Synecdoche, New York

[Brian in Mesa]

Synecdoche, New York

Release Date: October 24, 2008 (NY, LA)
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Screenwriter: Charlie Kaufman
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: R (for language and some sexual content/nudity)
Website: SonyClassics.com/SynecdocheNY

Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dianne Wiest, Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis, Tom Noonan

Plot Summary: Theater director Caden Cotard (Hoffman) is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele (Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive (Goldstein) with her. His therapist, Madeleine Gravis (Davis), is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel (Morton) has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one.

Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece, but the textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden's own deteriorating reality.

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[D-Dogg]

I for one am really excited to see this. Kaufman is a true genius.

 

[Cheesebeef]

it's BEYOND bizzarre... and that's saying something for a Kaufman film.

 

[D-Dogg]

Did you like it though, cheese?

 

[Cheesebeef]

Did you like it though, cheese?

I'm not sure if it's a movie that I would say I "liked". But I was pretty fascinated by it if that makes any sense.

 

[D-Dogg]

I'm not sure if it's a movie that I would say I "liked". But I was pretty fascinated by it if that makes any sense.

For a Kaufman film, yeah that makes sense.

 

[Cheesebeef]

For a Kaufman film, yeah that makes sense.

nah, it doesn't. not for me anyway. I actively enjoyed all his other movies. I thought Being John M was great and odd and Adaptation was brilliant conceptually and even better upon mutliple viewings on it's execution and back when I first started working for producer Steve Golin at Anonymous back in 2001, I read the 3rd draft of Eternal Sunshine and it was literally the best thing, book, article, screenplay, you name it that I had ever read in my entire life. So for me to say I'm not sure if I "liked" Synecdoche isn't some kind of ethereal comment taken as if Kaufman's movie aren't to be liked or not... it's just a really bizarre, fascinating and extremely tough movie to watch.

as good as Eternal Sunshine ended up being, I always wished they had filmed that 3rd draft. I don't know how he did it, but that screenplay read like some kind of poetic dream. little bit of a tidbit/insiderish info: Kaufman was FURIOUS that Clooney was butchering his Confessions of a Dangerous Minds script. Man, was he not a fan of how that movie turned out.

 

[D-Dogg]

nah, it doesn't. not for me anyway. I actively enjoyed all his other movies. I thought Being John M was great and odd and Adaptation was brilliant conceptually and even better upon mutliple viewings on it's execution and back when I first started working for producer Steve Golin at Anonymous back in 2001, I read the 3rd draft of Eternal Sunshine and it was literally the best thing, book, article, screenplay, you name it that I had ever read in my entire life. So for me to say I'm not sure if I "liked" Synecdoche isn't some kind of ethereal comment taken as if Kaufman's movie aren't to be liked or not... it's just a really bizarre, fascinating and extremely tough movie to watch.

as good as Eternal Sunshine ended up being, I always wished they had filmed that 3rd draft. I don't know how he did it, but that screenplay read like some kind of poetic dream. little bit of a tidbit/insiderish info: Kaufman was FURIOUS that Clooney was butchering his Confessions of a Dangerous Minds script. Man, was he not a fan of how that movie turned out.

I meant that Kaufman movies aren't really for everyone. I don't even know if anyone I know has even SEEN Adaptation. I know a few have seen ETSOSM and reactions were mixed. I heard this one was weird, and if I step back from my "Kaufman is sooo great" almost fanboi mentality and look at it objectively, a "weird" Kaufman movie must be a complete and total mindfu...ya know? Seems like, from your description, that I better buckle up my brain because I'll probably walk away without knowing what kind of emotion I should register, but feeling a bunch of them that are probably in conflict.

I wish I had read that 3rd draft, and I know you've mentioned it before. ETSOTSM is possibly my favorite film, all encompassing (writing, directing, acting). Just love it all. Just an incredible pairing of director/photographer and writer on that film. I will never tire of watching it. It's the perfect love story, IMO. That may be weird, but that's how I feel about it. You couldn't capture a modern relationship and its ups/downs/hatreds/devotions any better than in that film.

I think Adaptation is his second best film, btw. As a writer (not the kind of writer you are, but a writer nonetheless) I'm very familiar with writer's block and the strain to get a hand on ideas that are just outside of your mind's ability to conjure. Adaptation was such a brilliant turn on that...I loved that movie. I've only seen it twice, but I feel that if I continued to watch it I wouldn't be able to choose which was better written, though Gondry's visual genius makes ETSOTSM a much better film overall.

I'll report back when I see Synecdoche.

 

[Cheesebeef]

I meant that Kaufman movies aren't really for everyone. I don't even know if anyone I know has even SEEN Adaptation. I know a few have seen ETSOSM and reactions were mixed. I heard this one was weird, and if I step back from my "Kaufman is sooo great" almost fanboi mentality and look at it objectively, a "weird" Kaufman movie must be a complete and total mindfu...ya know? Seems like, from your description, that I better buckle up my brain because I'll probably walk away without knowing what kind of emotion I should register, but feeling a bunch of them that are probably in conflict.

I wish I had read that 3rd draft, and I know you've mentioned it before. ETSOTSM is possibly my favorite film, all encompassing (writing, directing, acting). Just love it all. Just an incredible pairing of director/photographer and writer on that film. I will never tire of watching it. It's the perfect love story, IMO. That may be weird, but that's how I feel about it. You couldn't capture a modern relationship and its ups/downs/hatreds/devotions any better than in that film.

I think Adaptation is his second best film, btw. As a writer (not the kind of writer you are, but a writer nonetheless) I'm very familiar with writer's block and the strain to get a hand on ideas that are just outside of your mind's ability to conjure. Adaptation was such a brilliant turn on that...I loved that movie. I've only seen it twice, but I feel that if I continued to watch it I wouldn't be able to choose which was better written, though Gondry's visual genius makes ETSOTSM a much better film overall.

I'll report back when I see Synecdoche.

cool. i look forward to your thoughts.

 

[Mulli]

This was okay. Too depressing for me to keep watching. I might have finished if they didn't have PSHoffman having sex every half hour (even though the guy is sick the whole movie).

 

[Bada0Bing]

Just watched it. Whoa, this came nowhere close to meeting my expectations. Just couldn't get into it.