Random Thoughts Concerning Joel and Clementine, And Orpheus and Eurydice, If Orpheus Did Not Pull A Lot's Wife
Joel and Clementine: Orpheus and Eurydice, If Orpheus Didn't Pull A Lot's Wife
Sometimes I wonder about the field of film criticism. It seems to me that it sometimes fails to live up to the Fox News credo: "Fair And Balanced." Of course, Fox News doesn't live up to that credo either. My point, though, is that some film criticism is influenced by the need to entertain, which tends to distort one's presentation of a film.
MILD SPOILER FOR SPIDERMAN 3
One of the film critics for the New Yorker, Anthony Lane, (whom I confused with Nathan Lane for the longest time, for some reason) is brilliant and witty, lord love him, but I think it is rather ironic that he picked on the notion in Spiderman 3 of the Venom suit amplifying an aspect of one's personality, because that sort of amplification is EXACTLY what he does as a critic; he amplifies small quirky moments and discrepancies in the composition of a movie, and it is part of what I enjoy so much about his writing. It is what makes it funny. But it can be a bit nit-picky, possibly even snobbish.
My point is not to say that Anthony Lane is wrong in his overall assessments of movies. The question of right and wrong is usually irrelevant when it comes to movie assessments. My point is to justify my own self-indulgent film reviews.
The other night, I finally saw Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind. I know. I'm about three years behind the times. That seems to be my lot in life. I'm one of those guys who always seems to have not seen the best movies, even though I've watched a lot of good ones. For example, I still have not seen The Shawshank Redemption.
I'm not a critic. I'm not even a student of film or theater, and it has been a long time since I've dissected a novel or a storyline with any precision. But that's okay. I know what I like. And I really like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
I like it when an actor tries something new and interesting, especially if I once found them rather one-dimensional; Jim Carrey in The Truman Show or Nicolas Cage in Adaptation, for instance, made me instantly like them more, just by trying something with more substance. This isn't to say that movies like Ace Ventura, or any of the Nicolas Cage movies that I can't remember seeing, aren't entertaining; they can be fun, but they just don't stay with you very long. They're like oxygen sandwiches on white bread.
Eternal Sunshine really hit home. I saw a lot of myself as I used to be in Joel, especially at first: reluctant to take chances, shy around women, a little bit off-kilter, perhaps. At first he was desperate to do something dramatic, to erase all memories of Clementine when she left; but then, as he cycled through the bad memories and found the good memories, he realized he didn't want to lose that part of himself that was shaped by her presence. He was willing to take the bad memories with the good. That acceptance of things the way they turned out was his path to redemption.
There is an element of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth in Joel's subconscious efforts to save his memories of Clementine before they are lost and gone forever. In the operatic version of the story, even after Orpheus looks back before getting out of Hades, thereby losing Eurydice again, the gods are so touched by his love for her that they revive her. It isn't quite the same mechanism in Eternal Sunshine, but there does seem to be a certain fortuitous element in their meeting again after they each erased the other from their memories. Maybe the fact that Joel decided in the end that he didn't want a spotless mind made him worthy of a divine intervention.
We don't live in a spotless world. We aren't meant to live happily ever after. This movie has some of the greatest lines about relationships that I have seen in a long time.
Clementine: "What do you want, Joel?"
Joel: "Wait. I don't know. I want you to wait for . . . just a while."
. . . (a lacuna, appropriately enough; and how great a name for the company in the movie!)
Cl: "I'm not a concept, Joel. I'm just a fucked-up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind."
Cl: "I'll get bored with you and feel trapped, because that's what happens with me."
Joel: "Okay."
That one word, okay, with the way Jim Carrey said it, was just perfect. Such a realistic, yet optimistic conclusion to the movie. This is one movie I may have to own eventually.
Sometimes I wonder about the field of film criticism. It seems to me that it sometimes fails to live up to the Fox News credo: "Fair And Balanced." Of course, Fox News doesn't live up to that credo either. My point, though, is that some film criticism is influenced by the need to entertain, which tends to distort one's presentation of a film.
MILD SPOILER FOR SPIDERMAN 3
One of the film critics for the New Yorker, Anthony Lane, (whom I confused with Nathan Lane for the longest time, for some reason) is brilliant and witty, lord love him, but I think it is rather ironic that he picked on the notion in Spiderman 3 of the Venom suit amplifying an aspect of one's personality, because that sort of amplification is EXACTLY what he does as a critic; he amplifies small quirky moments and discrepancies in the composition of a movie, and it is part of what I enjoy so much about his writing. It is what makes it funny. But it can be a bit nit-picky, possibly even snobbish.
My point is not to say that Anthony Lane is wrong in his overall assessments of movies. The question of right and wrong is usually irrelevant when it comes to movie assessments. My point is to justify my own self-indulgent film reviews.
The other night, I finally saw Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind. I know. I'm about three years behind the times. That seems to be my lot in life. I'm one of those guys who always seems to have not seen the best movies, even though I've watched a lot of good ones. For example, I still have not seen The Shawshank Redemption.
I'm not a critic. I'm not even a student of film or theater, and it has been a long time since I've dissected a novel or a storyline with any precision. But that's okay. I know what I like. And I really like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
I like it when an actor tries something new and interesting, especially if I once found them rather one-dimensional; Jim Carrey in The Truman Show or Nicolas Cage in Adaptation, for instance, made me instantly like them more, just by trying something with more substance. This isn't to say that movies like Ace Ventura, or any of the Nicolas Cage movies that I can't remember seeing, aren't entertaining; they can be fun, but they just don't stay with you very long. They're like oxygen sandwiches on white bread.
Eternal Sunshine really hit home. I saw a lot of myself as I used to be in Joel, especially at first: reluctant to take chances, shy around women, a little bit off-kilter, perhaps. At first he was desperate to do something dramatic, to erase all memories of Clementine when she left; but then, as he cycled through the bad memories and found the good memories, he realized he didn't want to lose that part of himself that was shaped by her presence. He was willing to take the bad memories with the good. That acceptance of things the way they turned out was his path to redemption.
There is an element of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth in Joel's subconscious efforts to save his memories of Clementine before they are lost and gone forever. In the operatic version of the story, even after Orpheus looks back before getting out of Hades, thereby losing Eurydice again, the gods are so touched by his love for her that they revive her. It isn't quite the same mechanism in Eternal Sunshine, but there does seem to be a certain fortuitous element in their meeting again after they each erased the other from their memories. Maybe the fact that Joel decided in the end that he didn't want a spotless mind made him worthy of a divine intervention.
We don't live in a spotless world. We aren't meant to live happily ever after. This movie has some of the greatest lines about relationships that I have seen in a long time.
Clementine: "What do you want, Joel?"
Joel: "Wait. I don't know. I want you to wait for . . . just a while."
. . . (a lacuna, appropriately enough; and how great a name for the company in the movie!)
Cl: "I'm not a concept, Joel. I'm just a fucked-up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind."
Cl: "I'll get bored with you and feel trapped, because that's what happens with me."
Joel: "Okay."
That one word, okay, with the way Jim Carrey said it, was just perfect. Such a realistic, yet optimistic conclusion to the movie. This is one movie I may have to own eventually.
posted by Devin at 10:32 AM
1 Comments:
I've never thought about this before, but now that I'm doing so, I think that it would be difficult to write a film review without magnifying some small aspect of the film that other people might find insignificant. Talking always about the "big picture" would probably make for a tired and seemingly vague review. It brings up the inevitable cliche about film reviews: they're more about the person writing them than they are about the films they purport to review.
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