Xixax Film Forum

Kaufman's Directorial Debut Lands Williams, Hoffman

According to Production Weekly, Charlie Kaufman will make his directorial debut with a film called Synecdoche. Not only that, but he managed to snag Philip Seymour Hoffman for the lead role, as well as Michelle Williams.

As far as plot goes, the pic will center on an "anguished playwright and several women in his life." It's not mentioned whether Kaufman also wrote the screenplay. Filming it set to begin early next summer.

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Hoffman & Kaufman in Synch on "Synecdoche"

EXCLUSIVE: TMZ has learned that an Oscar hardware-heavy pairing is in the making: 2006's Best Actor Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Capote") will star in "Synecdoche," the directorial debut of 2005's Best Original Screenplay winner Charlie Kaufman ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind").

What's that you say? You mean you don't know what a 'synecdoche' is?

Well, neither did we, but according to dictionary.com, a 'synecdoche' is a conceptual metaphor wherein "a part is used for the whole" (as 'hand for sailor).

Or "when the whole is used for a part" (as 'the law' for 'police officer'). Or "when the specific is used for the general" ('cutthroat' for 'assassin'). Or "when the general is used for the specific" ('thief' for 'pickpocket'). Or - stay with me now - "when the material is used for the thing made from it" (as with 'lead' for 'bullets').

OK. So, what's the deal again?

Apparently, Kaufman's script, which centers on an anguished playwright and several women in his life, was ordered up by Columbia Pictures chairman Amy Pascal. But it proved a tad on the complicated side - as most Kaufman scripts are. And so, the studio gave it back to Kaufman in turnaround.

That's where Sidney Kimmel came in. Kimmel, the clothier who owns Jones New York apparel label among others, also has a film financing company that bears his name. TMZ has learned that Kimmel's company is negotiating to finance "Synecdoche" outright, and that Sony has a right of first refusal to distribute the finished picture. If Sony doesn't want it, Kimmel also has an output arrangement with MGM Pictures, which is another option to get it into theaters.

It's too early to tell if Sony will want to pick it up, but we're certainly intrigued: Phillip Seymour Hoffman starring in a Charlie Kaufman screenplay, directed by Kaufman? If anyone can make sense of a Kaufman script, it should be Kaufman.

So remember: The next time you hear someone in Hollywood say "synecdoche," don't make the mistake of replying, "Gesundheit!" - you probably just heard a metaphor for next year's Best Picture Oscar.

(Which actually makes "Synecdoche" ...a synecdoche!)

i'm glad its michelle williams and not robin.  i wonder how he'll fare as a director.  anguished playwright seems like it might be too obvious, but its kaufman so it will rule anyway.

Scriptland: Reading Charlie Kaufman's Next Project
Eternally expanding his art, the writer's "Synecdoche, New York" is personally epic.
Source: Los Angeles Times

I have the new Charlie Kaufman screenplay on my desk.

I've read it — no, lived it. I've been moved and astounded by it. And I'm tortured by the dilemma of what I should or should not say about it here. I feel a bit like Frodo palming the One Ring.

The last two weeks have been a grueling cacophony of real and imagined voices — other journalists, producers, publicists, Kaufman, myself — trying to convince me either of my righteousness as a journalist or of my complicity in possibly hurting one of the greatest screenwriters in history, a man with a craving for privacy as singular and passionate as his creative vision.

Kaufman is widely and justifiably considered the most inventive screenwriter in Hollywood. He was nominated for an Oscar for both "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation," and finally won one (along with Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth) for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

On a personal and professional level, I thought reading his latest script would bring me great joy. Charlie Kaufman is that rare artist who expands the possibilities of his art form. His work is designed to be experienced more than read or seen. His filmed screenplays become beautifully melancholy windows into some of life's most indescribable (and unavoidable) emotions.

But many people, beginning with Kaufman, do not want me to have the script, do not want me to read the script, and without question do not want me to write anything about the script. Words like "super-sensitive," "invasive" and "freaked" have been cautiously leveled at me as I've reached out to those involved with the project to get their thoughts on it.

And what a project. Ambitious doesn't even begin to describe the sublime and scary head-trip that is "Synecdoche, New York." For one thing, the marketers are going to have to borrow from the P.T. Anderson "Magnolia" poster campaign, in which the title was broken out syllabically, just to get people to pronounce the film properly. (It's sin-neck-duh-key, emphasis on the neck.)

For all those who aren't AP English professors, a "synecdoche," other than a clever play on Schenectady, where some of the film takes place, is a figure of speech in which a part is used to describe the whole or the whole is used to describe a part (think "threads" for clothes, or "the law" for a police officer). It's representative shorthand.

Yes, I had to look it up. Several times. And this is far from the only reference or play on words in Kaufman's story that rewards a closer look.

"Synecdoche" nominally concerns a theater director who thinks he's dying, and how that shapes his interactions with the world, his art and the women in his life. But it is really a wrenching, searching, metaphysical epic that somehow manages to be universal in an extremely personal way. It's about death and sex and the vomit-, poop-, urine- and blood-smeared mess that life becomes physiologically, emotionally and spiritually (Page 1 features a 4-year-old girl having her butt wiped). It reliably contains Kaufman's wondrous visual inventions, complicated characters, idiosyncratic conversations and delightful plot designs, but its collective impact will kick the wind out of you.

Spike Jonze, who directed Kaufman's scripts for "Malkovich" and "Adaptation," was once destined to helm this new project, but eventually opted for the Dave Eggers co-scripted "Where the Wild Things Are," now shooting in Melbourne, Australia. This left Kaufman, who's always been deeply involved with the making of his screenplays, to direct it himself. He's currently finalizing casting deals with an eye toward filming next spring.

If this film gets made in any way that resembles what's on the page — and with the writer himself directing, it will likely gain even more color and potency in the translation — it will be some kind of miracle. "Synecdoche" will make "Adaptation" and "Eternal Sunshine" look like instructional industrial films. No one has ever written a screenplay like this. It's questionable whether cinema is even capable of handling the thematic, tonal and narrative weight of a story this ambitious.

But, as one character says, "People starve for something of worth." Well, moviegoers will surely be gorging on the power and depth of this film for a long time.

Meanwhile, I feel terribly sick to my stomach.

Sounds like another Fountain-esque uber-hyped script review that will get people foaming at the mouth as the film travels in and around production hell. hopefully this one won't have any problems, because it sounds amazing.  Not sure about Kaufman as director, though, I saw him at a panel discussion for Adaptation last April, and I'm not sure about how good he would be with actors.

this sounds great. i believe Jonze always changed his third acts, so it should be interesting how they turn out with the very head that created it translating it to film.

although part of me thinks it could be a long torturous shoot with 100 retakes on a scene where someone just crosses the street.

Quote from: Astrostic on September 12, 2006, 08:39:09 PM
I saw him at a panel discussion for Adaptation last April, and I'm not sure about how good he would be with actors.

that only means he's no good at panels. i don't understand what connection you're making here, a director's relationship with his actors has nothing to do with his behaviour to the press or the public. see: kubrick.

Quote from: bigideas on September 12, 2006, 10:26:51 PM
although part of me thinks it could be a long torturous shoot with 100 retakes on a scene where someone just crosses the street.

see: above "see:"

Quote from: Pubrick on September 13, 2006, 01:40:53 AM

Quote from: Astrostic on September 12, 2006, 08:39:09 PM
I saw him at a panel discussion for Adaptation last April, and I'm not sure about how good he would be with actors.

that only means he's no good at panels. i don't understand what connection you're making here, a director's relationship with his actors has nothing to do with his behaviour to the press or the public. see: kubrick.

or see: spike jonze.  probably closer to his level.

oh thank god.  i thought it would've been like...

Quote from: pozer on September 13, 2006, 01:55:36 PM
got passes at the mall for a test screening of this. going next week!

I read this, and I see why Columbia bailed, and also why Spike's not doing it.  I found it to be one of the most tedious, unbearable reads ever-- and yes, I love Kaufman and have read all his other scripts.  It's really strange, but the tone is incredibly morose and downbeat-- not the slightest bit funny.  It's basically about two things: fear of illness, and fear of creating unmeaningful art-- and an incredible amount of time is spent on whether or not the main character's production of 'Equus' means anything.  Don't.  Care.  After a blantantly obvious turn-- plumbing breaks in the house, and you are basically told that it's really a blood vessel bursting (metaphor!), the film takes a more surreal tone.  But still, it's the biggest downer ever.  I will say that the idea of the 'new theatre' being created within the story is fascinating (an apartment building built is on a stage, everyone goes about their 'lives,' and then another layer of artifice is added over that, actors are brought into play the film's characters, and then the new layer of the theatre is watching the production of the apartment play-- it makes more sense then I'm describing), however, the movie is just consistently kicking in you in the gut over and over.  The characters are all so flawed, so unsympathetic.  It's hard for me to imagine Kaufman pulling this film off.  It just gets so big, and so complicated, I wonder if he  has the chops to make it work.  Oh yeah-- and it's crazy long, the version i read clocked over 160 or 70ish, I don't have it front of me.

http://www.latinoreview.com/news.php?id=981

that "mayimbe" dickhead is an idiot. this coming from a latino
who thinks that his "coconut" comment was totally stupid and irrelevant.
personalities and ethicities don't always mix. and they shouldn't.
and they definitely don't have anything to do with liking a movie script.
the idiot didn't even like Eternal (walked out on it..  wtf)
it only utterly explains his crap review.

Five on way to Kaufman's 'Synecdoche'
Source: Variety

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton and Tilda Swinton are in negotiations to star in Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, "Synecdoche, New York." Indie production companies Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Anthony Bregman's Likely Story will produce the project based on Kaufman's original screenplay.

Kaufman and Spike Jonze also will serve as producers. Kimmel's William Horberg will executive produce. Producers are anticipating a spring shoot in New York.

Hoffman will play a theater director who ambitiously attempts to put on a play by creating a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse. Keener is set to play his first wife, Williams will play his second wife, Morton will appear as his sometime lover, and Swinton will portray Keener's best friend and the dubious mentor to the daughter of Hoffman and Keener's characters.

"It takes the term 'living theater' to a whole new level," said Bregman, who will kick off his new company with the production of "Synecdoche." "We were kind of hoping that Charlie would write a small, contained film set in a kitchen with a couple of easy-going characters. Instead, he came up with a massive undertaking of visually elaborate worlds and stunningly complex characters and ideas. The film would be all but impossible to pull off if we weren't surrounded by such incredible actors, the most exciting team of filmmakers imaginable and the most supportive producing partners one could hope."

The film was packaged by UTA, which represents Kaufman and Bregman. Kimmel International, the foreign sales division of SKE, will handle international sales.

