The Life of the Mind: On Synecdoche, New York (Part 1)

Why couldn't the world that concerns us be a fiction? And if somebody asked, "but to be a fiction there surely belongs an author?" -- couldn't one answer simply, why? Doesn't this "belongs" perhaps belong to the fiction, too? -Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil 

Over the coming weeks/months I imagine there will be a handful of thought provoking and intellectually satiating essays on Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York. Everything post (-modernism, -structuralism -hoc ergo propter hoc) and meta (-narrative, -physics, -textuality) about the film will be collected, inspected and dissected. Brilliant analyses of the film's complete disregard for space, time, and causal determinism will flow like Night Train from a hobo's bladder.

This will not be one of them.

I've already written briefly about the psycho (-logical, -tropic, -leptic, -somatic) effects the film had on me, but each time I attempt to pen a review of the film, I find myself producing little more than an extended monologue cum therapy session. Nobody needs that. Yet for all the alcohol consumed and tears shed (not to mention the sleepless nights) I feel as if an abreaction is necessary, if only for catharsis.

[Note: spoilers follow.]

Let me get the easy stuff out of the way. Synecdoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman's meditation on (amongst other things) death, failure, despair, heartache, the dualism of art and life, and the process of individuation is nothing short of a masterpiece. With traces of Jungian and Buddhist philosophy throughout, it's clearly a deeply personal, subjective work that somehow maintains a healthy objectivity, and avoids the expected narcissism from a work of this nature.

Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a 40-something playwright living in Schenectady, NY with his wife Adele (Catherine Keener) and their daughter Olive. A loveless marriage, illnesses (real and/or imagined), and a sense of artistic dissatisfaction are the perfect ingredients for a mid-life meltdown. A MacArthur genius grant affords him the luxury to create his masterpiece, a work of brutal honesty that, in his words, delves into the depths of his lonely, fucked-up being. In a massive warehouse, Caden reconstructs his life and the people in it, which includes this reconstruction itself and so on and so on. It's all very Kaufmanesque -- there are Doppelgangers with their own Doppelgangers, a playful sense of the surreal, and an ever increasing blurring and merging of art and real life. Yet beneath the surface lies a complexity of ideas that practically demands repeated viewings.

I missed it the first time, but the opening scene -- a single day in Caden's domestic life situated around a head wound-- begins on September 14 and ends on December 31st. There are six or seven date changes within the scene, the first of many instances where the linearity of events is divorced from the progression (or regression) of time. (The calendar on the following day reads March 2006.) More than just a statement on the compression of time as we get older (something I've experienced quite dramatically since turning 40), this acausal ordering principle is indicative of a disharmony in Caden's fragmented, dualistic existence.

The grant Caden receives is the ideal opportunity for him to stop mounting productions of other playwright's works and create something that he can proudly leave behind. Yet seventeen years of rehearsals yields nothing but unconnected, unhappy fragments, both real and imagined. (Caden gives his actors tiny slips of paper with scene ideas -- You lost your job, You were raped yesterday, etc.) Caught up in redirecting his life (up to and including the very moment), he fails to live any of it. Years fly by without him realizing. His daughter growing up, a second marriage, another child -- all of it exists merely as material for his opus, as the blur between art and reality grows thicker. An unexamined life might not be worth living, but what if the examining replaces the actual living?

The choices we make in our lives -- from seemingly insignificant matters to life-altering moments -- are at the heart of Kaufman's screenplay, and death is no exception. When Hazel (Samantha Morton) expresses concerns about moving into a house permanently on fire, the realtor nonchalantly says that's it's a big decision how one prefers to die. There are at least half-a-dozen characters in the film who shuffle off this mortal coil, yet Caden, so encumbered by his life's work, can't even die without direction.   

Obsession with death is nothing new in cinema, but Kaufman's take on it is particularly bleak. For Bergman, death is often tied to man's relationship with god (or lack thereof), whereas Woody Allen uses comedy as a defense mechanism for his fears. In Synecdoche, New York, death is anything but peaceful -- there's decay, disease, infection, and agonizing pain. Bodies literally break down, such that coffins have to be stuffed with cotton balls to keep bones from rattling around. Kaufman legitimizes all of our worst fears about dying.

The emotional gut-punch the film inflicted wasn't about mere self-identification. While it's true that there are some parallels between Caden's life and my own (and one could easily argue that I'm becoming as schlubby as Hoffman), the personal resonance comes from a place of heightened profundity. (Not all of which I'm willing to share here.) Sure, I'm plagued with worries of illness, growing older, and not having accomplished anything significant, but that's not where the film hit me hardest. A forgotten chapter from my childhood, one I'd not thought of in ages, came rushing back during my post-screening alcohol binge, something that no work of art has ever done.

