Synecdoche, New York (2008)

[Sycophant]

So Marty doesn't get all his thunder stolen out of his thread, here's a thread for Charlie Kaufman's directorial. As a reminder, the cast list looks a little something like this:

Michelle Williams
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Emily Watson
Catherine Keener
Hope Davis
Samantha Morton
Dianne Wiest

And it's in post-production with an ambiguous 2008 release date. Hurray!

[Sven]

I hope the movie ends up being better than the screenplay. I understand that it's senseless, more or less, to judge a movie by its screenplay, and screenplay reviewers are pretty annoying. And I'm certainly no expert. But if I were a producer and was given the Synecdoche screenplay, I would've thrown it against the wall, into the wastebasket (which I would place right underneath where I would throw it against the wall).

Plus, no more PSH please. He was the best dumpy loser 'til Giamatti came around, sure, but he completely lost me the moment he started whining about his bowel movements in Cold Mountain (a motif, coincidentally, central to Synecdoche). Now I can barely tolerate his slovenly presence.

Still, he was pretty awesome in Punch-Drunk Love.

[Sycophant]

I'm as curious to see what kind of directorial vision Kaufman is going to make apart from Gondry and Jonze as I am to see how Jonze works without Kaufman. I've read a couple of Kaufman's unproduced screenplays (his pilot script for "Rambling Pants" was amazing), but have always felt that having the right director behind the material was always crucial.

Aww... I like PSH.

[Sven]

Aww... I like PSH.

You and half the world, for some reason. To which I say "Psh!"

[Rowland]

Yeah, Hoffman rocks.

You've read the screenplay for this, iosos?

[Milky Joe]

Plus, no more PSH please. He was the best dumpy loser 'til Giamatti came around, sure, but he completely lost me the moment he started whining about his bowel movements in Cold Mountain (a motif, coincidentally, central to Synecdoche). Now I can barely tolerate his slovenly presence.

Still, he was pretty awesome in Punch-Drunk Love.

Has anyone ever told you you're insane? PSH is one of the greatest actors we have. To just brush him off that way is crazy! I didn't even know he was in Cold Mountain.

[DavidSeven]

You and half the world, for some reason. To which I say "Psh!"

It has to be done...

:|

[Sven]

You've read the screenplay for this, iosos?

Yessir.

[Sven]

Has anyone ever told you you're insane?

Yessir.

[Rowland]

It's not so unorthodox to dislike Hoffman. I noted a bit of a backlash brewing last year, especially between the Slant and RS crowds.

[Raiders]

You and half the world, for some reason. To which I say "Psh!"

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[MadMan]

Yessir.:lol:

I sort of eagerly await this. Although I want a trailer. Soon.

[Sycophant]

Eff trailers. I wanna go into this one (and most any film anymore) thoroughly blind.

[ledfloyd]

Eff trailers. I wanna go into this one (and most any film anymore) thoroughly blind.
how will you see the screen?

[EvilShoe]

how will you see the screen?
He'll steal your eyes.

I'm trying to avoid trailers of movies as of late as well. It's hard not to watch the Indy 4 one.

[Horbgorbler]

He'll steal your eyes.

Sycophant is the Corinthian? :eek:

*whimper*

[Horbgorbler]

Oy, that is such a white-guy joke. :P

Uh-oh, was "Neil Gaiman" the most recent entry on "Things White People Like?"

EDIT: Uh, the post I was responding to disappeared. Eerie.

[Rowland]

Uh-oh, was "Neil Gaiman" the most recent entry on "Things White People Like?"Ahh, you caught me.

No, but it struck me as something that should be. At least, on the alternative Nerd version. ;)

[Dead & Messed Up]

I have to concur with iosos. My roommate got his hands on the script, and I couldn't resist reading it.

But it was a terrible struggle to finish the thing. I thought it was messy and meaningless.

Which no doubt means the film will be hailed as a masterpiece.

[Velocipedist]

I don't want to read the script (I don't like any of this: reading script before seeing movie. Huh.) but are there trailers out for this?

[Sycophant]

Which no doubt means the film will be hailed as a masterpiece.
http://whatnot.bombdotcom.net/shit/ohsnap1.jpg

[Velocipedist]

Which no doubt means the film will be hailed as a masterpiece.

It will be hailed as a masterpiece by some, but I'm sure it will be the kind of thing that generates strong backlash.

So strong, in fact, that Nicolas Cage will be forced to appear in public pretending to be Charlie Kaufman for press & interviews.

[ledfloyd]

I have to concur with iosos. My roommate got his hands on the script, and I couldn't resist reading it.

But it was a terrible struggle to finish the thing. I thought it was messy and meaningless.

Which no doubt means the film will be hailed as a masterpiece.
eh, have you read early drafts of kaufman's other stuff? always ends up being great on the screen.

[Boner M]

Pretty sweet promo poster:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Synecdoche%2C_New_York_poster. jpg

Also...


But if I were a producer and was given the Synecdoche screenplay, I would've thrown it against the wall, into the wastebasket (which I would place right underneath where I would throw it against the wall).
Gold.

[Qrazy]

It's not so unorthodox to dislike Hoffman. I noted a bit of a backlash brewing last year, especially between the Slant and RS crowds.

Oh snap! He's becoming too popular! Ditch the guy!

[Sven]

Oh snap! He's becoming too popular! Ditch the guy!

I think you're being playful, but I can't help but supply the addendum that you know, as well as I, that it's not his popularity that is at issue. Although perhaps it is because he's becoming so ubiquitous that it's been easier to notice why he sucks so much.

[Qrazy]

I think you're being playful, but I can't help but supply the addendum that you know, as well as I, that it's not his popularity that is at issue. Although perhaps it is because he's becoming so ubiquitous that it's been easier to notice why he sucks so much.

Slant is infamous for disliking anything they feel is remotely popular.

---

Did you dislike him in any of these roles? Bear in mind that if you say yes, you're wrong.

Almost Famous (2000) .... Lester Bangs
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) .... Freddie Miles
Magnolia (1999) .... Phil Parma
... aka mag-no'li-a (USA: promotional title)
Happiness (1998) .... Allen
The Big Lebowski (1998) .... Brandt
Boogie Nights (1997) .... Scotty J.

He was also very good in both Capote and MI3.

[Sven]

He was also very good in both Capote and MI3.

An even better gauge would be to say: Did I like him in any of these roles:

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) .... Andrew 'Andy' Hanson
Mission: Impossible III (2006) .... Owen Davian
Capote (2005) .... Truman Capote
Cold Mountain (2003) .... Reverend Veasey
Owning Mahowney (2003) .... Dan Mahowny
25th Hour (2002) .... Jacob Elinsky
Red Dragon (2002) .... Freddy Lounds
Love Liza (2002) .... Wilson Joel
Almost Famous (2000) .... Lester Bangs
State and Main (2000) .... Joseph Turner White
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) .... Freddie Miles
Magnolia (1999) .... Phil Parma
Flawless (1999) .... Rusty
Patch Adams (1998) .... Mitch Roman
Twister (1996) .... Dustin Davis
Sydney (1996) (as Phillip Seymour Hoffman) .... Young Craps Player

The answer then would be an emphatic "no". There are a few performances where I think he gets it right (Punch Drunk Love, Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski), but other than that, no thank you.

[Qrazy]

An even better gauge would be to say: Did I like him in any of these roles:

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) .... Andrew 'Andy' Hanson
Mission: Impossible III (2006) .... Owen Davian
Capote (2005) .... Truman Capote
Cold Mountain (2003) .... Reverend Veasey
Owning Mahowney (2003) .... Dan Mahowny
25th Hour (2002) .... Jacob Elinsky
Red Dragon (2002) .... Freddy Lounds
Love Liza (2002) .... Wilson Joel
Almost Famous (2000) .... Lester Bangs
State and Main (2000) .... Joseph Turner White
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) .... Freddie Miles
Magnolia (1999) .... Phil Parma
Flawless (1999) .... Rusty
Patch Adams (1998) .... Mitch Roman
Twister (1996) .... Dustin Davis
Sydney (1996) (as Phillip Seymour Hoffman) .... Young Craps Player

The answer then would be an emphatic "no". There are a few performances where I think he gets it right (Punch Drunk Love, Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski), but other than that, no thank you.

Whether or not you enjoy his 'presence' as an actor doesn't really say much about his acting abilities though.

[Sven]

Whether or not you enjoy his 'presence' as an actor doesn't really say much about his acting abilities though.

Now you're just assuming my opinion. I trust you're referring to my first post, where I deride his "slovenly presence", but if you read that sentence more carefully, you will notice that I use "presence" in the sense of my not wanting to look at the space he fills up. It has nothing to do with "acting presence", as you assume it does.

[Qrazy]

Now you're just assuming my opinion. I trust you're referring to my first post, where I deride his "slovenly presence", but if you read that sentence more carefully, you will notice that I use "presence" in the sense of my not wanting to look at the space he fills up. It has nothing to do with "acting presence", as you assume it does.

Well I assumed you had to mean his 'slovenly' presence and your rephrasing still inclines me to believe it's his 'personality' that bothers you more than his acting because as an actor he consistently reinvents himself, delves into and develops each new role with intelligence and integrity.

I might be more sympathetic if you'd point out certain acting choices or lack of choice that he makes in relation to the construction of his roles.

Certainly your dumpy loser classification doesn't say much in the way of acting critique.

[Sven]

Well I assumed you had to mean his 'slovenly' presence and your rephrasing still inclines me to believe it's his 'personality' that bothers you more than his acting because as an actor he consistently reinvents himself, delves into and develops each new role with intelligence and integrity.

I believe that PSH is definitely a personality actor, as opposed to a character actor. Thereby, there may be truth in your assertion, insofar as one can refuse to be taken by Keanu's surfer boy personality, Michael J. Fox's boyish personality, Heston's man's man personality, or George Clooney's GQ personality. Surely there are exceptions among their careers, but as a whole, there're four actors (and many more where that came from) that coast by on the basis of their personal appeal, as opposed to any real capabilities as a thespian. I think PSH falls under that category, and it was hard for me not to furrow my brow in confusion at your comments about his reinventing himself. To me, his persona reeks of placidity and a mild to massive condescension. Every role I've seen him in (including the ones that I liked, save The Big Lebowski, which is, hands down, his crowning moment), he slips into this guttural enunciation and a muted projection that bestows upon him an air of glowering passivity. It's something I translate as "smug" and it's something I notice in nearly every performance of his and it irritates me greatly.

[Ezee E]

My favorite PSH role is in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

[Qrazy]

I believe that PSH is definitely a personality actor, as opposed to a character actor. Thereby, there may be truth in your assertion, insofar as one can refuse to be taken by Keanu's surfer boy personality, Michael J. Fox's boyish personality, Heston's man's man personality, or George Clooney's GQ personality. Surely there are exceptions among their careers, but as a whole, there're four actors (and many more where that came from) that coast by on the basis of their personal appeal, as opposed to any real capabilities as a thespian. I think PSH falls under that category, and it was hard for me not to furrow my brow in confusion at your comments about his reinventing himself. To me, his persona reeks of placidity and a mild to massive condescension. Every role I've seen him in (including the ones that I liked, save The Big Lebowski, which is, hands down, his crowning moment), he slips into this guttural enunciation and a muted projection that bestows upon him an air of glowering passivity. It's something I translate as "smug" and it's something I notice in nearly every performance of his and it irritates me greatly.

I agree with your four examples being 'personality' actors but I don't agree that PSH falls into the category. Contrast his Boogie Nights character with his MI3 villian and there's a world of difference and range of tonal/emotional expression that the other four haven't touched (not to say that Clooney hasn't given some superb performances), just in terms of reinvention I mean.

[Sven]

I agree with your four examples being 'personality' actors but I don't agree that PSH falls into the category. Contrast his Boogie Nights character with his MI3 villian and there's a world of difference and range of tonal/emotional expression that the other four haven't touched (not to say that Clooney hasn't given some superb performances), just in terms of reinvention I mean.

Yeah, but compare his Boogie Nights character with his Love Liza character and compare his MI3 villain with his Punch Drunk Love villain and you will see a negligible difference. And I would not measure the difference of expression there in worlds. I think "reinvention" applies as far as it would when considering Keanu's role as a serial killer in The Watcher. So the guy can play a hard ass as well as a schlemiel. In itself, a rudimentary feat. I think my initial observations still apply.

[Qrazy]

Yeah, but compare his Boogie Nights character with his Love Liza character and compare his MI3 villain with his Punch Drunk Love villain and you will see a negligible difference. And I would not measure the difference of expression there in worlds. I think "reinvention" applies as far as it would when considering Keanu's role as a serial killer in The Watcher. So the guy can play a hard ass as well as a schlemiel. In itself, a rudimentary feat. I think my initial observations still apply.

I tend to not seek out films I feel would most likely be garbage (Love Liza and The Watch) so I can only speak from the ones I've seen. PSH may not be a Gary Oldman when it comes to chameleon-esque transformations but he's certainly talented. You may (hopefully not) take offense to this, but I still feel you're reading your dislike of his personality into his acting. Even De Niro, Pacino and Nicholson (all great actors in my estimation) have had 'similar character' reprisals over the course of their careers. Some fictional character personalities are similar enough to merit similar portrayals. Still I simply don't agree with you that his MI3 villian and his Punch Drunk Love villian are particularly similar. There's much more of an edge and a sense of power in his MI3 villian that is decidedly lacking from his all bark no bite Punch Drunk Love villian. In fact the more I reflect upon and remember both performances the more I respect the subtlety he brings to the portrayal of two distinct villians.