The project will mark the first pairing of Hoffman with Kaufman and Jonze. Hoffman most recently appeared as the villain in "Mission: Impossible III." He is repped by Paradigm. Keener, a longtime collaborator with Kaufman and Jonze, is voicing the character of Max's Mom in Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are." She has appeared in "Adaptation" and "Being John Malkovich." Keener is repped by Gersh.

Williams also is voicing a role in Jonze's "Wild Things." She last appeared in the Academy Award winner "Brokeback Mountain." She is repped by CAA.

Morton next appears in Universal Pictures "The Golden Age," in which she plays Mary, Queen of Scots. She is repped by Endeavor. Swinton, also repped by Endeavor, appeared in "Adaptation" and will be featured in Paramount Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures' "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

This sounds like it'll be a lot like Barton Fink.

A very spoiler heavy, albeit infrmative, script review has been posted over at beingcharliekaufman.com. Sorry in advance if this is old news.

Quote from: MacGuffin on January 11, 2007, 01:13:00 AM
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton and Tilda Swinton are in negotiations to star in Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, "Synecdoche, New York."

No one won't see this film.  Charlie Kaufman directing Samantha Morton is reason enough.

Kaufman travels upstate to 'Synecdoche'
Source: Production Weekly

Pre-production has begun "Synecdoche, New York," the directing debut of Oscar-winning writer Charlie Kaufman. Ten weeks of principal photography begins May 21st in New York. Philip Seymour Hoffman is set to topline "Synecdoche" (snick-do-che) based on Kaufman's original screenplay. Hoffman will play Caden, a theater director who thinks he's dying, and ambitiously attempts to put on a play by creating a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse. Catherine Keener is set to play his first wife, Michelle Williams will play his second wife, Samantha Morton will appear as Hazel, his sometime lover, and Tilda Swinton will portray Keener's best friend and the dubious mentor to the daughter of Hoffman and Keener's characters.

Quote from: Production Weekly
"Synecdoche" (snick-do-che)

what the fuck? NO.

this movie is doomed.

I think Kaufman knows what he is doing. But that title, that will give some problems.

Davis Boards Synecdoche and Genova
Source: Variety

Hope Davis has been set for two films, reports Variety.

She will first join the cast of the Charlie Kaufman-directed Synecdoche, New York, playing the therapist to a theater director (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in crisis over work and the women in his life. The movie begins shooting this month.

Davis will then join Colin Firth in Genova, the next film by Michael Winterbottom (A Mighty Heart). The coming-of-age story concerns a British man who moves with his two American daughters to Italy as he tries to recover from his wife's death.

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Quote from: Meszahline on April 03, 2007, 10:43:32 AM
I think Kaufman knows what he is doing. But that title, that will give some problems.

Nah, they can just put a rebus in the trailers.  Ratatouille's doing fine, they had to phoneticize that.

I read somewhere it's Kaufman's ode to James Joyce, in his attempt to recreate NYC through Caden as Joyce attempted to recreate Dublin through Leopold Bloom.

Quote from: homesick alien on August 02, 2007, 01:15:00 PM
I read somewhere it's Kaufman's ode to James Joyce, in his attempt to recreate NYC through Caden as Joyce attempted to recreate Dublin through Leopold Bloom.

that makes sense given the figurative meaning of the title, and the literal microcosm in the poster.

Cannes Watch: Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York

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One of the most anticipated films at Cannes is screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener. That's because Cannes is all about auteurs, and Kaufman is one of the few writers whose films are instantly identifiable as his, no matter who directs them, from Michel Gondry to Spike Jonze. (The one director who didn't allow him to collaborate during production, interestingly, was George Clooney on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.) And Kaufman's the only director making his debut in the Cannes competition. We will find out, finally, if his director chops measure up to his writer skills.

Here's a rare photo of Kaufman, who hates having his picture taken. He plays the game of being very shy and press-averse, but he's actually just as canny about getting attention paid to him as most successful people on Hollywood.

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In case there was any doubt that Charlie Kaufman was a genius, he has gone and snagged Jon Brion to score his upcoming film SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK. The film screens on Friday at Cannes.

Quote from: modage on May 15, 2008, 10:55:35 AM
In case there was any doubt that Charlie Kaufman was a genius, he has gone and snagged Jon Brion to score his upcoming film SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK. The film screens on Friday at Cannes.

good. i haven't heard from JB in a while (though i think i read something about Largo recently).
i wished he'd put out another non-soundtrack album too.

JB's has been/is working on an album with Dido and Largo is moving premises. Looking forward to hearing the responses to this one. Anyone know of a good Cannes blog?

Three brief videos pop up online from Charlie Kaufman's latest mind fark, "Synecdoche, New York."

http://www.slashfilm.com/2008/05/20/three-video-clips-from-charlie-kaufmans-synecdoche-new-york/#more-11202

haha "i've never seen that before"

i like the mood of it at least.

Kaufman defies convention with "Synecdoche"

"Synecdoche, New York" is, by a long shot, the hardest title to pronounce at this year's Cannes film festival, and the movie's writer/director Charlie Kaufman wants it that way.

New York is the easy part. Synecdoche, for the record, is pronounced "sin-ek-duh-kee" with the accent on "ek," and people familiar with the U.S. town of Schenectady, New York, should have little trouble saying it. The rest might need help.

"I like titles that are a little difficult because it's kind of counter-intuitive," Kaufman told reporters on Friday ahead of the Cannes premiere of what is his directorial debut.

The title defies conventional filmmaking. Movie studios and theatre owners have found over more than 100 years of cinema that it is easier to attract audiences with an easy title.

But Kaufman, 49, is known for pushing the boundaries of storytelling and being highly successful at doing so.

He penned "Being John Malkovich," about a man who is able to live inside the head of famous actor Malkovich, and "Adaptation," in which a writer named Charlie Kaufman has difficulty adapting a novel into a movie.

Kaufman is no stranger to offbeat titles either. He penned quirky romance "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

"It was really hard to remember, that title. I couldn't remember it for the longest time," he said. "Then, pretty soon I remembered it, and everyone seems to know it now."

That film, which starred Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as lovers who erase their memories before renewing their bond, was a mild box office success and earned Kaufman a screenwriting Oscar. So, maybe he does know a thing or two about titles.

CAN HE DIRECT, TOO?

"Synecdoche" may well prove to audiences whether the writer also knows how to direct. His previous screenplays have been transformed into movies by directors Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze. The latter is a producer on the new film.

"Synecdoche" stars Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Capote") as a melancholy theatre director, Caden Cotard, whose career takes off after he directs Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" in a small production in Schenectady.

But even as his career soars, Caden finds his personal life unravelling. His artist wife leaves him and takes their daughter to Berlin to pursue a life as a painter. Caden also finds himself afflicted with numerous physical maladies.

Over the years, Caden becomes involved in two serious love affairs and is constantly aware his own death might be near. To audiences, his life appears as if it might be a dream. One of his affairs is with a woman whose house is constantly on fire.

The writer-turned-director said he avoided telling stories that easily fitted into standard genres, such as romantic comedy, crime thriller or action adventure.

"I don't write genre stuff in any form. I'm not interested in it. What I always try to do is the opposite of that, is try not to fit into some pre-designed form," he said.

With that sort of philosophy, it is easier to understand why "Synecdoche" has a hard-to-say title. But there is another commonality between Kaufman's stories and his titles.

Once seen, his movies are hard to stop thinking about.

oh my god has nobody heard of the literary device?

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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.

'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.

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.

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.

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:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA6c7DcvES0

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?

cynical douche.

synecdoche from the left hand side.

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

Trailer. (http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3530122/9776092)

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...

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.

wow, this looks so good and weird and funny.  i was honestly not excited about this before now. 

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.

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.

Wow, I just noticed this already opened in Norway. Who could've known when it's called "New York in a nutshell".

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i just came across this, so i haven't listened, but it seems very interesting:

http://blog.wired.com/storyboard/2008/09/the-complete-in.html

The Complete Interview
By Jason Tanz September 10, 2008 | 8:20:51 PMCategories: Edit   
Apologies for breaking the chronology, but it took us a while to get this together. Below, audio of my complete 2.5-hour-or-so interview with Kaufman, which took place on August 13. I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but as you'll see, Kaufman was an incredible interview—generous, candid, and funny. This conversation provided the bulk of the material for my draft. (NB: Kaufman is not involved with this blog in any way, but was kind enough to grant us permission to post this interview. It has been very lightly edited.)

they talk about borges in part 3. i'm surprised i never drew the comparison myself. its a good interview, i had never really heard him talk.

What's A Synecdoche, New York?
Source: SciFi Wire

Director and writer Charlie Kaufman told SCI FI Wire that he was more concerned with the continuity issues during the filming of his movie Synecdoche, New York than worrying about whether people make sense of its double-entendre title.

"The shooting became a bit complicated," Kaufman said in an interview in Toronto last summer about his play-within-a-play-within-a-play fantasy film.

In the movie, a Schenectady, N.Y., playwright, Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), mounts a production in which townspeople play him and his family in sets designed to replicate their real homes. The play within a play naturally reiterates itself, like a TV image of a TV image of a TV image.

"If Claire is playing herself in the warehouse, living in this fake Claire apartment, then where she would go from there is to a rehearsal in the warehouse-within-a-warehouse, in which she'd be playing herself with another Sammy playing Caden, even though she's already at a rehearsal," Kaufman explained, somewhat unhelpfully. "Then she would be playing herself at another rehearsal, and this goes on in smaller and smaller warehouses." He said his script supervisor, Mary Cybulski, deserves a special award for keeping it all straight.

Nowhere in the film does Kaufman explain the title, a pun on Schenectady and synecdoche, a figure of speech. Pronounced sih-NECK-doh-kee, it is a rhetorical device in which a part is used for a whole ("stage" for "theater"), a genre for an individual ("creature" for "person") or a material for a thing ("ivory" for "piano key"), or the reverse of any of them.

Kaufman doesn't worry whether people will get it. "When I named Eternal Sunshine [of the Spotless Mind, based on a line in a poem by Alexander Pope,] everybody said nobody would remember it. But what's cool is that the title is really easy to remember now. Everybody who knows that movie knows the title. And if this movie gets the proper amount of response, then people will know this one, and everyone will know the word 'synecdoche,' which is a good word to know."

The movie had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens in select theaters on Oct. 24. It stars Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Hope Davis.

I saw this Sunday night in Boston. Charlie Kaufman did a Q&A after the screening. It erupted into a madhouse, with people getting visibly angry that he would not explain specific sequences of the film to them.

Quote from: meatwad on October 14, 2008, 02:41:55 PM
I saw this Sunday night in Boston. Charlie Kaufman did a Q&A after the screening. It erupted into a madhouse, with people getting visibly angry that he would not explain specific sequences of the film to them.

What was his response - the "I like to keep it open for interpretation" type?

I saw this last night in New York. Charlie Kaufman & Philip Seymour Hoffman did a Q&A after the screening.  PSH just sat there while Charlie got all the questions. 

