Unsung Heroes: The Special Effects of Eternal Sunshine

Hey everybody. It's Michael C. here from Serious Film introducing my new series for The Film Experience: Unsung Heroes. Each week we will celebrate a previously unheralded contribution to film greatness.

This week it's the special effects work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Special Effects: Mark Bero, Brent Ekstrand, Drew Jeritano, Thomas Viviano
Visual Effects: Wizards from Custom Film Effects and Buzz Image Group

No matter how advanced visual technology gets audiences still know fakery when they see it. Even if the work is flawless, CGI triggers something in our brains that registers the image as false. It's too bad because it seems like the vast majority of current special effects work exists solely to draw attention to itself. That is why it's so fantastic when a film like Michael Gondry's Eternal Sunshine comes along which uses special effects the way they should be used, integrating them invisibly into the fabric of the film and adding depth and texture to the film's emotions.

Gondry and his effects team forgo CGI in the movie whenever possible. Instead they opt for in-camera effects: film speeds, double exposures, forced perspective, body doubles. For the memorable shot of Clementine sliding backward into darkness across the floor of Grand Central Station crew members simply pulled Kate Winslet with some wires. These practical effects slip around our defenses; they are too tactile, too real. We accept them as reality, the way we would in a dream.

In addition to not distracting viewers with obvious digital trickery, low-tech effects allow the actors to maintain the emotion of the scene on set. The added benefit to Eternal Sunshine is palpable, especially in some of the duets between Joel and Clementine. Imagine the impact that would have been lost with Kate recreating that intensity months later in front of a blue screen, directing her lines at a tennis ball on a stick meant to represent her acting partner.

The few times the effects team resorts to CGI they smartly avoid the slick polish common to most films, instead going for a rough, unfinished look that is infinitely more unsettling and doesn't break with the raw, realistic look of the cinematography. At one point they manage to fit a car falling randomly from the sky seamlessly into a scene that looks like it was improvised on the fly. It's beautiful how much care the effects artist put into the craft knowing that the better they do their work the fewer people will notice. I can't tell you how many times I watched the scene above without spotting the faces in the crowd that begin to smudge as the argument wears on.

Most years it feels like you can predict the Oscar nominees in Visual Effects just by measuring the budgets of the contenders. The relatively low budget work of Eternal Sunshine never entered into the conversation in 2004. Wouldn't it be nice if the Oscars found room to honor the effects that best enhanced the artistic power of the material regardless of the price tag attached?

Is there a particular effect in Eternal Sunshine you love... or some other work you would like to suggest for this series?
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Curio: Quote Pillows

Alexa from Pop Elegantiarum here. Seeing Inception got me thinking about Michel Gondry's more whimsical exploration of the subconscious, The Science of Sleep. I'd love to watch them back-to-back, but maybe then my reality would start blurring with my dream life. Here's a cute bit of craftiness: a quote from Gondry's film embroidered on a speech bubble pillow by Tonya Ruanto.

Tonya makes all kinds of speech bubble pillows, including quotes from The Notebook and Hope Floats. (I'm especially loving her Michael Scott quote pillow.) She will even make a custom quote pillow for you.

I can see many Great Moments in Screen Bitchery working for these. But I'm thinking of having her make one that reads "Mark it eight, Dude," so that I can hold it up to my husband's head and stop him from saying it every five minutes. Dare to dream.

Modern Maestros: Michel Gondry

Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors.

Maestro: Michel Gondry
Known For: Quirky, visually fantastical films and documentaries.
Influences: Cartoons, silent comedians and their films, and (as is evident from Be Kind Rewand) 80's comedies.
Masterpieces: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Disasters: They're most definitely not all perfect, but no disasters.
Better than you remember: Nope
Box Office: $34 mil for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Favorite Actor: He in fact doesn't reuse actors. The closest candidate for this category is Mos Def who was a featured performer in Dave Chappelle's Block Party and then starred in Be Kind Rewind.

