Synecdoche, New York (2008)

[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.