Philosophy Paper
John Dwyer
Philosophy
Movie Essay
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
A man and a woman, Joel and Clementine, who have been in love for a long time, fall out of love. The woman has all memories of the man erased from her memory. He does the same with memories of her.
While the movie starts out after the procedure has been executed, and the couple is re-meeting each other without any memories of each other, most of the movie takes place inside his mind while it is being erased. This makes most of the setting very unstable. Cars fall from the sky, houses fall apart, people, things, and memories he only partially remembers are only partially there. This is not only because the memories are being erased, but also because when you remember things, your brain doesn't just take a movie clip. It remembers little bits and pieces and goes through a process called chunking, lumping parts of memories together to make more sense of them.
Joel is reserved, shy, awkward, but intelligent and kind. Through his journals, we see a glimpse into his less-than-normal mind. Clementine is the living embodiment of his wild subconscious. She is everything he isn't: talkative, impulsive, flamboyant, and bit of an alcoholic. She also has a collection of potato-people that she dresses. They are such an obvious pair, that, at the beginning of the movie, when they re-meet (and before the watcher really has any idea what is going on) they are immediately attracted to each other through their apparent opposite-ness.
What is especially great about the movie is the attention paid to detail. Little things, like the constellations and songs he can't remember, the quiet, vague voices in the background that confuse him, (and all manner of other tiny details that you won't notice until the seventh time you've watched it) enrich the movie immensely.
But on to the philosophical content. The thing about the memory-erasing procedure, provided by Lacuna, Inc., is that all your memories are erased, even ones that made you happy. Is it worth it? Do your unhappy memories weigh you down so much that there is no hope? Is love, and all the attachments that come with it, not worth the pain? Would you negate two years of your life just to get over someone that meant everything to you? Just to erase someone or something that is making your current life unbearable?
It has been said that the first philosophical decision that needs to be made is whether or not to commit suicide. Since suicide, in essence, erases your entire mind, your entire life, the questions concerning suicide relate closely to the questions posed by this movie. Losing your memory is a kind of passing, like losing a small portion of your life. It is a "shrunk death," to borrow from Shakespeare.
The movie also analyzes what to do when you know something is going to end. Do you mope and cry and despair over the loss, even before it has happened?
The kicker is that this movie doesn't tell you anything you don't already know, it just puts you in a position where you can look at things through hindsight and foresight at the same time. The story, once inside Joel's mind, runs backwards, from the most current memories to the oldest. It looks at the frayed, tail end of a relationship and traces it back to when it was refreshing, exciting, and new. To look at things in this manner is not normal. The most frustrating part about being unhappy or depressed is that you tend to focus on what is making you unhappy. Working things backwards is an idea that radical psychologists are employing more and more. Instead of gradual stagnation and decay, you have only the uphill climb, only the growth. This makes a lot of sense, but is rather hard to actually do.
The movie's title is just a fancy reworking of the "ignorance is bliss" concept, from a poem by Alexander Pope. This is a recurring theme as well, that a tabula rasa is the ultimate in peace and is something akin to nirvana. One character states that "adults are just this mess of sadness and phobias," and that being reduced to a childlike innocence is the most beautiful thing there is. But this seems to imply that suicide, or at least mental suicide, negating one's own existence, is the answer to life's problems. This, however, is not the conclusion that the movie comes to.
Joel, in exploring his memories, decides that some of the memories are so important to him that he wants to keep them all. He runs through his memories, trying to outrun the erasing process. He flees into memories of his childhood, taking Clementine with him, in an attempt to preserve her. The childhood memories are not mapped out and are not to be erased, therefore they are safe. He flees to buried memories of embarrassment and shame. He transposes and mixes memories to try and create new ones. All is in vain. Childhood memories are accidentally erased in the process.
At one point, Clementine says, "this is it, Joel, it's going to be gone soon." He says "I know." She asks, "What do we do now?" Joel replies, "Enjoy it." He has made his decision. Don't despair that something is going to end, save the unhappiness for when it is actually over. Don't ruin the moment, now.
But the trials are not yet over. Things elevate in confusion and insanity until finally Joel wakes up in his apartment the morning after having his memory erased. This is where the movie started. It has come full circle.
Joel is confused, to say the least. A significant portion of the last two years of his life is gone as if it had never happened. Then, he meets this girl.
You think, for a moment, that everything is going to be fine, that they are just going to fall in love again. Then, a wrench is thrown into the gears. A disgruntled employee of Lacuna, Inc. sends everyone their case files back to them. Joel hears all the complaints he had about Clementine, and she hears all the complaints she had about him. They realize that, no matter how good things might start out, she is going to get bored with him and he is going to get fed up with her. There is no apparent hope.
This is where the movie concludes, this is the shining moment of truth and understanding. After all the madness, all the anger, all of the history between them, Joel looks at the tumult ahead and says, "Okay."