Quote from: modage on October 17, 2008, 07:18:44 AM
I saw this last night in New York. Charlie Kaufman & Philip Seymour Hoffman did a Q&A after the screening.  PSH just sat there while Charlie got all the questions. 

and?

he signed my Adaptation DVD.

and.. who cares? 

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The Universe According to Kaufman
By DAVID CARR; New York Times

CHARLIE KAUFMAN, the director of "Synecdoche, New York," is not trying to be difficult. Then again, when you consider that he make a movie with a name few can pronounce built on a plot that no one, including him, can fully explain, maybe he is.

But that is less the point of the movie than a by-product of the kind of stories he tells. Mr. Kaufman has a persistent concern with truthfulness, and in "Synecdoche," which opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles, he is willing to treat time as a piece of taffy, clone characters and punish expectations in an effort to get at something authentic.

As the Oscar-friendly writer of "Being John Malkovich" (nominated), "Adaptation," (nominated) and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (won) Mr. Kaufman has already earned a significant amount of acclaim. Driven by the concept of a synecdoche — roughly, a part representing the whole — he takes one man's fear of irrelevance and drapes it across a vast landscape of human concerns. He wrote this movie in the belief that Spike Jonze, his longtime collaborator, would direct. But Mr. Jonze was busy, and Mr. Kaufman decided — with Mr. Jonze's enthusiastic assent — to direct a film for the first time.

"Synecdoche" (sih-NECK-doh-key) is not exactly a starter movie, reflecting the awkward work of a first-timer feeling his way. After seeing it at this year's Cannes film festival A. O. Scott wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Kaufman managed to create "a seamless and complicated alternate reality." From a cinematic perspective it is a ferociously realized piece of work that will have people talking for years. Among the things that they will be chattering over? "What was that about?"

In barest terms the movie is the life story of Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a theater director who puts on prosaic, soul-killing plays in, you guessed it, Schenectady, N.Y. His wife, Adele (Catherine Keener), leaves him, condemning him on the way out as a small, timid man who will never do anything meaningful.

Moving to Berlin and taking their young daughter with her, she begins painting work that brings her international acclaim, while Caden falls apart, his body betraying him with mysterious ills. Certain he is dying, he tells his therapist, "I'd like to do something important while I am still here."

Well, wouldn't we all? In Mr. Kaufman's work the desire to make something pure, something important, is not an academic matter but a primal and essential activity. And there is frequently a porous membrane between the struggle on screen and the struggle to get it there. "Synecdoche, New York" shows gears grinding all over the place.

In Caden's case, after some money comes into his life, he moves to New York and finds a warehouse in which to build a sprawling simulacrum of the city where a collection of actors lay bare the mundane, sad facts of the human condition. In this movie, authenticity is frequently exposed through tricks: houses burn of their own accord, years pass in the blink of an eye, and Caden is all but subsumed by the world he is trying to make, becoming both God and vassal of his own creation.

The layers of meta pile up at the feet of the filmgoer like so many discarded tubs of popcorn until the lights go up. (For a taste of what you're in for, the movie's Web site, synecdocheny.com, captures the mood, if not the sprawl, of the often-comic undertaking.)

On the telephone in San Francisco just before an all-night flight to Spain, Mr. Kaufman was happy to talk about anything, except what his film "means."

"I'm not someone who is going to explain the movie. I want it to be something that people interact with personally," he said.

Later, perhaps sympathetic to the task of a writer trying to describe something that is beyond his ken, he sent a text message:

"Not only is Caden's play a synecdoche, but so is every work of art. There is no way to convey the totality of something, so every artistic creation is at most a representation of an aspect of the thing being explored." And then, perhaps in anticipation, he added: "As for the part about this project mirroring Caden's, I can certainly see the obvious parallels, but I am not Caden. Perhaps he represents part of me and in that sense, he is a synecdoche of me."

It is only natural to implicate Mr. Kaufman in his own story, if for no other reason that "Adaptation," another story about the effort to create something artificial that is still authentic, includes a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman as a character.

"I like creating artificial realities, fake realities, so making a movie may or may not be a good fit, but it is what I do," he said, back in conversation on the phone.

Mr. Kaufman, 50, plays for keeps in part because at the age of 30 he was staring down a prosaic, somewhat doomed life. After making several short films at New York University he relocated to Minneapolis and was working in the basement office of the circulation department at The Star Tribune. "The people that I worked for were nice, but I had to be there first thing in the morning to answer calls from people whose newspaper arrived wet or didn't arrive at all. It was cold, I had to take the bus, and I was getting to an age where it looked like it might be what I was going to settle for."

He decided to take a stab, a very serious one, at being a television writer. In 1990 he moved to Los Angeles and landed a job on — wait for it — "Get a Life." While working in TV he also wrote "Being John Malkovich," which was directed by Mr. Jonze and nominated for three Academy Awards. Mr. Kaufman's reputation as a wildly inventive screenwriter was secured. But watching "Synecdoche, New York" will test audiences in a way none of his other films have.

Being John Malkovich Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, agreed that "Synecdoche, New York" will not be for everyone, but said that Mr. Kaufman has certain box-office advantages.

"Critics will take to it, as will young audiences who see Charlie Kaufman as their generation's avant-garde director, their version of Wenders and Fassbinder," he said. "Plus, this movie is chock full of movie stars."

The transition from writer to director can often be an intimidating leap, especially on a set brimming with some of the best actors around. In addition to Mr. Hoffman and Ms. Keener the cast includes Michelle Williams, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emily Watson and Samantha Morton. Mr. Kaufman has a reflexive distrust of celebrity — "They're famous, and I'm just me" — but when it came time to enrolling people in telling a complicated story, he enjoyed most every second of it.

"I take my work very seriously, and there is this stupid system in place that suggests that the director is the auteur and that the writer is just this secondary along for the ride," he said. "It's less about trying to be successful than just saying that I am a smart guy, I have a good idea, and I know this script better than anyone, so I am going to take on this movie. It could have been a failure, but that wasn't really what I was thinking about."

Anthony Bregman, a producer of the film, said there was little doubt that Mr. Kaufman was completely ready to direct.

"Charlie is quiet and shy in a way, but he is a formidable person," he said. "I have never seen him shrink from a fight or controversy."

Mr. Jonze, who is another of the film's producers, had little doubt that his friend and longtime collaborator would find a place to stand on his own set.

"Charlie went to film school," Mr. Jonze said, mentioning Mr. Kaufman's time at N.Y.U., "but what really matters is that when he was on the set and started asking questions, he knew that he had the answers. For actors he writes about general things in very specific ways, creating characters that are real and believable, and they love working in his movies."

Like, say, Mr. Hoffman: "I was sitting across the table with him at dinner, and he was telling me about this guy Caden who had just turned 40 and had a child and found that life was suddenly moving very, very quickly," he recalled in a phone interview. "I'm sitting there having just turned 40 with a kid, and I had no trouble connecting with what he was talking about. He is a real writer, someone who has the compassion and truthfulness to never settle, to never stop asking questions."

Mr. Kaufman has historically created stories that explore deeply interior spaces, often those between someone's ears. In "Being John Malkovich" he tested ideas of identity by diving into the brain of one man. In "Adaptation" he allowed a writer's solitary struggle to leave the page and explode out into the world. And in "Eternal Sunshine" he created a world in which the experiences that mark us can be erased.

"Synecdoche, New York," is a significant departure from those films in that the chaos of the mind is externalized through Caden's art — pieces of which come to overtake him. He ends up in the odd position of casting someone to play him and finds a man, Sammy (Tom Noonan) who has been stalking him for decades. "Hire me and you will see who you truly are," Sammy suggests. And just when it seems as if Caden, and perhaps Mr. Kaufman, might end up buried in self-analysis, Millicent Weems (played with regal authority by Ms. Wiest) assumes his role of director and takes custody of his masterwork.

It is the kind of movie where the actors not only need to know where their marks are and the blocking that will ensue, but where they are in time and space in a completely alternative world. It sounds complicated, and it is, but as Ms. Keener, who also starred in "Being John Malkovich," described the work, "It was like being in on the beautiful, visceral secret."

Near the film's end Caden is confronted by a sea of Post-it notes that stretch toward the horizon, each signifying a part of a larger whole. He takes in the expanse and says, "I don't know why I make it so complicated."

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
Tues, Oct 21 @ 7:30pm

Melnitz theater on UCLA campus.  Free.

I get to see this tomorrow at the Austin Film Festival

Quote from: w/o horse on October 20, 2008, 03:03:48 PM
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
Tues, Oct 21 @ 7:30pm

Melnitz theater on UCLA campus.  Free.

Thanks Horse

Now I can go back and read some of these articles.

I know that I can say I enjoyed this movie and I know that I can say it definitely needs at least a second viewing to really soak it in.

Kaufman stated Lynch influences in the Q&A and those influences are pretty strong in Synecdoche.

I don't think Kaufman can do "ideas unfolding within other ideas unfolding within other ideas" this strongly again without it getting stale.  I think he pretty much played that card as far as it could be played in this... to the point where the layers comment on the layering.

I don't exactly know what happened in the movie... i mean I know what happened and I get the majority of the themes, but there's more that I need to look into.  Some of the metaphors seem so direct, I almost suspect that they're intentional distractions and it wouldn't be strange at all for Kaufman to hide a subtle metaphor within an obvious one.

Anyway, the long-short is that I really liked it, but need to see it again and part of me believes that I might not like it upon second viewing.

thx for a worthwhile post on it.

indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Synecdoche, New York" Director Charlie Kaufman

In the opening scene of "Being John Malkovich," John Cusack is a street puppeteer controlling the interaction of his creations. Spike Jonze may have directed, but the film's screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman, makes clear from the get-go that he is the master of the enterprise. The screenwriter as auteur. We see that again in "Adaptation," also directed by Jonze, but the complex doubling of character is pure Kaufman. The non-linear narrative of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," in which people can have memories erased from their minds, is Kaufman, not Michel Gondry.

With "Synecdoche, New York," Kaufman's directing debut, he gets away from his usual humor and becomes more serious. It's not quite Woody Allen doing Ingmar Bergman, but it has the feel of a very old person philosophizing about life and death. Kaufman does it with a Russian-doll-like quality, layers upon layers of actors playing real persons playing actors. It is the story of playwrite Caden Cotard (Phil ip Seymour Hoffman), who suffers from several diseases, and it follows him from middle age to death. After moving from Schenectady to Manhattan, Caden attempts to organize his life issues as one huge theater piece, with New York City itself as a massive stage. An exceptionally difficult film to deconstruct, "Synecdoche, New York" is dense and powerful, a profound meditation on existence, and the art of existence.

indieWIRE: You say that you are moving in a more personal direction with "Synecdoche, New York." I think of "Synecdoche" as a film by someone not so young. It's mature in that sense, moving toward death.