[Dead & Messed Up]

http://whatnot.bombdotcom.net/shit/ohsnap1.jpg

:)

What I meant was that I'm probably wrong.

[Ezee E]

His Talented Mr. Ripley character is different then anything else he's done.

His Owning Mahoney, while wimpy, shows a different side that Boogie Nights and Love Liza. We see him as an addict, and it's a fascinating performance.

[monolith94]

Well, Iosos, you can hardly blame him for State and Main. That film was just a great big ball of suck all the way around.

[Ezee E]

It's looking like this might be the only American film to compete in the Cannes Film Festival.

[Dillard]

Some good press from GreenCine Daily (http://daily.greencine.com/archives/006081.html#more).

Screen Daily (http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intSto ryID=38803)'s Allan Hunter says:


Charlie Kaufman is a past master of ingenious conceits and wild flights of fantasy as witnessed particularly in Being John Malkovich and Enternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His talent has always been filtered through the vision of a sympathetic director but with Synecdoche, New York he assumes the director's role for the first time. The result is a film of staggering imagination, more daring in content than form as it explores the unbearable fragility of human existence and the sad inevitability of death.

Flashes of comic genius and melancholy insight into the human condition are woven into an increasingly elaborate canvas in which the boundaries between artifice and reality are slowly erased. Mainstream audiences are likely to find it simply too weird and unfathomable for their viewing pleasure but surely nobody expected Kaufman to make What Happens In Vegas? Fans of his previous work, admirers of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and open-minded curiosity seekers should be enough to give the film a fighting chance of box- office returns on a level with previous Kaufman screenplays.

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/movies/23cann.html?pagewanted=2&8dpc#)'s A.O. Scott says:


Mr. Kaufman, the wildly inventive screenwriter of “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” has, in his first film as a director, made those efforts look almost conventional. Like his protagonist, a beleaguered theater director played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, he has created a seamless and complicated alternate reality, unsettling nearly every expectation a moviegoer might have about time, psychology and narrative structure.

Sounds fantastic folks. No release date yet mentioned on IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383028/releaseinfo).

[Sycophant]

Exactly what I want to hear. Looking forward to it.

[Silencio]

Trailer (http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809873025/trailer)

Um. That looks freaking incredible.

[Pop Trash]

Trailer (http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809873025/trailer)

Um. That looks freaking incredible.
Wow this does look pretty fucking good. This year's Southland Tales!?!?!
I hope so !!@$%^(&)($#@!><{+=

[Boner M]

NOONAN!!! :pritch:

Excellent trailer, though I'm less than thrilled by the prospect of seeing what is apparently the Philip Seymour Hoffman performance to end all Philip Seymour Hoffman performances.

[Amnesiac]

How can someone dislike PSH's hilarious cameo in Sydney?

I definitely see nuance and substantial difference in his performances, from, say, Red Dragon ...to his unique approach to his villainous characters in Mission Impossible: 3 and Punch Drunk Love.

[Watashi]

Amazing trailer.

I predict I will hate this.

[DavidSeven]

That was... ambiguous.

[Grouchy]

That trailer does make it look very good. Even though I've always been mixed on Kaufman.

Whoever doesn't recognize Philip Seymour Hoffman has an incredible range is either prejudiced or lying. His physique condemns him to wimp roles, it's true, but he has managed to walk around that fact and produce basically every kind of performance. Every good actor has a recognizable on-screen persona. American audiences are usually like that - they want their tough guys being tough, their funny people behavng funny, etc.

[NickGlass]

What's with the Wheel of Fortune-esque text? Also, two seperate slides for Charlie Kaufman (one touting him as an Oscar nominee and another as a winner?).

Oh, the film? Yeah, sure looks interesting. The visuals are more aligned with Jonze and Gondry than I had been expecting. For some reason, I didn't think the trailer would be visually splendorous, but I dig the dark, fanciful look.

[Ezee E]

Hmm... Not at all what I was predicting. But now I can't wait.

[Sycophant]

I said earlier that the Spike Lee film was my most anticipated of 2008. Make it second.

[Henry Gale]

That is one beautiful trailer.

I kind of wish I had tried harder to see it at TIFF now... Oh well, it's only about a month away right?

[Dead & Messed Up]

Hmm. I have no idea what to make of this now.

[number8]

Holy fucking shit, what an abysmal movie. I'm not even talking underwhelming here. This was seriously an epic turd sandwich. Blech. Goddammit, Kaufman.

[number8]

Haha, you know what's funny? I just now watched the trailer and was amused that I guessed a bunch of the film's "trailer moments" right. That shot of PSH with all the notes on the table, of course, and the "It's been 17 years" line.

[Sven]

Haha, you know what's funny? I just now watched the trailer and was amused that I guessed a bunch of the film's "trailer moments" right. That shot of PSH with all the notes on the table, of course, and the "It's been 17 years" line.

At this point, I guess the only thing really motivating me to see it is: who gets naked?

[number8]

At this point, I guess the only thing really motivating me to see it is: who gets naked?

Just Jennifer Jason Leigh.

[Pop Trash]

Holy fucking shit, what an abysmal movie. I'm not even talking underwhelming here. This was seriously an epic turd sandwich. Blech. Goddammit, Kaufman.
Hmmm...I still think I'm seeing this one.

[Sven]

Just Jennifer Jason Leigh.

A classic.

Shame. Screenplay suggested there'd be more.

[Qrazy]

Holy fucking shit, what an abysmal movie. I'm not even talking underwhelming here. This was seriously an epic turd sandwich. Blech. Goddammit, Kaufman.

Rate his other films (writing credit)?

[Malickfan]

Hmmm...I still think I'm seeing this one.

Same here.

[number8]

Rate his other films (writing credit)?

Mmm...

Being John Malkovich - 8
Human Nature - 4
Adaptation - 8.5
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - 8
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - 9
Synecdoche, New York - 3

[Qrazy]

Mmm...

Being John Malkovich - 8
Human Nature - 4
Adaptation - 8.5
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - 8
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - 9
Synecdoche, New York - 3

Ehhh... well shit then.

[Ezee E]

Ehhh... well shit then.
Sometimes 8 has crazy moments.

[Bosco B Thug]

6.5 seems to be my default score for any artistically ambitious film that doesn't quite overcome its very pronounced flaws. Kaufman's screenplay is simultaneously his most profoundly emotional and his most brattily undisciplined. Jokes fall flat every now and then. The film, and the deciding factor in my evaluation, is probably the least cinematically distinguished of the other 3 Kaufman-written films I've seen. The film feels really choppy, which was to be expected if this film was to be his most surreal and avant garde-like film to date (it is), but unlike that other "avant garde blockbuster" Inland Empire, Kaufman's directing is rather conventional and the choppy randomness and flat editing just emphasizes that.

It's a complexly self-reflexive film that I at least found fun in piecing it together. Performances are great, especially Samantha Morton. Make-up is superb.

Just Jennifer Jason Leigh. JJL only gets naked in drawing. Emily Watson's the full-frontal nude de grace here. Samantha Morton shows off nice cleavage, and Catherine Keener has a surprise tit shot, I remember that.

[number8]

I think I may have confused JJL with Emily Watson. The movie's so convoluted and artistically bland that I had problems distinguishing who's who in most scenes.

[Sven]

I think I may have confused JJL with Emily Watson. The movie's so convoluted and artistically bland that I had problems distinguishing who's who in most scenes.

Either way, I've already seen both of 'em naked.

[Bosco B Thug]

The movie's so convoluted and artistically bland
Either way, I've already seen both of 'em naked. For sho. Convoluted and a bit bland. For every sparkling moment (much of which is dependent on the actors) there is a garrish and routine one, and wait, I told myself sadly earlier she didn't but in fact she does, Michelle Williams also gets nude.

[Pop Trash]

For sho. Convoluted and a bit bland. For every sparkling moment (much of which is dependent on the actors) there is a garrish and routine one, and wait, I told myself sadly earlier she didn't but in fact she does, Michelle Williams also gets nude.
Yeah I'm going to see this.

Full frontal?

[Bosco B Thug]

Yeah I'm going to see this.

Full frontal? Almost. Open robe.

She was, btw, "I want to marry her" cute in this movie.

[Llopin]

Just saw this yesterday at the Sitges film fest. Kaufman was there and briefly talked about how films are time machines and some other stuff. The movie is good - at least potientally. I did not see any flaws whatsoever in the script, the problem is that it's so hermetic, so closed within itself, that it requires much attention rapport from the viewer. Thing is, Kaufman is a writer and this mostly lacks the energy and visual composition than Jonze's and Gondry's films (specially the first - I wonder what he'd done with this material). This is mostly about a creative life marked by uncreativeness (yes, I wish to sound derridian) and an unhealthy obsession with oneself. It's not kafkian or beckettian or existentialist (adjectives I've encountered whilst reading about the flick) per se, it's main closeness is that to surrealism. It's an equivalent of reading a novel by Breton influenced by post-modernism (something a pretentious Calvino or even Vila-Matas might pen), a strange, angry world marked by a continuous stream of decadentism (and of course the usual Kaufman quirks). It works efficiently as an examination of literary/artistic "talent" gone insane - not to get into the whole "what is real/what is not" lynchian overtones which are much useless in this case, since it's not the point of Kaufman's discourse, he's over that; as a meandering of a tortured soul who keeps revisiting his own personas and spaces it doesn't hold up as well. But, I insist, a freudian interpretation doesn't get us anywhere, it's best to observe the film purely as a fragmented (but coherent) exercise on telling a sentimental journey; it does get a bit obnoxious near the end, with all its fancy meta-fictious play which doesn't invent anything, but the focus is never lost. And if you're able to get into that "ambiance" (I can't really find the right word) and keep logged in, it becomes a rather poignant - obscure, but inspiring - piece of film. Needless to say it is most complex and will require a second viewing (or third) but I've got a solid first impression - even if it's evidently less accomplished than Jonze's movies. That said, most females in this film rule, specially Samantha Morton.

Groovily enough, previous to watching the flick I stumbled into Lloyd Kaufman (who is being honored at the festival) and he pretended to be Charlie Kaufman. We talked for a bit and he autographed me a picture of him dressed as a woman. What a cool fucker.

[Kurosawa Fan]

:eek:

Where have you been?

[Llopin]

:eek:

Where have you been?

Being clubbed to death with baseball bats and then rising to my feet again. Or less figuratively speaking, living. Through a bizarre film-less period, ended by the festival.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Being clubbed to death with baseball bats and then rising to my feet again. Or less figuratively speaking, living. Through a bizarre film-less period, ended by the festival.

Does this mean we'll be seeing more of you?

[Llopin]

Does this mean we'll be seeing more of you?

Possibly, as long as I'm welcome. I mainly needed to expose my thoughts on the Kaufman film (and Miyazaki's, which I'm sure you're most thrilled about, woo-hoo) and stand as a relative supporter before the wall of discussion comes burning down.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Possibly, as long as I'm welcome. I mainly needed to expose my thoughts on the Kaufman film (and Miyazaki's, which I'm sure you're most thrilled about, woo-hoo) and stand as a relative supporter before the wall of discussion comes burning down.

You're more than welcome. And while I'll be skipping the dissertation on Miyazaki's latest child fantasy, I for one am glad to have you back.

[EvilShoe]

Yeah, I liked this.
Uneven though.

[Ezee E]

When's it expanding theaters?

[Doclop]

I love this movie. Saw it twice. Had such a movie/life high after the first time. And I'm usually not even that crazy about Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

[Ezee E]

I could go into Boulder and see this for free with Charlie Kaufman in person.

Hmm...

[Doclop]

I could go into Boulder and see this for free with Charlie Kaufman in person.

Hmm...
I would do it. It's an interesting Q&A. He seems much more serious than his movies are funny.

[ThePlashyBubbler]

I believe it's opening wider sometime in November, I know the small theater near me is getting it on November 28th.

[Boner M]

In Synedoche, Kaufman has been afforded a privilege he doesn’t deserve; his unimaginative imagery never comes close to the magnificence that visionary director John Moore creates in the turbulent tableaux of Max Payne.
...

[Sven]

...

Such a beautiful human being.

[Watashi]

I'm seeing this next week.

Score.

[transmogrifier]

...

Awesome. I'm all turned around on White now. He's a scream. Can't stop reading.

[number8]

You know, I can understand White's positions on films, but I can never understand his comparisons. He has to know that nobody would ever think to compare Synecdoche to Max Payne. It's like he's doing it on purpose.

"Clint Eastwood's melodramatic score in Changeling is a constant ballad of autocratic piano and violin notes, clearly showing the man's increasingly dried out palate; not the kind that dares to involve and enliven, as the musical numbers in Beverly Hills Chihuahua displayed."

[transmogrifier]

It's mindless contrarianism, but my God it's hilarious.

[Sven]

You know, I can understand White's positions on films, but I can never understand his comparisons. He has to know that nobody would ever think to compare Synecdoche to Max Payne. It's like he's doing it on purpose.

Why wouldn't someone think to compare two films that came out in the theater at roughly the same time?

