Synecdoche New York: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Sadie Goldstein, Tom Noonan, Peter Friedman, Charles Techman, Josh Pais, Daniel London, Robert Seay, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Charlie Kaufman, Anthony Bregman, Bruce Toll, Ray Angelic, Sidney Kimmel, Spike Jonze: Movies & TV
Synecdoche New York: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Sadie Goldstein, Tom Noonan, Peter Friedman, Charles Techman, Josh Pais, Daniel London, Robert Seay, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Charlie Kaufman, Anthony Bregman, Bruce Toll, Ray Angelic, Sidney Kimmel, Spike Jonze: Movies & TV
Amazon.com
An insanely ambitious, dazzling, maddening movie, Synecdoche, NY is the directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman, the inspired screenwriter of twisty, mind-bending movies like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Broadly summarized, it’s about a director named Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who, after his wife leaves him, sets out to create a theater production that will mirror all of life in New York City by literally recreating the city inside of a gigantic warehouse–including versions of his lover, his new wife, and himself, who become so entrenched in his life that eventually there must also be doubles of these doubles… which only describes a fragment of the intertwining storylines. At points even the most attentive viewers may feel confused by the sheer abundance and density of ideas and narrative threads, as the movie veers from mundanity to an exaggerated but not impossible reality to sheer surrealism. But by the end, though the movie folds in on itself multiple times and tries to encompass more of life than any movie can coherently contain, Synecdoche, NY comes to a remarkably full and resonant conclusion. Think of it as Kaufman’s version of 8 1/2, another movie about creativity and a conflicted psyche. Hoffman’s performance, solid but difficult to empathize with, is balanced by dozens of vivid characters played by an astonishing cast, including Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis, Michelle Williams, Dianne Wiest, Emily Watson, and more. Sprawling, flawed, both intimate and epic, Synecdoche, NY is a unique and impressive achievement that will reward (and perhaps even demands) multiple viewings. –Bret Fetzer
Stills from Synecdoche, New York (click for larger image)
Product Description
From Charlie Kaufman, comes a visual and philosophic adventure, Synechdoche, New York. As he did with his groundbreaking scripts for Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kaufman twists and subverts form and language as he delves into the mind of a man who, obsessed with his own mortality, sets out to construct a massive artistic enterprise that could give some meaning to his life. Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. His therapist, Madeleine Gravis (Hope Davis), is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel (Samantha Morton) has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece, but the textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden’s own deteriorating reality.
cotard does lyotard,
By Daniel B. Clendenin (www.journeywithjesus.net) -
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Synecdoche, New York [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release)
The question for this complex and weird film is whether writer-director Charlie Kaufman’s artistic ambition will ultimately frustrate viewer patience. When I saw the film, a couple in front of me walked out halfway through. You will probably love or hate this film; reviews have been sharply divided.
Philip Seymour Hofmann stars as Caden Cotard, a theater director mired in all the midlife crises, real and imagined, of body, mind and spirit. The film begins conventionally enough, or so it seems, but there are telltale signs early-on that Kaufman is going to play with reality itself — a cartoon on the family TV features Caden as a character, and a realtor walks a client through a house that is permanemtly on fire. Those are two ominous metaphors.
The giveway is that the name “Cotard” bears a striking resemblance to that of the French postmodernist Jean-Francois Lyotard. We shouldn’t be surprised when Caden quits his career doing theater among the “blue hairs” in suburban Schenectady, New York, where his latest production was “Death of a Salesman,” and with the help of a MacArthur genius grant (a cruel irony given his circumstances) moves to a cavernous warehouse in New York City and recreates his confused life through what eventually becomes a cast of hundreds of characters. Yes, life is a stage and we’re the actors.
In his book The Post-Modern Condition (1979), Lyotard made (in)famous the notion of “incredulity toward meta-narrrative,” a fancy way of saying that there are no truly universal or absolute meanings or truths in life, and that all meaning is a personal or social construction. This is exactly what Caden tries to do — he creates meaning in his life through characters who portray his life. He keeps changing the name of the play, one of which is “Simulacrum” (= an insubstantial semblance of something). He keeps saying that he “finally” knows how he wants to direct the play. Indeed, the play is never finished but is instead a building project that piles floor upon floor of sets; it never ends. For Kaufman there’s a very thin line between authenticity and absurdity, genuine reality and mere representation, living life and playing roles, healthy self-awareness (however painful) and oppressive self-consciousness, and between true life and certain death.
Does Caden’s effort to manufacture even the barest micro-meaning make any sense? The last line of the movie offers a glimmer of hope. Maybe.
Best Movie of the Year!,
By TinyVessels -
The first thing I would like to point out is that it will be disliked by a lot of people at first, but later be loved by many just like Citizen Kane. Don’t believe me? You can either 1) read Ebert’s review, or 2) wait and see for yourself.
Synecdoche, New York isn’t only the best movie of the year, but it is the best movie that Charlie Kaufman has written to date. It’s a film that everyone needs to watch more than once to get what he is trying to say. There are scenes that is impossible to know if they are real or just a dream. Time moves at a different pace and you never really know where you’re at. But the most interesting part of the movie lies with the purpose of the writing; Charlie Kaufman wanted to write a horror movie. And not just any typical genre film, but things that scare him. He puts the fear of being alone, of dying by a random cause, of being rejected in everything that you do. Kaufman does such a good job writing for Caden that you begin to feel his pain, to feel his fear. That is true talent. The movie isn’t made to scare you, rather Kaufman wanted to do something original with the horror genre. [...]
If you haven’t seen the movie yet don’t go to the site. It has spoilers galore. Aside from the writing, the direction and the acting is phenomenal, especially the performance given by Philip Seymour Hoffman. It just goes to show you that the Oscars really do overlook some of the best movies of the year. Once you get into the movie there is no escaping it until it is over.
I’m not going to write about postmodernism,
By Disco Dancer -
This review is from: Synecdoche, New York [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release)
I found this to be a smartly made movie with great acting. When the movie was over, I looked around to see the facial expressions of the other viewers; they all had awe-struck smiles like mine.
If you are a fan of Charlie Kaufman, you’ll like this one as well.
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