Between the ages of nine and eleven I believed that my life, my entire existence, was part of some grand staged work, and that an unseen audience was observing me at all times. (Mind you, this is decades before the cultural obsession with "reality" media.) It wasn't frightening, nor did it seem invasive, but it did, at times, dictate my behavior, in that I would be conscious of how I did things -- eat, dress, shower, interact with people, etc.  -- given that I believed I was on stage, as it were. Caden seems to suffer from the same delusion, and the recreation of his world within a soundstage is an attempt at making manifest this belief. Late in the film, Caden is told that "there is no one watching you, and there never was." The devastation of that blow is not from a shattered ego, narcissistic complex, or a difficulty accepting his insignificance in the grand scheme of things -- Caden has never been one to think highly of himself -- but from his too-late realization of how to live, of simply how to be a person. Hazel's death awakens him to the importance of living in (and through) each moment, and his decision to change the play to cover but a single day in his life is the very definition of tragic. (And it nearly destroyed me.)

Kaufman's chosen surname for Caden is ironically apt. Cotard's Syndrome is the belief that one is dead, decaying, or does not even exist. While it may seem that this is exactly what Caden is suffering from, my second viewing of the film made me think the exact opposite. Caden wants nothing but to exist, but it's the world that seems unwilling to acknowledge or recognize him. Several times in the film he's mistaken for dead, a homosexual, or a woman. (There's a ton of Jung tied up in all this, but I'll save that for second part of the post.)

Synecdoche, New York questions exactly what it means to be a person, and the far reaching effects of the choices we make. Like Adele's miniature paintings, which require magnifying glasses in order to see their rich detail, so too does Kaufman's film. On the surface it's a grand, complicated, sprawling affair (like Caden's art -- built to scale) but the essence and meaning of it all is buried in the details. Take of it what you will.

As the priest says towards the end of the film, "everybody has their misery, but fuck everybody."

[The second, far more objective half of this piece will address Jung, synchronicity, the process of individuation, Buddhism, and, in Kaufmanesque fashion, both the critical reaction as well as the critical reaction to the critical reaction to the film.]

Comments

[Aaron OOF]

You already know that for one of the few times in modern history, you and I are full in sync on this one, but I was even more fascinated to read this because, having still not seen it since my first viewing weeks ago, not only did this post retrigger certain things for me, but you actually mention a few things I hadn't thought of. (And no, I didn't see the date changes in the opening scene either, but wow ... how subtle a way to foreshadow the rest of the film and make that opening so much more meaningful - especially when the big exchange between Caden and Hazel occurs about how long his wife and daughter have been away in Germany.

One thing you sort of allude to but I think is vital and definitely fits in with the rest of your comments is how physically ill Caden is at the beginning -- psychosomatic? maybe, but definitely visible to us -- and yet, not only does he "live" to a ripe old age, but the older he gets, all those physical symptoms slowly disappear. And his very process of visiting doctor to doctor and mishearing them the first time as he imagines his own illness - only to later see his hypochondria become realized (or is it?) - is one in which he is obsessed with his own well-being until he has something else to obsess about, namely his art.

I can't wait for Part 2 ... and I still really need to see the film again. Even if you believe this post is mostly subjective, it's still less purely reactionary than mine was! (Of course, that wouldn't be difficult!)

[That French Girl]

You had me at Night Train from a hobo's bladder. :-)

Seriously though, lovely review. I am dying to see this film.

[Ally]

Such a insightful review. I am looking forwards to the second part.

I need to re-watch the film too (preferable with subtitles if possible :p) I missed the time chance in opening scene too although I'd expected the opening scene to foreshadow the film's essence and was watching out for signs. Now it totally makes sense.

After reading your thought in childhood, I want to tell you this: just a couple days before viewing this film, I suddenly recall something that I haven't thought of for a long while: sometimes between I was 10 to 12, I thought maybe I was the only real person, the other people are just like moving props on stage. I thought "since I could only feel my own feeling, how did I know if others really could 'feel' too?!" And I was troubled with what the meaning of my existence was. Thus, I was happily surprised when the film shows similar concept. (CF your story, I guess maybe 9-12 is the period when kids start to look for the meaning of their existence.)
Also, later in time, my thought kind of turned into a Truman Show thing, and I would (and still do occasionally now) imagine what it would look like seeing what I am doing from a certain angle.

Just want to share this thought. :)

[lichman]

after finally watching this, I consider it one of the best comedies I've ever seen.

but my god, I hated the house on fire with a passion. I just loathed the idea. oddly, I could accept everything else--the police state, the blimps, the "funtown" buses, the apparent 'feminizing' that I sort of read differently, the confusion of art vs. reality.

otherwise, I wholeheartedly loved the film. I just can't stand that goddamn house on fire.

