Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is on the TV here tonight. I’ve seen it just the once and I’ve been meaning to see it again. The proper temporal order is maddeningly difficult to work out in retrospect and I suppose there is no great benefit in trying, as if some revelation came with the completion of a crossword puzzle – but the film was impressive and Kaufman’s a fine artist (and, I’d say, the obvious auteur here).
I read the Pope poem, Eloisa to Abelard after I’d seen the film. The first stanza fits nicely with the theme:
In these deep solitudes and awful cells, Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells, And ever-musing melancholy reigns; What means this tumult in a vestal's veins? Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat? Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat? Yet, yet I love!--From Abelard it came, And Eloisa yet must kiss the name
and later,
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!