Analysis of Postmodernism on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The postmodern man is often described as a speeding entity, running away from his primitive past towards the future; until he stops to realize that the future he is running to is unclear and dark. When he thinks about it, he realizes that he does not know where he is running to because he has detached himself from the past he was running from. In my opinion, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind definitely ranks between the best of postmodernist movies. In fact, the movie does not only encompass postmodernist characteristics in terms of form, but also depicts the image of the postmodern man in a relationship.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an amalgamation between Romantic Comedy and Science Fiction, which allows us to understand the intricacies of the relationship of the postmodern man. The main narrative of the movie consists of an odd couple Joel (Jim Carey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) who after a terrible break up fight decide to engage themselves in a memory erasing procedure to forget their ache of heartbreak. Inside of Joel’s psyche while the procedure is taking place, we are able to view into the relationship from his perspective and later accompany him in the task of avoiding the procedure as he regrets having his good memories erased.
If we analyze the film through the lens of postmodernism judging by the characteristic traits of the movement pointed out in Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright’s book Practices of Looking, we can conclude that it is very much postmodern for a series of reasons.
Primarily, as I mentioned before, the postmodern man is a running entity who at one point stops and questions his path towards the future: “Do we really know that progress is always a good thing”? (251) In the film, both main characters Joel and Clementine, attempt to run away from their past -a failed relationship- by undergoing the clinical procedure of having their memories erased. Not only the situation that the main characters decide to receive the procedure, but the fact that there was a clinic that would perform it to the public symbolizes the “running away from the past”. Yet, in the middle of the procedure Joel questions and regrets his decision of submitting himself to it, as if he was questioning the progress he had decided to make. A large segment of the movie is about Joel trying to escape the procedure from inside his mind.
The film has a psychological quality to it because we, through Joel, are able to explore the depths of his consciousness. His subconscious is attributed a body inside his memories. This refers to the trait of postmodernism of simulation: “where the original and the copy coexist in a digitized version [of the world]” (253). Once the procedure has started, Joel is able to see himself, from inside his head, submitting himself into the procedure. Throughout the movie there is a clash between Joel’s conscious original and the digitized copy, which is being erased. There is a brief moment when the simulation ends and the digitized and the real Joel meet, as his subconscious is able to make the body open the eyes and look at the external world and process it with the subconscious. Yet, this moment is very brief and Joel returns to his digitized version of his world of memories.
Because the film portrays the coexistance of the original and the subconscious copy, I will dare claim that this movie translated a postmodernist technique of form into content. One of the characteristics of postmodernism in advertising is reflection: “[where] an ad acknowledges to the viewer the ad’s placement within a magazine” (265). In other words, an entity acknowledges its place within a given space. Inside Joel’s psyche and memories, not only his subconscious form recognizes that it exists inside its mind but also the characters it interacts with. Both the doctor and Clementine inside his head at one point or another as interacting with Joel, accept that they are in fact his head. While trying to escape the procedure, Joel tries to ask doctor Mierzwiak to stop it, but he replies that he is just a product of his own imagination; therefore placing himself inside Joel’s head and accepting his imaginary state. The situation with Clementine is somewhat different. Joel is able to explain to Clementine that she is in fact a memory of him inside his head, but she instead of constricting herself to being a mere product of his psyche, she acquires her own personality and tries to aid Joel into getting the procedure stopped.
Because the postmodern man is running and halting to question the future he is running to is “a crisis of cultural authority”(251). It is almost as if after running for so long towards the future, the postmodern man hesitates and doubts his position and how he came to being there. This is best exemplified by a scene where Clementine undergoes an emotional breakdown a few days after she has had her memory erased. She comments to her recently acquired boyfriend that she feels old, and that her skin is coming off. She repeats various times “nothing makes any sense to me” with a tone of frustration. Another scene that presents confusion on the present state, is a moment when Joel opens his journal and cannot remember having ripped out a number of pages, which were in fact ripped right before the procedure so he would not have anything to remember Clementine by. If one thinks of it, to stand in a present point without knowledge of the past must be quite puzzling. Linked with the idea that the postmodern man runs away from the past, is the idea that maybe running, detaching ourselves, or disregarding the past prevents us from learning something. Clementine and Joel, after having part of their memories erased, have no explanations for the feelings they could be having and are ignorant to the fact that the feelings felt are not without precedent, but consequence of a past that was erased. If we skip a step, we skip all the elements of it that would most likely explain the succeeding stage.
Consequence of the uncertainty of the present and how he came to being there, the postmodern man is unable to retell his personal narrative chronologically. The movie depicts this both in form –“[by] defying the conventions of cinematic language”- and in content (259). In regards to form, there are jump cuts in a nonlinear retelling of the story. We travel back and forth in time to learn about Joel and Clementine’s relationship. There are visual cues that hint once the narrative has changed directions such as Clementine’s hair color which is different in between stages of their relationship and furthermore of the retelling of it. In regards to content, the film starts at the most recent event –when they meet again- and roughly changes to the first event of the main narrative –the breakup-.
Another trait of postmodernism is “the notion that perhaps nothing new can be made, which implies to a certain degree that the idea of something completely new is a fallacy” (261). This is presented in the movie in two different ways.
First, initiated with postmodern architecture, there is “the plagiarizing…and borrowing of previous styles” (260). In the movie, we see the character of Patrick who works at the erasing clinic, and falls inlove with Clemetine the night she has her procedure done. Because he is so desperate to have her like him, he steals the items that she had turned in because they reminded her of Joel, in order to learn how to be like him. He gave her the same gifts and tried to reproduce the same lines that Joel had used previously. At the beginning, the concept of borrowing does work because Clementine dates Patrick for a while, but towards the middle of the movie the concept only backfired because subconsciously Clementine feels that there is something odd with her feeling of déjà vu.
Secondly, there is the impossibility of creating something new. After the movie ends we are able to see that Joel and Clementine, after having their memories erased, they meet again. Not only do they meet again but they reproduce one date they had had previously: having a picnic on a frozen river. This clearly represents the idea of going back to the start and reproducing what was already once. This notion interacts with the confusion of how the postmodern feels on how he got to be where he is. This occurs because when we skip a step and don’t learn what we should have we lose a sense of direction, and go around in circles, repeating what we had already done before.
Ultimately we can conclude that the movie sends a message about postmodern relationships in the postmodern era. We live in a world of speed and of emotions on sale. It is hard enough of a task to figure ourselves out in our environment to truly understand relationships. Yet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has some advice to give.When we rush things, there comes a point where the relationship becomes unsustainable and thrusts us into crisis. When this occurs, we must not attempt to flee inconveniences for when we try to suppress the problems, erase them or escape them, instead of going back to work them out, we come to re-encounter them, forming a vicious cycle that might eventually become inescapable.

Works Cited

1. Cartwright, Lisa and Marita Sturken. Practices of Looking. Oxford University Press: New York, 2001. pp 251-265