06:19He also found it very interesting to cast this great comedic, improvisational actor in a more
06:25contained and self-contained role. Jim Carrey was also drawn to the emotion of being outshone by
06:32someone in the film. A year before filming began, when Mitri met with Jim Carrey to talk about the film,
06:39he saw him absolutely devastated. Jim Carrey had just gone through a very painful breakup and Gondry
06:46told him to stay like that until they filmed, please, because he was so handsome, wasn't he?
06:53With that fragile and vulnerable appearance. Well, Jim Carrey later says in his documentary
06:59Jimmy Andy that it was a bit of a tough request, but that was how the business worked.
07:04And this was just the first clash the two had, because there would be more during filming.
07:08Something curious about this film that won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay is that in fact the
07:18script that Kaufman wrote is quite different from the final film that we saw in theaters.
07:23For example, there is a character, Naomi, who was completely cut from the film and we never see her,
07:29although she is mentioned a couple of times in passing.
07:43She is a character that we never see, but there are a lot of deleted scenes of Joel and her interacting.
07:49In the original script, Naomi was Joel's girlfriend before he dated Clementine.
07:53We see their coexistence, the conversation in which it seems they are going to break up,
07:59and also how Clementine is aware that Naomi exists and that Joel is cheating on her with her.
08:05Knowing this, in this scene near the end, the dialogue makes much more sense.
08:17These scenes show that Joel was in a long-term relationship with Naomi in which there was no
08:29longer any passion and when he meets Clementine he is fascinated.
08:34That is why he leaves Naomi for her.
08:37In this version 2, after erasing his memories and meeting Clementine again,
08:41in this scene, when he arrives home, we see that he first calls Naomi because he had agreed with
08:46her to get back together after erasing his memories.
08:51But when he meets Clementine again,
08:53he repeats the cycle of leaving Naomi and the inevitable desire to get to know Clementine more.
09:02Jim Carrey was actually quite upset that they removed all these scenes with Naomi,
09:06since, apparently, the actress playing Pompeo, who we all remember for her performance in the series
09:11Grey's Anatomy, physically reminded him a lot of Renée Zaledger, who at that time was already his
09:16ex-lover, and the breakup he had been suffering from had left him so depressed.
09:24Mann also wasn't happy that they took her out of the final cut because it loses the nuance that
09:28Joel left a long-term relationship for Clementine and how daring and risky it was for someone like
09:33him to do something like that.
09:34In this version, we also discover that Mary had not only had an affair with Dr. Howard,
09:42but something much more sinister.
09:44Another interesting thing is that Michelle Gondry encouraged all the actors to improvise the
10:06scenes however they wanted during the entire shoot, to give them a sense of naturalness,
10:11and because Kaufman's script included some very long paragraphs that, if recited exactly as they were,
10:16would take the movie 40 hours.
10:21Scenes like Chris and Dance and Mark Ruffalo dancing and smoking joints during the process,
10:26or this scene that has become the most iconic in the film, were also improvised.
10:32Kate Winslet contributed a lot to the film when she first read the script.
10:36Although she liked the idea, she was frank with the screenwriter and the director.
10:41She told them that the dialogue was getting very repetitive,
10:44so during filming, since she had internalized the essence of the character,
10:48she was much more direct and concise and managed to give her scenes much more heart.
10:55And I sincerely thank her because, yes, this guy may be a genius, whatever you want,
11:00but a very annoying genius. I think we all know that this guy gets into a loop very easily.
11:10Of course, Michelle Gondry was the only one who didn't let him improvise anything in the film,
11:15not at all, but Jim Carrey, which created quite a bit of tension on the set.
11:22Michelle would talk to Kate and the other actors separately and give them some instructions and then
11:26talk to Jim separately and give him others. This didn't sit well with him because his great talent
11:33is improvisation and that was precisely what Gondry wanted to avoid at all costs.
11:38His character was introverted, contained, repressed.
11:42If Carrey had stepped out of character, we wouldn't have the Joel we saw, fragile and vulnerable.
11:48But for Jim it was a hard blow to his ego that he ultimately had to learn to accept.
11:52Michelle Gondry didn't make it easy. Much of the shoot was very experimental and chaotic,
11:59it was hard to know what the final result was going to be, even for the actors themselves.
12:05Jim Carrey says that throughout the shoot he didn't hear any action or cut once.
12:11I didn't know when they were starting to film, when they were finishing,
12:15or what was being focused on, which made them look even more lost in the film, as well as quite anxious.
12:20And hey, you'd think that they would end up fighting for life or something, right?
12:27With so many Gondry and Carrey miniseries, but years later they worked together again on the series
12:32kidding, so I imagine they didn't end up so badly after all.
12:36Of course, the one who went crazy was the director of photography Ellen Kuras,
12:41to whom Michelle would ask almost impossible things, right? Like, for example,
12:45not using spotlights to illuminate the characters, right? And she would be shocked and say,
12:50so, how the hell are you going to see anything?
