Last year, I watched The Darjeeling Limited three times in theatre and There Will Be Blood twice. This year, I’ve not found myself attracted by any great films . . . until now.
Synecdoche, New York
deserves high praise. I just returned from watching the film a second time and feel compelled to evangelize you about it. Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman (of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich fame), this detailed work of art elecits the full range of human emotions in the viewer. Philip Seymour Hoffman brings the full force of his impeccable talent to Caden Cotardrole—the lead character of the film.
Synecdoche, NY maintains Kaufman’s surrealist leanings and speaks powerfully about the fear and inevitablity of death, as well as the importance and absurdity of art. I understand the movie to relate art to death. While the work an artist produces may immortalize the creator, even inspiring the creator towards the continuation of life (despite its horrors and absurdities), art also frusterates and haunts the creator because, like death, the individual does not possess complete control over that which should be uniquely and solely his or her own. Our death and our art are not our own. Yet, through a process of relinquishing perceived control and desire to control, the individual looses art (and the self?) to lead the creator towards the ineffable creation—the unknown and unarticulated ideal striven towards yet never attained.
I also wonder if Kaufman makes a theological statement in the movie too. For creation to be possible, gods must submit themselves to their creation . . .
I have more thoughts on this film and I’d love to discuss it with you on or offline. Go see it in theatres!
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Hi Leif,
I will start with a thanks for another great time at an outstanding film. I dare say, Synecdoche, NY, posits a need for human art to facilitate concretization of emotion. This, to pay homage to the beauty of all that is; all that remains fragile. Charlie Kaufman’s surrealism jilts the philistine ‘slow-creep’ toward death by placing the onus on each individual to take account of the creative genius within them and spend wisely. While many in various socio-economic strata fall back upon old adages like ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ there remains a felt dichotomy, at least in my experience, between those enraptured by beauty and those that flirt in frivolity. Shame, indeed. Perhaps in many ways our little corner of the universe is made light by each new soul that discovers. I deeply applaud Philip Seymour Hoffman’s recent work. Every subtle act, every nuanced emotion, draws close an audience connected by blood and marrow to the heart of the quest for truth and, in turn, the ability to stage margins of existence. In this line, I step further by saying that in life we pay respect to the awe, the sublime, and our odd insufficency — or that of others. The world of doppelgangers ad infinitum showcases an endless commentary for that which could have been and that which is in the life of Caden Cotardrole. A life down alleys and avenues, those parts of the whole that lead us to say thank you and then die. To apologize for our shortcomings and spend our last moments in light.
I’m not going to read this post yet, because this film is at the top of my list to see. Getting out to the movies takes a little more planning these days, but we have both wanted to see this movie so badly since we saw Charlie Kaufman on The Hour a couple weeks ago, so we’ll make it a priority I’m sure. And then once I’ve seen it, I’ll come back and read this post.
Good plan Ian! Look forward to your thoughts–if you have time to share them!
Matt,
No problem! Great to see you too. My only regret was that we saw the late show and didn’t go for brews to discuss the film more deeply.
I’m interested that you find correspondance between fragility and responsibility–a blend of aesthetics and ethics. The idea that the good (moral and accurate) life involves holding precious that which must also be loosed–creative genius–is a challenge. I’m certainly not there (yet). Your suggestion that perceived lack of creatve ability doesnot excuse inaction is of interest to me. To use me as a convenient example, I ask you: do I lack courage, desire, or time for not fully bearing/being witness to the creative within?
I love your line “the ability to stage margins of existence.” I believe you are speaking about Hoffman and Kaufman’s capacity for detail. Can you clarify your meaning?
Thank you for the stunning comment!
To clarify I will need to circumscribe much of what I said earlier. New York, in the film fits within warehouse(s); a representation of the world-city. This world-city is immediate, in the always already. The further out the warehouse expansion becomes the staged scenes of doppelgangers becomes ever more elaborate until the position of director, that of Caden himself, is replaced by a double. The primacy of time is evident. The world is shrunk to scenes within a warehouse, much like being is shrunk to minuscule proportions in Adele Lack’s work. In this shrink-pressure being and time are warped. Despite this, beauty and the genius of the human spark stands forever juxtaposed. The space-time becomes the time-space. To stage margins of existence in such an inversion requires the creative act, which itself is subject to a degree of ethics while the aesthetic becomes concrete. The initial Death of a Salesman play accentuates the inversion of space-time to time-space. Kaufman screens Arthur Miller’s characters Willy and Linda Loman as the young and beautiful. These characters, and in a sense the audience as well now are subject to the world of extraordinary warping. This warp happens in the primacy of telecommunications which distorts the world of communications. As such, this time-warp puts paid the accident of the modern confusion: homogeneous world time that at once displaces (fragments) at the same time that it draws close every consciousness that it can reach. The soul of Caden, Adele, and nearly everyone else stretches and fragments under the weight of the inversion–the velocity of decay and death brought to the young souls that long for truth amid the fragility of the quest. The quest that lacks a journey because of it’s now sedentary non-centre.
Feel free to delineate my absurdity. Although Synecdoche, NY does offer much material to interpret it resists interpretation of the whole; and allows only partial interpretation of the special within it.
I think that the film offers so much up for interpretation in a tele-electronic critique: 1. the animated sequences 2. the translation machine with Olive and Caden 3. the witty virus / disease television commercials, etc. Also, most importantly, Kaufman runs the critique of the visual television register alongside Caden’s theatre profession: itself a large play with the actual movie theatre audience that views the staged world in the electronic visual medium of film.
This still has not opened in Edmonton, and I’m starting to wonder if it ever will. I have a huge list of 2008 movies I want to see, and almost none of them are playing in Edmonton. It’s very frustrating. I think we’ve moved to a culture-less city. Which is strange considering we were living in Calgary before.
Hi Ian!
Man, that really sucks. Calgary has that problem too. “Doubt” opened last weekend, but not in Calgary–a painful reminder of how far Alberta is from any cultural centre. Some are saying that this recession will cause the arts to flourish a little more in Cowtown, as artists are always better off live on nothing.
Anyway, do see Synedoche, New York when you can. The New Yorker gave it a poor review, but I still stand by my opinion: it is brilliant and well-crafted.
Of course, I could be accused of embracing art that is intentionally confusing and purposefully difficult/impossible/unresolvable.
I’d love to hear your judgements once you see the movie.
It opened this weekend! We’re going to see it next weekend for sure.
Great stuff! Were you able to get to it? What did you think?