Neruda said,
Love is so short, and forgetting is too long. I would like to spy on meteors for you, spy on everything that falls.
"Ambience Contains Light" (2004)
Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Jane Adams
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie released in the United States in 2004. The Chinese translation is ambiguity and inner light. This film contains philosophical and love colors. Although it is called a so-called "post-modern film", it feels very real and touching. This is due to the careful observation of the screenwriter and director, and the living conditions of various groups of people are related to several parallel loves. The story's point of view is penetrating, making the emotions in the film very rich and diverse.
1. Art Design
(clothing, scenery, makeup, props);
The make-up/hair stylist for this film is Peter Owen, who is also the make-up artist and makeup artist for The Lord of the Rings 1, 2, 3, Kill Bill 1, 2, Little Women, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who won the 74th Oscar Nominated for the Best Makeup Award and 3 BAFTA Makeup Awards, with a cumulative box office of 1.068 billion. He also contributed very meaningful makeup and hair styling in this film: for example, the color of the heroine's hair will change at key time points. When they met for the second time, Clementine's hair was ruined blue, blue for acquaintance, the meaning of re-acquaintance.
After orange is affair, an affair.
Green is hope, and this is also the first time the male and female protagonists meet in the real time line.
Joel's main colors are gray, decadent, melancholy
Clementine's is bright and lively, she is like a ray of light, shining into Joel's boring and melancholy life.
Coincidentally, the first time Joel and Clementine met, and the first time they met after losing their memory, both were orange hoodies, but Clementine changed her hair color.
2. Photography
2.1 Composition
Scenario 1: Triangle Composition and Tripartite Composition
This is one of the most iconic shots in the movie. After the hero and heroine erased their memories, they met again by accident and went to the frozen lake together at night. When shooting here, the picture is divided into thirds horizontally and vertically, and the male and female protagonists are placed on one of the four intersection points, so as to highlight the main bodies of the two protagonists more clearly. At the same time, triangular composition is a typical composition form in portrait photography, which is divided into equilateral triangle, inverted triangle and oblique triangle. When shooting, the body or action posture of the main body is generally used to form a triangle. This composition, because the triangle is a stable structure, has a sense of stability, and is also the most common composition method for portraits. Here, a diagonal triangle is formed by two cracks and the bodies of the male and female protagonists. One is that the picture is very harmonious and stable, and the other is that the two cracks in the story line symbolize the encounter between two people.
Scene 2: Deep space
Depth and Distance: Use foreground, middle ground, and background to construct depth space, create contrast and give depth in space
This episode is a timeline where the male and female protagonists return to reality after traveling through the male protagonist's memory. The division of the foreground, middle, background and background is obvious here, and the three spaces imply the male protagonist's memory: together, when he was a child , The three main time and space of the hospital bed that erases memory, and at the same time in the center of erasing memory, people's memories are recorded in books, and after this paragraph, people sprinkle books on the ground, which also implies that the male protagonist's memory is confused, Irretrievable, it sets the emotional tone after the story: to find the purest love in the chaos.
2.2 Lighting
Light is the gentlest lubricant for the brain's nerves.
1 The warmth of the picture
In the first 17 minutes, the overall tone of the picture is cool, blue, gray, and black full of melancholy colors. Whether it's the sea, the train, or Joel himself. Until the appearance of Clementine in orange in the picture, and later their conversation on the train, the tone gradually warms up. Later, when it comes to the amnestic part, the picture returns to cool colors, which also highlights Clementine's always warm dress. The last recurring montage of the sea, the tone is also different. The hi that appears in the last place should be the clearest. Compared with the sea that appeared in Joel's consciousness, one is cheerful and the other is cold, forming a huge contrast.
2 Lighting
Low Key Lighting is used here. Low Key Lighting does not mean that the lighting is very low key, but a cinematic lighting style that uses hard light sources to surround the scene in shadows, for contrast and to create a dark story atmosphere. The plot here is that both the Doctor and Patrick are in Joel's head, and Patrick's image is a monster with upside-down eyes. The lens shakes and the mirror moves horizontally. Before the person appears, the viewfinder and the beam are aimed at the place where the person will appear. Under the illumination of the singular cold light source, the monster in J's heart slowly appears from the dark and dark place next to him. Moreover, the lighting engineer did not use Fill Light to make the shadow disappear like other low-key lighting pictures, but left the shadow in the picture. The contrast of light and dark can better highlight the characters in the picture, plus the tone of the actor's speech. and pauses, zooming in highlights the psychological activities of each character in the film, and also shows the character's personality.
