ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of memory distortion, of course, is not confined to our memories of films. Psychologists have shown that memory of pain misrepresents the actual experience of pain by weighing the peak and end of the experience more heavily than the duration.1 In other words, when we retrospectively assess an experience we tend to focus most on what we remember as the best (or worst) part of it and on how it ended in order to formulate a judgment about how good or bad the experience was as a whole. This distorting effect of memory is evident in Eternal Sunshine. When Joel wants to have Clementine erased from his memory, he is remembering the worst of their times together, one of which is the end of their time together. We can imagine that Clementine’s decision to erase Joel was similarly influenced by their last moments together. Joel’s cruel remark that Clementine sleeps with people in order to get them to like her affects her deeply and causes her to storm out of the apartment. Joel doesn’t think about the good memories of Clem when he makes the decision to have her erased, and we can imagine that Clem’s decision to erase Joel was similarly biased.