[transmogrifier]

Why wouldn't someone think to compare two films that came out in the theater at roughly the same time?

C'mon.

[Sven]

C'mon.

When most people look back to film releases past, and by people I mean film historians, accountants, critics, and scholars, most of them take the film's reputation and financial success (and cultural impact) within the context of other films released at the same time.

[Ezee E]

You know, I can understand White's positions on films, but I can never understand his comparisons. He has to know that nobody would ever think to compare Synecdoche to Max Payne. It's like he's doing it on purpose.

"Clint Eastwood's melodramatic score in Changeling is a constant ballad of autocratic piano and violin notes, clearly showing the man's increasingly dried out palate; not the kind that dares to involve and enliven, as the musical numbers in Beverly Hills Chihuahua displayed."
See, the thing is I don't know if that second paragraph is a real one or not.

Awesome, regardless.

[transmogrifier]

When most people look back to film releases past, and by people I mean film historians, accountants, critics, and scholars, most of them take the film's reputation and financial success (and cultural impact) within the context of other films released at the same time.


I know you're the biggest White apologist around, but....c'mon.

You could make a comparison with another film that is screening as an example of something being doing right/wrong, but if that's what you think White's main motivation is, doing it review after review, end on end, and invariably selecting films that supposedly lesser critics have dismissed (and films that have no other connection to the one under review AT ALL), then you're just being willfully blind on this issue.

[Sven]

You could make a comparison with another film that is screening as an example of something being doing right/wrong, but if that's what you think White's main motivation is, doing it review after review, end on end, and invariably selecting films that supposedly lesser critics have dismissed (and films that have no other connection to the one under review AT ALL), then you're just being willfully blind on this issue.

I make no apologies for White.

I, for one, doubt you've seen either Synecdoche or Max Payne (having heard you express thought on neither, this is an assumption), as I have not myself. The kind of impressions each film has relative to the other exists only in our impressions of the marketing, therefore moot and not worth discussing at length. I will concede that he frequently draws comparisons that end up favorable to films that critics have dismissed, but to deny him that is to deny him his agenda, which is his right to have (as every critic has one). You may say his agenda is contrarianism, I may say his agenda includes an unusually keen (and no doubt twisted) perception of a pop culture corrupted by critics too interested in the status quo. You do him discredit when you ignore the multitude of instances when his opinion sides with the popular.

In the end, what it amounts to is that White is the guy who will trash the prestige picture (which is already getting trashed by plenty, by the way) in favor for the Mark Wahlberg CG extravaganza. That's a precious voice to have.

Anyway, the world spins, time stretches, seasons change, and this discussion is old. But if you wanna keep it up, so will I.

[EvilShoe]

Here's Synecdoche, NY's "theme song":
http://www.facebook.com/synecdocheny

Just scroll down to the "nutsie" player.

It's good. Really good. Works in the movie as well.

[eternity]

http://www.observer.com/2008/o2/could-synecdoche-new-york-be-worst-movie-ever-yes


Then, just when you think it’s safe to go back to the movies, the plunger sucks up something from a clogged drain like the unspeakable, unpronounceable Synecdoche, New York, and you’re forced to take back every prematurely made prophecy about “the worst movie ever made.” Because no matter how bad you think the worst movie ever made ever was, you have not seen Synecdoche, New York. It sinks to the ultimate bottom of the landfill, and the smell threatens to linger from here to infinity.

Hahahahahahahahahah.


Charlie Kaufman. Oy vay. I have hated every incomprehensible bucket of pretentious, idiot swill ever written by this cinematic drawbridge troll. But nothing that has belched forth from his word processor so far—not the abominable Being John Malkovich, the asinine Adaptation (Meryl Streep even worse than in Mamma Mia!), the artery-clogging Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (Chuck Barris from “The Gong Show” a secret operative for the C.I.A.?), not even the jabberwocky of Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind—prepared me for a bottom feeder like Synecdoche, New York. It is extremely doubtful that you will sit through all two-hours-plus of this obnoxious drivel—in fact, the fool producers who actually put up the money to finance it owe you a prize if you do—but even if Hollywood bought the myth of Charlie Kaufman, the latest Hollywood example of “the emperor’s new clothes,” as a writer … whatever did he do to convince sane people he could be a director, too? His directorial feature debut reminds me of the spiteful, neurotic brat kicked out of school for failing recess who gets even by throwing himself in front of a speeding school bus.

What a pretentious whackjob.

[Boner M]

Rex Reed if one of the worst people.

[eternity]

Rex Reed if one of the worst people.

MOST HYPERBOLIC REVIEW OF THE MOST HYPERBOLIC FILM EVER!

[eternity]

And just par for the course, Armond White's review is even more hilarious. Those damn critics and their hipster nihilism...

[Pop Trash]

Manohla Dargis gave this a rave review in the NY Times if that means anything.

[transmogrifier]

I make no apologies for White.

I, for one, doubt you've seen either Synecdoche or Max Payne (having heard you express thought on neither, this is an assumption), as I have not myself. The kind of impressions each film has relative to the other exists only in our impressions of the marketing, therefore moot and not worth discussing at length. I will concede that he frequently draws comparisons that end up favorable to films that critics have dismissed, but to deny him that is to deny him his agenda, which is his right to have (as every critic has one). You may say his agenda is contrarianism, I may say his agenda includes an unusually keen (and no doubt twisted) perception of a pop culture corrupted by critics too interested in the status quo. You do him discredit when you ignore the multitude of instances when his opinion sides with the popular.

In the end, what it amounts to is that White is the guy who will trash the prestige picture (which is already getting trashed by plenty, by the way) in favor for the Mark Wahlberg CG extravaganza. That's a precious voice to have.

Anyway, the world spins, time stretches, seasons change, and this discussion is old. But if you wanna keep it up, so will I.

Yeah, the part in bold is where you and I fundamentally disagree. White has a tenuous appreciation for film coupled with a burning desire to be the maverick.

He's a joke.

[Duncan]

Hmm, this has quietly become my most looked forward to of the year. Some people are calling it the worst movie ever made, some people are calling it absolutely brilliant and devastating. It's about death, and failure, and melancholy, and authenticity, apparently. In other words, sounds like my kind of movie.

[Sven]

Yeah, the part in bold is where you and I fundamentally disagree. White has a tenuous appreciation for film coupled with a burning desire to be the maverick.

He's a joke.

You are absolutely wrong to use the word "tenuous". You are letting passion trump reason. It's totally fair to diss on the dude, but at least diss him in legitimate ways.

[eternity]

You are absolutely wrong to use the word "tenuous". You are letting passion trump reason. It's totally fair to diss on the dude, but at least diss him in legitimate ways.

Tenuous seems to be right on the money.

[Sven]

Tenuous seems to be right on the money.

There is no way you could possibly gauge his appreciation. You are a fool if you think you can.

[Watashi]

"Mindfuck" doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. This was... quite the monumental achievement. I don't think I can rate what I just saw. Four stars, Zero Stars, whatever.

All I know is that I saw a movie.

And it was a movie.

[Watashi]

Oh, and Emily Watson's scene is an insta-boner. My God.

[Watashi]

Good interview with Kaufman. (http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/10/24/interview-with-charlie-kaufman/#more-16309)


Peter Sciretta: Well, people do care about the name value of some directors. There’s more name value in directors.

Charlie Kaufman: There is, and that’s sort of been perpetuated by this auteur theory, which I find enormously bizarre considering that the word auteur means author. And, indeed, the only person who’s the complete inventor of the movie is the writer. The director’s interpreting material. Actors are interpreting material. Everybody’s interpreting the script. And I’m not saying that the writer is more important than the director or other people, but I’m saying the writer needs to be given his or her due in the process.

[Stay Puft]

All I know is that I saw a movie.

And it was a movie.

I have to see this!

[eternity]

Kaufman is absolutely right there. The actual film begins and ends with the script, the quality, vision, portrayal, etc. comes later.

[trotchky]

"Mindfuck" doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. This was... quite the monumental achievement. I don't think I can rate what I just saw. Four stars, Zero Stars, whatever.

All I know is that I saw a movie.

And it was a movie.

This was pretty much my experience, except I feel fairly confident in giving it four stars. It's the best movie Charlie Kaufman has ever worked on, at any rate. In a way it's cinema's Glamorama--a work that drives post-modern tendencies within its art medium to their absolute extreme, and (in my opinion) ends up coming back with a richer, fuller understanding of humanity than anything else out there. But yes, talk about not even beginning to scratch the surface. I don't know how many more times I'll have to see it before I have a grip on everything its doing. Right now though it's the most impressive film I've seen this decade.

[Watashi]

Right now though it's the most impressive film I've seen this decade.

I wouldn't go that far. For colossal commentaries on the surreal blurriness of reality and artificiality, I'd still think Mulholland Dr. does that best (which Kaufman seems to ape a fair amount here).

Kaufman's film is a film I wish I kinda saw by myself without audience interruption. I'll wait till DVD for a second viewing.

[Ezee E]

I wouldn't go that far. For colossal commentaries on the surreal blurriness of reality and artificiality, I'd still think Mulholland Dr. does that best (which Kaufman seems to ape a fair amount here).

Kaufman's film is a film I wish I kinda saw by myself without audience interruption. I'll wait till DVD for a second viewing.
How was your audience?

[trotchky]

I wouldn't go that far. For colossal commentaries on the surreal blurriness of reality and artificiality, I'd still think Mulholland Dr. does that best (which Kaufman seems to ape a fair amount here).

Kaufman's film is a film I wish I kinda saw by myself without audience interruption. I'll wait till DVD for a second viewing.

I see your point, and I think it's a fair comparison.

I think I'd advise haters of I'm Not There to avoid this movie.

[MacGuffin]

American Beauty - ***1/2

This bothers me the most of everything else you have written.

[trotchky]

This bothers me the most of everything else you have written.

I dunno man, I still don't think it's as cliched and cartoony as everyone says. Highly performative, yes, but beneath that is a genuine weirdness; I think it applies, or attempts to apply, American noir characterizations, tropes, and themes (various nods to Vertigo and Sunset Blvd., among others) to the contemporary suburban family. What follows is a fucking disaster of sorts, but I think Lester's narration is the true "voice" of the film, one that contradicts the persona of Lester the character, and says something really heart-felt, man. What that thing is, well, I dunno. But I think I like it!

[MacGuffin]

I dunno man, I still don't think it's as cliched and cartoony as everyone says. Highly performative, yes, but beneath that is a genuine weirdness; I think it applies, or attempts to apply, American noir characterizations, tropes, and themes (various nods to Vertigo and Sunset Blvd., among others) to the contemporary suburban family. What follows is a fucking disaster of sorts, but I think Lester's narration is the true "voice" of the film, one that contradicts the persona of Lester the character, and says something really heart-felt, man. What that thing is, well, I dunno. But I think I like it!

I thought it was kinda creepy, tried to appeal to the rebellious nature of people who aren't rebellious but would like to think that they are, and most of all, repellent!

[eternity]

I like American Beauty. *shrug*

[trotchky]

I thought it was kinda creepy, tried to appeal to the rebellious nature of people who aren't rebellious but would like to think that they are, and most of all, repellent!

I agree that it was kind of creepy, although not necessarily in a bad way? Actually, I find its creepiness one of its huge redeeming factors, as hinted at above. Also I don't think it tries as much to appeal to the rebellious nature as to the empathetic nature of people; that the two are so often linked should tell us something about the culture in which American Beauty was made. And I thought it wasn't repellent, so there!!

[transmogrifier]

You are absolutely wrong to use the word "tenuous". You are letting passion trump reason. It's totally fair to diss on the dude, but at least diss him in legitimate ways.

On the contrary, I think I chose exactly the right word. Anyone who places political concerns at the forefront, who dismisses films due to a perceived morality that doesn't mesh with his own, who is obsessed with what other people think about movies more so than the movies themselves, who exhibits the taste (or lack of) that he does, cannot escaped being accused of having a tenuous appreciation of cinema. Movies seem like a convenient entrance point to rail against liberals. He may as well have chosen comic books, or paper mache sculptures.

[transmogrifier]

There is no way you could possibly gauge his appreciation. You are a fool if you think you can.

Hah. White is really one of your weak points; it causes you to make all-or-nothing declarations to express you disgust at all-or-nothing declarations against White.

Strange.

[Sven]

On the contrary, I think I chose exactly the right word. Anyone who places political concerns at the forefront, who dismisses films due to a perceived morality that doesn't mesh with his own, who is obsessed with what other people think about movies more so than the movies themselves, who exhibits the taste (or lack of) that he does, cannot escaped being accused of having a tenuous appreciation of cinema. Movies seem like a convenient entrance point to rail against liberals. He may as well have chosen comic books, or paper mache sculptures.

You are letting a choice percentage of his reviews affect your impression of his entire body of work. How frequently does he really "rail" against liberals? The ratio is tiny. You know, he's been critical of conservatism, too. But how frequently do conservative films happen? And so what if he decides to exercise moral and political imperatives? So what if he takes consensus into consideration? None of that is admissible as evidence against the strength of his appreciation.


Hah. White is really one of your weak points; it causes you to make all-or-nothing declarations to express you disgust at all-or-nothing declarations against White.

Strange.

