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Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

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“I try to learn from both, from features and documentaries. In both cases you have to find a way to make the camera as discreet as possible, and flexible enough to be able to capture the moment when it happens. I know from documentary how to not have a preconceived idea of what the scene could be”. - Michel Gondry

As this quote from French film director Michel Gondry suggests, the ability of a director to create a film that hides the camera and the construction of a film remains difficult. In his 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, Gondry utilizes the full potential of the film medium, to express his own unique visual style. He has a number of films that he has directed such as Human Nature, which was also written by scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman. Both Gondry and Kaufman have worked in collaboration for a number of years, which has earnt them huge acclaim for their successes in creating huge box office hits that were created on minimal budgets. IMBD states that the production budget for the film was 20 million dollars with a further 10 million set aside for the marketing budget. In addition to this, Gondry has cemented his own visual style as a director as “there is always a battle with time, but not usually in terms of beating deadlines” (Dzialo, 2009: 107). This essay will analyze the style of the film, the narrative construction within the film, generic features and key concepts and the idea of personal style through the auteur. It will be argued that

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