Charlie Kaufman: When you approach middle age, lots of stuff happens. Your body is aging, you're watching people around you get sick, you're watching people die, your mortality becomes very present at that point in your life. I've always been fearful of things like that, but as you get older, you have to deal with it more.

iW: "Synecdoche, New York" deals with the synthesis of theater and film. "Adaptation" is a film about a novelist and screenwriter. "Being John Malkovich" begins with a marionette performance. There appears to be a mixture of all the arts.in your films. Are yuou interested in a lot of arts, or does it just come out that way?

CK: Both. I'm interested in art, and I think about the process of making art. It's part of my personality, my experience of the world, so it ends up in the movies. It's where my head is.

iW: The characters age several decades. I get the impression the shoot was rather intense.

CK: It was very hard. It was very hot. We shot in the summer in New York in an armory, in Bedford-Stuyvesant during a heat wave. There were times when the prosthetics guy had to come in and poke pin holes in Phil's costume cause it was bubbling, because the sweat had nowhere to go. It was awful. Samantha [Morton] also had to contend with it.

iW: You have used Catherine Keener more than any other actor.

CK: She's in three movies, one just a cameo, in "Adaptation." I myself didn't cast her in "Being John Malkovich." I told her during "Synecdoche" (in which she plays Haden's wife, Adele,who abandons him) that I want to put her in every movie. She's real, she's very truthful, she's very present when she's performing. It feeds the actors that she's working with. If you're really in a scene, you are by definition generous. Phil loves her, he loves working with her. It was really helpful to him to work with her. She's fun and lovely.

iW: What is it that distinguishes Hoffman?

CK: He can't do anything that isn't truthful. He won't allow himself. He works really hard. His commitment is complete. If he doesn't understand something, he won't do it. When he's crying in a scene, which he does a lot in this movie, it's like he's going through it, and of course the camera records that. It hurts. And that's what I needed for this character, and I got it.

iW: Wasn't Spike Jonze originally scheduled to direct the film?

CK: Spike was making another movie, and we could not wait for him. Moving from screenwriting to directing was stressful, but I enjoyed it. We shot most of it in 45 days. A scene from Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York." Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

iW: What is your background, at least in the arts?

CK: I started out when I was a little kid thinking I wanted to be an actor. I read a lot of plays, did community theater and summer stock. I also had a Super-8 movie camera as a kid and made a lot of super-8 movies. I originally went to college to study acting, but I couldn't do it. After my first year I transferred to film school and studied film production. I did a horror movie, I did a stop-motion animation of Boots Walking. But I was really interested in comedy.

I started writing and performing sketch comedy in high school. I think I was heavily influenced by Monty Python, and other stuff that I thought was self-referential.

iW: Would you refer to your humor as Jewish?

CK: I'm Jewish, and my family is Jewish. I was very interested in Woody Allen when I was growing up, but I don't think of myself as a Jewish writer. I'm more from suburbia, American suburbia. I'm more from the '70s than I am from Judaism

iW: Can you say something about your mental process when you are writing?

CK: I often have a theme in mind when I'm starting. I know that I want everytihing to be in a world of, say, evolution, or guilt. But also I do a lot of things intuitively. I'm not often consciously aware of what I'm doing. It's like in a dream: There's something going on that's powerful but you don't know exactly why. As I'm writing, though, I start to see connections, and themes I didn't see, and that sparks other things. So then I go back and rewrite things or alter them. It's a combination of intuition and a lot of finessing. It becomes a combination of the rational and the irrational. I always go in circles. I have OCD to a certain extent, so I tend to do a lot of circular thinking. I think I do have OCD a bit.

iW: What about the dreamlike quality, especially in "Synecdoche, New York?"

CK: I think dreams are metaphors. Everything you do in writing is metaphorical. So it seems like the same arena to me.

iW: In Cannes journalists were asking about Hazel's (Morton's) house being on fire, which wasn't "explained." Tthey wanted a concrete answer.

CK: I like for people to figure things out for themselves. It's not like I have the right answer, but if I have a visceral reaction to something, I'm sure that other people will, too. And there are a lot of different things you can react to. It's like a Rohrschach kind of thing. I try when I'm writing to leave enough "space" for people to have their own interpretation, and not to direct it toward one conclusion. Then the audience would not be reacting, because they are being preached to or lectured at. I don't have that much to say that I think people should listen to me.

I think it's good when someone comes to a book or a movie and interacts with it. It's the difference between an illustration and a painting. An illustration serves a specific purpose, and a painting is something you can immerse yourself in.

iW: Do you go frequently on sets, for films in which you are the screenwriter, to uphold an author's rights?

CK: It's not really combative. They won't change anything in the script without asking me, and then I'll make the changes if I agree to them. I spend a lot of time in preproduction working with them, and a lot of time in postproduction.: editing, music, all that sort of stuff. Casting. On the set there's not a lot for me to do.

iW: Of the directors you've worked with, who do you think has better ttransposed your scripts to the screen?

CK: I can tell you that George Clooney is my LEAST favorite person. He's like this really charming guy who pretends he's your best friend. I had written him a 17-page note (about changes that should be in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind"). He didn't make the alterations. I was horrified when I saw the film. Someone can change things, as long as I'm involved in making the decisions.

iW: "Synecdoche, New York" is marked by a high degree of scatological references.

CK: I think there are things that aren't represented in movies that are a big part of everyone's life. This is a movie about health and about the body , so I wanted to have the body represented, and that was the way to do it. It was in keeping with the character to have this sick relationship with his bowel movement. I've had a lot of masturbation in my movies. It's not intentional, but it keeps coming up. And I thought, okay, I won't have any masturbation in this movie, but I will have feces.

You're dealing with the body, and you're dealing with bodily functions. We romanticize everything about people in movies, and I decided that one of the things I don't like in movies is that people feel alone with their bodily functions in the real world, as if people in the movies don't do these things. We had a lot of fun making the different artificial feces in the prop department.

charlie rose w/kaufman +psh

http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/10/22/2/a-conversation-about-the-film-synecdoche-new-york

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'Synecdoche, New York' is another piece of Charlie Kaufman's soul
That's why every critical word stings him. 'I feel very vulnerable,' he says.
By Rachel Abramowitz; Los Angeles Times

Charlie Kaufman, a diminutive 50-year-old screenwriter with a thatch of uneven curly hair, is all but swathed in existential terror. He's in the midst of barnstorming the world, promoting his long-awaited directorial debut, "Synecdoche, New York," a rite of passage somewhat akin to a root canal for the famously shy auteur.

You'd think given the originality of his films, such as "Being John Malkovich" (about a puppeteer who discovers a portal into John Malkovich's brain) or "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (about a love affair complicated by a memory-erasing machine), that Kaufman wouldn't care what anybody thinks. But he does. Since playing at the Cannes Film Festival six months ago, "Synecdoche" has polarized critics. There's been much praise for what A.O. Scott of the New York Times termed "its seamless alternate reality," yet there's also been sniping about the film's opacity and air of gloom. The film's lack of universal acclaim and the fact that it took so long to find its distributor (Sony Pictures Classics) have left Kaufman jangled and upset.

"I feel very vulnerable," he says, as he waits for lunch in a French bistro in Los Feliz. So vulnerable that he's actually talking about quitting screenwriting.

This film, which opened Friday, "is really personal," he says. "I feel embarrassed for even doing this in the world. I put this thing, that is like me, my soul, in the world, and I just feel like it's trampled. It makes me feel like I don't want to do this anymore. I certainly don't want to try to sell them, but I don't want to make them anymore either."

He insists he's not kidding. "It's not a threat," he says. "It's just me trying to figure out what I'm going to do next. I need a job. I need to figure out what I'm going to do to pay my mortgage."

It's slightly depressing to hear a dreamer like Kaufman speak so prosaically. His name is practically an adjective in Hollywood, synonymous with a comically depressed inversion of reality, where people's interior lives are externalized for all to see. He won an Oscar for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and was nominated twice more. He is one of the few first-time directors to get final cut. Yet even Charlie Kaufman has to eat. He's spent the last five years on "Synecdoche." Even with a cast of actors' actors led by Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Synecdoche," which cost more than $20 million, may or may not make money for its investors.

The film's commercial prospects weigh heavily on Kaufman, who doesn't want to end up like another visionary, Orson Welles, reduced to hawking wine. "Why am I trying to seduce how many millions of people for this thing to be worthwhile to the people who invested?" he asks, despairing over how the making of cinematic art devolves into "this business crap. Hollywood Oscar watch . . . this thing that people want to rip down because it's gotten too successful. It seems heartless to me. It's not based on anything to do with anyone's heart. It has to do with anger. Everybody is really angry all the time. It makes me angry," Kaufman adds with frustration. "I don't want to be angry."

Viewers have to piece it together

"Synecdoche, New York" is like a sprawling garden of Kaufman's mind, filled with a jumble of wondrous sights amid human ugliness and a continual preoccupation with death. The film is completely original and memorable -- as long as you like movies that make you think (and haven't had too much wine at dinner).

On the plot level, it's about a struggling theater director in Schenectady, N.Y., Caden Cotard, whose artist wife abandons him partly in disgust for his banal imagination (which seems to consist of a penchant for restaging classics) and takes along their 4-year-old daughter. Unexpectedly freed from monetary worries by a "genius" grant, Caden moves to New York, where he creates a simulacrum of real life in an abandoned warehouse. It's an apartment building housing actors playing Caden and the various women Caden loves in a continual play that lasts for decades. And, oh yes, Caden is perpetually obsessed with illness and dying.

A "synecdoche" is a grammatical term meaning the part for the whole, like referring to headlights to describe a car driving down the road. The title might refer to the constantly mutating theater piece as the physical manifestations of Caden's psychological state. Or the term might refer to Caden, as an alter ego, or kind of synecdoche of Kaufman himself.

Kaufman does not care to elucidate, except to say that, "There's nothing written that's not autobiographical. By that, I mean 'Transformers' too."

He also does not care to explain any of the oddities of the film, like why one character lives in a house that is perpetually burning but never burns down. "I don't explain things," says Kaufman. "The whole point is to make the experience of the person watching [the film] as individual as that could be. Your experience might be completely different than anybody else's in the audience." It's like "when you wake up from a dream and you have to interpret what the dream meant."

Contributing to the film's dreamlike feel is the fact that "Synecdoche" spans 50 years, and yet is filled with what Kaufman calls "temporal inconsistencies" that are intended "to put you off balance." For instance, only certain characters wear age makeup while others seem as dewy as their introduction on-screen. Time literally flies. In one scene, it is September when Caden wakes up, and Halloween by the time he finishes his breakfast. "There's a panicky quality to that," says Kaufman, "of time getting away from you and going faster and faster."