Cute, but impertinent. You know how long White has been reviewing films? Longer than either you or I have been alive. You are focusing on a minute percentage of his work and using it to condemn his entire career. You are claiming that his appreciation is thin while ignoring the fact that his career is long and varied and that "appreciation" could very well be the most subjective term in the English language.

White is not my weak point. Listening to people jump to irrational conclusions en masse is my weak point.

[Sven]

As I said before, though, White discussions have become monotonous. I think in an effort to improve the quality of my life by the eradication of redundancies, I'm going to halt my side of this dialogue. It is clear that you are a smart dude, as I hope I convey my own intelligence. We differ in opinion about a belligerent stalwart whose esteem for film I find self-evident in his clearly impassioned writing, as well as his far-reaching knowledge and career experience. I like him because he combats status quo group-thought (sometimes at the expense of good taste and reason, I will admit), not because of his opinions or writing.

I do urge you to look past your impressions of contemporary White and to check out his book, The Resistance. It is a collection of essays on music and film from 1984 to 1994. It is much more reasoned and temperate than the White we see today, and I think you may appreciate that.

Anyway, love!

[Pop Trash]

Trotchky's Ghost World rating is garbage. That is all.

[Watashi]

Trotchky's Ghost World rating is garbage. That is all.
It's way too high.

[Boner M]

Trotchky's Ghost World rating is garbage. That is all.
It'll probably go up to **** on his 18th viewing.

[Pop Trash]

It'll probably go up to **** on his 18th viewing.
Yeah he'll be blazed and it'll dawn on him that it's actually a great movie.

[trotchky]

Yeah he'll be blazed and it'll dawn on him that it's actually a great movie.

This is pretty much how it works, yes.

[Duncan]

Interview (http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/notes/ckaufmaninterview.htm)between Kaufman and Walter Chaw. They name drop like crazy, but it's a good interview. More like a genuine conversation about life in general than about this film.

[trotchky]

I can't wait to see this movie again. I'm pretty sure the mere fact of its existence is a testament to the extraordinary creative power of the human spirit.

[Ezee E]

Damnit. I don't know when this movie is coming to Denver. I should've made that trek out to Boulder.

[NickGlass]

In order to unabashedly praise this film, one must be a lover of storytelling theory and full of forgiveness. More on this a bit later.

[origami_mustache]

I can't wait to see this movie again. I'm pretty sure the mere fact of its existence is a testament to the extraordinary creative power of the human spirit.

hmm yeah, I need to see this again. I was really tired while watching it.

[D_Davis]

Post for post, this may be the most hyperbolic thread in the history of the known universe.

[balmakboor]

I got EW in the mail today. Wow. It got a D+.

[eternity]

I got EW in the mail today. Wow. It got a D+.

This is the publication that hails the words of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

[balmakboor]

This is the publication that hails the words of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

I don't even know who those people are. Maybe it's for the best. My point though is a LOT of people read EW. A D+ is not going to be good for this movie's future.

[Ezee E]

I don't even know who those people are. Maybe it's for the best. My point though is a LOT of people read EW. A D+ is not going to be good for this movie's future.
EW tends to give a few movies a year a D+ or worse, and I end up loving them.

So far, that has yet to happen. Maybe this will be the one.

[balmakboor]

EW tends to give a few movies a year a D+ or worse, and I end up loving them.

So far, that has yet to happen. Maybe this will be the one.

Didn't they give Redacted an F or something? I loved that. So there you go.

[D_Davis]

Did EW say "Greatest D+ in the history of grading! Defines what a D+ can be! This is why the D+ grade was invented!"

[Kurosawa Fan]

Didn't they give Redacted an F or something? I loved that. So there you go.

An entirely accurate grade.

[number8]

An entirely accurate grade.

The same could be said for their Synecdoche, NY rating.

[Watashi]

The same could be said for their Synecdoche, NY rating.

You never did write a review.

[Bosco B Thug]

I can't wait to see this movie again. I'm pretty sure the mere fact of its existence is a testament to the extraordinary creative power of the human spirit.
In order to unabashedly praise this film, one must be a lover of storytelling theory and full of forgiveness. More on this a bit later. I dunno, I can totally go for both these statements, simultaneously. If trotchky you mean Kaufman's creative power, then I agree. This is the type of epic movie you would imagine anyone with a post-modern, meta-sensibility would be striving to make, to the extent of cliche. The theater play that is life! Actors play characters that play actors that play characters! Dianne Wiest plays Philip Seymour Hoffman! "Life" distilled! And he succeeds. Transcendance is reached to some extent by the film's ending.

But I also see that it is Kaufman's complex and intricate sense of storytelling and the screenplay he's pulled off that pull the film past its occasional redundancy, puerility, and the shortcomings of Kaufman's first effort behind the camera.

One detail: I think of all the weird random shots in Inland Empire - even the poolside scene - and I think, "Yeah, it fits." Then I think of all the moments in SNY like much of Hoffman's trip to Germany and I think, "Doesn't work."

[number8]

You never did write a review.

I know. Everytime I tried, I couldn't bring myself to. I'm already forgetting most of it.

[Mysterious Dude]

I didn't understand this movie. I think Charlie Kaufman may be smarter than me.

[KK2.0]

Post for post, this may be the most hyperbolic thread in the history of the known universe.

ahahahaha true, but all this passionate division makes me even more eager to watch this.

[number8]

Charlie Kaufman raped my grandfather.

[Milky Joe]

Amazing.

[Amnesiac]

I saw this yesterday. Like most intriguing films, but especially with this one, it is difficult to succinctly grasp what it's trying to say. Here's what Ebert said in one of his blog entries discussing Synecdoche, NY:


But if a work seems baffling yet remains intriguing, there may be a simple key to its mysteries. I doubt that James Joyce's Ulysses had a big opening weekend. You start it and start it and start it, and you shore up in uncertainty and dismay. Then someone tells you, "It's an attempt to record one day in the life of some people in Dublin, mostly focusing on Leopold Bloom. It uses or parodies many literary styles and introduces a new one, the stream of consciousness, which defines itself. Try finding somebody Irish to read the tricky bits aloud." Voila! And now we celebrate Bloomsday, June 16.

Yeah, there's fear of death. Loneliness. Alienation. The impossibility of adequate catharsis. Being unable to relate any of your personal suffering to your fellow man. The impossibility of empathy, then? The difficulty of expressing/duplicating your pain and suffering so that, once expressed, it perhaps is at least no longer just yours, but shared, and presented to others... and that seems to lead into the notion of how difficult it is to transfer your personal reality, or the myriad realities of others, with all of its concomitant moments, highs, lows, and emotional density into some sort of representation or re-enactment.

Clearly, I only have a cursory, disentangled idea of what kind of ideas the film was gesturing towards. I don't think I have that 'key' that Ebert spoke of, yet.

Does anyone? :) Yeah, this will be one that will be dissected for a good long while.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Man, I got to see this movie. The massive hyperbole from every angle is insane.

[Ezee E]

Tomorrow.

[Derek]

Sunday.

Probably.

[Ivan Drago]

I wish I lived in big market cities like you guys so I could see this movie. Because from the trailer, it looks really good.

"When are we gonna get an audience in here? It's been 17 years."

[Melville]

I thought it was pretty terrific. Easily the best movie I've seen this year. I was very surprised by how consistently funny it was: probably the funniest of Kaufman's films. Also, I don't think it's half as bizarre as people make it out to be. The basic ideas seemed pretty clear. The protagonist suffers from the same fundamental problems as most people, but he and the film focus relentlessly on them, trying to capture and refine them in art. Like all of us, he knows he is dying, but that fact is always in front of him, always prominent and defining (his name, Cotard, refers to Cotard Syndrome, a psychological disorder in which the sufferer believes himself to be decaying or dead); he is in a stasis because of this, losing his sense of time, always trying to capture life to avoid its end, always surprised by its movement forward. Like all of us, he knows that he exists as a corporeal body, that he acts in and as his body, but that his body is fundamentally beyond his control; this is emphasized by the pustules, raised veins, the other maladies that he suffers from, and the sycosis/psychosis pun that he tells his daughter about (the movie seems obsessed with medical terminology). Like all of us, he sees others as having fixed characters/characteristics, based on their relationship with us and on their previous behavior, and hence wishes them to have certain fixed, meaningful roles in his life story; but like all of us, he realizes that each person has a radically subjective existence, distinct from his view of them. Sometimes the realization of this is jarring, as when he sees the strange path that his daughter has taken in life. He tries to capture this radical subjectivity, this fact that every person is the center of their own life story, in his play, but of course this attempt to recreate true, intersubjective experience in his art also emphasizes his objectification of others, since he is casting people into their roles.

But furthermore, like all of us, he is self-aware, he sees even himself in certain terms, as having a certain well defined character, and he sees his experience as forming an evolving story. But he sees this in higher contrast than most people do: he sees himself on television and in ads, he is surrounded by the notion of himself as protagonist, and with each discontinuous jump in time, he is surprised by what has happened to his story (and hence made doubly aware of it as a story). Furthermore, he is followed by a double, someone always watching him and eventually recreating him. Thus, his life has an audience. But that audience is his double: it is him, a layer of his self-consciousness, while at the same time it is only a simulacrum of him, just as our self-conscious selves are always existentially displaced from the "selves" we are aware of, the selves-as-characters. So he tries to capture even this aspect of life in his art: he is a character in his play, a character that creates another such creator-character. And from that we get the most exhilarating scenes in the movie, the suggestions of an infinite recursion as each layer of the play creates another, each one slightly displaced from the last. For me, those scenes had the beauty of a Borges story, the sense of reality being stripped down in front of me.

The ending, while going a bit overboard in its sentimentality, carries these ideas to to their extreme, as Cotard gives up his role as creator and adopts a completely distinct role within his creation. In this sense he ends the recursion, ends the endless displacement of himself from himself, and takes up a fixed, well-defined role under somebody else's direction. (Note that the apartment he cleans is being sublet from somebody named Capgras, which is the name of a syndrome in which the sufferer believes that somebody has been replaced by an impostor.)

Anyway, great movie.

Edit: yeesh. There were a lot of typos in there.

[Sxottlan]

Missed the opening. I couldn't believe I had missed anything. I was only a few minutes behind and it should have still been in trailers, but it was already underway. I got in at the breakfast scene between Cotard and his family. I didn't get the impression that I missed anything.

Could have done without the shots of Cotard combing through his own feces. Or the close up of everyone's pustules. That's just a personal gross-out level being surpassed is all.

Otherwise, I loved it. About the best film I've seen since The Dark Knight (man it's been a lean year!). Kaufman's films always seem to have this reflexiveness to them. Echoes of echoes. It easily creates a haunting sense of deja vu. It helps in this case because, for me personally, what was said really isn't anything new. It was approaching overkill towards the end with the priest's speech and Weist's direction. But those are pretty minor complaints.

As I was watching this, for some reason I kept thinking this could have easily been a late 70's Woody Allen film, fit in between Love & Death and Annie Hall.

[Melville]

It was approaching overkill towards the end with the priest's speech and Weist's direction.
Yeah. That was my only complaint. The priest's speech, in particular, was way too explicit and even sappy, even if it was supposed to express Cotard's feelings (or one of his character's) and not necessarily Kaufman's.

[Beau]

Along with Wall-E, it's my favorite of the year. Then again, I tend to like meta-narrative wonderlands about the individual and his (or her) creative impulse - and this was a meta-narrative wonderland to some unidentified power. I did not find it confusing, however. Unless you're worried about the physical veracity of what is happening on-screen, as opposed to worrying about the meaning of it all (especially as it pertains to the protagonist himself, who in his creative output colors the whole 'movie-world' with the paint of his psyche and idiosyncratic hang-ups,) everything is fairly straightforward.

[Qrazy]

Well. You have allegedly mined the significance of this film all by your lonesome, with no outside interpretations or sources, but by the very power of one masterfully acute viewing. Not only that, you have boldly stamped a work full of (seemingly) dense befuddlement as 'fairly straightforward'. Kudos?

But, I can't help thinking there's a lot going on here that is worth appreciating and, at least personally, a tad bit difficult to grasp. On the first go-around anyway. Kaufman seems to be probing a lot of ideas and themes, outside of the apparently straightforward notion of Caden fusing the diegesis of the film with the anxieties and turmoil of his psyche. That is, there are concomitant themes and suggestions, however subtle, that I feel I've only begun to grasp. Perhaps I got side-tracked trying to work out the significance of the burning house before moving on and mulling over Caden's doppleganger and the implications of empathy and loneliness therein... that I couldn't just stop and recognize the straightforwardness of it all. :)

I haven't seen the film but I think Beau's point wasn't that it isn't layered (obviously he feels it is or he wouldn't like it so much) but that on a basic level it is comprehensible.

[Beau]

Well. You have allegedly mined the significance of this film all by your lonesome, with no outside interpretations or sources, but by the very power of one masterfully acute viewing. Not only that, you have boldly stamped a work full of (seemingly) dense befuddlement as 'fairly straightforward'. Kudos?

Um? The film is straightforward, if we're talking about what happens. There's nothing strange about what happens. The story, as such, is not hard to follow, especially if we accept the narrative as an emotional and expressive arc, as opposed to something that has to match with 'tangible reality.' I never said anything regarding a lack of thematic intricacies, which is what you're talking about below.


