Thank you for that tidbit! I love hearing details like that.
I’m seeing it, yet again, tonight.
I like that they didn’t focus on that; just the kind of throwaway detail that happens in real life. Of course she knows about clementines; with a name like that everyone she’s ever met who’s ever heard of clementines would have told her all about them. We buy them in 5 pound boxes every winter in Seattle. They’re great squoze into a diet coke.
This was about the best new movie I’ve seen in a long time. I was skeptical about the Carrey casting; I hate Jim Carrey. Hate hate hate hate hate. But leave it to Kaufman, the first artist to achieve greatness in Postmodernism since Lars Von Trier, to make the casting itself absolutely essential to the synergistic success of the film.
Carrey’s mask only cracks a couple of times, and then mercifully briefly, but all the baggage he brings to the role essential. With him in the role, we don’t see Joely as simply quiet and reserved. He’s Jim Carrey for godssake! If he’s quiet and reserved, there must be something wrong! Casting him made focusing on his repressed personality absolutely unnecessary. And the occasional crack in the mask worked just as well. The emphasis this brilliant casting decision placed on the false face Joel was presenting to the world was just absolutely brilliant. Oscar for Casting.
And I still hate hate hate hate hate Jim Carrey; I’m just impressed that Kaufman and Gondry made his baggage work FOR them rather than against them. Like Verhoeven’s casting of Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls, another pomo triumph, the casting baggage makes the film work.
Yeah, I thought it was weird that Frodo was calling her “Clementine” even though when he met her she had blue hair. I told this to my sister, and she told me that Clementine is a kind of tangerine.
It’s weird how the ending can be seen as happy or sad, depending on who you talk to. I thought that it was so positive, like “I know all this stuff about you, but I want you anyway”, but I’ve talked to people who found it sad that the same bad stuff was going to happen to them a second time.
Sigh. I think we should organize a telethon for Roger Ebert. He seems to be suffering from late-onset retardation.
His main objection to the movie is that it’s, to quote Vonnegut, “unstuck in time.” Um, hello? After the prologue, after the credits, the whole movie is in strict chronological order. It goes in and out of Joely’s memories, but his memories are presented to us in the same order they occur in his head.
Wasn’t Clementine her name? Why wouldn’t frodo have known what her name was?
I saw it as optimistic. It was about accepting the other person as he/she is and loving them anyway. It was a statement that love is worth the baggage.
So, why do you “hate” Jim Carrey? If you hate him after seeing this movie, I guess you’ll never grow to like him.
I guess I don’t really understand. If he does a good job, what’s the problem?
Was Divine a “good actor” in Pink Flamingos? No. Did the movie work? Yes. Just because a director knows how to use a bad actor doesn’t make the actor a good actor.
Ok, so you’re saying that Jim Carrey was hardly a talent in this movie, it was just perfect casting?
It seemed as if you liked his performance, but now I’m confused. Did you think he did a good job, or no? Are you saying that, like Divine, Carrey was not a good actor in ES, but was a perfect fit for the movie because of he persona? It seems like you “hate” the actor so much, that you’re explain a good performance as if it were a technicality. Then again, if you “hate” anyone, it’s difficult to give credit, where credit’s due. It was not as if he has a lot of experience playing reserved characters, so you really can’t say that the role was obviously “tailor made” for him, and I personally think he did great. I understand that his persona added to the character, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad actor.
So, has Jim Carrey finally learned the difference between “acting” and “making faces,” then? If so, good-o for him.
He may be a very nice fellow—I have nothing against him personally—but up till now his comedies have been “now I’m making my silly faces!” and his dramas have been “now I’m making my oh-so-sad faces!” No depth, no character, no development; just pullin’ faces.
Maybe this director has finally gotten a performance out of him?
It’s to be assumed that most of Carrey’s mugging ended up, mercifully, on the floor. What’s left is either truly a leap forward for Carrey, or a triumph of editing. Cynic that I am, I’ll bet a little of both. That said, he doesn’t really have to do much acting; his main function is to look alternately confused and embarrassed (which, admittedly, must have been a huge stretch for him). But it’s nearly a perfect film, so though Jim brings his baggage to it, it all works for the best.
I was floored by Jim Carrey. I’m not necessarily a fan, nor a hater. But I felt like he disappeared into Joel. I didn’t have any sense of Carrey trying to repress “mugging.” In fact, I didn’t get any sense of Carrey at all. I was watching Joel, a man who was wounded by a choice he made, desperate to remedy it.