Paying his dues on $6 an hour

It's hard to imagine that Kaufman didn't pop out of the womb with his idiosyncratic worldview fully formed, but in fact, he was 30 before he began writing professionally. As a kid growing up in Long Island and Connecticut, he wanted to be an actor. That passion was thwarted during college, when he developed a fatal self-consciousness that made self-display impossible. "I started to get embarrassed and just couldn't do it anymore." He wound up studying film at New York University and eventually moved to Minneapolis where, at 30, he worked for $6 an hour as a receptionist at an art museum.

That was motivation enough to decide "to do whatever it takes" to become a professional writer. He sent a TV spec script to an agent he tangentially knew, and then called his office every week for a year and a half until the agent read and ultimately signed him. "It's not like me to do that," says Kaufman. "I take rejection really hard." He spent years grinding away in the world of TV comedy, writing for shows like "The Dana Carvey Show." When the work dried up, he wrote "Being John Malkovich," as a writing sample. Unlike his other films that tilt toward absurdist comedy, "Synecdoche" lacks what Kaufman calls "an escape hatch," a jokey high-concept device like the brain portal in "Being John Malkovich" that "gives you distance and makes it OK even if you're dealing with subjects that are serious and upsetting."

He didn't write those films as comedies to make them more commercial, though that might have been the effect. With the collapse of several independent distributors, including Picturehouse, times are certainly tough for the truly unconventional film. "I don't think 'John Malkovich' would get made now," says Kaufman. "In every aspect of life, in politics and [art], you will get more of what you're supporting, and all the other stuff will go away. I can't say that my movie is good, but I can say that it's sincere. It's sincerely made in a very unusual way in this culture without any concern for commercial viability."

He sighs. This is the bitter truth. "I'm going to have to pay the price for that."

i think i liked it better when he/his voice was hidden.  maybe not though.

Oscar-winning scribe Kaufman debuts as director

Did you hear the one about the starlet who was so stupid she had sex with a screenwriter?

Charlie Kaufman doesn't find that old Hollywood joke funny.

The Oscar-winning scribe of 2004's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" says he's felt fulfilled as a writer, so he didn't feel the need to use that pursuit as a steppingstone to directing; plus, he's never seen those jobs "as a hierarchical thing the way people in the business do ... I think that they're very different jobs, and I don't think directing is more important than writing. I think that you could make an argument in the converse_ not that I would, but you could, but no one does."

Still, he's making his directorial debut with "Synecdoche, New York," starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director whose romantic and professional lives meld, mostly in awful ways.

In answer to whether he always wanted to direct, the 50-year-old Kaufman sounds like the protagonists in some of his films ambivalent, diffident, confident and yet, not: "I think yes, and then no, and then yes again."

He made super-8 films as a kid, then acted, and in film school he aspired to become a writer-director.

This opportunity cropped up because by the time Kaufman finished the script, Spike Jonze, who directed his screenplays for "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation," was committed to "Where the Wild Things Are." And Kaufman didn't want to wait to make "Synecdoche, New York."

Before tackling the task, he felt emotionally prepared and had no fear of failure.

"So, I thought, `If I don't care if I fail, then I'll do my best, and I'll do it. And whatever happens will be OK.' And that made it much easier to go into it. And then, the job was the job; it wasn't a big surprise to me what the job was I've been around movie sets a lot, I've done a lot of work in movies other than writing, so I know it. And I have worked with actors before, a lot."

He's been quite involved with most aspects of the production of four films the two with Jonze and two with Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine" and "Human Nature").

Hoffman, the best-actor Oscar winner for 2005's "Capote," says the first-time director worked "like he's been doing it his whole life, really."

Also noting Kaufman's close collaborations with Jonze and Gondry, Hoffman adds: "He's been on the sets and he's had relationships with the actors on his movies before. And he's (been) involved with the editing. So I don't think he's foreign to any of it, really. And he didn't act that way, either."

Kaufman didn't care if he failed as a director because "in my writing I came to the sort of conclusion awhile ago that the only way to do anything interesting is to not see failing as a negative thing."

The only way to avoid failure is to do something that you know how to do already, he ways, "which is, as a writer, completely uninteresting."

"I always take projects that I don't know how to do. I always go in and say, `This is what I'm going to try to do; I haven't done this before.' And I accept the fact that it may not come out well. And this is a continuation of that.

"I think we see failure as a negative thing in our culture, and I don't see it as a negative thing. I think failure is a sign that you tried to do something that is challenging and you didn't know how to do, and that to me is a good thing. That's bold, that's adventurous ... you can actually come up with something new and interesting, which you can't if you keep doing the same thing over and over again."

To him, "success and failure are irrelevant" which is why "I don't write for an audience in mind, ever. I don't ever think about an audience, because then I'd be writing what I think they want me to write, so that I can be successful, as opposed to writing what I feel, which is brave and risky."

He would direct again since he liked the experience and liked having "ultimate control" over the project.

The original notion for "Synecdoche, New York" came from Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairwoman Amy Pascal, who thought it would be interesting for him and Jonze to develop a horror film.

They told her that the issues of aging, loneliness and regret were the most frightening things to them, and while that didn't sound like a classically scary movie to Pascal, she indicated she would green-light whatever they did.

"I can't write genre stuff. I mean, I don't want to. I don't like adhering to some predetermined form in any way," says Kaufman, who wrote George Clooney's directorial debut, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." "I like giving my thoughts free rein and coming up with something that hasn't existed. So that (horror movie) was never going to happen.

"Maybe now that the economy is such a disaster, I'll be writing genre movies. Because I do need a paycheck," he says, adding: "I'm sadly not even joking."

Whether or not it ever comes to that, Kaufman maintains that even though his movies can serve as stream-of-consciousness Rorschach tests for moviegoers he intends his films to be accessible and entertaining.

Once he's finished with them, his movies are the audience's, not his like a painting that's hanging on the wall belongs to the world, no longer to the artist, he says.

"It's yours to interact with. That's what I'm trying to do. And that's what I've always tried to do, is to give people the space to have this interact with their life ... and ideally, in my mind, in different ways for different people or even different ways for the same person on different viewings like the way that you read a book when you're 16 and then read the same book again when you're 40. If it's a good book, it's a completely different book. I think that's an amazing thing that literature can offer."

As he discusses that protean process, he has in mind the great old staple of the high school canon, "The Catcher in the Rye."

"You know what? I still like it. It's just different. I'm not Holden anymore. I'm seeing Holden as `the other' now."

But the J.D. Salinger novel remains "beautiful because it speaks to people at that age in such a profound way," he says. "That is not a small thing."

Having seen it five or so hours ago my gut reaction is that this is an absolute masterpiece and the more thought I give to it the more my appreciation grows.
I could tell that a lot of the people in the cinema thought it was just weird and when walking out a bloke behind me said 'well that really is a mind fuck isn't it?' but I felt connected and inspired throughout every minute. PSH is my favourite contemporary actor and he outdoes himself here. Kaufman has always made interesting and worthwhile films but I feel none more so than this. I had the best feeling in the pit of my stomach that intensified as the film continued and for the rest of the day I have been walking on air and so grateful to have a) seen the film and b) have, in film, a passion that I have for nothing else save my girlfriend and family.
In other words, it was really good.

Oh man, guys. Sometimes I love movies. And Michelle Williams. Just kidding, I always love Michelle Williams.

This is one of those movies that reminds you why you like movies. It's unfulfilling in the best, most deliberate way. That might bother some people, though. I don't know. We'll see. It's great.

One unfortunate thing is that it seems like Kaufman's way of trimming down the running time is by cutting some scenes as if they were episodes of Gilmore Girls directed by MIchael Bay. Oh well, I'm sure someday we'll see a version closer to what he originally intended.

I love the way a lot of the press about Kaufman and this movie end up with the writer thinking about the things Kaufman wants them to think about to the point that their articles just dissolve into livejournals. The best example being the article in Wired. Also, Roger Ebert's review that ends "This has not been a conventional review." (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081105/REVIEWS/811059995)

Did I miss this? Or has it just been in NY/LA and film festivals?

Quote from: elpablo on November 07, 2008, 10:48:52 PM
Oh man, guys. Sometimes I love movies. And Michelle Williams. Just kidding, I always love Michelle Williams.

This is one of those movies that reminds you why you like movies. It's unfulfilling in the best, most deliberate way. That might bother some people, though. I don't know. We'll see. It's great.

One unfortunate thing is that it seems like Kaufman's way of trimming down the running time is by cutting some scenes as if they were episodes of Gilmore Girls directed by MIchael Bay.

I agree with everything you said...nothing short of a masterpiece piece of art so heart wrechingly sad and strangely unreal....

Spoilers...
The scenes with the psychologist and his child Olive were hilarious and I believe the editing in the psychologists office was deliberate. Looking forward to the commentary.

Quote from: Gamblour. on November 10, 2008, 07:46:16 AM
Did I miss this? Or has it just been in NY/LA and film festivals?

My somewhat-artsy theatre in the Midwest is showing it for one week starting on Friday.  I kinda feel like if we have it, most people should.

spoils?

i'm pretty disappointed. this movie made me feel intensely sad, but not for any profound reason. i felt sad for the characters for being in such pain, but mostly for how much time and energy kaufman, who has produced some of my all-time favourite things, must've put into this.

the biggest problem with the film is that cotard is a talentless hack, and beyond that he's not an interesting character. he bullshits constantly and he's aware of it but so what? there is no secretly amazing person lying underneath all the insecurities this time. he's just a guy who can't get beyond himself. a guy who can't stop worrying about whatever it is he's worrying about. he doesn't know. he's too busy being worried. his life long crush is also not interesting at all.

there is nothing automatically good about being self-referential. this movie is self-referential in spades but SO WHAT? it's worth an odd chuckle or two and paints this really big confusing sad picture of cotard's life but so. what?

if cotard had been talented or honest in any way, this movie would've been far far more interesting. i'm kind of angry that kaufman made him so blatantly terrible at directing/creating things. it's such an easy thing to do. if cotard had it in him to make something good from the start of the movie i would've been able to care about his plight. and the movie probably would've said something about what it is to create art. all this says is it's hard to create something worth creating if you're completely devoid of honesty or self-confidence. duh.

here are some good things about it: it looks wonderful, the soundtrack is wonderful, and many of the performances are great despite the writing. there are also a lot of cool and genuinely interesting little ideas sprinkled throughout.

i don't know if i have it in me to give this thing another chance.. the feeling that kaufman messed up in such a massive way is so upsetting and frustrating. i probably will at some point because it's kaufman.

if one of you guys gets ahold of a torrent for this movie before this gets released in mexico or dvd , please be kind and post it over here . it's one of those very few movies i feel an unhealthy urge to see, where you think you'll be a better person if you do.