But, I can't help thinking there's a lot going on here that is worth appreciating and, at least personally, a tad bit difficult to grasp. On the first go-around anyway. Kaufman seems to be probing a lot of ideas and themes, outside of the apparently straightforward notion of Caden fusing the diegesis of the film with the anxieties and turmoil of his psyche. That is, there are concomitant themes and suggestions, however subtle, that I feel I've only begun to grasp. Perhaps I got side-tracked trying to work out the significance of the burning house before moving on and mulling over Caden's doppleganger and the implications of empathy and loneliness therein... that I couldn't just stop and recognize the straightforwardness of it all. :)

Well, again, if we're talking about the metaphorical structure, the themes, the characterizations, the meanings contained by the visuals - not only inside the 'logic' of the story, but as they relate to the protagonist himself, who is, or might be, the creator of the world that we're seeing - if we're talking about all these things, then no, the film is not straightforward. But I get the impression from those who are raising up their arms and bemoaning about unfathomable confusions that what they're talking about is the plot. These 'those,' you understand, inhabit arenas outside of this forum - I am not referring to anybody in this thread, or elsewhere, necessarily.

[number8]

I don't find it layered. I find it posturing a facade of layers and repeating its themes as a way to compensate narrative just so it can justify the fact that it exists without much of anything of interest to say. The character compensates loneliness by adopting a God complex and try to control his own surroundings only to find that his neurosis makes it impossible to escape "reality" no matter how manufactured. 2+ hours of that shit is already boring to begin with, but somehow Kaufman found a way to make the experience repugnant as well. Ugh.

[Melville]

I agree with Beau: the basic plot structure and its basic meanings seemed pretty straightforward. Of course you can keep analyzing different facets of that structure, and this film opens itself up to such analysis more than most films do, but its not avant-garde or anything.


I don't find it layered. I find it posturing a facade of layers and repeating its themes as a way to compensate narrative just so it can justify the fact that it exists without much of anything of interest to say.
What does that mean? The "facade" of layers was the narrative and it was the film's expression of its themes. And it doesn't necessarily have much original to say (though I think it definitely has something of interest to say), but it does say it in a relatively original and very interesting way.


The character compensates loneliness by adopting a God complex and try to control his own surroundings only to find that his neurosis makes it impossible to escape "reality" no matter how manufactured. 2+ hours of that shit is already boring to begin with, but somehow Kaufman found a way to make the experience repugnant as well. Ugh.
I don't think that's the point at all. Did you read my review? The primary point of his play is definitely not to compensate for his loneliness (though he is trying to make his life "better" by doing something meaningful with it), but to capture reality in art. That goal leads toward him attempting to control reality in capturing it, but that's only one aspect of his play (and the final scenes specifically move away from that aspect).

[Pop Trash]

I don't even know where to begin to unravel this film. I will say I think it's quite brilliant, but I'm not sure if I enjoyed it, if that makes sense. I am of the school of thought that being brilliant and being entertaining or enjoyable don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Even though Kaufman got most of the acclaim (and deservedly so) for BJM/Adaptation/Eternal Sunshine, it's now clear that Jonze and Gondry brought their own sense of playfulness and entertainment to the table when they directed those films. Perhaps it's because they weren't so personally invested in the material, that they were able to step away from it and objectively direct it in a way that isn't quite as heavy handed as Synecdoche, NY.

I still think this is a very good film. I'm just trying to grasp why I "enjoyed" BJM and Adaptation (I'm not as big of a fan of Eternal Sunshine as most folks, though I did enjoy it) more on a pure visceral level. By the end of Synecdoche, NY I felt like I had just taken a test. I felt like my brain had either gained some cells or had just turned to jello, not sure which. I also felt a little exhausted. I'm happy for the experience of watching this film in the same way I feel happy if I make it to the end of a long hike, but I'll be honest and say I felt a bit of relief when it ended.

[Duncan]

I guess I never posted anything about this, but I loved it.

The priest speech was probably the only mistep for me. It ventured dangerously close to quoting T2 at one point (intentionally?). But then the monologue ended with "Fuck everybody," and I felt that it redeemed itself quite nicely.

For some reason I'm in a very good mood today, but I'm endorsing nihilism in one thread and misanthropy in another.

[Qrazy]

I guess I never posted anything about this, but I loved it.

The priest speech was probably the only mistep for me. It ventured dangerously close to quoting T2 at one point (intentionally?). But then the monologue ended with "Fuck everybody," and I felt that it redeemed itself quite nicely.

For some reason I'm in a very good mood today, but I'm endorsing nihilism in one thread and misanthropy in another.

Having a good mood usually directly follows from divorcing one's self from the rest of humanity.

[Melville]

For some reason I'm in a very good mood today, but I'm endorsing nihilism in one thread and misanthropy in another.
Nihilism and misanthropy are always fun. They're the only thing keeping me going.

[Sycophant]

Saw this last night right after Happy-Go-Lucky. I was thoroughly entertained, but it's going to take another viewing and a lot more chewing to figure out exactly what I think about it.

I can't help but agree that the film could've benefited from some livelier direction. I wondered what a Jonze or a Gondry could've done with it, but Kaufman's direction was still quite good.

[NickGlass]

Saw this last night right after Happy-Go-Lucky.

Is that like taking an Adderall and then drinking a handle of gin?

[Ezee E]

I'm with 8 on this one.

Silly film with talent that's simply too good for this material. Michelle Williams, in particular, was good to watch in all her scenes, but blegh. Instead of salivating like PSH, I felt like vomit kept coming up.

What a disappointment.

[jamaul]

My first viewing of Synecdoche, New York went a little something like this:

:) :P :confused: :rolleyes: :frustrated: :evil: :confused: :confused: :confused: :crazy: :) :pritch: :frustrated: :cool:

Walking out I knew I liked the movie a lot, but I think I was a little bit more impressed by it then I was actually able to resonate with it. In fact, I felt that much of it was sort of elitist, wackazoidal nonsense, and I kind of felt like Kaufman was trying way too hard to twist my brain, instead of doing so with the same subtlety and originality of Adaptation, or Malkovich. I told a friend that although I would admit it was the work of an obvious genius, I can't say I could see myself watching the movie again. It was exhausting.

But over the following few months, I anticipated the video release more and more. I finally began to resonate with various aspects of the film - I started to see it as more than just an exercise in intellectual elitism and little by little, my liking for the movie started to border on . . . hrrrmmm, love, for lack of a better word. By the end of the year, I toyed with calling it the best of 2008 . . . but I had already concluded that 2008 was such an unspectacular year that my top five choices were interchangeable and that I wasn't really solid with any single film as the "best."

This weekend I bought Synecdoche and sat down with it Saturday night, and I swear to god my second viewing was like watching a movie I'd never seen before. It was as if my first viewing was like trying, with much frustration, to listen to an eight-year-old kid summarize War and Peace. Viewing two proved everything I thought about the film initially to be obsolete and irrelevant. The move was no longer messy, jagged, slightly unapproachable, etc . . . it was suddenly fluid, beautiful, heart-breaking and, ultimately, devastating. Halfway through, I wasn't even laughing at the humor in it . . . I was too stricken by a sudden sadness by what I was watching. It left me reeling.

I was never necessarily confused by what Synecdoche (the film, not the word) meant. I didn't walk out scratching my head . . . I was pretty sure I'd grasped the meaning. But what of this conceived meaning? -- it ultimately meant nothing. I originally thought the meaning of the film was an extension of the creative block theme of Adaptation, with a mixture of Fellini's 8 1/2 thrown in. I was sooooo wrong. The meaning, or rather, importance of the film is in how universal it is. It is, in fact, one of the most universally resonant films I've ever seen. It's a work that will have a profound impact on anyone and everyone, and I think anyone who dismissed it should watch it again. I thought viewing two would help me string together the pieces a little better, see it as a more coherent whole, see if I missed anything, etc. I saw it as an ambitious piece the first time around, and that was part of the reason I didn't dismiss it, despite my reservations. But the second viewing literally blew my mind.

This is Kaufman's most startling, effecting and, I'll say it again, devastating work. I smoked a cigarette after the movie, sitting in my patio, by myself, and I couldn't help but think about my own life: my fears, desires, inadequacies, character defects, flaws, uncertainties . . . gad! So much! Only a handful of films have ever stirred me up like this. I had to share that feeling with you guys. If you hated it, see it again. Give it another shot. If you loved it, see it again. Give it another shot.

[Pop Trash]

Amen, brother. I had the same reaction you did the second time I watched it last week. I think because I knew when it was going to end and what happens in terms of "plot" (sort of) I was able to capture much more of the subtle details. I love how in every new scene in the street, you notice new signs of the upcoming apocalypse that is happening but Cotard is too enveloped in his mammoth play to even notice. At first you just hear car alarms or other signs of calamaty but eventually there are shots of tanks driving down the street (I didn't really notice this on the first viewing)

Also there are moments in this that are just emotionally devistating. Like the scene with Samantha Morton towards the end before she (spoiler) dies. There's something so sad about the two of them holding each other and the house on fire acting as a warm harth. I had tears in my eyes during that moment.

Also, the DVD extra with a critical discussion involving Walter Chaw, Glenn Kinney, and others was very eye opening. One person said that they saw it at Cannes and had such an overwhelming reaction to it that they couldn't even be near some of the other critics who were bashing it. They just had to go get drunk by themselves and contemplate the film.

[Milky Joe]

I agree wholeheartedly with the last two posts. Second viewing was yesterday and all the more resonant and powerful.

[Ivan Drago]

This is Kaufman's most startling, effecting and, I'll say it again, devastating work. I smoked a cigarette after the movie, sitting in my patio, by myself, and I couldn't help but think about my own life: my fears, desires, inadequacies, character defects, flaws, uncertainties . . . gad! So much! Only a handful of films have ever stirred me up like this.

I felt this way after my first viewing yesterday. I was so deep in thought about it I watched it again four hours later. A film has never made me do that before.

[Milky Joe]

hypothesis: Far from going overboard, the funeral scene (the one where the minister gives that impromptu speech) is the most cathartic, powerful, truthful scene in a film that is cathartic, powerful, and truthful at almost every single moment of its 2 hour running time. Discuss.

[Lucky]

This is one of those movies I might be able to appreciate if I gave it another shot some time down the road, but I can't see myself ever giving it another chance.

[trotchky]

hypothesis: Far from going overboard, the funeral scene (the one where the minister gives that impromptu speech) is the most cathartic, powerful, truthful scene in a film that is cathartic, powerful, and truthful at almost every single moment of its 2 hour running time. Discuss.

I actually agree with you for once.

[Milky Joe]

I actually agree with you for once.

Someone here agrees with me? I refuse to believe it.

[chrisnu]

It's been so long since I've written down thoughts on a film, I forgot to look for the appropriate thread. :lol: Re-post!

I refrained from watching Synecdoche, New York for some time, because I thought it was going to take a lot of work to process it, and I was right. This film felt over my head for most of the running time, and yet there's ideas in it which I appreciate very much. A desire for someone or something else, even a dramatic character, to connect with who you think you are. Having an image of someone that is what you want, and the farther they stray from that image (or from you), the more distorted your image of them becomes over time, and you wonder what went wrong. Feeling like a spectator of your own life, unable to perceive the good things that make the rest worthwhile until they've already past. Accepting failure and an inability to meet all your expectations as something that can be shared, and as something that can be beautiful. Its pain is very brutal, and there's little solace to be had, but that's what there is. Anyway, it'll probably take me at least two more viewings to digest everything I think was going on. It's probably brilliant.

I will be reading through the rest of the thread shortly.

[Boner M]

I thought this was quite good, but it all felt a little surface-level to me as far as its treatment of its central themes went. I'll need a second viewing to decide whether I was genuinely moved by it or if was merely bludgeoned into submission by its unrelenting moroseness.

[chrisnu]

I was watching one of the extras on the DVD, where a panel of film critics were discussing the film, and one of them brought up the word "rueful" to describe the film. I think that's fairly accurate.


Like all of us, he sees others as having fixed characters/characteristics, based on their relationship with us and on their previous behavior, and hence wishes them to have certain fixed, meaningful roles in his life story; but like all of us, he realizes that each person has a radically subjective existence, distinct from his view of them. Sometimes the realization of this is jarring, as when he sees the strange path that his daughter has taken in life. He tries to capture this radical subjectivity, this fact that every person is the center of their own life story, in his play, but of course this attempt to recreate true, intersubjective experience in his art also emphasizes his objectification of others, since he is casting people into their roles.


Furthermore, he is followed by a double, someone always watching him and eventually recreating him. Thus, his life has an audience. But that audience is his double: it is him, a layer of his self-consciousness, while at the same time it is only a simulacrum of him, just as our self-conscious selves are always existentially displaced from the "selves" we are aware of, the selves-as-characters. So he tries to capture even this aspect of life in his art: he is a character in his play, a character that creates another such creator-character.

I agree entirely with this. I don't have anything to add at this point, however. :) Will continue reading.

[baby doll]

I thought this was quite good, but it all felt a little surface-level to me as far as its treatment of its central themes went. I'll need a second viewing to decide whether I was genuinely moved by it or if was merely bludgeoned into submission by its unrelenting moroseness.Maybe this isn't what you meant, but since film is fundamentally a medium that records the surfaces of things, isn't a "surface-level" treatment of its themes the only level the film could possibly work on?

