Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Imagine you learn that your lover has had you erased from their memory and, in a moment of despair, you have your lover erased from your memory too. Imagine that as you lose your recollections of the bad times together, you realise that you don't want to forget them after all. That's the premise for Charlie Kaufman's Oscar-winning script for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. An instant cult classic, the film's distinctive ambiguity and tangled narrative demands audience engagement and repeated watching. Delving into the central themes of the film, Andrew M. Butler foregrounds its play with genre and audience expectations, its psychoanalytic underpinnings and its debt to Philip K. Dick. Also examining its production processes, Butler explores the against-type casting of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in lead roles and the intertwined careers of Kaufman and director Michel Gondry. This special edition features original cover artwork by Patricia Derks.

Imagine you learn that your lover has had you erased from their memory and, in a moment of despair, you have your lover erased from your memory too. Imagine that as you lose your recollections of the bad times together, you realise that you don't want to forget them after all. That's the premise for Charlie Kaufman's Oscar-winning script for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. An instant cult classic, the film's distinctive ambiguity and tangled narrative demands audience engagement and repeated watching. Delving into the central themes of the film, Andrew M. Butler foregrounds its play with genre and audience expectations, its psychoanalytic underpinnings and its debt to Philip K. Dick. Also examining its production processes, Butler explores the against-type casting of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in lead roles and the intertwined careers of Kaufman and director Michel Gondry. This special edition features original cover artwork by Patricia Derks.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of the most widely discussed and thought-provoking films of recent years. This is the first book to explore and address the philosophical aspects of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . Beginning with a helpful introduction that places each essay in context, specially commissioned chapters examine the following topics: philosophical issues surrounding love, friendship, affirmation and repetition the role of memory (and the emotions) in personal identity and decision-making the morality of imagination and ethical importance of memory philosophical questions about self-knowledge and knowing the minds of others the aesthetics of the film considered in relation to Gondry’s other works and issues in the philosophy of perception Including a foreword by Michel Gondry and a list of further reading, this volume is essential reading for students interested in philosophy and film studies.