[Filmbrain]

John --

You're not alone in your dislike of the house on fire -- it seems the the single biggest complaint with the film. I don't quite understand why that is problematic, but all the other surreal elements are OK.

I'll admit I don't fully get it -- that is, if there's anything to get at all -- but it didn't bother me in the slightest.

[Steven Boone]

Brain, this is beautiful. If I don't kill myself first, I'll have to put quarters together to see this flick. Anthony Lane's persuasively negative review of it made me avoid it like a TB colony, but your deep, personal sampling now makes it sorta inescapable. Sounds like it will fuck me up in the manner of Why Has Bhodi Dharma Left for the East and the mountain burial in The Ballad of Narayama. Such films "destroy" me, too, but instead of drinking, I try to see something that lifts me out of the coffin with life-affirming truths, something like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sL4R50Z6E

[Filmbrain]

Steve --

Thanks for the comment. Good call on both Bhodi Dharma and Ballad of Narayama, particularly the latter.

Thanks too for the link -- that's a wonderful clip.

[john john]

Hands down, the most lucid and insightful review yet:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081105/REVIEWS/811059995

[Filmbrain]

John John --

Thanks for that link -- that is indeed a great review.

[Louis Proyect]

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/synecdoche-new-york/

[john john]

Synecdoche, New York Trivia #1:

The exterior and lobby of Caden Cotard's Schenectedy playhouse are played by the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY.

(Like the Genius Grant that falls into Caden's lap, the museum's elegant modernist architecture and lovely wooded setting seem a puzzling way of establishing the mediocrity of his Schenectedy enterprise. But Kaufman is speaking his own language, one I haven't mastered, and that's the sort of challenge I'll choose any time over understanding a work of art all too well. Perhaps the film's many incongruities are there to irritate the logical parts of our minds, to keep us almost involuntarily turning the film in the light to examine its facets. On the other hand what does "incongruities" even mean in a context so rife with them? For myself and others, there's part of the rub. On the other other hand - as Roger Ebert illuminates so well - for all its surrealistic twists and turns, Caden's life - in its essentials, in its major concerns - is exactly like most human beings'.)

The 250-foot-tall twin smokestacks of the nearby, abandoned Glenwood Power Station can be glimpsed as Hazel (Samantha Morton) arrives on the scene.

(My initial reaction was "Hey! I know this place! This is a cool place!" On a second viewing, these leviathan structures seem to foreshadow the scale of Caden's New York City theater project. And, in the end, I guess, Hazel will have loomed over Caden's consciousness just as undeniably.)

[hobo's bladder]

Ahhhh!!

Night Train!

[captain ahab]

excellent review— i certainly share your frustration. i find myself searching for more and more writing on this film just to make sure other people were as deeply affected as i was. another insightful write up i came across, with a fascinating interview linked at the end:

http://filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/synecdochenewyork.htm

[BMIML]

Even Cotard's name may have a doppelganger. I recalled the Cottard character from Camus' 'The Plague' as a man striving to write the perfect novel. When the plague claims him, he's written but one sentence.

[Shamer]

Great film, just watched it but I was under the ieismrspon the entire time that the whole piece was a metaphor. The broken down old warehouse is his mind which hosts an endless cast of characters. One has to wonder if the Play is only a stream of paranoid thoughts of what could happen while his wife and daughter are in Berlin. Any husband would dream twisted fantasies if his wife and daughter went to a foreign country without him. Most parents would be sick to the stomach if their daughter tattooed their whole body. I think this is just one of the endless amount of paranoid thoughts the Director had if his wife never came back to him. Another example is the dialogue of adelle seemingly talking to someone and mentions Thanks for the fuck. I believe this is also him being paranoid of her finding another lover. The ear piece giving the feedback at the end is in my humble opinion his intuition. His death is the destruction of his fears. When he wakes up he will realize that he is not dying but only about to embark on a fascinating adventure and will greet his wife and olive with open arms. Just my two cents. I could be wrong. Either way it was still a great flick. May have to watch it again.

[Lakshay]

I agree completely, Matt.I have been wnrnediog why this movie hasn't gained fanfair / critical acclaim. The more reviews I read, the more I see the main criticism's of this movie are, "it's too ambitious, too weird, too deep, I didn't get it..." And as for asking more questions than providing answers, could this be because Caden's play, Charlie's movie, etc. are attempting to use a part of life to describe the whole of life (I think there's a word for that), in which easy answers are seldom given to the big questions. These criticisms could be used for any of Kaufman's films, all of which are, in my opinion, on a different level from anything else out there. Every review which suggests synecdoche is too complex, should be simpler, etc. just makes me want to see this movie all the more.