I saw this a couple weeks ago and have been trying to process it since then and I'm not really sure if I can without a second viewing. I do know that this is one of the best screenplays of the year but it certainly feels like the direction, on occasion, got away from Kaufman. An intensely unpleasant film that left me feeling blindsided for a few hours afterwards (I sat alone in my car for about 20 minutes just going over the film in my head.) I have to give this film my adoration for calling its shot and swinging for the fences in every way shape and form imaginable. I'm really surprised more people on here haven't seen or written about this one yet. Seems right up our alley, for better or worse.

Quote from: cinemanarchist on November 23, 2008, 11:25:17 AM
I'm really surprised more people on here haven't seen or written about this one yet. Seems right up our alley, for better or worse.

As far as I know this never expanded much. I haven't checked to see if the studio already gave up on it or not. It will probably go back out around Oscar time if it gets some nominations.

I think the studio has given up on it at this point. It's a tough sell and I would say the trailer they cut for it is about the best you can do to appeal to a mass audience. I think Oscar noms are not likely but again I think an original screenplay nomination is deserved.

What does everyone think of Jon Brion's score?

here's what i think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWTy4o2EbkY

(it's good)

Quote from: picolas on November 24, 2008, 05:45:34 PM
here's what i think: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWTy4o2EbkY

(it's good)

that was lovely.

that was cool.
Human Nature was dissed as usual... :(

thanks.

yeah.. i just don't know human nature well enough. i guess it deserves a second chance.

That was wonderful pic  :bravo:

i'm very tired but i can't sleep so this post is a little incoherent, i'm going to maybe write a better one later.

home for thanksgiving and saw this today at the only theater in the suburbs that was playing it with mom (awww). since the last time i'd been to this theater, more or less an arthouse, a lot of renovation had been done. the ticket booth was newer, the bathrooms were updated, they installed new (p)leather seats and digital projectors for pre-show advertisements. unfortunately, they never updated their film projectors. the print was scratched to hell with a green line running vertically through the frame for the entire length of the film and other vertical black lines and specks as well. the movie is shot in widescreen but was projected 1.85, so things kept getting cut off on the sides. for the first 10 minutes, we were considering leaving, but as the film went on and as we made our way to the second reel, we let it wash over us and, projection flaws aside, found ourselves completely immersed. once it was over, neither of us had any real clue what it was about, but we both were thoroughly moved and amused and introspective and figured the plot didn't really matter too much anyway.

spoilers here on out...

Quote from: picolas on November 17, 2008, 05:00:05 AM
spoils?

i'm pretty disappointed. this movie made me feel intensely sad, but not for any profound reason. i felt sad for the characters for being in such pain, but mostly for how much time and energy kaufman, who has produced some of my all-time favourite things, must've put into this.

the biggest problem with the film is that cotard is a talentless hack, and beyond that he's not an interesting character. he bullshits constantly and he's aware of it but so what? there is no secretly amazing person lying underneath all the insecurities this time. he's just a guy who can't get beyond himself. a guy who can't stop worrying about whatever it is he's worrying about. he doesn't know. he's too busy being worried. his life long crush is also not interesting at all.

there is nothing automatically good about being self-referential. this movie is self-referential in spades but SO WHAT? it's worth an odd chuckle or two and paints this really big confusing sad picture of cotard's life but so. what?

if cotard had been talented or honest in any way, this movie would've been far far more interesting. i'm kind of angry that kaufman made him so blatantly terrible at directing/creating things. it's such an easy thing to do. if cotard had it in him to make something good from the start of the movie i would've been able to care about his plight. and the movie probably would've said something about what it is to create art. all this says is it's hard to create something worth creating if you're completely devoid of honesty or self-confidence. duh.

here are some good things about it: it looks wonderful, the soundtrack is wonderful, and many of the performances are great despite the writing. there are also a lot of cool and genuinely interesting little ideas sprinkled throughout.

i don't know if i have it in me to give this thing another chance.. the feeling that kaufman messed up in such a massive way is so upsetting and frustrating. i probably will at some point because it's kaufman.

but did you not think the movie was an apt metaphor for itself? it kept getting bigger and bigger with no restrictions or direction, but it knew it had something to say and it had a lot of heart. i suppose you do describe how self-referentiality isn't always necessarily a good thing, and i'd agree with that, but i think that it's pulled off very well here. the emotion rings truer for me than something like inland empire, which i think was trying to make the same self-referential points about an artist spiraling out of control, as there's more of a life force here and a sense of humanity and even self (despite the fact that the only way to figure his life out is as somebody else, i think...).

i don't think cotard was a talentless hack. i think he was just misguided and didn't know where to put his ideas. he clearly knows how to speak with actors and get performances out of them, he just has a hard time directing and wrangling himself. we never got to see much of his death of a salesman staging, but we hear that the ny times gave it a decent review and he gets a macarthur genius grant so he must be doing something right. can't really argue with what you said about "all this says is it's hard to create something worth creating if you're completely devoid of honesty or self-confidence," but i mean come on. you can say that about all of his films. do you mean to tell me that you think the john cusack character in being john malkovich is likable in any way? i think this movie is just a bit more abstract with a lot of the same ideas that are in all of his screenplays. the guy is weird and depressed and without a stable relationship/family structure in his life his thoughts become fragmented and life is harder and harder to live and what is self and who am i and what is bigger than that and on and on and on.

um, my arguments are admittedly half baked. i need another day. i can't edit this right now. i'm sorry i didn't wait. i'm probably not going to post here again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard%27s_Syndrome

Quote from: bonanzataz on November 29, 2008, 05:34:21 AM
but did you not think the movie was an apt metaphor for itself? it kept getting bigger and bigger with no restrictions or direction, but it knew it had something to say and it had a lot of heart.

i don't think that's enough to make it a successful movie. i agree there are lots of compelling pieces to the puzzle, but i think the sum of the parts is kind of empty. especially compared to his other works.

Quote from: bonanzataz on November 29, 2008, 05:34:21 AMcan't really argue with what you said about "all this says is it's hard to create something worth creating if you're completely devoid of honesty or self-confidence," but i mean come on. you can say that about all of his films.

you can say that and much more. i didn't get a larger idea from this. on first viewing. i know it's too complicated to fully digest in one sitting.

Quote from: bonanzataz on November 29, 2008, 05:34:21 AMdo you mean to tell me that you think the john cusack character in being john malkovich is likable in any way?

i love him as a character. i'd say he's more fleshed out than cotard, actually. likability isn't the issue. it's the depth of the character. that simpsons ep with frank grimes makes the same kind of point. everyone loves watching homer because he's a brilliant character. if you found him in real life he could be a nightmare, though.

Quote from: bonanzataz on November 29, 2008, 05:34:21 AMi think this movie is just a bit more abstract with a lot of the same ideas that are in all of his screenplays. the guy is weird and depressed and without a stable relationship/family structure in his life his thoughts become fragmented and life is harder and harder to live and what is self and who am i and what is bigger than that and on and on and on.

i may be missing something about why cotard's journey is significant that you're touching on there. but i can't help comparing it to adaptation and feeling like that was a far more brilliant version of this.

I'm a big fan of Kaufman's work, especially "Eternal Sunshine", which is an all-time favorite of mine.  I thought "Synedoche" was just awful.  It started off very strong, but, about a half hour in, I started to get a sinking feeling that Kaufman was not in control of his own material.  It could be argued, but I doubt very persuasively, that Caden himself was losing control of his material, and therefore Kaufman's messy handling of the film is yet another meta level of self-referential commentary, but I think it was merely his lack of experience as a director showing through.  All the humor drained out of the film very quickly, and what we're left with is a grim, bleak, somewhat boring and tedious exploration of a not-very-subtle or original theme of Death with a capital D.  Yes, Charlie, we all die, the body is in decay from the minute we're born, yes, yes, we know.  What I loved about "Sunshine" and, to a lesser degree, "Adaptation", was that all of the twists and turns and dark explorations had an ultimately positive, albeit melancholy, resolution.  I must add that I am not the type of person who needs or desires happy endings.  Some of my favorite movies are bleak as hell, but this one was just a slog: joyless, tedious, grim, repetitive.

It seemed like Kaufman was trying to create a Lynchian universe of doppelgangers and horrific, nightmarish mirror-images.  But where Kaufman failed is in establishing a believable universe into which the nightmarish aspects impinge.  From the get-go, everything is dark and surreal, so, the dark, surreal goings-on of the last hour of the movie don't have any impact.  When we meet Caden, he's already living a hallucinogenic existence, so, nothing afterward has any resonance or weight; it all just seemed like dark weirdness for weirdness' sake. 

Then there are stretches of the movie that suffer from merely technical shortcomings.  The entire story line concerning Olive mutating into a tatooed stripper came out of nowhere, made no sense, and what was with the hospital scene with Caden forced to recite a confession of gay anal sex? 

I felt like there were entire stretches of screenplay that had been edited out.  I understand Kaufman was trying to create an off-kilter sense of time and time's passing, but I felt divorced emotionally from the characters because I wasn't privy to years and years of their lives.  I think a more adept director would have shot scenes that edited together better, that were more fluid, and contained more continuity.  Kubrick's smash cut from spinning bone to spaceship is the prime example of expert depiction of time passing.  In Kaufman's film, I felt like scenes were missing.   

Kaufman is saying in interviews that you have to "see it twice", but I don't want to.  What for, to be repeatedly reminding of my own eventual death?  I think, from a philosophical perspective, Kaufman is trafficking in very adolescent, passe existentialism and even nihilism.  Despite what Caden says in his speech to his actors, human beings are aware that we will die, and its this knowledge, however subconscious it may be, that drives us to create art and music and literature.  Ultimately, creation is a form of birth, and is life-affirming.  Even if you are creating a work that is ultimately about death, death is rendered meaningless as a fear or source of sadness if life itself is depicted as nothing but misery, disease, and lack of human connection.  A movie about death, in which there is no life on display, renders itself pointless.   

Quote from: adolfwolfli on December 01, 2008, 01:51:25 PMI must add that I am not the type of person who needs or desires happy endings.  Some of my favorite movies are bleak as hell, but this one was just a slog: joyless, tedious, grim, repetitive.

this is how i felt. and i had to defend myself a couple of times from the idea that i just didn't like it because it wasn't a happy movie.

Quote from: adolfwolfli on December 01, 2008, 01:51:25 PM
Kaufman is saying in interviews that you have to "see it twice", but I don't want to.  What for, to be repeatedly reminding of my own eventual death?  I think, from a philosophical perspective, Kaufman is trafficking in very adolescent, passe existentialism and even nihilism.  Despite what Caden says in his speech to his actors, human beings are aware that we will die, and its this knowledge, however subconscious it may be, that drives us to create art and music and literature.  Ultimately, creation is a form of birth, and is life-affirming.  Even if you are creating a work that is ultimately about death, death is rendered meaningless as a fear or source of sadness if life itself is depicted as nothing but misery, disease, and lack of human connection.  A movie about death, in which there is no life on display, renders itself pointless.   

i think you've hit it on the head. well done. :(

spoilers

adolf and picol, thanks for those brilliant reviews.. i read them before i saw the film and even though i disagree strongly with your insights, they were extremely helpful to me as i came to my own (semi)conclusions about the movie.