[trotchky]

Maybe this isn't what you meant, but since film is fundamentally a medium that records the surfaces of things, isn't a "surface-level" treatment of its themes the only level the film could possibly work on?

Yes, I agree with this, and I also know the feeling Boner M describes. I've seen the movie around six times now and have gone back and forth on this (in my own mind), but I'm pretty sure you're right: that "surface" treatment isn't just intentional, it's the only way the film's ideas could work the way they do. That's film, and that's life.

[MacGuffin]

I don't find it layered. I find it posturing a facade of layers and repeating its themes as a way to compensate narrative just so it can justify the fact that it exists without much of anything of interest to say. The character compensates loneliness by adopting a God complex and try to control his own surroundings only to find that his neurosis makes it impossible to escape "reality" no matter how manufactured. 2+ hours of that shit is already boring to begin with, but somehow Kaufman found a way to make the experience repugnant as well. Ugh.

Basically. I looked at the clock an hour in and thought to myself about how it's still doing the same one-note lonely depression thing, and I wondered, how much longer was it going to be like this? It ended up being like that the entire movie. Not boring to watch, but boring in concept. I think it has the basis of a good movie and a somewhat decent concept, but it never really does anything with that concept. By the end, our lead is still lonely and depressed and all we know is, oh my god, art mirrors life.

[MacGuffin]

It's not as bad as I originally thought it was, but it's still pretty disappointing. Especially when you consider Kaufman can basically take this movie in nearly any direction because of the enormous nature of it all (the meta-ness, the play, the many characters, the stage, the ambitiousness of the movie itself) and decides to stay in the same "everything sucks" direction the whole time.

[Ezee E]

It's not as bad as I originally thought it was, but it's still pretty disappointing. Especially when you consider Kaufman can basically take this movie in nearly any direction because of the enormous nature of it all (the meta-ness, the play, the many characters, the stage, the ambitiousness of the movie itself) and decides to stay in the same "everything sucks" direction the whole time.
Good call. PSH's character might be the most pathetic character I can think of.

[trotchky]

It's not as bad as I originally thought it was, but it's still pretty disappointing. Especially when you consider Kaufman can basically take this movie in nearly any direction because of the enormous nature of it all (the meta-ness, the play, the many characters, the stage, the ambitiousness of the movie itself) and decides to stay in the same "everything sucks" direction the whole time.

I think the futility of Caden's efforts at escaping his unhappiness is a pretty big part of the tragedy/comedy of the whole thing. Hence the amazing funeral scene, in which he finally trusts a fundamentally different human being with the direction of his life-work and ends up being told exactly what he needs to hear.

Also, I don't agree that the movie posits that "everything sucks." That's (somewhat simplistically) Caden's view of the world, but the movie criticizes him and his self-destructive patterns pretty relentlessly. Again, part of the essential tragedy/comedy of the film.

In what's basically a movie about the second half of a person's life, yeah, he doesn't change particularly drastically, and while I've never grown old and died before I think that's a pretty honest, if disappointing, portrayal. But it's not like he remains static the entire film, either: as he gets older he becomes notably more gentle, compassionate towards others (notice how he apologizes to Hazel and the crew and asks if they are okay instead of yelling at and berating them when the elevator stops working on the "Adele's apartment" set; also how he pats his androgynous partner's hand and whispers that it's okay after he cedes directorial control to the woman playing Ellen).

[MacGuffin]

Caden's life is only as bad as he makes it.

[trotchky]

The film agrees with you.

[MacGuffin]

The film agrees with you.

But I didn't need to see there for two hours to come to such a conclusion. Such an ambitious movie should do so much more.

[trotchky]

But I didn't need to see there for two hours to come to such a conclusion. Such an ambitious movie should do so much more.

Process is a lot more important than the delivery of a didactic message, in my opinion, so I don't really agree that the movie needs to say anything more than that (although it does--one other conclusion the film reaches? process is more important than conclusion), or anything at all really.

[MacGuffin]

Process is a lot more important than the delivery of a didactic message, in my opinion, so I don't really agree that the movie needs to say anything more than that (although it does--one other conclusion the film reaches? process is more important than conclusion), or anything at all really.

I know, but I wanted it to do more. I don't see how this can be anything less than a letdown even to those who consider it a masterpiece.

[MacGuffin]

I feel a bit though as if I am underrating this, insomuch as I am judging it on what I wanted it to be, what it could've been, what it should have been. I just feel that if Kaufman is going to make a movie about everything in the entire world, he should give us a little more than just some depressed loser.

[trotchky]

I know, but I wanted it to do more. I don't see how this can be anything less than a letdown even to those who consider it a masterpiece.

Maybe you were just influenced by the hype, or expected it to be something different than it what it was? Personally I went into the movie knowing almost nothing about it and it absolutely blew me away. On every subsequent viewing it held up, and I now consider it one of the best of the decade.

[trotchky]

I feel a bit though as if I am underrating this, insomuch as I am judging it on what I wanted it to be, what it could've been, what it should have been. I just feel that if Kaufman is going to make a movie about everything in the entire world, he should give us a little more than just some depressed loser.

But Kaufman isn't making a movie about everything in the world, he's making a movie about the impossibility of making a movie about everything in the world; or, more specifically, about some depressed loser trying to make a play about everything in the world.

[MacGuffin]

Maybe you were just influenced by the hype, or expected it to be something different than it what it was? Personally I went into the movie knowing almost nothing about it and it absolutely blew me away. On every subsequent viewing it held up, and I now consider it one of the best of the decade.

I'm worried you might be right, but that doesn't make me any less disappointed, of course. If the movie sticks with me in an irritable way, that just means I will need to rewatch it; if it doesn't, that means I made the right choice regarding my feelings towards it the first time.

[MacGuffin]

But Kaufman isn't making a movie about everything in the world, he's making a movie about the impossibility of making a movie about everything in the world; or, more specifically, about some depressed loser trying to make a play about everything in the world.

But the movie still encompasses the massive, ambitious nature of being about everything in the world, even if not directly.

[trotchky]

But the movie still encompasses the massive, ambitious nature of being about everything in the world, even if not directly.

I agree...but I feel that by never really moving outside the spectrum of one depressed loser's subjective viewpoint of everything in the world, it effectively makes its point about said loser's fallacy.

[MacGuffin]

I agree...but I feel that by never really moving outside the spectrum of one depressed loser's subjective viewpoint of everything in the world, it effectively makes its point about said loser's fallacy.

The movie does indeed focus on him and his viewpoint of the world for the entire duration, but let us not forget that there are also the actors who play people from his life that also interpret his viewpoints and add their stylistic touches just as any actor would in a film or a play, and by doing this, I believe the movie automatically exceeds any singular subjective viewpoint of Caden, even if it is only by a little.

[trotchky]

The movie does indeed focus on him and his viewpoint of the world for the entire duration, but let us not forget that there are also the actors who play people from his life that also interpret his viewpoints and add their stylistic touches just as any actor would in a film or a play, and by doing this, I believe the movie automatically exceeds any singular subjective viewpoint of Caden, even if it is only by a little.

That's true, but every actor who gets emotionally close to him (particularly Hazel and Claire) is inevitably affected by his heavy-handed, oppressively maudlin nature. This contrasts nicely with Sammy Barnathan, who is obsessed with the facts of Caden's life as a clinician or professor might be, studying him from a detached distance, whose ultimate suicide ("Watch my heart get broken. Watch me jump.") is a rebuttal to both Caden's selfishness and his spinelessness, and the nameless "Actress Who Plays Ellen," whose mere existence calls Caden's objectivity and "fairness" into question (she has no identity beyond that which serves his own purposes), and whose untainted generosity and warmth results in the absolutely cathartic funeral scene.

[MacGuffin]

Oh, I agree with that, I was only pointing out how I don't believe the entire movie is from Caden's subjective viewpoint, but the movie is hampered by his depressing presence, which affects, ultimately, the many things the movie could have done.

[trotchky]

Oh, I agree with that, I was only pointing out how I don't believe the entire movie is from Caden's subjective viewpoint, but the movie is hampered by his depressing presence, which affects, ultimately, the many things the movie could have done.

I suppose that's true, and I feel like I have a better understanding of your view on the movie now. Conceptually, yeah, it could have gone in very different, less generally melancholy directions. Although, I do find the movie to have its share of very funny moments, moments which more often than not poke fun at Caden's perpetual misery.

[MacGuffin]

I suppose that's true, and I feel like I have a better understanding of your view on the movie now. Conceptually, yeah, it could have gone in very different, less generally melancholy directions. Although, I do find the movie to have its share of very funny moments, moments which more often than not poke fun at Caden's perpetual misery.

I laughed at the part where the doctor said how eyes are connected to the brain, and Caden responds, that can't be right, and the doctor responds, why would I have made it up, etc. But this kind of comic relief, which makes fun of Caden and ridicules him for acting like a know-it-all is quickly abandoned for the jokes (or lack thereof depending on how you look at them or feel about the movie) that are based around Caden's worldview point, rather than the feelings that are the cause of these worldview points. The jokes, as they are, are less successful when they are poking fun at the movie's core — which doesn't really have room to be made jokes of, because it's lacking as it is — but succeed just once when the doctor joke attempts to conjure humor from the character which drives the entire movie.

If you found things like the burning house, the idea of a woman playing Caden, and the more arguably pretentious aspects of the movie, funny, than the above post is largely directed towards you: the viewer who thought it was okay to laugh at the world as Caden saw it; to laugh at his worldview. Instead of laughing with him (when he attempts to belittle the doctor), you laughed at him (when he casted the woman as himself). I don't blame you, that's just how the movie sets things up.

[Duncan]

It always slightly concerns me when people don't walk out of this film thinking it's a comedy. I find that fact a little isolating. There are few punchlines, but that doesn't mean it's not a funny film. It makes me wonder where I am in life that people could think this film is nothing but pathetic and depressing.

[MacGuffin]

It always slightly concerns me when people don't walk out of this film thinking it's a comedy. I find that fact a little isolating. There are few punchlines, but that doesn't mean it's not a funny film. It makes me wonder where I am in life that people could think this film is nothing but pathetic and depressing.

Wait, you don't think it is a comedy? Thank goodness, I didn't either.

[Milky Joe]

Wait, you don't think it is a comedy? Thank goodness, I didn't either.

No wonder you didn't like it.

[Duncan]

Wait, you don't think it is a comedy? Thank goodness, I didn't either.

I don't know if I'd simply call it a comedy, but I think it's a very funny film.

[MacGuffin]

No wonder you didn't like it.

Which parts did you laugh? I just thought it was a very depressing movie. I didn't find much to laugh about, unless the whole thing is supposed to be one big joke and almost everyone in the movie is maddeningly (except for Claire and Hazel) off-putting to the extent where it all becomes funny.

[Melville]

I have never before been so baffled by people's responses to a movie. From the "it's unbelievably weird" response to the "it's relentlessly depressing" response to the "it's so superficial" response, all the negative reactions make no sense at all to me. It's not very weird: its basic story and themes are easy to follow. It's not relentlessly depressing: it's enormously funny (I was laughing pretty consistently throughout it) while remaining deeply sympathetic toward its protagonist's unhappiness. And it's not at all superficial: its endless self-referentiality and narrative contortions are not simply "cute" postmodern playfulness; they are woven together to create a very meaningful portrait of art and common human problems. (I'm especially surprised by number8's response, since Alan Moore's writing is based largely on cute tricks such as visual puns.)


By the end, our lead is still lonely and depressed and all we know is, oh my god, art mirrors life.
The lead is still lonely and depressed, but I don't see a problem with that. Why shouldn't the film deal with a chronically unhappy individual? People often are lonely and depressed, sometimes chronically so; loneliness and depression are extremely common experiences, feelings that almost all people experience at some point and sometimes continuously throughout their lives. More importantly, for many people, art is a way of understanding their own unhappiness, of finding meaning in it, of placing it in a larger context of life, and of feeling commiseration or solidarity in its presentation of other people's similar feelings. The movie allows the audience to accomplish this, but it simultaneously explores their desire to do so.

And saying that the film's meaning is simply that "art mirrors life" is absurdly reductive. Art doesn't simply mirror life; it is a means of purposely constructing a mirror of life. But the mirror is always incomplete: all of life cannot be contained within art, which captures only fleeting images of life. That's the most basic aspect of the film: the lead wants to capture all of life, he wants to move outside of himself and his own unhappiness to capture reality qua reality in his art. But he can't really do that; he can only capture bits and pieces. At least, he can't do that while he attempts to control the art--but when he abandons control, when he becomes a part of his creation, then the difference between art and life becomes somewhat ambiguous. But even then, as you say, he still ends up lonely and depressed. Art does not allow him to escape himself.

Also, life mirrors art, not just vice versa: it influences what it attempts to mirror. It becomes a lens through which one sees one's own life, until one cannot tell which feelings and thoughts are "original" and which are derived from art. For example, when I first read Dostoevsky, I related to his depictions of psychology to the point where I felt that he could be describing my own mind: but now, it's sometimes hard to tell how much of my view of the world he described and how much of it was actually inspired by his writings. This melding of art and reality goes well beyond mirroring--it is an endless recursion--and the film's depiction of it is superb.


