Development
The concept of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind came from conversations between director Michel Gondry and co-writer Pierre Bismuth in 1998.[20] The pair had met and become friends in the early 1980s during Gondry's drumming career in the French pop group Oui Oui.[21] Bismuth had conceived of the idea of erasing certain people from people's minds in response to a friend complaining about her boyfriend; when he asked her if she would erase that boyfriend from her memory, she said yes.[21][22] Bismuth originally planned to conduct an art experiment involving sending cards to people saying someone they knew had erased the card's recipient from their memory.[23] When he mentioned this to Gondry, they developed it into a story based on the situations that would arise if it were scientifically possible.[21][23] Bismuth never carried out his experiment idea.[23]
Gondry approached writer Charlie Kaufman with this concept,[22][23] and they developed it into a short pitch.[24] While the writers did not believe the concept was marketable, a small bidding war began over the idea.[20][24][25] Steve Golin of Propaganda Films purchased it on June 12, 1998, for a low seven-figure sum.[5][26] Kaufman, who was responsible for writing the screenplay, did not begin immediately, instead opting to suspend writing while he was working on Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Human Nature, the last of which Gondry directed as his directorial debut.[20]
During this time, filmmaker Christopher Nolan released his film Memento (2000), which similarly deals with memory. Due to the similarities, Kaufman became worried and tried to pull out of the project, but Golin made him complete it.[5] During writing, the pitch's ownership changed several times resulting in Kaufman not having to deal with the studios until the end of the scriptwriting process.[20] The final script made the studios nervous.[20]
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!The world forgetting, by the world forgot:Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned;
Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, lines 207–210
Kaufman did not want to make the film a thriller and wanted to downplay the science fiction aspects of memory erasure, focusing on the relationship.[20][23][25] He had an "enormous struggle" while writing the script, particularly encountering two problems: showing "the memories, Joel's reactions to the memories, and Joel interacting with Clementine outside of the memories in the memories," and the fact that characters could refer in later scenes to already erased memories.[20]
Kaufman resolved the first problem by making Joel lucid and able to comment on his memories and solved the second by making the memories degrade instead of immediately erasing, with complete erasure occurring at awakening.[20] Kaufman's original name for the screenplay was 18 words long, as he had wanted a title that "you couldn't possibly fit on a marquee."[27] He eventually decided on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a title originating from the 1717 poem Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope.[28]
1968 French film Je t'aime, je t'aime directed by Alain Resnais it has been cited as an influence on the film.[29][30]
Filming and post-production
Montauk station, where Joel and Clementine meet each other again after the erasing of their memories.The shooting of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind began in mid-January 2003 after six weeks of preparation,[31][32][33] lasting for three months on a budget of $20 million mostly in and around New York City.[7][33] The film was shot on Fuji Reala 500D.[33] The production crew recreated some key scenes, such as Joel's Rockville Centre apartment and the 1950s-style kitchen, in a New Jersey former U.S. Navy base.[33] The shoot was difficult, sometimes shooting for 17 hours per day in harsh environments.[34]
The shoot was challenging for cinematographer Ellen Kuras, due to the difficulty of filming Gondry's vision for the film, which aimed to "blend location-shoot authenticity with unpredictable flashes of whimsy". According to this vision, Gondry wanted available light used exclusively for the shoot. Kuras disagreed and worked around this idea by lighting the room instead of the actors and by hiding light bulbs around the set to increase light levels.[33] Another issue the cinematographers encountered was that due to the frequent improvisation, the lack of marks and the few rehearsals completed, the cinematographers often did not know where the actors would be. Two handheld cameras filmed near 360-degree footage at all times, shooting 36,000 feet of film a day to deal with this.[19][33] Gondry called back to the work of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard by filming using wheelchairs as well as using sled and chariot dollies instead of traditional dollies. When using wheelchairs, the shot was not consistently smooth; however, as Kuras liked the aesthetic of the low-angle, wobbly movement, the final film contains the footage.[33]
A beach in East Hampton, near where the film's beach scenes were filmed.The film used minimal CGI, with many effects accomplished in-camera, through forced perspectives, hidden space, spotlighting, unsynchronized sound, split focus and continuity editing.[23] A notable example is the ocean washing away the house in Montauk; the production team accomplished this by building the corner of a house on the beach and allowing the tide to rise.[7] Executing this effect was difficult, as the special team hired to place the set in the water refused due to perceived dangers. In response, Gondry fired the team and had the production team, including the actors and producers, place the set in the water. In retaliation for Gondry's actions, the chief of the union reprimanded Gondry in front of the crew.[35]
Kaufman rewrote some of the script during production; thus, several discrepancies exist between the production script and the final film.[24] A fundamental difference is that in the production script, with the erasure of each memory, Clementine's behavior is increasingly robotic.[20] In the final film, Winslet plays Clementine straight, and degradation of settings and the intrusion of settings upon each other establish memory degradation visually. Another script component that did not make it into the final film was the appearance of Naomi, Joel's girlfriend, played by Ellen Pompeo. Against Kaufman's insistence on Naomi's inclusion, the production team cut her already filmed scenes.[20] Tracy Morgan was also cut from the film.[36]
Icelandic editor Valdís Óskarsdóttir edited the film, and she reportedly clashed with Gondry during editing.[37] Kaufman was also very involved in the editing of the film. Editing was a long process as there was no requirement to rush it.[5][24] There were a few test screenings of the film, which elicited positive reactions.[24]