Okay.
Philosophy
Movie Essay
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
A man and a woman, Joel and Clementine, who have been in love for a long time, fall out of love. The woman has all memories of the man erased from her memory. He does the same with memories of her.
While the movie starts out after the procedure has been executed, and the couple is re-meeting each other without any memories of each other, most of the movie takes place inside his mind while it is being erased. This makes most of the setting very unstable. Cars fall from the sky, houses fall apart, people, things, and memories he only partially remembers are only partially there. This is not only because the memories are being erased, but also because when you remember things, your brain doesn't just take a movie clip. It remembers little bits and pieces and goes through a process called chunking, lumping parts of memories together to make more sense of them.
Joel is reserved, shy, awkward, but intelligent and kind. Through his journals, we see a glimpse into his less-than-normal mind. Clementine is the living embodiment of his wild subconscious. She is everything he isn't: talkative, impulsive, flamboyant, and bit of an alcoholic. She also has a collection of potato-people that she dresses. They are such an obvious pair, that, at the beginning of the movie, when they re-meet (and before the watcher really has any idea what is going on) they are immediately attracted to each other through their apparent opposite-ness.
What is especially great about the movie is the attention paid to detail. Little things, like the constellations and songs he can't remember, the quiet, vague voices in the background that confuse him, (and all manner of other tiny details that you won't notice until the seventh time you've watched it) enrich the movie immensely.
But on to the philosophical content. The thing about the memory-erasing procedure, provided by Lacuna, Inc., is that all your memories are erased, even ones that made you happy. Is it worth it? Do your unhappy memories weigh you down so much that there is no hope? Is love, and all the attachments that come with it, not worth the pain? Would you negate two years of your life just to get over someone that meant everything to you? Just to erase someone or something that is making your current life unbearable?
It has been said that the first philosophical decision that needs to be made is whether or not to commit suicide. Since suicide, in essence, erases your entire mind, your entire life, the questions concerning suicide relate closely to the questions posed by this movie. Losing your memory is a kind of passing, like losing a small portion of your life. It is a "shrunk death," to borrow from Shakespeare.
The movie also analyzes what to do when you know something is going to end. Do you mope and cry and despair over the loss, even before it has happened?
The kicker is that this movie doesn't tell you anything you don't already know, it just puts you in a position where you can look at things through hindsight and foresight at the same time. The story, once inside Joel's mind, runs backwards, from the most current memories to the oldest. It looks at the frayed, tail end of a relationship and traces it back to when it was refreshing, exciting, and new. To look at things in this manner is not normal. The most frustrating part about being unhappy or depressed is that you tend to focus on what is making you unhappy. Working things backwards is an idea that radical psychologists are employing more and more. Instead of gradual stagnation and decay, you have only the uphill climb, only the growth. This makes a lot of sense, but is rather hard to actually do.
The movie's title is just a fancy reworking of the "ignorance is bliss" concept, from a poem by Alexander Pope. This is a recurring theme as well, that a tabula rasa is the ultimate in peace and is something akin to nirvana. One character states that "adults are just this mess of sadness and phobias," and that being reduced to a childlike innocence is the most beautiful thing there is. But this seems to imply that suicide, or at least mental suicide, negating one's own existence, is the answer to life's problems. This, however, is not the conclusion that the movie comes to.
Joel, in exploring his memories, decides that some of the memories are so important to him that he wants to keep them all. He runs through his memories, trying to outrun the erasing process. He flees into memories of his childhood, taking Clementine with him, in an attempt to preserve her. The childhood memories are not mapped out and are not to be erased, therefore they are safe. He flees to buried memories of embarrassment and shame. He transposes and mixes memories to try and create new ones. All is in vain. Childhood memories are accidentally erased in the process.
At one point, Clementine says, "this is it, Joel, it's going to be gone soon." He says "I know." She asks, "What do we do now?" Joel replies, "Enjoy it." He has made his decision. Don't despair that something is going to end, save the unhappiness for when it is actually over. Don't ruin the moment, now.
But the trials are not yet over. Things elevate in confusion and insanity until finally Joel wakes up in his apartment the morning after having his memory erased. This is where the movie started. It has come full circle.
Joel is confused, to say the least. A significant portion of the last two years of his life is gone as if it had never happened. Then, he meets this girl.
You think, for a moment, that everything is going to be fine, that they are just going to fall in love again. Then, a wrench is thrown into the gears. A disgruntled employee of Lacuna, Inc. sends everyone their case files back to them. Joel hears all the complaints he had about Clementine, and she hears all the complaints she had about him. They realize that, no matter how good things might start out, she is going to get bored with him and he is going to get fed up with her. There is no apparent hope.
This is where the movie concludes, this is the shining moment of truth and understanding. After all the madness, all the anger, all of the history between them, Joel looks at the tumult ahead and says, "Okay."
Okay.