Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Eternal sunshine of the Spotless Mind was an interesting movie, with many artistic components and many hidden meanings. This film is also very

ABSTRACT

using many different dream sequences, and often going between past, present and future. 

When talking with several of my friends in the course, we discovered a lot of symbolism within the film, that can be found in the names, colours, objects and places. The character of Clementine is a lot like the song "Oh my Darling Clementine" relating to the lyrics: 

Oh my darling, oh my darling,

Oh my darling, Clementine!

Thou art lost and gone forever

Dreadful sorry, Clementine

Just as the song suggests, the character Clementine feels lost in the movie. Always searching for change because she is not happy and cannot accept who she is. This change is represented in several ways: through the colour of her hair, which changes throughout the movie depending on her moods, and also in the objects that surround her. Her potatoe collection seems to portray her life and the many different "costumes" that she tries on. Her quilt, which I see as her comfort item, represents her life, which is made up of fragments of experiences. Clementine is very impulsive, constantly wanting to try new and exciting things, as she gets bored and restless with routines. 

Joel on the other hand is portrayed as very opposite to Clementine, with his name literally translating to: "to be foolish and determined".  That definition very much describes Joels character in the film, he is often foolish, doing things on a whim, but is determined. As we can see throughout his dream sequences, Joel makes an impulsive decision to erase Clem from his memory, but realizes this is a mistake and spends the rest of the film trying to reverse this decision. I think Clementine's and Joel's opposing personalities are represented throughout the film with the opposing colours of red and blue that can be seen in almost every scene. 

Much of this film revolves around the idea of change, with Clementine trying to change herself, and the patients at the clinic trying to change the past. I think what this film is trying to get across is the idea that you cannot change what is meant to be. I think that is why a lot of the scenes occur in winter: this is a season that represents loneliness, despair and darkness. Although people do not often like winter, it cannot change to spring until nature takes its course and it is time. I also believe change is a significant theme because when Clementine is talking about how she never believed she was beautiful, and as a child wanted to make her doll beautiful she is lying on a leapord blanket. Although she is talking about how she believed she could be beautiful if she could change the doll and make it beautiful, the blanket conveys the idea that you can't change your spots. Clementine is always looking to change and be beautiful, instead of accepting herself for what she is and seeing the beauty in that. 

I also find it interesting that Clementine and Joel fall in love on the ice. I believe the ice portrays the idea of love as being fragile but beautiful. In the picture I chose to include in this blog, Clementine and Joel can be seen in the right upper corner happily together, with a large crack in the middle, left of the frame. This is the idea that love is so fragile and can so easily be broken.

 I think another major theme in the movie is that people should just be happy and enjoy the time they have together. Both Joel and Clementine are initially together thinking the other person can save their life and give them meaning. Only at the end of the film, after realizing they were previously together and unhappy do they realize that they are not the answer to each others problems, but would still like enjoy their time together anyways. I believe that this ending implies to us the idea that love can only work if you see the person for who they are, a separate human being that can add to your life, not solve your life. 

To conclude this blog I really enjoyed watching this movie and looking for the artistic elements. I believe this movie has so many hidden meanings, with even the title of the movie being based off of a poem. Clementine's and Joel's oddball relationship shows the fragility of love, using bizarre dream sequences. The movie happens out of order and not in sequence, and just like Joel and Clementine's love, the movie only makes sense at the very end. 
This is significant for early education because it makes you realize that there is various art forms all around every day life. Even though our education today often only places importance on subjects such as math and english, movies like this show children that art really is all around us. Whether or not education supports it, it is something that people support. If you just try and look a little deeper, you can show to children that art is every where and it is always important to use creativity as a way to express feelings and issues. 


Picture reference:
google images

The Many Patterns of Toronto

Patterns 

are all around us. 

Whether we take the time to notice them or not we  are constantly surrounded by the many patterns and designs found in jewelry, clothing, animals and nature. When I started to think about every day patterns that existed in Toronto, my mind began racing with possibilities: windows in buildings, brick walls, trees, tiled floors... all of a sudden I realized that everywhere I looked there were patterns. But none of them seemed right, none of them jumped out at me as the pattern I wanted to talk about in my blog. It wasn't until I was waiting for my Go Train to arrive at Union that the perfect pattern came to my mind: train tracks!  

Why not write about a pattern that is so influential on my every day life, a pattern that dictates my arrival to and from school.  Although the Go Train itself would have been easy enough to talk about - with patterns being present both inside and outside the cars - I decided to focus on what moves the train: the tracks. 

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There is something beautiful to me about seeing sets of train tracks buried beneath the snow. When I first look at this picture I see a snowy route to school, but when I look a little deeper I see many different patterns. The first patterns that come to my mind are the most obvious: the regular, sequenced pattern of the horizontal wooden slates, so precise and particular, and I see the irregular patterns of the vertical metal slats, some perpendicular and solo, while others are intertwining and bending. 

When I look even deeper I see a more significant pattern, one that very much represents to me the atmosphere of the GTA. This pattern of snow, train tracks, snow, train tracks, signifies to me the idea of man vs nature - a pattern that can be seen throughout Toronto. Every where you look you see nature and development fighting for their place in our city: parks surrounded by highways, condominiums creeping up on Lake Ontario, flowers neighboring concrete. The question is: who will win?

This idea is significant to me, because very soon these patterns may no longer exist. As Toronto continues to grow  more buildings, stores, apartments and roads are built to accommodate our ever-expanding population. I feel like our society lives in the here and now, destroying nature and beauty without a second thought all for quick profit and quick fixes. 

I am afraid that our contrived and created world may very well overtake our natural, amazing planet. Although I highly doubt I will live to see our city vanquished of all nature, I don't believe that this idea, this notion, is so far fetched. We need to start thinking about our actions, and how we are affecting the future of our children, and the future of humanity. But more importantly we need to think about the future of our planet and all the other species that call Earth their home, because their fate, their survival, their future is dependent on the decisions we make  today. The world is an awesome place, and we should really work to keep it that way. 

This is significant for Early Childhood Education because it made clear to me how easily art can be incorporated into nature and every day events. You do not have to sit and cut out shapes and provide markers to find art in the classroom. It also showed me how easily art and nature can be incorporated together. After doing this blog I thought of several fun art ideas that could be used in the future when I become a teacher. I realized that an easy and fun thing to do with children would be to ask them to go home and into their backyards and find patterns or take a picture of something that looks artistic to them. This helps them to be creative but also to see that art is a part of every day life.

Picture References:

google images