I thought it was an amazing movie, and count myself among those who saw it based solely on Kaufman’s attachment to it. I think he writes about the power and misery of love so well, I can’t wait for his next project.
This movie is not an in depth charactrer study, nor does it feature wide ranges of intense emotion. It does feature lots of “small” intimate slice-of-life scenes, but Carrey’s character is so withdrawn, these don’t require a lot of “acting”. What is highly impressive, however, is the fact that every scene Carrey was in felt perfectly real and natural. I never felt like I was watching Jim Carrey; it was just Joel.
Did directing, editing, scriptwriting, etc. all contribute to this by making Joel a perfectly natural and believable character? Absolutely. But I’ve seen enough films to know that for a big-name actor, especially one with a recognizable persona like Carrey, to completely disapear into his character is a very rare thing. Can Carrey do it reliably? That is the true test of his acting chops, but I will say that I thought he gave at least as amazing a performance in Man on the Moon. I really thought I was watching Andy Kaufman the whole time. But since Kaufman’s personality was much closer to Carrey’s usual schtick anyway, it may have been less noticeable to a casual observer. Nevertheless, this movie and that one together convince me that with the right roles and the right directors, Carrey could *possibly[i/] be an a-list dramatic actor on par with Crowe, Hanks, DeNiro, et al.
Did any of you Carrey detractors see “The Truman Show”? Carrey is very well capable of playing against the slapstick style he became famous for. There’s no reason to think that he shouldn’t be fully credited for his performance in “Eternal Sunshine”.
Didn’t see it. The only thing I hate more than Andy Kaufman is Jim Carrey’s acting—the only way they could have made that film more unpalatable to me would have been to add raisins.
I’m sure 23skidoo meant “Tangerine,” which is a name Patrick uses when she’s crying in his arms after he left Joel’s apartment. We saw that Joel’s use of the “Tangerine” nickname started with the bright orane/red hair, so when Patrick meets blue-haired Clementine, it doesn’t seem likely that he’s use the same name. However, Patrick also took all of Joel’s stuff that related to Clem, so he may have discovered that Clem had an affinity for that name, orange hair or not, so he used it.
Amen. What a moment.
Amen again. I even saw this with my ex-girlfriend. Talk about deja vu.
As for Jim Carrey… All actors are repressing a part of their own personality in order to act like someone they’re not. That’s the definition of acting. Carrey did an excellent job of doing that. There certainly are some Carrey-like moment (the fridge, the sink), but they were hardly out of character. He did a fine job.
So you’ve heard about the DVD Special Addition?
Yeah, not a great movie. An OK movie. And the weakest part was Carrey’s performance.
Making good movies with bad actors is nothing new; liking a movie does not require liking its actors.
lissener
Ok, now I’m starting to understand your point a little bit more. I don’t agree with your opinion, especially that the move didn’t required a lot of “real” acting. I personally don’t know how many takes it took for Carrey to get particular scenes ‘just right’, so I can’t really argue against your point, other than saying neither of us really know.
I agree with Eve, for the most part. Like I said, I loved The Truman Show and I think he did an excellent job, but the movie still seemed to benefit from Carrey’s persona, rather than alter it significantly. At the end of Truman, he did show a side of him that was very different from anything I’ve seen him do prior, and he did it well. Then he did Man on the Moon, a movie I really didn’t like, (not a fan of Kaufman). Carrey, once again, was good for the part, but that’s because he has a talent for impersonating people. It wasn’t a role he could make ‘his own’, because was about someone else. The Majestic was his worst dramatic performance (imho), and I still don’t think he was half-bad in that. What a boring movie though! I would like to get Eve’s take on Carrey’s performance in ES.
I think if Carrey has a chance to be accepted as dramatic actor, he would need to find and take on a very challenging role. First, he should really try to build up some credibility by acting in dramatic movies where he’s NOT the main character. If he’s serious about being ‘serious’, I don’t think it would hurt to study the careers of Tom Hanks, and Robin Williams. Eventually, he may be able to make a transition, and who knows what the future could bring. I think it would be a good long-term investment for him to try and ease into serious acting, because his age, (I can’t see him playing Ace like roles forever). It’s risky, but as he matures/ages, it might be easier for people to buy him in his dramatic leaps.
In my opinion, ES was a positive step in the right direction. He’s really developed as an actor.
Winslet’s performance shouldn’t be ignored either. I love the way she looks at Patrick whenever he recites something or does something that Joel would have done. It’s like she knows something just isn’t right.