Reflecting on ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

All we have is our memories. They're all we can really base anything on. I guess we have the current moment, and that's pretty cool. But you can't help but be shaped by what came before. So what if you really could erase it; wipe out someone you used to love? I think what makes it an appealing thing is not so much removing someone's face from your memory, it's removing all the marks they left. All the crap that comes up every time you meet someone new. Know what I mean?

'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' is one of the greatest films ever. I am saying that now, at this moment, only minutes after watching the film again. If calling it 'one of the greatest films ever' is ridiculous, then it's ridiculous and so be it. But right now, in this moment, I'm in love with it. I have not had an experience like this with a film in quite a long time.

The film is about memories. It's funny because -- I'm not sure how well I know this film. I'm not sure how many times I've seen it and how much I enjoyed it in the past. Watching it just now was great, because it was a very fresh experience.

There's genius in this film in so many ways. Charlie Kaufman's script is mind-blowing. How did he write this? When you add films like 'Adaptation' and 'Being John Malkovich' to the list, it's incredible. Kaufman seems to have access to his whole brain -- he knows how to utilise it. 'Eternal Sunshine..' is so powerful for exactly that reason -- we feel like we're going through a journey in our own brains.

You have to credit the director, Michel Gondry, and the director of photography Ellen Kuras. In a remarkably accurate way they have brought to life the inner workings of the mind --- the dreams, the nightmares, the memories. It's so haunting, so real.

And then there's Kate and Carrey. What can you say about them? I don't know if I realised the first time I saw this movie -- but Jim Carrey's performance is perfect. But not perfect in any way you could teach. I don't think you could extract it and bottle it and learn from it. You just have to watch him and be in awe of it -- because he's just amazing. From the first moment, you're sold. Kate Winslet is probably just as good, but you can't help but be a little conscious of the fact it's Kate Winslet with weird coloured hair in the opening scenes. It takes a while to adjust.

The thing about movie stars is that it's very hard to detach from who they really are when you see them on screen. Or more accurately, it's hard to detach from what we project onto them, how we view them. But in the opening scenes, Carrey and Winslet are so REAL. They're like me and you. Just a man and a woman. They're vulnerable, awkward, and you just feel it. These are two performances that really earned their salaries. This is why we love the cinema and movie stars. Sometimes they really can reach these levels.

And then there's the editing, by Valdís Óskarsdóttir. It's seamless. The thing that's so difficult about mind-fuck films like this one, is that it's so easy to get lost -- to be jolted into confusion. In 'Eternal Sunshine..', the moments where we do get confused are intentional, and get resolved later on. There's an art to what Óskarsdóttir achieved. There are times in the second half of the movie when we're being taken on a journey through Joel's (Carrey) subconscious mind -- as he dashes in and out of numerous memories, yet at the same times we cut back into the Clementine/Patrick storyline (Winslet/Wood), and the Dr. Mierzwiak/Mary storyline (Wilkinson/Dunst) and it's miraculous that it all makes sense. That's the power of great editing. If you compare it to films like 'Donnie Darko' and 'Vanilla Sky', I think there's a level of brilliance to this film that those ones lack. And it comes down to how all the elements mentioned in this article were handled. 

The film had a strange effect on me tonight. It got me thinking about my memories. How many of them are rigid and built to last? Maybe not that many. In fact, some stories I could recount perfectly two years ago, now somehow sink into insignificance. It's weird what time does. The erasing of former lovers is something that, weirdly, kind of happens in real life too. The pain goes away, the specifics evaporate. We get left with the feelings. Sometimes they're beautiful and poignant, other times they leave us bitter and resentful. So what to do with all of these memories? 

I know precisely what I want to do with them: I want to create a lot more of them. 

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Vulnerability

I still find writing extremely scary.



The blog has always been my safe haven. I always feel pretty free to write stuff here of varying quality, without thinking too much about it.



But still; so much of what I write is met with stone silence, and it's SCARY! Late on Monday night I posted a short story called "London Falling". Days went by, there were no comments, no emails, no friends saying 'hey I really liked it'. Absolutely nothing.



The immediate inclination is to delete the story, because it must be awful. But I always try to leave everything standing. I like to show all sides of creativity, the good stuff and the bad. So the bad stories stay, as much pain as they cause me.

Today, nearly three days later, there's a comment on the story. PAUL S has thrown it a lifeline.



"I'm bemused by the lack of response to writing of this quality. This piece is beautiful, moving and macabre; and I for one want to thank you for sharing it."