It's not as bad as I originally thought it was, but it's still pretty disappointing. Especially when you consider Kaufman can basically take this movie in nearly any direction because of the enormous nature of it all (the meta-ness, the play, the many characters, the stage, the ambitiousness of the movie itself) and decides to stay in the same "everything sucks" direction the whole time.
Have you read my thoughts a few pages back? I think you are completely underestimating the scope of what the film does. The movie is not saying "everything sucks". It's saying, very precisely, how things can suck. But it's saying a lot more than that.

[baby doll]

It's not very weird: its basic story and themes are easy to follow.You didn't think the magic realist conceits--Samantha Morton's burning house, Michelle Williams' endless youth, Tom Noonan, the whole thing with Hoffman's daughter and Jennifer Jason Leigh to name a few--were seriously weird?

[Ezee E]

You didn't think the magic realist conceits--Samantha Morton's burning house, Michelle Williams' endless youth, Tom Noonan, the whole thing with Hoffman's daughter and Jennifer Jason Leigh to name a few--were seriously weird?
I've looked around for some good analyzing of these things, or even the point of Hope Davis' character, but haven't really found anything interesting.

[baby doll]

P.S., How did this guy get a genius grant for directing local theatre? This part of the plot did not make sense.

[baby doll]

I've looked around for some good analyzing of these things, or even the point of Hope Davis' character, but haven't really found anything interesting.I thought with the subplot about his daughter, Kaufman might be making some point about how everyone's children become strangers to them eventually, but I wouldn't try reading too deeply into anything.

[MacGuffin]

Melville, you're probably right about me reducing the movie a bit, but as I have said many times, I think there was a lot more Kaufman could have done, and perhaps, one page back, I found why I didn't get as much out of the movie — I didn't enjoy it as much because there was no comic relief, as I didn't find it to be very funny at all — but this is still, you have to admit, probably the most divisive movie of 2008, so I hope you can still see where I am coming from even if you disagree.

[Ezee E]

P.S., How did this guy get a genius grant for directing local theatre? This part of the plot did not make sense.
That grant actually does exist, and is given to people of the arts. Whether they are authors, poets, artists, theater directors, etc. He would be a fitting candidate.

[baby doll]

That grant actually does exist, and is given to people of the arts. Whether they are authors, poets, artists, theater directors, etc. He would be a fitting candidate.Yeah, but I gathered these grants went to important directors--not somebody doing, as Catherine Keener puts it, somebody else's old play in upstate New York.

[Duncan]

Just one thing I want to contradict: the film is not relentlessly depressing.

The burning house for instance. Most of the film it's this metaphor for impending death, and when she buys it Morton goes through this conversation with the real estate agent. "It's an important decision, how one chooses to die." (Which is a funny line, btw, and the deadbeat son living in the basement is also funny.) So we go through an hour and a half being constantly reminded that there is this looming danger over the inhabitants of this house, an inevitable disaster awaits them. BUT on the night before this disaster arrives, right before Morton's death ("Could be smoke inhalation" - another funny line), the fire is viewed from a different perspective. There's this shot of Hoffman of Morton in bed together, and the fire is just an orange lighting effect at the edges of the screen, and they share this really beautiful moment together as two people who have known each other most of their lives, but are just truly finding each other for the first time. And Hoffman has another funny line here, I can't remember exactly, but it's intentionally over the top: "I've got a title: 'That Obscure Moment of Illumination in an Ocean of Darkness." Or something like that. And in this moment the fire, while remaining a symbol of death, is also a provider of warmth and light, a reason, among others, for intimacy.

As for him ending up pathetic and depressed, I don't agree with that either. First of all, he ends up dead, not depressed. So there. But furthermore, he ends up in the arms of someone who, over the course of this whole blurring of art and reality that Melville explained very well a few posts up, has somehow become his surrogate mother. And these two people who are barely connected to one another come together in the middle of the apocalypse to find this incredible bond between them because they're willing to find it, because they're willing to elide their selves and play these humane roles, and they tell each other, these strangers, that they love one another, and I even think they mean it. And you people didn't find that uplifting? You found it more evidence of relentless depression? Is it because he dies afterwards? Well, we all die, time moves on, but those moments still happened and they're all we get.

[Melville]

You didn't think the magic realist conceits--Samantha Morton's burning house, Michelle Williams' endless youth, Tom Noonan, the whole thing with Hoffman's daughter and Jennifer Jason Leigh to name a few--were seriously weird?
Not really. Some of the posts early in this thread made the movie out to be really outlandishly bizarre. Those elements weren't any weirder than things in, say, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Borges' short stories, and plenty of movies by Lynch, Bunuel, Fellini, and countless others.


I've looked around for some good analyzing of these things, or even the point of Hope Davis' character, but haven't really found anything interesting.
I already provided some analysis of Tom Noonan's character as an emblem of Hoffman's self-awareness. You can also look at in terms of the relationship between the audience and the artist, with Noonan studying Hoffman the way an audience studies an artist. But Noonan is not just any audience member: he is a stand-in for Hoffman's own role as self-critic. Hoffman as creator and Hoffman as self-critic are at a distance from each other, they cannot be identified. There is a whole literature on doubles, and they are frequently used to provide commentary on the doubled person, commentary on the boundaries of identity (e.g., the critical double is more akin to Others than to Hoffman). The use of the double in this case seemed like a refinement of that formula, particularly suitable because of the self-referentiality of the whole film. Also, the absurdity of the situation is just damn funny. (Have you read Dostoevsky's The Double? It's terrific. Funny too.)

Regarding the burning house, I think it was largely just played for laughs, the characters behaving perfectly normally even as their house is on fire. But it also worked with the film's themes. Hoffman, despite his relentless self-analysis, is always shocked by the events of life. Time passes him by without him really knowing what's going on. The film presents all of life as something that is on fire, something obscure, always changing and uncertain (a very old idea: compare with The Fire Sermon from Buddhism and Heraclitus). The fire in the house exemplifies that: everything is always uncertain and decaying, and the characters cannot help but live in this burning world. But the fire also plays a dual role: there's a scene where the fire takes on an almost comforting, romantic aspect, playing on the traditional iconography of the warm fireplace. That too, works with the film's approach, which sees the warmth and comfort people can provide amidst the main character's uncertainty and slow demise.

The relationship between Hoffman's daughter and Jennifer Jason Leigh doesn't really strike me as needing any analysis. It's just about how Hoffman experiences life, always surprised by what happens to him and the paths that others take. The fact that his daughter takes the strangest path is only fitting: even the person closest to him is completely alien to him. He cannot understand her, nor she him. That also plays into one of the film's central themes, which is how people view others as supporting players in their life story. For Hoffman's daughter, his identity is completely different, his story is completely different than the way he himself has experienced it.

Does Hope Davis play the therapist? If so, well, the hilariousness of that character, who makes for most of the film's funniest scenes, pretty much justifies her existence. But also, I think she serves to draw out many of the film's basic themes: relentless analysis of the conditions of life (particularly self-analysis), self-absorption (not just in one's problems, but in one's way of examining the world--e.g., her bookshelf is filled with her own books), and the emphasis on the human body and its inevitable decay.


Melville, you're probably right about me reducing the movie a bit, but as I have said many times, I think there was a lot more Kaufman could have done, and perhaps, one page back, I found why I didn't get as much out of the movie — I didn't enjoy it as much because there was no comic relief, as I didn't find it to be very funny at all — but this is still, you have to admit, probably the most divisive movie of 2008, so I hope you can still see where I am coming from even if you disagree.
Well, as I said, I'm really baffled by how divisive this movie is. However, if the humor didn't work for you, then it's easy to understand why the movie as a whole wouldn't work. The humor isn't just comedy relief: it's an integral part of the movie's whole outlook on life (or at least the main character's life) as simultaneously self-analyzing and completely mystified, unhappy but absurdly funny and bittersweet.

EDIT: Jeez, Duncan just made almost identical points, even mentioning the dual role of the burning house.

[MacGuffin]

Well, as I said, I'm really baffled by how divisive this movie is. However, if the humor didn't work for you, then it's easy to understand why the movie as a whole wouldn't work. The humor isn't just comedy relief: it's an integral part of the movie's whole outlook on life (or at least the main character's life) as simultaneously self-analyzing and completely mystified, unhappy but absurdly funny and bittersweet.

I am starting to feel like I should revisit this, but there is so much to see (and re-see) that that probably won't happen for a while.

[trotchky]

I thought with the subplot about his daughter, Kaufman might be making some point about how everyone's children become strangers to them eventually, but I wouldn't try reading too deeply into anything.

I wouldn't try reading too deeply into anything either; I'd try letting meaning reveal itself itself organically and logically through the film's narrative progression.

You guys like David Lynch movies, right? I'm finding it hard to fathom why the abstractions and surreal elements of Synecdoche, New York are either so confounding to you or so difficult to stomach.

[MacGuffin]

I wouldn't try reading too deeply into anything either; I'd try letting meaning reveal itself itself organically and logically through the film's narrative progression.

You guys like David Lynch movies, right? I'm finding it hard to fathom why the abstractions and surreal elements of Synecdoche, New York are either so confounding to you or so difficult to stomach.

I think Synecdoche, New York is more realism with surrealist elements where movies like Inland Empire are more surrealism with realist elements.

[Melville]

As for him ending up pathetic and depressed, I don't agree with that either. First of all, he ends up dead, not depressed. So there. But furthermore, he ends up in the arms of someone who, over the course of this whole blurring of art and reality that Melville explained very well a few posts up, has somehow become his surrogate mother. And these two people who are barely connected to one another come together in the middle of the apocalypse to find this incredible bond between them because they're willing to find it, because they're willing to elide their selves and play these humane roles, and they tell each other, these strangers, that they love one another, and I even think they mean it. And you people didn't find that uplifting? You found it more evidence of relentless depression? Is it because he dies afterwards? Well, we all die, time moves on, but those moments still happened and they're all we get.
While I (obviously) agree with you for the most part, I think the scenes leading up to the ending makes it a bit more ambiguous than what you describe. When Hoffman takes on a role in his play, he does manage to escape his self-consciousness to some extent, but it is precisely an escape. He's fleeing the burden of reality (living with bad faith, in Sartre's terms), assuming a role that's not really himself and not taking responsibility for himself. The emphasis is on the mechanics of his actions in his role; he doesn't fully take on the life, the full experience of his role: he's just going through the motions, taking directions from Wiest, being told a story that replaces the more complex reality of his existence. It's comforting, but it's also kind of depressing that this partial escape into a role is the only way he can be comforted.

[trotchky]

I think Synecdoche, New York is more realism with surrealist elements where movies like Inland Empire are more surrealism with realist elements.

I agree, but that shouldn't make Synecdoche, New York's surreal elements any more pointless or difficult to comprehend. (Also, movies like Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. blend realism and surrealism at least as much as Synecdoche, New York does.) If someone doesn't like the movie and doesn't want to bother with its metaphors and abstractions, fine, but don't pretend they aren't intended to mean anything.

[MacGuffin]

I agree, but that shouldn't make Synecdoche, New York's surreal elements any more pointless or difficult to comprehend. (Also, movies like Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. blend realism and surrealism at least as much as Synecdoche, New York does.) If someone doesn't like the movie and doesn't want to bother with its metaphors and abstractions, fine, but don't pretend they aren't intended to mean anything.

I think the biggest argument from detractors — and at this point, I don't really care about the movie; I simply feel obliged to talk about it because of my ambiguous comments — is that the "metaphors" are hollow and pretentious.

[trotchky]

I think the biggest argument from detractors — and at this point, I don't really care about the movie; I simply feel obliged to talk about it because of my ambiguous comments — is that the "metaphors" are hollow and pretentious.

Okay. I think those people are wrong ("pretentious" is something I just can't see; the movie is amazingly down to earth despite its ambitious representative abstractions), but I guess that's their prerogative.

[MacGuffin]

Okay. I think those people are wrong ("pretentious" is something I just can't see; the movie is amazingly down to earth despite its ambitious representative abstractions), but I guess that's their prerogative.

You can't see pretentious? Keeping in mind that that is not always a "bad" thing inherently, the movie tries to impress us with the over-ambitious nature of the whole spectacle (as I said earlier, I don't see how anybody could not be disappointed in the movie whether they thought it was shit or whether they thought it was a masterpiece, because the movie could have done so much more with what I gave itself to work with) and depending on the viewer and their perspective, it fails/succeeds.

[Melville]

You can't see pretentious? Keeping in mind that that is not always a "bad" thing inherently, the movie tries to impress us with the over-ambitious nature of the whole spectacle (as I said earlier, I don't see how anybody could not be disappointed in the movie whether they thought it was shit or whether they thought it was a masterpiece, because the movie could have done so much more with what I gave itself to work with) and depending on the viewer and their perspective, it fails/succeeds.
Why do you think the movie tries to impress us? It has a very rich structure that it uses to be both entertaining and meaningful. I never thought it was trying to "wow" me by doing so. And what more do you think it could have done with its materials?

[MacGuffin]

Why do you think the movie tries to impress us? It has a very rich structure that it uses to be both entertaining and meaningful. I never thought it was trying to "wow" me. And what more do you think it could have done its materials?

Don't you think all movies try to impress us?

