Omar
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Post by Omar on Nov 29, 2008 18:20:10 GMT
This was one of the gloomiest, saddest viewing experiences ever. And now being back home today, having watched it, I am filled with melancholy. Lots of people feel that way, too. Not me, though. I feel like a heartless dickhead. I was cold for probably 90% of the running time. This is coming from someone who finds it rare to not connect with a work that deals with loss, death, accomplishment/legacy, and all the other stuff this film deals with. I can't reach an evaluative judgment as a whole (i.e., did I find it a mediocre, good, or great film) largely because I don't know which parts were reality, if there were any, and other stuff like that. I do think very highly of some works of which my viewing experience were a cold one, though. I chuckled a lot. Amusement was probably my most frequent state during viewing. Hoffman, Williams, Morton, Keener, Watson, and Wiest were all first-rate. So it's very much me not the film. I went to see it with two friends, both of whom have taste in films similar to mine. One was completely bewildered by it, and the other absolutely hated it. The latter, who loved the Jonze/Kaufman collaborations and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", said he felt Kaufman made another self pity movie, and that it just didn't work anymore. My other friend and I felt like it was an acid trip. SPOILERS GALORE SPOILERS GALOREI don't think any of it was reality, or at least I have a hard time using that to base my judgment on it. Let me explain. The film starts in the middle of a troubled marriage, and the beginning of someone's body decomposing. I assume Hoffman is supposed to age from 40 to 80 (?) during the film, so we start with the realization that his body is starting to malfunction, the process of aging is getting to be more noticeable. The closeup of the gum surgery, the film's bizarre obsession with bodily fluids, etc. And then Samantha Morton's character is shown a house by a Realtor, only the house is always (though never escalating) on fire! His daughter disappears, though he reads her growth through a diary left behind, an interesting narrative device that I thought worked brilliantly. By the time Michelle Williams' screams and reveals her large tattoo, and proclaims that everyone has one, I had fully surrendered to the surreal atmosphere of the film. But what kind of surrealism is this (are there different kinds)? For me, it is the closest any filmmaker has come to capturing that Kafkaesque feel (other than Kaufman's previous screenplays-turned-films). I absolutely loved it. It went beyond Kaufman, into the role of the writer/director, their controlling nature, how those habits carry into our lives and the people around us, etc. It probably sounds really pretentious and boring the way I am describing it, but here is a thought that came to mind while watching it: What I love so much about "The Wire" is the way they introduce characters, and how their parts either get larger or smaller, whether in screen time or in relevance, sort of like life (that ugly word). As far as films go, this feeling of people as characters in your life has never been more realized for me than while watching "Synecdoche, New York".
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Post by ronnierocketago on Dec 8, 2008 3:05:52 GMT
This sounds like an utterly baffling film...which makes it even more fascinating for me to check out on DVD.
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Dec 8, 2008 3:41:54 GMT
This sounds like an utterly baffling film...which makes it even more fascinating for me to check out on DVD. Yeah, I need to see it a couple more times to catch everything.
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Post by svsg on Mar 4, 2009 5:51:03 GMT
Kaufman is way too clever for my intelligence level. I just watched this film and I am totally clueless as to what happened.
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RNL
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Post by RNL on Mar 4, 2009 23:27:36 GMT
I was mostly unimpressed with this.
I agree with your friend, Omar, that the film oozes self-pity. Self-pity, miserablism and cleverness of a mostly very obvious sort; it's clear which direction it's going, that it's going to become a kind of infinite regress - you'll have an actor playing Caden, then an actor playing the actor playing Caden, and so on, and then they'll all start breaking the meta-fourth-walls... all to what end? The film seems to express little besides the pity that Caden feels for himself because he's not going to live forever.
You have to wonder (and this doesn't just go for Kaufman) how thin the line between 'universal truth' and banal truism really is. Everyone is going to die, yes. Everyone who lives long enough is going to suffer through sickness and loss, everyone is very probably going to experience disappointment, loneliness, alienation, depression, etc. But if that's all a work of art is saying, how much more interesting is it than a work of art that says nothing but "the Earth revolves around the Sun"?