Amazing how a tiny comment by someone, anyone, can make all the difference to your state of mind and how you feel about yourself as an artist. You always kid yourself into thinking you can just write anytime you want without caring about people's feedback, but you need it.

GREAT material gets comments, and it gets shared. And if it's really great, it goes viral. Everything else just kind of sinks into the internet. Another page of semi-interesting nonsense that will capture a few, but hardly anybody.

Luckily, occasionally, a piece resonates; as this one did with Paul S. You find yourself with a little bit more fuel - someone likes what you do, and you know you'll write again.

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5 Things I hate about the cinema

1. When you tell the dude you want medium popcorn, and he holds up a huge extra large bag and says it's only 40p (or cents) extra. You check the maths, and your appetite, and feel forced to oblige. But you know he's scamming you somehow. This is one of the great cinema mysteries.

2. The one hour staff walk-in. Halfway through the movie, a cinema worker has a break. Rather than go for a cigarette, they gatecrash your movie. You see them hovering at the back and it totally distracts you from the flick.

3. Audience dumbness. The audio is too low, or the frame has accidentally fallen so that Brad Pitt's face is being projected onto the first three rows, and the audience don't give a shit! They sit there gormlessly. WTF?

4. BlackBerry owners. FUCK YOU.

5. When you have a clear row fully to your left and right, and a clear view ahead, and then someone comes in after 7 minutes, cutting off the lower part of the frame because they sit in front of you with their weird fuzzy hair.

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AARON SORKIN on ARTIFICIAL INSPIRATION

"Sometimes you have to create artificial inspiration. Put music on, do something, go on a date. Get on a bicycle. If you're a writer, not writing is the worst feeling in the world, so do something."

-Sorkin

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KITFR Acting Class

Hello and welcome to the Kid In The Front Row acting class. Take a seat and don't chew gum!

1. Watch every single film you can find that stars RICHARD JENKINS. Watch every frame he's in. He's not a 'movie star' like Brad Pitt, but he's an actor who every director wants to work with. EVERY MOMENT is true. I just watched 'Flirting with Disaster'; it stars Téa Leoni, Alan Alda, Ben Stiller, Josh Brolin and Patricia Arquette. But it's Jenkins who TOTALLY steals the show. You can't take your eyes off him.

Find the earliest stuff you can find of him then trace it forwards, see the evolution of his career. Jenkins is precisely what acting is about, he is the reason you want to do it. He's rarely a lead. He's that guy that turns up after 40 minutes and blows you away. 'Dear John' was a vehicle for Tatum and Seyfried but Jenkins was transcendent. He reached right through to your frickin' soul!

And you must see him in 'The Visitor' - a wonderful indie movie in which he plays the lead.

2. Watch 'Inside The Actors Studio' with James Lipton. You get to see the journeys of all the greats. I know you all watch this when you can, but it should be your RELIGION! I watched the Jim Carrey one this morning. You realise just how much incredible work he's done, and when you hear him speak you can really see WHY. He spent his whole childhood in front of the mirror pulling faces. He made huge decisions all throughout his career. He had crazy self-confidence. There are more lessons in that 35 minute episode that a whole year of drama school.


3. Linked to the point above, you need to stop seeing the stars as something different than you. They're just people. They have children, they have bodily problems, they have arguments with their parents. They're exactly like you!

4. Listen to the 'WTF with Marc Maron' podcast. I recommend the interview with Michael Cera. Maron is the king of asking mundane questions about everyday life, but it's FASCINATING! And he asks Cera things bluntly, like what will he do when the hype dies down and he can't sustain the career? They go off into tangents, but they're tangants that you can relate to, because you're EXACTLY LIKE THEM!

5. Make decisions about your characters. DECIDE something. Bring it to the table.

6. Re-watch the actors that inspire you. When you were 15 you got OBSESSIVE, but then at some point it seemed uncool so you branched out. But you need to go back to that now. You need to see every single frame of the people who MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU. There's real JUICE in that! Find out EXACTLY what makes your heroes tick. 

7. Stop moaning about auditions or a lack of auditions, no-one gives a shit and you sound like a moaning idiot! You think you're the only actor to suck at an audition? There are 20,000 actors in L.A. with a sob story. There are millions all round the world. Be one of the view who just gets the hell on with it.

8. Don't do acting classes just to feel better about yourself. Just do the ones that really matter. Most short term acting classes are just a con!

9. Get your showreel together NOW. NO EXCUSES.

10. Listen to actor interviews on the commute. Read autobiographies when you're in the passenger seat. Everyone else is too slack. If you have three unfinished autobiographies by your bed, you're doing it wrong. You're meant to finish them. You'll get better acting work when you finish what you started.

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