We might as well begin with the elephant in the room. Your opinion of Michel Gondry probably depends entirely on your opinion of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I've heard tell that there are people who believe that the film is wildly overpraised and overrated. If you're one of those people, you should probably just skip the next two paragraphs. I think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of the great films of our time. Is it the brilliant, original miracle of a concept that many fans think it is? Probably not. As the world's unified naysayers love to remark, there really aren't any new ideas. The basic message of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is essentially the same as the joke Woody Allen uses to close Annie Hall. Romance is bizzare, unpredictable, and often miserable. But in the end "we need the eggs." What Eternal Sunshine does do is present these themes and ideas in a wonderful package, beautifully combining the sentimental with the sarcastic, the romantic with the realistic. It do so with such cleverness, how could its director not be considered among one of modern cinema's greats?

The quick and common answer to that is the claim that the majority of credit for Eternal Sunshine goes to writer Charlie Kaufman. While I love Kaufman (including his much debated Synecdoche, New York) it's unfair to write-off the contribution of Gondry. Was Kaufman's script responsible for the surprisingly pared-down, career-best performance of Jim Carrey? Was it responsible for Kate Winslet's deserving Oscar-nominated turn as Clementine? Of course not. Nor can Kaufman be credited with decisions like filming the house destruction finale with flashlights for lighting, maximizing the intimacy and emotional impact. If Charlie Kaufman's script is the reason that the film is, then Gondry's direction is the reason the film works and if Gondry had made no other films, this one may still alone qualify him to be a Modern Maestro. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has moments of such visual inventiveness and such bittersweet profundity that to watch it is to be reminded why I fell in love with the movies.

Nothing like using up two paragraphs on the same film to underline what I'm sure Gondry already knows is the downside of the success of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It may indeed be the greatest film the man ever directs. It will also likely be the film that overshadows all of his other efforts. But there's something admirable about how Gondry soldiers on, attempting to stay as prolific as possible. He's produced four (and a third?) films since 2004, not a record, but in today's indie film climate, not a bad pace either. With The Science of Sleep, Gondry's most notable film aside from Eternal Sunshine, the director continues to fish around in the lovelorn mind, pondering if any logic can be applied to the wondrous workings of the heart. Here, as in Eternal Sunshine, in fact as in all of Gondry's films, his characters are perpetual man-children, lacking the maturity and sensibility that could win them the girl. And yet good sense can't possibly coexist with the ludicrous impulsiveness of love, can it? Gondry mocks any such notion with the title The Science of Sleep just as he did in his first film Human Nature (Where scientists displayed and discovered anything but clear though in mankind's quest for love).

Along the while, Gondry has found time to make films about his family, cultural phenomena and homaging his favorite movies. His next film, slated for release next year will be The Green Hornet, a film already facing a mixed reaction. Whether it will be good, I can't say, but I'm sure it will be interesting, arresting, unconventional, as can be expected from the director of... let's say, "many good films."

Yes, No, Maybe So: Green Hornets and Blue Smurfs

Stepping away from the Oscar bait trailers for a moment, let's take a spin on the color wheel. Will you have blue (The Smurfs) or green (The Green Hornet) or will you going to hold out for something red or purple?

Let's apply the Film Experience's trailer treatment Yes, No, Maybe So™ to both starting with The Green Hornet (2011).



Yes It's directed by Michel Gondry who made movies as visually singular as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep and as energetic and fun as Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Plus, Christoph Waltz is the villain and we already know what he can do in that department.
No But... I'm confused. Could this look any more generic? It looks like Stephen Sommers or Mark Steven Johnson directed it, yes? The plot seems to be some weird mishmash of Batman and Kick-Ass instead of a Green Hornet story. Finally that 3D tag at the end just depresses. I have nothing against 3D but it's just starting to feel like a desperate peer pressure crutch at this point, like wearing the same brand name jeans/shoes as everyone else lest the kids at school make fun of you. If you're a gifted stylist like Gondry, do you really want to be aping other people's looks?

