

He does this in an attempt to save Clementine from being completely erased from his memory.

In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Joel easily recalls memories of his childhood. Mental states, such as memories, exist, but we are not always consciously aware of them - they can be called to mind when relevant. Through these three principles, Freud claims that there are unknown causes that govern our choices. It confronts the ego with rules and prohibitions, like a strict parent - this causes feelings of anxiety or guilt, causing repression between the ego and superego. The superego contains a person’s conscious derived from the moral norms learned in childhood.
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The ego, or reality principle, is nearest to our ordinary conception of self with our conscious mental states that we articulate as “I think/feel/want.” This includes perceptions of the real world and decisions about how to act. The id, or pleasure principle, contains the instinctual drives that seek immediate satisfaction like a small child. The three parts to this theory contain the id, the ego, and the superego.

Through this theory, Freud came up with the theory of human nature. This theory stated that people could suffer from an unconscious idea or emotion charged memory that they are unaware of, but from which can be revealed by bringing it to consciousness. The director told The Daily Beastthat, for example, Wilkinson refused to do any more than three takes of any scene, but thankfully, "he was great in all three takes." Gondry also remembered Wilkinson's attitude making him question "everything at the roots" of his profession. "I'd give a direction, and he'd just look me right in the eye and say, 'Why?'" Gondry said.Neurologist Sigmund Freud developed the psychoanalytic theory. and I don't know what you're doing!' I was like, 'I don't know what I'm doing either, man.
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Ruffalo recalled, "Tom Wilkinson kept being like, 'I don't know what the hell we're doing! I don't know what doing!'" Ruffalo said when he told Wilkinson he thought the movie would be good, his English co-star responded, "'I don't dig any of it.

Mierzwiak's assistant, Stan – said Wilkinson would often get frustrated with Gondry. Talking with The Daily Beast in 2017, Mark Ruffalo - who plays Dr. A house was actually built on the shore specifically so that the ocean tide would invade the space. Toward the end of the film, when the beach house Joel and Clementine break into appears to be collapsing under the tide, it was no illusion. In a scene in which Winslet appears to be impossibly disappearing from one room and reappearing in another, secret doors were built so that the actress could race in and out of the rooms off-camera. But as Kaia Placa pointed out in her 2017 essay for Film Independent, part of the reason Gondry's film endures so well is because the director favored practical effects whenever possible.įor example, in a scene when Joel retreats to a memory of himself as a toddler, one where Jim Carrey appears much smaller than Kate Winslet, forced perspective was used to create the illusion of a pint-sized Joel. While Eternal Sunshine doesn't have epic battles between supernatural forces like those other movies, it does have a lot of impressive visuals that you might think would be impossible without CGI.
