The title may be obscure (it's a line from an Alexander Pope poem), but imaging professionals will definitely recognize one element in the new movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: CT scans.
The story follows the mental journey of one Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) who discovers that his ex-girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has undergone a memory-erasing procedure, thus eradicating all thoughts of him. A devastated Barish decides to have the same work done on his own brain by the fictional Lacuna Inc. But mid-way through the procedure he has a change of heart.
The brain-cleaning "operation" done by Lacuna uses a CT scanner to "map" Barish's memories of Clementine before zapping them. Production company Focus Features has gone as far as to set up an elaborate Web site for Lacuna, featuring a "CT scan of a patient's Focused Erase Procedure."
Although CT scans are used in the film itself, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman recently expressed a fondness for functional MR in an interview with Seattle Weekly.
"I like the MRI imagery of thought…the little pixel (on the MR screen). Like, for instance, somebody thinking of doing an action and somebody actually doing an action, and the difference is equally nonexistent," Kaufman said (Seattle Weekly, March 17-23, 2004).
While it is ultimately the CT scan that gets the cameo in Eternal Sunshine, MR is on the verge of major stardom. According to Hollywood.com, a movie called The Drone Virus recently wrapped production.
In a crazy-car-named-Christine fashion, a deadly computer virus overtakes the MR scanner at a children's hospital. The scanner then proceeds to go on a killing spree that only one brave doctor can stop. The production notes for the film on the Internet Movie Database do not indicate whether the doctor is a radiologist.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writersApril 1, 2004
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