Synecdoche, New York

Started by MacGuffin, August 11, 2006, 12:36:05 PM

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72teeth

Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

squints

have you ever written a paper and you took so many notes that you lost the point of the paper in the first place? that's why this works for me.
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

MacGuffin

'Synecdoche' could improve with edit
Hypnotic film may undergo further cuts...
By Gregg Goldstein; Hollywood Reporter

The original cut of Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut "Synecdoche, New York" was just more than four hours long, and after his two-hour, four-minute version was unveiled at the Festival de Cannes to a five-minute standing ovation, a viewer could understand why.

The hypnotic film covers about 40 years in the life of a troubled theater director (Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has moonlighted as a theater director off the screen) staging a play within a play within a city within a warehouse within a warehouse. It is best approached not as a conventional film but as a dream, with all the strange tangents and incongruous moments that implies.

Kaufman's screenplays always have played by their own rules, often channeling bizarre ideas into quirky, funny fantasies and character studies. But none has been quite like "Synecdoche," which begins as a fast-cut, straight narrative before jumping the rails and unmooring its audience. It's more ambitious and far more dramatic than Kaufman's previous scripts.

When a palpably shy Kaufman accompanied his film to the festival, it was suggested to him that it might be better suited for review by a psychiatrist specializing in Freudian dream analysis than the usual critics. He replied with a smile, "Yes, that would help me out a lot."

Potential distributors circling the film were concerned about its length, especially the fragmented, inscrutable, increasingly fast-paced segments near its conclusion. In fact, those sequences could potentially be slotted any number of ways, replaced with cut scenes or even excised without affecting the film's overall impact. A narrative thread doesn't exist after a certain point in the movie, anyway.


Kaufman explained that after the film was cut to three hours, there was more than one version he assembled with different scenes to whittle it to its 124-minute length. And despite his reputation for an uncompromising vision, he said he'd be amenable to further editing depending on which distributor picks up the film for North America.

For despite his artistic goals, commercial dictates can't be ignored. Producer Sidney Kimmel Entertainment (which has undergone a reorganization after recent layoffs) needs to justify the film's budget, said to be not far above $20 million but rumored to have cost more.

Kimmel, along with fellow producers and longtime Kaufman collaborators Anthony Bregman and (originally slated director) Spike Jonze, deserve kudos for shepherding this uncompromising vision to life. But it likely will pose a unique marketing challenge, even for the pit bull tenacity of Bingham Ray, who handles marketing for SKE films.

Any feature that dares to run more than two hours risks provoking reflexive groans from audiences and even most critics. Even if the content justifies it -- as it did in spades in Paul Thomas Anderson's 158-minute masterpiece "There Will Be Blood" -- a film's length has become all too important an issue among audiences with shrinking attention spans.

In the case of "Synecdoche," however, less might ultimately be more since it plays like an intense and inscrutable dream. Kaufman could further distill its best scenes to evoke the experience he wants to convey, as if downloading the film from his own idiosyncratic brain. And at some point, on DVD or in an art house run down the road, he could present one of his three- or four-hour cuts, giving an even more personal view into his fascinating mind.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

tpfkabi

Quote from: MacGuffin on June 05, 2008, 02:02:11 PM
unveiled at the Festival de Cannes to a five-minute standing ovation

It's more ambitious and far more dramatic than Kaufman's previous scripts.

wow, this sounds epic.
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

MacGuffin

Kaufman and Sony in sync on "Synecdoche"

Sony Pictures Classics is in advanced negotiations to acquire "Synecdoche, New York," writer Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut and one of the more buzzed-about titles from this year's Cannes Film Festival.

The film chronicles 40 years in the life of a writer played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who sets out to stage the ultimate play. He spends decades creating an enormous set with actors who mirror him and the many women in his life (Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson and others).

The special effects-filled $20 million film received mixed reviews at the French festival, where it premiered in a two-hour, four-minute version, pared down from an original cut that ran a little over four hours. Kaufman -- whose screenwriting credits include "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Adaptation" and "Being John Malkovich" -- said after the film's Cannes debut that he might whittle it down further.

The talks with Sony Pictures Classics involve a price tage in the low seven figures.

Producers apparently are aiming for a late 2008 release for awards-season qualification.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

MacGuffin

Can anyone pronounce the title of Charlie Kaufman's new movie?
Source: Los Angeles Times

Sony Pictures Classics had its first L.A. screening last night of "Synecdoche, New York," Charlie Kaufman's mysterious magnum opus about a man obsessed with his own mortality. The film is Kaufman's debut as a director after emerging as indie film's best known oddball screenwriter, having penned such surpassingly strange delights as "Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."  I'll weigh in later today with a first take on the movie itself. But before the screening, a gang of us grungy media types lollygagged around, like a cut-rate version of NPR's "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me," trying to guess how to pronounce the movie's title, a play on Schenectady, N.Y. (The only person who seemed to truly have a clue was Christian Science Monitor critic Peter Rainer, but I think I spied a dictionary in his back pocket.)

Of course, this wasn't just an idle exercise. In a business that depends on word of mouth, how do you possibly market a movie with a title that no one can pronounce? Always a good sport, Sony Classics co-chief Tom Bernard laughed when I asked if he'd given Kaufman a list of other possible New York towns that might roll off the tongue a bit more mellifluously, like Rochester or Syracuse or even Ithaca.

"We're completely happy with the title," he says. "The whole idea is to brand it as a Charlie Kaufman film. So if it's an issue with anyone, people can just say it's the Charlie Kaufman movie. Maybe it will be a good thing. If people can't pronounce the title, that simply means they'll have to spend more time talking about it."

We'll see. But the title is a still a tonsil-twirling tongue-twister. When the film debuted at Cannes this spring, a clever videographer did man-in-the-street interviews, asking people how they would pronounce the film. The results are pretty funny--just see for yourself:

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Convael

What the fuck is so hard about pronouncing Synecdoche?  Or are people just trying to make it seem difficult to say in order to be able to riff off of it and say witty stuff?

Pozer


MacGuffin

synecdoche from the left hand side.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Convael

Sorry, I've been trying to be less cynical...

72teeth



i will not hype this up for myself
i will not hype this up for myself
i will not hype this up for myself
i will not hype this up for myself...
Doctor, Always Do the Right Thing.

Yowza Yowza Yowza

picolas

trailer spoil

wow.. the look on hoffman's face after he confesses he wants to do something important. the chore of doing it.. so perfectly sad and funny and true. .. and then that final look. holy shit. can this be downloaded? yahoo keeps stopping and starting.

modage

wow, this looks so good and weird and funny.  i was honestly not excited about this before now. 
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

squints

God bless Jon Brion.


Is the cast just a list of every woman Charlie Kaufman has every wanted to lay?

This looks glorious. 2008 is shaping up.
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

sickfins

man, i was going to warn you all to not watch the trailer -- it gives away two or three really incredible surprises.  but it's cool.