12:54And the first editor of the film, in fact, went on sick leave due to a nervous breakdown and after
12:59fighting with Michelle, and a replacement had to come in to finish editing the film.
13:03Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a turning point in mainstream romantic films.
13:14To understand this, you only have to look at the most popular films up until that time.
13:19Titanic, Notting Hill, Ghost, Pretty Woman, 10 Things I Hate About You, Wedding Square and A Funeral.
13:26These are films in which we saw the tortuous path of lovers until they finally managed to be together.
13:31But the proposal of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind was very different for its time.
13:38Here the film begins the other way around.
13:41First we see what happens to them after they break up,
13:44then the argument that leads them to end the relationship,
13:47then the apathy of everyday life and then the initial passion of their relationship,
13:51then the moment they fall in love and finally the day they meet.
13:56Not only does it play with reverse narration,
13:58so that one has the feeling of unraveling a puzzle with different clues, right?
14:03That guide us to situate ourselves within the story, like this little dot here, for example, right?
14:08Which indicates that Joel has already started the procedure, or Clementine's hair color,
14:12which tells us what stage they are in their relationship,
14:15but it also explores what happens after the famous, happily ever after.
14:18On the one hand, there is the social pressure around romantic relationships and how a materialistic culture
14:26has contaminated the ideal of love with unrealistic expectations, turning it into a product.
14:38This idea is repeated several times, such as when they say that the busiest days at the Lacuna company are Valentine's Day.
14:52And in general, everything that revolves around the company is quite twisted.
14:57The fact that you can experience a relationship that you don't like, how it's over, and then, as if it were an object,
15:03you can return it to the store if you don't like it, reduces the human experience to a simple product
15:08and represents the procedure as something purely cerebral, material, removing all mysticism, right?
15:14From the experience of love.
15:15In fact, it seems to me a film ahead of its time because it visually shows a concept that years later we would give a name to,
15:24Gosting, when you want to end a relationship and simply erase the other person from your life and pretend you don't know them.
15:31And how painful it is for the other person and how it is possible to do this thanks to technology.
15:38Additionally, relationships are explored not only through Joel and Clementine,
15:42but through this mini discussion between Joel's married friends, Marie, Dr. Howard, and Patrick and Clementine,
15:49depicting how in long-term relationships it is inevitable to argue and suffer at times,
15:53that forgetting only makes us make the same mistakes,
15:56and how idealizing a stranger in your head does not mean you are in love.
16:02It also explores the strange influence that our childhood shortcomings have on our future love lives.
16:12On the one hand, Mary romanticizes childhood.
16:25She says that Dr. Howard allows people to be reborn again without suffering and in ignorance.
16:39But Clementine reflects on the exact opposite, how lonely, helpless, and lost we can feel as children too.
17:00And the thing is that falling in love also has an element of being children again.
17:04We play games, we say silly things to each other, we ask for cuddles and attention,
17:09and our deepest and most private shortcomings inevitably come to the surface.
17:14How romantic relationships can also be therapeutic for our vulnerabilities and heal insecurities.
17:19It also talks about the dangers of idealizing our romantic interest.
17:34Joel idealizes Clementine, Mary idealizes Dr. Howard, and Patrick idealizes Clementine.
17:41He set extremely high expectations for Clementine about how she should be or what she should bring to his life.
17:47But when he found out who Clementine is, disappointment and frustration actually ensue.
18:04Clementine is problematic, loud, and a drunk, in other words, not at all magical.
18:16And Joel learns in the end that he does, in fact, love her just the way she is,
18:20that things that irritated him about her, like her impulsiveness, are in fact the things that made him fall in love with her.
18:26In short, this film opened up very interesting avenues to explore in the world of relationships.
18:35Films like Blue Valentine, Her, La La Land, Marriage Story, 500 Days of Summer have this new,
18:41more realistic and raw narrative about romantic relationships, stories that viewers could relate to much more.
18:46Okay, that's it for this video, thank you very much for watching this far and as always, let's talk in the comments.
18:56There's always a debate about whether or not they end up together at the end of the movie,
19:00because it's left quite open to interpretation.
19:03As a curiosity, I'll tell you that in Kaufman's version, they didn't end up together at all,
19:07since it seemed like the most realistic ending to him.
19:10However, Kate Winslet interpreted that Joey and Clementine were actually made for each other,
19:15that they simply had a rough patch and Clementine, as always, was impulsive and went to the clinic without thinking about it too much.
19:22In fact, my little personal theory is that at the end when it says Midman Mount,
19:26I think that from Clementine's perspective, when the memory erasure would begin,
19:30the same thing would happen to her as it did to Joel, right?
19:33And she would also want to stop the procedure without success.
19:36But since the final memory is the place where they met, they tell each other that they met right there, right?
19:43Since it's the last thing they remember, I think it makes sense, right?
19:46Anyway, what do you think?
19:48I'll read you in the comments box, Koa
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