3. Sound
The film's sound and soundtrack musician is Jon Brion.
At the beginning, the song played by the male protagonist while driving is "theme", which was originally the background music of a suspense film. The music uses the key of C minor, there are many chromatic scale strokes, it is a feeling of confusion, and the accompaniment of the climax has a continuous syncopated rhythm, which also creates a very tense feeling. Finally, the sound of the instrument is also very ethereal. The accompaniment has an instrument that has been plucked all the time, and the melody is a flute.
Secondly, the theme song of the film is "Everybody's got to learn sometime" sung by Beck, the original song of The Korgis. And the meaning of the lyrics is very close to the theme of the film. (There is a specific analysis in the values)
4. Show
The film's main character is Jim Carrey. He is the leading actor in the movie Truman's World, and earlier Geek in disguise.
Jim Carrey contributed a subversive performance in this film. If Jim Carrey in "The Truman World" still has the shadow of absurd performances, in "Eternal Sunshine of a Beautiful Mind", he completely abandoned it. In the previous character form, Joel's gloom and loneliness were vividly displayed. In the driving scene at the beginning, after losing his memory, he had already listened to the tape and knew the past and the fact that he had done amnestics with Clementine. After falling in love with Clementine again, the How to face it? Jim Carrey's hand on the steering wheel trembled uncontrollably; his eyes were red, as if he had cried a lot, and there were tears in the corners of his eyes, but there were no tears; The front; the facial muscles kept shaking, and his face was full of unwillingness. After a while, Jim Carrey couldn't hold back any longer. He covered his face with one hand, his pupils dilated, and the shaking of his facial muscles became more and more forceful. In the end, he had to narrow his eyes and move the camera away.
In this solo part of Jim Carrey, he showed Joel's remorse, entanglement, panic and wanting restraint when he knew the truth, immersing the audience in his performance. In another solo scene, Joel, who did her best to keep Clementine from disappearing from her memory, left her with the phrase "Meet me in Montauk", returning to our original encounter. At this time, in Joel's subconscious, the pictures of him and Clementine playing, arguing, and hugging each other appeared little by little, but Clementine's figure in the picture was erased everywhere. Jim Carrey didn't cry when he looked at the memory of his past with Clementine for the last time - the moment of happiness looking at the sweet picture, and the twitching of his face when he realized the truth, but then, his face was helpless Facing forward - a feeling of powerlessness that can't be changed even if she tries her best; but this is a decision she made before, and she can only accept helplessly, her passing. As Jim Carrey's head gradually falls, the perspective is brought to reality, and the amnestics are over.
In the one-man performances at these two places, although it is a sad part, the most eye-catching is still Jim Carrey's facial expressions, which may be the reason why he has been in comedy films over the years, such as "Grange in Disguise". A very demanding work, comedy experience and innate talent, immerse us in his performances and emotions.
7. Characters
(the image, character and symbolic meaning of the character);
Joel: Silent and introverted, knowledgeable, thinking, and know how to internalize. "Looks like a wounded cat".
Clementine: A very active, outspoken and passionate girl. She describes herself in the film as a girl sorting out her mess. She conveyed the understanding of the essence of love: let the light in the dark place, in the ordinary and trivial real life, in the messy life, love is not the dazzling moon, not the radiant sun, the real precious love , the surface is flat, but the inside is sparkling.
Patrick: Adore Clementine,
These two completely different people, after losing their memories of each other, still fell in love again without hesitation.