Cotard is not Kaufman. even though the film's structure gradually reflects the disjointed nature of cotard's play, the film is not necessarily a reflection of the play's themes. it's looking within it, around it, behind it.. it's not mirroring it. what i'm trying to say is that it's a mistake to confuse the ideas expressed by cotard with the ideas that are explored in this film. cotard is not a spokesman for the film's themes. i mean, how could be he? he's too confused, ineloquent, and doomed to understand his own plight. that's part of the plight.

i did not take away from this film that "we all die." not at all. making a film that says nothing more than "we all die" would be a waste of time and energy. i do agree that this is a film about death but more than anything, it's about decay and the struggle to resist its inevitability -- the decay of the human body, the decay of the mind, the decay of relationships and love. cotard obsesses on that reality to the point where he forgets that he's ALIVE NOW and that's what matters. it's explicitly stated in the film that cotard is already dead long before he dies. and that applies to all of the characters, they're hyper-aware of their own decay even if they don't voice it openly. even the most upbeat character in the film is doomed, she resides in a burning house, she knows it's on fire but she lives there anyway. (and that's where she dies.)

Quote from: adolfwolfli on December 01, 2008, 01:51:25 PM
Even if you are creating a work that is ultimately about death, death is rendered meaningless as a fear or source of sadness if life itself is depicted as nothing but misery, disease, and lack of human connection.  A movie about death, in which there is no life on display, renders itself pointless.   

this isn't just about death as the end of life, though. it's about the death that occurs during life, as a part of life. i think your interpretation is backwards. the obsession with death as a fear and source of sadness intensifies the misery and lack of human connection, it robs life of its joy..

the tattoo daughter segment was stunning. my favorite part of the movie. that's where the audience sees the ultimate consequence of cotard's (spiritual) disease: even his most beautiful creation, his daughter, is destroyed..

adolf mentioned that Adaptation and Eternal had positive resolutions-- REALLY? the ending of Adaptation is pretty much a parody of happy endings and Eternal ends with the main characters stuck in their endless cycle of repeated failed relationships. Synecdoche NY is kaufman's most redemptive, life-affirming ending ever. throughout the film, Cotard seeks truth by exploring the darkness of the human condition. he fails, but the film does not end in darkness. i think it is pretty damn meaningful that it ends with the dream character in a rare moment of connection and love and maybe even rebirth. there is an end and Cotard can start anew. he dies. fade to white.

spoilers

So while a movie ending with the word "die" obviously revolves around dying, death, moribundity, and all of that, I did take away the film's other statement about art itself. Cotard goes into the production of the play calling it a play about truth, right? And art does attempt to do that, reveal truth, literally or through imagery, metaphor, etc. And by having "limitless funding" he can create the ultimate art, which is just a facsimile of reality. And what I take from that is that reality and art are not the same, but they comment on each other. And his dreams about what he can create can be as vast as recreating the world itself, and he could never truly recreate it. And though this might seem to be negative, I think it says more about what we are capable of doing, how productive we can be. It's about the futility of finding truth in art, but at the same time Cotard does learn about himself. It's very dichotomous, art and life seem to be two parallel lines, never touching but always giving back and forth. I seem to have not made any point here.

It made me laugh a lot. I thought that when she demands him to ask for forgiveness, and then she denies him anyway, I thought that was funny. I dunno. And i guess the house was on fire because that's like things in life we get into knowing they'll kill us? Who knows.

However, I am SO HAPPY someone finally did something with the fact that Samantha Morton and Emily Watson look exactly the same.

Quote from: Gamblour. on December 18, 2008, 08:58:14 AM
However, I am SO HAPPY someone finally did something with the fact that Samantha Morton and Emily Watson look exactly the same.

except for the fact that sammy girl is lookin' a little round in the tummy area lately. perhaps it was weight gained from her "stroke?"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-534213/The-curious-case-Samantha-Mortons-stroke.html

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fvaldefierro.com%2Filc44fr.jpg&hash=8c04c91ec863e2f1d2b22a4345fdb5d6f32c3af5)
snap!

That's all very bizarre. I did notice she had the strangest tummy, but I thought it was something of Kauffman's because it looked fake and out of place, given how great the rest of her body is.

Sony has set Synecdoche, New York for release on both DVD and Blu-ray on 3/10 (SRP $28.96 and $39.95). Extras will include 4 featurettes (In and Around Synecdoche, NY, The Story of Caden Cotard, Infectious Diseases in Cattle: Bloggers Roundtable and NFTS/Script Factory Masterclass with Charlie Kaufman).

saw it once when it came out, just went back for a 2nd viewing.  I've talked to a lot of my friends and it's been the basis of a lot of debate.  what's sad about this film is that it powerfully enables itself to exist beyond formally articulated criticism, because a lot of the arguments end in a subjective view.

i found it the same as a lot of experimental cinema in that regard, so i find the only way the viewer can gauge a lot of film in this genre is based on a very simple reaction of excitement/boredom.  as a rule, i think pseudo-story/experimental cinema should try to keep the films as short as possible.  true this is actually a rule in most cinema, however in this case and in the case of a lot of Lynch's recent work, it's harder I'm sure as a film maker and editor to distinguish what is fat to cut... because in essence... it's all fat. 

with a more distinct plot it's easy to see what's self indulgent and what is story/character/plot etc... and less is definitely more.  i love this genre, immensely, however i find myself thinking this movie and a film like inland empire fail.  i come to this conclusion based on the simple fact that i got bored, and felt that when themes in the film were explored, the film itself didn't move forward.  one could argue the point of the film is to explore that very notion, and i guess it might be, but that doesn't mean it's any good... or actually might in fact be sophomoric, the kind of idea you'd get after smoking a joint.

like Adolf i enjoy his work a lot, every single Kaufman up to this point.  i disagree with Adolf's opinion that the film got away from him, because it's too crazy for that to be the case.  if it got away from him it'd suck in a bonfire of the vanities kinda way, not suck in a self indulgent it's become lynch kind of way.

i remember reading an interview with spike jonze when adaptation came out and they asked him what it was like to work with Kaufman.  in a quite humorous way jonze told the magazine that he loved it, and loved Kaufman's ideas, but he just had to take out the aliens and the loch ness monster.  at first i thought he was messing around but then i read the original script to being john malchovich and that as well was way more out there.  i enjoyed the script because it wasn't abstract in a bad way, but it was a much more absurdist way of making the same point.  the original ending of eternal sunshine is also a much more extreme version of the same sentiment the final film depicted.  my point is that maybe charlie Kaufman is only great when he's got a sober mind telling him to chill the fuck out and come back a bit.

i appreciate the movie, and I'm amazed he got it made.  i love the spirit of the independent nature of the film and the financial backing gives me hope some great art movies will get made... but sadly i really didn't like this film, it needed a story editor (ie Michel gondry, spike jonze etc...)

-sl-

I saw it. Felt like a mind fuck. I felt depressed. My initial reaction to it was that it was a misfire. Too much unpleaseantness, too grim, too weird, too much. But honestly I just knew this was something special. So two hours later I saw it again. Now I think is some kind of masterpiece.

It felt way less grim the second time around, I found myself laughing quite a bit, and just absorbing a lot of stuff that went right by me the firs time. I still think the second half drags a little but in any case, this is probably the best film of the year and will very likely live a long life from now on. Maybe it will be recognized as a true masterpiece down the road. I need to see it again a few more times.

Quote from: Alexandro on March 13, 2009, 04:58:19 PM
this is probably the best film of the year

I think you're right. I just saw this last night and I was sure nothing would dislodge Wall-e as my pick of 2008. Right now they both stand tall together. The scope of this film was huge and impossible for me to fully absorb with one viewing. I also feel like I need to watch I Heart Huckabees immediately after next time, just to keep me on an even keal.

spoilers

Quote from: Gamblour. on December 18, 2008, 08:58:14 AM

It made me laugh a lot. I thought that when she demands him to ask for forgiveness, and then she denies him anyway, I thought that was funny. I dunno. And i guess the house was on fire because that's like things in life we get into knowing they'll kill us? Who knows.

my take on the fire is that it was there to ambiguate narrative deadlines but not undercut their significance.

There has never been a movie that pissed me off more than this one. For the last hour I was yelling at the television and throwing shit at it. I was pulling out my hair. At one point, I even grabbed a pen and paper and began writing a death threat Attn: Charlie Kaufman.

I never turned the movie off.

I need to watch it again.

Just saw this a few days ago in theaters. It finally arrived here and... I still don't know what to think about it. My girlfriend says it's her favorite Kaufman movie. I guess it's mine too.  The theater was packed I was glad to see that. I was annoyed though of all the people who walked out when the movie had  5 min remaining . Idiots they stayed for most of the movie. They probably thought it had two more hours to go. Anyway I understand why some people hate it, or don't care for the characters or simply can't get into it. However it has many qualities. To me it's all experienced through Caden's mind that's why it has somewhat of a realistic/surreal/dull feel to it. I loved how Emily Watson played her part, all the actors are great. The point of Caden's play is not really to be shown to an audience but to keep growing and growing and rehearsing and rehearsing. People begin to leave him or die and they see that this is his never ending pattern. And life is very much like that. We're always working towards our specific goals, if we reach them or not we keep doing the same thing over and over again. It can also be said that it's a dream movie however I believe it goes beyond that. Then again the tediousness the film has in certain moments to me is a choice by Kaufman. I thought the use of sound was magnificent and Brion's score is one of his best.
I loved Dianne Wiest's performance and her voice over sequence, her voice is just so sweat. Towards the end in the final monologue of "The specifics hardly matter. Everyone is everyone."  I have to admit I bawled my eyes out. She says: "as you learn that there was no one watching you and there never was." To me the mother in Ellen's dream maybe God. But that's just me.

Oh yeah I really don't have to say this but PSH is probably the best actor out there along with DDL.

Look, i'm sorry for not reading the rest of this thread.  I intend to do it soon. but i just walked out of the room from which i watched this.  It is 12:58 am on Friday, August 19th


I just want to know some complaints about this film.  The reason i ask is because this is one of the best things ever done with film in my opinion.  I just can't even begin to discuss how just 'OUT THERE' the film is without dwelling on surrealism

I recently watched 'jules and vern' and i found myself taken aback by the way that film plays out.  Now i don't know much about new wave cinema but my point here is nothing is dwelled upon.  Any relationship or scenario just resolves so quickly. 

It makes me think that if one were to remember it, their memory would work the same way and that is what i loved about this film.