I think the movie could have said more about humanity and perhaps veered outside of the single perspective of the single lonely man for two hours and focus on the perspectives of, say, the actors in his play. Since the movie is about a synecdoche of the world around us, shouldn't there be more here to justify the two hour duration aside from what a lonely and depressed man sees (likely what we could assume he would see before even watching the movie)?

[Melville]

Don't you think all movies try to impress us?
No. But if they do, then why should this one be singled out for doing so?


I think the movie could have said more about humanity and perhaps veered outside of the single perspective of the single lonely man for two hours and focus on the perspectives of, say, the actors in his play. Since the movie is about a synecdoche of the world around us, shouldn't there be more here to justify the two hour duration aside from what a lonely and depressed man sees (likely what we could assume he would see before even watching the movie)?
No. That would ruin the whole movie. The whole point is that the play is one man's creation, one man's attempt to understand and capture the reality of life. As trotchky said, going outside that would be counterproductive; and it would certainly not be working with the materials that the film provided for itself. And as I and others have described in this thread, in examining this one man's experience, the film says plenty about humanity: people's experience of the world, their fears and thoughts and feelings, their modes of taking comfort in one another and in art, their complex and self-referential relationships with themselves, with other people, and with art, with a particular emphasis on art's role in all of those things.

EDIT: As trotchky said, the movie is down to earth. It is dealing with very personal and human feelings and experiences. It just does so in a very unique way that allows us to better see and appreciate those things. That is the foremost thing I look for in art.

[MacGuffin]

No. But if they do, then why should this one be singled out for doing so?

Yeah, maybe you're right about that.


No. That would ruin the whole movie. The whole point is that the play is one man's creation, one man's attempt to understand and capture the reality of life. As trotchky said, going outside that would be counterproductive; and it would certainly not be working with the materials that the film provided for itself. And as I and others have described in this thread, in examining this one man's experience, the film says plenty about humanity: people's experience of the world, their fears and thoughts and feelings, their modes of taking comfort in one another and in art, their complex and self-referential relationships with themselves, with other people, and with art, with a particular emphasis on art's role in all of those things.

Maybe if I see the movie again, I will like it a little more knowing how the movie will play out.

[Ezee E]

Duncan, brilliant look on the burning house, which seems incredibly obvious now. I like that scene so much more with that analysis.

Melville, Hope Davis was the highlight of the movie for me, after she left, that's when the movie went downhill for me.

[Duncan]

While I (obviously) agree with you for the most part, I think the scenes leading up to the ending makes it a bit more ambiguous than what you describe. When Hoffman takes on a role in his play, he does manage to escape his self-consciousness to some extent, but it is precisely an escape. He's fleeing the burden of reality (living with bad faith, in Sartre's terms), assuming a role that's not really himself and not taking responsibility for himself. The emphasis is on the mechanics of his actions in his role; he doesn't fully take on the life, the full experience of his role: he's just going through the motions, taking directions from Wiest, being told a story that replaces the more complex reality of his existence. It's comforting, but it's also kind of depressing that this partial escape into a role is the only way he can be comforted.
The drive leading up to that moment is the only part of the movie that loses me a bit. Wiest says "You are not special," and "You are part of the same decaying matter as everything else," or something to that effect. I think Kauffman's position is that you have to give up your self-consciousness and accept that you're part of this larger existence where your role is highly arbitrary. I'd have to watch it again, but does Wiest tell him to say "I love you"? Or is that something he does on his own? Because I remember that being a moment where he really does take on his role completely, and that although he is stepping outside of himself in a sense, it is not so much an escape as it is finally getting into the head of one of these anonymous apartment dwellers, finding the shared experience of existence and its decay (a counterweight to the hyper-subjectivity that plagues him), and choosing to express something that makes the shared meaninglessness worthwhile. And it only lasts for a second because then he goes on to say, "I know how to do this play now..." Back in his own head. Then, "Die."

But I think I have to watch it again, because I fear my memory is making things up.

edit: from IMDB:
Millicent Weems: What was once before you - an exciting, mysterious future - is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone's everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It's yours. It is time for you to understand this. I guess the part in bold is what I'm talking about. I wish I could find the exchange at the end.

edit again: and I think he really does "understand this" in his final role on the couch. Whether or not I agree with the sentiment, I don't know. Like I said, the movie loses me a bit there.

[Melville]

The drive leading up to that moment is the only part of the movie that loses me a bit. Wiest says "You are not special," and "You are part of the same decaying matter as everything else," or something to that effect. I think Kauffman's position is that you have to give up your self-consciousness and accept that you're part of this larger existence where your role is highly arbitrary. I'd have to watch it again, but does Wiest tell him to say "I love you"? Or is that something he does on his own? Because I remember that being a moment where he really does take on his role completely, and that although he is stepping outside of himself in a sense, it is not so much an escape as it is finally getting into the head of one of these anonymous apartment dwellers, finding the shared experience of existence and its decay (a counterweight to the hyper-subjectivity that plagues him), and choosing to express something that makes the shared meaninglessness worthwhile. And it only lasts for a second because then he goes on to say, "I know how to do this play now..." Back in his own head. Then, "Die."

But I think I have to watch it again, because I fear my memory is making things up.

edit: from IMDB: I guess the part in bold is what I'm talking about. I wish I could find the exchange at the end.

edit again: and I think he really does "understand this" in his final role on the couch. Whether or not I agree with the sentiment, I don't know. Like I said, the movie loses me a bit there.
Yeah, I can't remember the movie well enough to comment on any of that. As is my wont, I'm tempted to interpret the lines you quoted in terms of Mahayana Buddhism—our self-consciousness causes us to incorrectly think of ourselves as definite beings, pushing us away from the unity of existence in which everyone is everyone, everything is everything (and all of it is Buddha!)—but I'd definitely just be making things up. The fact that his role, and its meaning, is dictated to Hoffman, not arbitrarily but specifically and purposefully by another character, and the way that he enacts the role, suggested to me an escape into a specific fabrication, rather than a revelation of a real truth. But, yeah, I've got to see it again.

EDIT: Or, rather, I think that there is a real truth there, and that it's the culmination or fuller expression of the earlier truth that everybody's a lead in their own story, but that it (or at least Hoffman's way of learning it) is nevertheless an escape from reality of actual lived life. We are certainly constrained to play arbitrary roles in life, and underneath these arbitrary roles are real commonalities between all of us ("You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one."). But the reality of life is that we are stuck with our roles, and we are stuck with our subjective awareness of those roles. When Hoffman adopts another role and gives up his self-awareness, he is fleeing the actuality of his own life, which is always and forever based in his unavoidable self-awareness. I'm not sure that Kaufman would agree with me though. Anyway, I'm rambling.

[Milky Joe]

Yeah, I can't remember the movie well enough to comment on any of that. As is my wont, I'm tempted to interpret the lines you quoted in terms of Mahayana Buddhism—our self-consciousness causes us to incorrectly think of ourselves as definite beings, pushing us away from the unity of existence in which everyone is everyone, everything is everything (and all of it is Buddha!)—but I'd definitely just be making things up.

I don't think you'd be making things up at all. But the idea is not necessarily limited to Buddhism. It can be found everywhere, from Christianity to Buddhism to Taoism to David Lynch to David Milch to David Icke to psychedelic shamanism. The illusion of separateness: the idea that the universe (or the earth) is a single consciousness, a single organism, of which we are all distinct organs undergoing essentially the same experience but from different perspectives. "Everyone's everyone." That Synecdoche directly addressed this idea in the ending was one of the most resonant, comforting parts of the whole film for me, and one of the reasons I would never call it "relentlessly depressing."

Because I'm such a Milch fanboy, I'll post this bit from Deadwood:

Saint Paul tells us, by one spirit, are we all baptized in the one body. Whether we be Jew or gentile, bond or free. And they’ve all been made to drink into one spirit. For the body is not one man, but many. He tells us, the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee. Nor again, the head to the feet, I have no need of thee. They much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble, and those members of the body which we think of as less honorable, all are necessary. He-he says that, there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care, one to another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.

[Melville]

I don't think you'd be making things up at all. But the idea is not necessarily limited to Buddhism. It can be found everywhere, from Christianity to Buddhism to Taoism to David Lynch to David Milch to David Icke to psychedelic shamanism. The illusion of separateness: the idea that the universe (or the earth) is a single consciousness, a single organism, of which we are all distinct organs undergoing essentially the same experience but from different perspectives.
Well, I wouldn't be making up the general idea, since it's right there in the quote, but I would be making stuff up if I were to apply any specifically Buddhist ideas to anything specific in the movie. Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and David Lynch have very different takes on the basic idea, as does Sufism and lots of other philosophies (though I can't say I know anything about Milch or Icke or psychedelic shamanism). The unity of the Tao is quite different from the unity of Buddhism, and even more different from the unity found in God in Christianity and Sufism, and the idea in the way that you've described it (as aspects of a single consciousness) is quite different again. I think plenty of Christian philosophers and theologians would disagree that the idea is even present in Christianity (though I think that interpreting the story of the Fall—the fall into the world of sin via the apple of self-knowledge—through that lens is too fruitful to pass up). So I wouldn't want to interpret the movie in terms of any particular such idea without seeing it again.

[baby doll]

Not really. Some of the posts early in this thread made the movie out to be really outlandishly bizarre. Those elements weren't any weirder than things in, say, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Borges' short stories, and plenty of movies by Lynch, Bunuel, Fellini, and countless others.I've only read one book by Marquez (and Love in the Time of Cholera at that) and one book of short stories by Borges, but I will say that some of them are really pretty weird ("The Theologans," "The Writing of God," "The Aleph"), and the films of Buñuel, Fellini and Lynch are also full of weird things. How do you define weird, if not outlandish magic realism?

[trotchky]

You should read check out One-Hundred Years of Solitude, baby doll, it's one of the best novels ever.

[Milky Joe]

I think plenty of Christian philosophers and theologians would disagree that the idea is even present in Christianity

Oh, I have no doubt of that. :)


So I wouldn't want to interpret the movie in terms of any particular such idea without seeing it again.

Well, yeah, I don't mean to suggest that the film is influenced more exclusively by one camp or another, but more that it's drawing from the larger pool, as it were. Kaufman strikes me as someone who's probably well-versed in this stuff and is as much influenced by Eastern thought than Western thought, if not more so. If not, maybe it's just (what I see as) the inherent similarities between the two that makes me think he is.

[baby doll]

You should read check out One-Hundred Years of Solitude, baby doll, it's one of the best novels ever.Yeah, I definitely will, I'm just not sure when. I got a huge pile of books in my room that I still have to read. Also, I'm not one of those people who systematically reads book after book by the same author. I just read Love in the Time of Cholera a few weeks ago, so it'll be a while before I read another one of Marquez's books. I read Mrs. Dalloway almost a year ago, and liked it a lot, but only now am I getting around to reading Orlando (speaking of magic realism).

[Rowland]

Jesus.

Utterly transparent and yet transfixingly elusive, maddeningly bloated and yet scathingly precise, off-puttingly solipsistic and yet overwhelmingly comprehensive. An ambitious mess, which seems just right. Those final fifteen minutes are crushing.

[Derek]

Jesus.

Utterly transparent and yet transfixingly elusive, maddeningly bloated and yet scathingly precise, off-puttingly solipsistic and yet overwhelmingly comprehensive. An ambitious mess, which seems just right. Those final fifteen minutes are crushing.

Holy adverbs, Batman! But your response is pretty much on the nose, though I didn't find the solipsism off-putting.

[Qrazy]

I've only read one book by Marquez (and Love in the Time of Cholera at that) and one book of short stories by Borges, but I will say that some of them are really pretty weird ("The Theologans," "The Writing of God," "The Aleph"), and the films of Buñuel, Fellini and Lynch are also full of weird things. How do you define weird, if not outlandish magic realism?

Bunuel, Fellini and Lynch are not magical realists. Well some of Fellini's films could be given that classification, but I would not personally.

[baby doll]

Bunuel, Fellini and Lynch are not magical realists. Well some of Fellini's films could be given that classification, but I would not personally.Maybe I shouldn't talk about Surrealism and magic realism as being interchangeable, but it seems like a good enough description for what Buñuel's up to in The Exterminating Angel and Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie, where he takes a realistic scene and explodes it with crazy irrational stuff happening. And the same could probably be said for Eraserhead, where the woman gives birth to a prehistoric reptile.

[transmogrifier]

Biggest surprise in a while. I put this film off for so long because I was sure I was going to hate it based on what I knew of the premise and the fact that I have found everything Kaufman has been involved with (with the very notable exception of the brilliant ESOTSM) to be dry and unengaging, confusing weirdness with depth.

But this was great. It doesn't have the wallop of ESOTSM, which is one of the sweetest confirmations of romantic love ever created, but it manages to weave a genuine sense of melancholy at the way life can just slip through your fingers - even when you realise it is doing just that - while at the same time being funny and inventive in its constant mirroring and recasting.

The constant large jumps in time work brilliantly in both a narrative and thematic sense - part of my concern was that the film was going to get bogged down in the general mechanics of staging the play and provide external context (i.e. outsiders commenting on it, moneymen looking for a return etc), but it wisely narrows itself in on what matters.

A delight.

[Pop Trash]

Yessir. This is up there with The New World, Inglourious Basterds, The Tree of Life, and I'm Not There as awesome, wildly ambitious American films in recent years.