8. Narrative
(Storytelling skills)
This film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In my opinion, the narrative of this film actually echoes the usual narrative characteristics of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. It is broken and messy, although it is only a "reunion" story, but The film uses a non-linear time frame and a documentary-like style, and through the reorganization of the screenwriter, it becomes exciting and suspenseful. Such a montage narrative approach culminated in his 2008 work "New York Alchemy". It is worth mentioning that, as Charlie Kaufman's second full-length work, this film is also closely related to "Being John Malkovich." ”, play the stream of consciousness to the end, enter the protagonist’s brain, and deconstruct the story. So if you just watch the film once, it may feel a little cloudy (making the box office bleak), but if you follow the clues (the sunken car, Clementine's hair) and clarify the story in the correct time line, you can Discover the tricks the screenwriter is playing. At the very beginning of the film, the encounter between the hero and heroine presented by the screenwriter is actually the second encounter after the two erased their memories, and Clementine and Joel fell in love again. But at the end of the prelude, into the connection of the main film - when Joel drives home (the theme is in the background), the film makes the first jump, and Joel's crying is actually the state of the end, but the film deliberately will clarify the truth. Part of it was skipped, leaving the audience unclear (why did he lose the tape? He didn't just fall in love, why did he cry). When the car parked downstairs at home (the car was still dented at this time, so it was after clear memory), at the moment when Joel disappeared and disappeared, the story jumped again and returned to the beginning of the whole story, which is Valentine's Day. , Joel knew that Clementine had done amnestics, so he got angry and wanted to do it himself. Just the opening scene shows the driving scene of the performers, and there are two story jumps, interspersed in the three timelines, to make the love story suspenseful and fascinating. Immediately followed by a long narrative, the film uses a two-layer structure, the love between Joel and others in reality, and Joel in subconscious memory. The editor is constantly changing between the two-layer structure of reality and subconsciousness, that is, the two-layer structure of reality and memory are interspersed with each other, layer by layer, and step by step, Joel wants to interrupt after recalling his relationship with Clementina. The remorse of the surgery, the story climaxes when Clementine fades away little by little, with her dwindling and irreparable memories. The subconscious narrative not only echoes the demise of the relationship between the two, but also makes the audience more and more desperate. When the memory is cleared, the story returns to the timeline at the beginning again, enters the end, and forms a closed loop between the beginning and the end, then we understand why we want to play at the beginning. Making two time jumps is not only to create a suspenseful atmosphere, but to form such a closed loop is not like the relationship between the two, it is you who go around. Throughout the whole film, the screenwriter skillfully used different narrative sequences and innovative narrative structure, orderly in chaos, and told the love story of the reunion of old love with the narrative technique of suspense film, which fully demonstrated the screenwriter's imagination and creativity. narrative ability.
9. Values
(the point the film is trying to express and its actual effect);
The original title of the film is " Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind ", which translates directly to "Eternal Sunshine of the Beautiful Mind", while the Chinese translation translates it to " Ambient Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ". The source here is Cui Yuan's "Motto" of the Han Dynasty, which means that the surface is dull, but the inner thing contains light. What the Chinese translator wants to express is to believe in the beauty of ordinary love, but in fact, the original intention of the English title is not mainly here. The original title of the film is quoted from the poem "Eloise to Abelard" by the 18th century British poet Alexander Pope. From the perspective of a nun, the author tells the year-long love affair between Heloise and Abelard in the 12th century. story. The original text is also quoted by Mary in the film:
"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
"How happy are those who are pure and unblemished.
He who forgets the world, the world forgets him.
Eternal sunshine of the beautiful mind!
Prayers are fulfilled, wishes are granted. "
Abelard, a 12th century philosopher, fell in love with the 18-year-old nun Eloise when he was 40 years old. Shortly after giving birth to the child, the resentment of the people around them for the incoherent love separated them. They had no contact for ten years. Although there was communication, they did not meet again until they died, and later generations buried them together. And this poem focuses on showing Eloise's sense of entanglement. There is also a projection of this relationship in the movie, that is, the unscrupulous love between Mary and Howard. Although the two have the same heart, it is still impossible to be together, even if they love each other all the time. At the end of the film, both Joel and Clementine know that they loved each other once, so Clementine feels that the previous unhappiness may be destined to happen again, and the two may not succeed, but Joel only said one sentence "okay", even though he knew this fact, he still wanted to experience it again.
Both of these two relationships reflect a kind of emotional predicament. They are still in love with each other, but that can never be eternal. Are you still willing to face him persistently and firmly? The film is never about affection and steadfastness, but a Sisyphus paradox. In the original script, the ending was that old Joel once again asked to erase Clementine's memory, and Clementine had erased Joel's memory many times.
But in the last movie, such an ending was deleted and replaced by an uncertain abrupt end. The two fell in love again and embarked on a failed journey once again. The road ahead may never be a certainty. , feelings are so absurd, but isn't life just enjoying this absurdity?
Maybe there is no such tenacious love in the world, maybe there is no eternal sunshine in the beautiful heart, but please don't disappear in my memory, please stay, please meet me on the island of Montauk, "Meet me in Montauk”
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