SUBMITTED BY Timbo

March 8, 2004 — Creative genius Michel Gondry, who made a name for himself directing music videos (Bjork was his muse, or vice versa), talks to the New York Times about his work on the big-screen with "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and how the film came to pass.

It's no wonder that someone so attached to his own memories responded to "Eternal Sunshine" when it was the germ of an idea. The artist Pierre Bismuth, a friend of Mr. Gondry, thought of a living-art project: he would send cards to people saying they had been erased from another person's memory. Mr. Gondry took this concept to Charlie Kaufman, whom he knew through Spike Jonze, who had directed "Being John Malkovich." In the Michel-Charlie-Spike trio -- so artistically compatible, so competitive in a blatant yet friendly way -- careers interlock all over the place.

Charlie and Michel took a five-minute pitch around to studios and sold the idea quickly, but Charlie had to finish "Adaptation" first, for Spike to direct. Michel was impatient to make a feature, so Charlie, who had wanted to direct "Human Nature" himself, turned his script over to Michel, with Spike as a producer.

"Human Nature" was poorly received. "I was really depressed," Mr. Gondry said, but he decided to do something constructive. "I took a notebook and I wrote all my problems and my ideas about the film -- why I was upset by certain critics, what I thought was maybe true, and how I could change it." He ended up with 40 pages.

He said, "For instance, it was difficult for me to have Spike as a producer, because Spike directed videos after me and he always said he was inspired by me" -- not stylistically, but in general -- "and I kept reading that I was inspired by him." Looking back, Mr. Gondry realized that sometimes he resisted his friend's suggestions in a knee-jerk way.

Read the rest at the link below (free registration required).