The things taking place seem so quick, but it's just one mans perspective based on memory, and despite the fact that caden's memory is pretty accurate, it just seems so true to the recollection of a story.

God i hope some of this makes sense, but i know it doesn't

Long story long;  i loved every single thing about this film.

I still think this movie is a fraud. It doesn't really have anything interesting to say and it takes forever to say it in the most boring, intolerably sentimental way possible. Its gimmick, rather than being exciting and profound like the similar gimmick in The Sea That Thinks (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=11498.msg302636#msg302636), simply collapses into a joyless heap.

@Neil:

thats awesome, i just recently re-saw this not too long ago and i definitely found it better the second time around... that scene between Caden and his daughter is so sad and telling of a father's/man's fear of masculinity, i cant believe it didn't strike me before. I didn't respect most Kubricks the first time around either...

Quote from: Neil on August 19, 2011, 01:03:06 AM
I recently watched 'jules and vern'

Jules Verne is a famous author.

Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim) is a film by Francois Truffaut.

Jules and Verne Brown are the names of Doc Brown's kids at the end of Back to the Future part III.

SPOILERS


Sorry, I meant jules and jim.  Thanks p, i'm not sure why i typed that, it was late and i was trying to type quickly just before i went to bed.  That's why the only real content you saw worth discussing was a mis typed title.

What i was trying to say about jules and jim is whenever Jim meets Marianne, it all happens so quick, she runs away from the anarchist, ends up in jims room shows him the steam boat (which is supposed to be something special) and then it's over.  But, it was a 'thing' that happened.  By a 'thing' i mean an event where we can assume that more happened than what the audience saw on the screen, but if I were retelling the story or looking back (if it happened to me) it would all seem like it happened so quick.  Those are the details I would include for sure at least. 

I got the same feeling from this film for some reason

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on August 19, 2011, 01:23:05 AM
I still think this movie is a fraud. It doesn't really have anything interesting to say and it takes forever to say it in the most boring, intolerably sentimental way possible. Its gimmick, rather than being exciting and profound like the similar gimmick in The Sea That Thinks (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=11498.msg302636#msg302636), simply collapses into a joyless heap.

as far as a 'joyless heap' goes.  The film is quite joyless and i think it is intended to be that way.  It's about a depressing life that keeps getting worse.  Maybe that is a bit over the top, but then you look at the surreal aspects of the film and one can let that intense self loathing play out. IMO

I think it has a lot of interesting things to say, maybe not necessarily deep philosophical questions that relate to all of us, although i'm sure it does, i've only watched it once, but more so it has things to say in the same way we're supposed to care about cobb in inception.  The real emotion is sometimes taking a backseat to some visual aspects, but still there are questions about letting go of the past, about what makes a person who they are.  Inception has much more eye candy so, it gets tough to swing back and forth between visual awesomeness and emotion.  This film has it both ways, from the surreal sets to just raw real moments.

I'm not familiar with the sea that thinks, and JB i'm not sure what is fraudulent about it.  The film does not seem to dwell on the things that most film makers would in the sense that the reactions characters should have are blank and it's left for the audience to react. That's why i think it works because crazy things happen, like real surreal things and then we just move on at the snap of a finger. 

For instance, it seems like most people with some of the ideas in this film would have been like, "oh we can make hazels house be on fire and it can be this big deal to show how obscure and metaphoric i can be, while having an interesting set piece."  But, the Realtor explains it with, "it's a tough choice choosing how you're going to die." and then it just happens throughout the film, and it is juxtaposed with scenes that are 'normal' . 

I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but for instance in the scene that 72teeth spoke about, it's just something completely different.  I have never seen a relationship like that on screen that ends up like that.  He basically has to admit and apologize for leaving his daughter with his homosexual partner, two things that just are far from true.  So he does it, and not only does olive negate his attempt at forgiveness, but she dies and then there is another tiny bit of surrealism that isn't something to dwell on. She dies and a dead black flower falls off her tattoo onto the hospital bed.

I don't know, i've just never seen anything like this.  I plan on watching the sea that thinks, but if anyone else knows of something similar to this, post it up, i'd love to try to get a better idea of what's going on.

Again a whole bunch of words that probably say nothing which will probably kill this thread, but now to read the rest of it.

Well, I've had the blu-ray of this for a couple months and haven't gotten around to watching it, and now I'm all geared up to see it, so you accomplished that at least.

i did a total 180 on this. i felt exactly the way jb feels when i left the theatre and for many months afterwards. now i think it's a big 'ol masterpiece. i don't want to write an essay about it right now, but the thing that began to unlock it for me was kaufman describing a theme of the movie as 'the negative aspects of total artistic freedom/creative control'. it's also about the futility of building 'masterpieces' when we're already part of the biggest work of art ever, a work of art that is constantly changing. eg. the apocalyptic future that caden has no time to incorporate into his piece, which eventually overwhelms and destroys it, making it irrelevant on many levels. this is kind of a giant metaphor for caden's inability to accept dirt and decay, and his secret passion for cleaning and basically keeping everything the same, which is also futile. deep down he wants to be a cleaning lady, and this idea stares him right in the face throughout the film, but he refuses to accept it as his true calling. keener's character suggests that the only way to be a successful artist is through specificity. eg. narrowing and reflecting reality into tiny paintings, NOT obsessively recreating the universe. even though we'd all like to do that, it's the coward's (cotard's) way out.

Quote from: picolas on August 19, 2011, 02:33:02 PM
i did a total 180 on this. i felt exactly the way jb feels when i left the theatre and for many months afterwards. now i think it's a big 'ol masterpiece. i don't want to write an essay about it right now, but the thing that began to unlock it for me was kaufman describing a theme of the movie as 'the negative aspects of total artistic freedom/creative control'. it's also about the futility of building 'masterpieces' when we're already part of the biggest work of art ever, a work of art that is constantly changing. eg. the apocalyptic future that caden has no time to incorporate into his piece, which eventually overwhelms and destroys it, making it irrelevant on many levels. this is kind of a giant metaphor for caden's inability to accept dirt and decay, and his secret passion for cleaning and basically keeping everything the same, which is also futile. deep down he wants to be a cleaning lady, and this idea stares him right in the face throughout the film, but he refuses to accept it as his true calling. keener's character suggests that the only way to be a successful artist is through specificity. eg. narrowing and reflecting reality into tiny paintings, NOT obsessively recreating the universe. even though we'd all like to do that, it's the coward's (cotard's) way out.

You nailed it. It's a pretentious piece of shit movie about white people trying to be artistic.

i would call it anti-pretentious. and anti-piece of shit. like a war movie, it has to show you the big piece of shit at its shittiest. it is definitely about white people though.

Honestly, I should give the film a second chance to be fair. Even though I saw sparks of brilliance and was very much a Kaufman fan, I absolutely hated the experience of seeing this movie. And that could change.

It was a long time ago, but the biggest thing I remember was the scene with an old PSH and Morton talking on a park bench or something, and it was this incredibly sentimental/pretentious/dumb dialogue about nothing of interest or importance... I think that's the point at which I said "screw it, this is horrible."

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on August 19, 2011, 03:41:29 PM
I remember one of Synechdoche's major weaknesses being the "old makeup." It was just horrible. Like it was caked on and could start falling off in clumps at any moment. Was that intentional/ironic?(It looks even worse than the old makeup parodied in Walk Hard.)

I noticed that, how you could fucking see it peeling around their neck and jowls, haha. That was definitely my biggest criticism of the film, but I guess I cut Kaufmann a little slack for being a first timer. Still, it's all in the details.

I just re-read all this. I guess it's time to watch this again and maybe actually say something coherent this time!

I actually didn't get to finish this. There wasn't enough momentum to keep me watching which doesn't usually happen. And that's kind of bizarre because it had some really cool elements and some of the later sections seemed promising. I'll get around to it at some point.

i love jon brion's track:



probably the best song he's ever done for a film, i like it better than Here We Go, with which it seems to share a lot of themes.

of course PTA rejected the latter from use in the actual film, which may have precipitated the end of their collaboration.

i miss Roger Ebert, btw, whose passions mattered.

Charlie Kaufman was forty-one when Being John Malkovich was released, fifty when Synecdoche was released. that sounds right. Kaufman feels years ahead of me. Synecdoche has conceptual similarities to my novella i mention, except Synecdoche has richer concepts.

i'm not sure this movie concept could be better or fuller conceived. fundamentally speaking the viewer is asked to become tired of the movie, for the movie to be like the person.

the tricky part for me begins after Tom Noonan is cast:

QuoteSammy Barnathan: Why I cried... Because I've never felt about anybody the way I feel about you. And I want to fuck you until we merge into a Chimera, a mythical beast of penis and vagina, eternally fused, two pairs of eyes that look only at each other, and lips, ever touching, and one voice that whispers to itself.
Caden Cotard: Okay. You got the part.

about Kaufman writing that i have what is called "envy," since on top of him writing this he concocts a scene in which it's reasonable a person would say it. and Caden's anxious listening, his dread and hope, that's a PSH quality shining through a strange moment.

Noonan, first seen (by me) peering from behind a tree, his introduction and inclusion couldn't be better written, i don't think. they could be written differently, but they couldn't be written better in terms of this being a conceptual narrative. so the problem is i consider his casting scene the conceptual narrative's ceiling, and i don't think the narrative rises above it through the next hour until the end.

which feeling of being trapped is a theme within the movie. given the character, and the execution of the narrative, an audience member has the liberty of being able to weigh this movie with a personal scale. given the number of themes in this movie i think it's impressive that Kaufman gives the audience this power. and simply, Caden isn't a wonderful person at all. he's oppressively egotistical, as Noonan says before he takes action to prove he feels this way.

mentioning now in 2015 that Kaufman made a good call in having Dianne Wiest replace Noonan as Caden.

Caden is obsessed with thinking about himself within this world. he doesn't like how things look and can't make them right, though we see him try. but cannot one see in this movie that one's worries help create their problems? the scene with PSH and Samantha Morton in the car at night, "I'm fine, I have Derek," tears in PSH's eyes -- myohmy. that's Solondz-level tragic. i cannot believe Kaufman is promoting this life or perspective, because i do think there is another life one can choose to live over the miserable.

what is there to find in one's misery? Kaufman explores this question as much as he can. Synecdoche reminded me how far the artistic representation of misery has been taken and how little rewards it gives a person:

QuoteCaden Cotard: I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That's what I want to explore.

accepting my mortality and appreciating that i get to live has been my recent life goal, and this movie promotes it, since apparently a person isn't given a gift of happiness at the end of a miserable life, which well i guess i always hoped that's what would happen and i'm currently drafting a new life plan.

Quote from: tpfkabi on November 23, 2008, 10:28:46 PMWhat does everyone think of Jon Brion's score?

I thought it was possibly the weakest part of the film, but I also imagine it was the greatest challenge he ever faced. I wouldn't even know where to begin scoring this movie.