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Première’s favorite at the time
Here is the review by Stéphanie Lamome, published in Firstin 2004:
Memory in the shoes of Jim Carrey.
We knew that Charlie Kaufman was (super)gifted at writing brilliantly twisted scenarios that bang the cortex against the walls. A quick reminder of the awards: In the Skin of John Malkovich, Human Nature, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Man. We knew less that he could also falter with his pen and write a heartbreaking romantic comedy. But a romantic comedy perfectly aware that love does not always last, unless you have the courage to lose your illusions. A cynical love story in which couples are condemned to stay together, tirelessly repeating the same mistakes, but unable to live without each other. We have never seen such an unhappy happy ending…Michel Gondry's camera had to take up the challenge of rising to the height of this neuro(man)tic labyrinth where different permeable levels of reality intertwine. to each other. Gondry, as a great visionary, puts the unimaginable into images. How, for example, can we visualize the process of erasure which constitutes the heart (in every sense of the term) of the film? Rather than pulling out the big artillery of special effects, Gondry goes hand-in-hand: a library whose neon lights go out one after the other, for example, or the image of Clementine which changes to black and white when blurring… How to show Joel's escape into his own brain to save the memories he has left of Clementine? By jumping from one reminiscence to another as soon as the “erasers” appear, the “transitions” causing surreal images as beautiful as a poem in automatic writing. A bed facing the sea on a snowy beach will remain etched in our eyes like a miraculous slip of the tongue. Talking about interpretation would become almost secondary if Jim Carrey were not Jim Carrey. After Man on the Moon, the chewing gum man continues to prove that, as soon as he releases the elastic, his cheeks hollow, his eyes become fixed, and he then establishes himself as a great dramatic actor.
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A strange but realistic love story
“From the start, Michel and I were very careful that Eternal Sunshine… was not a feel good movie. We did not seek to manipulate the public or offer them marshmallows. responded so favorably is great. The film did better in the United States than anything I had done before, and I think we deserved it. In the future, I intend to do what interests me. If the result reaches a wider audience, so much the better.
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How to combine two different worlds?
“This is my second film with Michel Gondry. I have known him since at least 98. We get along well despite our different personalities. He is a very productive and technically very inventive partner. We have similar neuroses and common emotional interests which push us to talk a lot among ourselves. We developed the story together. I wrote it and it took me a lot of time. After the necessary adjustments, we talked about the style of the film. and the creation of 'transitional' sequences, those where the memory is erased For aesthetic as well as financial reasons, we tried to adopt a style as 'organic' as possible and to avoid technical overkill in order to achieve this. focusing on emotions. Michel is very good at imagining simple or 'handmade' visual effects, and we stayed on the same wavelength.”
Joel was almost played by Nicolas Cage
The screenwriter has never hidden the fact that he was not writing for a particular actor. Eternal Sunshine… for example, was almost worn by Nicolas Cage.
“With the obvious exception of As John Malkovich, I never write with actors in mind. The characters are different from their performers. If I were trying to describe someone who is already Jim Carrey or John Cusack , I would be limited in my thoughts. The best way for me to work is to make a character exist completely before considering calling on someone who is completely Jim Carrey. provided that we obtain a merger: Jim Carrey finds Joel and Joel finds Jim Carrey.”
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An original scenario…
Where did Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman come up with the idea of erasing a character's memories, and therefore little by little their love story? The duo discussed reading several novels by Boris Vian (notably The Heartbreaker And Red grasse), but beyond the concept, it is the romantic relationship that they wanted to explore, as Charlie explained in 2004 to Gérard Delorme: “What interests me is the subjective experience. When Michel [Gondry] and I started working on Eternal Sunshine…, we wanted to deal mainly with the nature of a romantic relationship. The idea of erasing memories was just a framework to explore our theme in an unusual way. I was very worried when Memento [Christopher Nolan] was released because I feared that the public would mistake our film for a copy. Obviously, it's totally different. I have no idea why seemingly similar films (in this case about memory) are released simultaneously.”
…very personal…
“In Eternal Sunshine…, I may not be Clementine [Kate Winslet]but there is something about her that exists on a primal level in me. Joel [Jim Carrey] probably represents me more, but Clementine is an emanation of Joel's spirit. Moreover, it is rare for it to appear in the film other than in the form of a mental projection. This is what happens in reality: in a certain way, we create the people around us. Their existence is conditioned by the interpretation that we make of them.
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And full of emotions
“Sometimes I hear that there is no emotion in my films. I understand that Being John Malkovich seems so exaggerated that you can like it but not identify with it. However, the film was born from the feeling of being inadequate and wanting to be someone else. As it is a feeling that particularly touches me, I am very sensitive to the sadness of the character. .. is more obvious because it is a love story Even the process of erasing memory goes in this direction because our memories are based on our emotions If no emotion is attached. incident, you will have difficulty remembering it. The film alludes to this reality through the method used by 'erasers' who reach memories by erasing emotions.
It was also a real headache!
“At first, Eternal Sunshine… was impossible to put together. The pitch lasted five minutes. Those who heard it were seduced by its various elements, but it was a different story to organize those elements. It was necessary to work backwards chronologically, in a context where causes and effects are reversed, while retaining the viewer's attention and touching them emotionally. Another difficulty consisted of telling a romantic relationship through memories that are erased. as the story progresses. In other words, each scene tells the story of the disintegration of that same scene, what else can be shown before it begins to disintegrate? don't show enough, the audience risks feeling nothing and therefore not understanding anything. There is also a logical problem: while Joel is in the process of having his memories erased, his character must maintain a minimum of integrity to. understand what is happening to him. It was a headache, and it took me a long time to write this script.”
Particularly for this sequence:
“A bed facing the sea on a snowy beach will remain engraved in our eyes like a miraculous slip of the tongue…”
Other equally poetic scenes run through the film, like the one, still in the cold, where the couple lies down on the ice.