Maybe So Perhaps the trailer purposefully looks generic to rope in people who are scared of visual originality (i.e. unfortunately large percentage of moviegoers)? Also, remember when Jay Chou (Kato) was lusting after his hot mom Gong Li in The Curse of The Golden Flower. No? Okay I'm stretching but maybe he'll be good? But then I'm back to no. Because why does Kato still have to be a manservant in 2010? Think about it: Kato has the knowledge, the weapons and mad crime fighting skill. Plus he has to teach the bumbling rich white boy. So why isn't the white boy the sidekick? Please to explain.

And... The Smurfs (2011)



Yes Well, the cast (not featured here but for Neil Patrick Harris) is interesting.
No Jesus! Is that really Tone Loc's "Wild Things" playing underneath the lalalas? This was made in what decade exactly? If this is all they got did they really need to release a teaser already?
Maybe So Live action mixed with animation once produced Who Framed Roger Rabbit and that's a totally classic comedy so maybe...

oh, never mind. NO to the lot of ya.

Are you a yes, no, or maybe so on these two?
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Away We Link

<--- Away They Go

AP The Kate Winslet ~ Sam Mendes power duo is no more. Pardon my insensitivity (I assumed this would happen a year ago) but the errant gossip fantasy fodder thought just struck me while reading the news: I know that they're not exactly each other's type but do you think the world would explode if Kate & Leo ever gave it a go the next time they were both single?

Movie|Line Michel Gondry interviewed. Interesting nugget: this music video pioneer and filmmaker (Eternal Sunshine) no likely Lady Gaga
i09 in other Michel Gondry news, a time travel pic with Ellen Page
Cinematical Green Lantern casts its aliens choosing Temuera Morrison and filmmaker/actor Taiki Waititi (also known as Taiki Cohen). Incidentally I met Taiki at Sundance and his new film Boy is tons of fun. Art house audiences will love it should any American distributor ever bite.


Cinema Blend Conan casting updates: Saïd Taghmaoui (yay!) and Stephen Lang in, Mickey Rourke out.
CHUD David Fincher to make a Bobby Fischer biopic. Sigh... am losing faith in Fincher. He was such a potent auteur and after Benjamin Button a chess biopic? Well... I hope it's as good as Searching For Bobby Fischer but keep wanting him to make another Fight Club or Zodiac, something with real edge and bite.
Towleroad Josh Brolin remembers Milk
Crazy Days Peter Graves (RIP)

I'm A Barbie Boy In A Lego World

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JA from MNPP here, addressing the big news of the day: making all of our deepest darkest dreams-we-didn't-even-know-we-had come true, they're trying to make a movie about Legos. Cue the brass-band and the flaming-baton-throwers! Hollywood is throwing a parade and it's marching straight down to Hell, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 million dollars.

"Movies based on toys couldn't be hotter in Hollywood, with nearly every studio adapting playthings for the bigscreen.

Now count Warner Bros. as one of those studios: WB is toying with plans to develop a movie around Lego and its popular building blocks.

Scribes Dan and Kevin Hageman are penning the script for the family comedy that will mix live action and animation. Warners is keeping the plot tightly under wraps, but it's described as an action adventure set in a Lego world."

This is where I mentally (Nat doesn't like it when I type curse words on his blog) hurl every nasty curse I can imagine in the general direction of Pirates of the Carribbean, Transformers, and G.I. Joe for being successful.

"... The f - it -flam - flames. Flames, on the side of my face,
breathing-breathl- heaving breaths. Heaving breath... "

Redundant groans about Hollywood's bankrupt brain aside, my first thought when confronted with this news was actually an impossibly sunny one: Hire Michel Gondry and make it look like this!

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That won't happen, and I'm not sure I could stare at 90 minutes of that on a large screen, but still, Legos have brought the world their own sort of visual splendor in the not-so-distant past. It's important to look at the good side of Life! (And I mean The Game of Life, of course.)

What game are you anxiously awaiting a film based off of? Hungry Hungry Hippos? Guess Who? I actually dreamt up my own yesterday oddly enough.
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