And there's an uncomfortable undercurrent of utter cluelessness that set my teeth on edge about halfway through. There's a recurrent suggestion that Caden's condition is universal. And speaking in general terms (the above; the experience of loss, loneliness, etc) it is. But his condition as an exceptionally privileged bourgeois artist with a MacArthur Genius Grant is not universal. To exist in a state in which the sole causes of your misery are the elemental, inescapable experiences of all human life is to exist in a state of immense privilege. To have no worries other than that you are mortal like everyone else is an incredible luxury. So to have a character denounce Caden's egocentrism by proclaiming that "No one wants to hear about your misery because they've got their own" is to denounce it on false premises. It's not true that everyone is miserable (hence the film's myopic miserablism), but even if it's true that many people are, what sort of meaningless proclamation is that? Why are so many people miserable? Hardly because they can't come to terms with their own mortality. People whose misery is a product of the fact that their children are starving would not find themselves miserable at all in Caden's position, where the only thing left for him to be miserable about is that he can't decide which woman he wants to be with and can't bear the thought of dying, at least without leaving behind a suitable artistic legacy. Surely not even everyone in his synecdochic NY would exist in such state of luxury. I think that's fair to say, and I think an awareness of that fact is completely missing from the film; so I think it's mostly shallow, unaffecting and offensive.
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jrod
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Post by jrod on Mar 12, 2009 23:51:20 GMT
I watched this and felt rather similar to how I did after watching Inland Empire. For better or worse (Im still deciding), this is Charlie Kaufman, completely unbuffered.
The movie was perplexing...left me with a lot to think about, yet nothing I really want to talk about with anyone yet. Still want to ponder it on my own for a few days.
Liked the movie and will probably watch it again soon.
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Jun 19, 2009 17:32:46 GMT
I agree with this letter printed in Sight & Sound July:
The article on Synecdoche, New York made me conclude that there isn't any sense in criticising this film on the grounds of being self-indulgent - sure it is, but so are thousands of other films. Charlie Kaufman is allowed to deal with the same themes, dramatic devices and characters all he wants. The problem is, he mixes up these same themes, dramatic devices and characters in different, clever arrangements, always to the same effect, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation. and this new film are all supposed to show: a) how everything represents something greater (hence the title Synecdoche, New York); b) how miserable and self-absorbed people are; c) how all we can do is laugh grimly at existence. In the midst of these elements, Kaufman throws in every art, philosophy and scientific reference he can think of (an Anne Sexton book during a conversation about menstruation), with the hope that they will create the illusion that his work is both 'deep' and 'comedic'. Only Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind seems to be trying to show two people we do not loathe completely, who are genuinely in love, in a movie about something more specific than the futility of life, the follies of people,. how everything is connected, etc.
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Post by The Ghost of LLC on Jun 21, 2009 17:46:35 GMT
I just watched it last night, and I loved it. I think it's definitely a departure from his previous work; like the surreal part of his writing got in a fight with the more grounded side, and the grounded side got its ass kicked.
I'll write more on it later; there is so much to consider and write about this film. But I will say that the whole self-pity thing... I mean, isn't that just sort of his nature? When was the last time you walked into a Woody Allen film expecting it not to be neurotic? Although, not everyone is entirely neurotic. I'm pretty sure that everyone, to differing extents, is less confident than they'd have us believe.
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Omar
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Post by Omar on Jun 21, 2009 18:57:06 GMT
I love self-pity. I have some every night before I go to sleep.
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Post by The Ghost of LLC on Jun 21, 2009 21:02:37 GMT
Yeah, it's great. I like making upbeat electronic music with catchy melodies and pounding rhythms infused with absolutely miserable lyrics. Quite the mindfuck.
I also enjoy driving myself crazy over circumstantial happenings that are out of my control while I enjoy commonplace activities, like lying in bed, smoking a cigarette, vegetating, eating frozen pizzas, and even masturbating. It's great!
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Capo
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Post by Capo on Jun 21, 2009 23:26:48 GMT
But I will say that the whole self-pity thing... I mean, isn't that just sort of his nature? When was the last time you walked into a Woody Allen film expecting it not to be neurotic? I think immediately of Manhattan and it's absolutely gorgeous, upbeat, optimistic ending.
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Post by svsg on Jun 22, 2009 1:43:16 GMT
spoilers I don't remember anything from the movie except for the large artificial city and the alternate characters that play their lives..
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Post by The Ghost of LLC on Jun 23, 2009 19:22:09 GMT
But I will say that the whole self-pity thing... I mean, isn't that just sort of his nature? When was the last time you walked into a Woody Allen film expecting it not to be neurotic? I think immediately of Manhattan and it's absolutely gorgeous, upbeat, optimistic ending. To be entirely honest, I don't remember the ending of Manhattan it's been about two years since I've seen that film. But you know, a lot of Woody Allen films end with fairly pleasant endings. But that's not really the point, you still expect the bulk of the narrative, even the comedic relief, to be fairly neurotic and obsessive.
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