This colour become more and more evident as it leads up to the first appearance of Clementine in the film, ultimately adding her to the list of blue objects overwhelming the palette of the current part of the film. There are blue undertones present in the objects surrounding Joel, along with cold tinted lighting. Vernallis (2008:277-297 ) mentions “within this clear narrative framework, much is opaque.” As the film starts off very much like a blank canvas, and continues to progress its narrative non-linearly during the introduction of the memory erasure process. The film’s beginning introduces the audience immediately to the protagonist, who is sporting a blandness and lack of colour about him, giving the feeling of an emptiness like a blank canvas, which the audience would eventually come to understanding that this very atmosphere is reflecting the erasure of memory that has been performed on him. I will be analysing theories revolving around the cinematographic techniques used in the film to explore the portrayal of memory, and how film and media aesthetic today can illicit an emotional effect from the viewer, hoping that I will be able to use my research findings to enrich my background knowledge and understanding. Jollimore states “The memory wiping of the characters ensures that the film differs not only from its genre blending predecessors but most film in that the characters are very much the same at the end as when we first see them (Jollimore, 2009: 32). Van Dijck(2007) states that “technologies of self are concomitantly technologies of sharing: they help form bonds across private boundaries, tapping into a communal or collective culture that in turn reshapes personal memory and identity.”. In the world of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, the concept of a technology where memory involving a specific individual can be erased is explored, and the film as a whole utilises cinematic styles of varying degrees, creating a labyrinthian narrative connected through symbolism, reused imagery and elements, along with seemingly unfamiliar yet relative figures that the audience is introduced to as the film takes a journey through the slowly dissipating memories in the mind of the main protagonist Joel Barish. The media of film allows for instant travelling back and forth through a story’s timeline in any amount of time. There are now evidently quite many narratives revolving around memory that involves a non-linear path, which is common in puzzle films and films which rather set the story in order of emotional intensity or many other elements that become busier or vary as a story progresses. Bordwell documents an excerpt in his book (2007) about the 1990s boom of “Movies that boasted paradoxical time schemes, hypothetical futures, digressive and dawdling action lines, stories told backward and in loops, and plots stuffed with protagonists”.
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