The Official Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" Thread

[tzarinna]

Jonze is producing, I can't imagine him putting his name on something that sucks and I suppose he would have some input.

 

[Carmine Falcone]

Adaptation must be the best screenplay....ever. So I'm interested in this one aswell.

 

[Cinemaman]

Jonze is producing, I can't imagine him putting his name on something that sucks and I suppose he would have some input.

Well, I still think it's totally a Kaufman's film. Hope it will be a new masterpiece.

 

[cerealkiller182]

Kaufmans a genius. Imalready sold on this movie.

 

[Dark Donnie]

Clips:
http://www.toutlecine.com/film/videos/0034/00344239/00012570-extrait-2-synecdoche-new-york.html

 

[Dark Donnie]

Opening at Cannes Tonight, plus new pics:
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/10801075.html

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/876/876322p1.html

Cannes 2008: Synecdoche, New York Review
Eternal Sunshine writer Charlie Kaufman's first feature brilliant but baffling.


by Kaleem Aftab, IGN UK

UK, May 23, 2008 - The directorial debut from acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind) is a zany, irreverent reverie that is at times brilliant, especially when setting up the fantasy world the characters inhabit, but by the end a tad infuriating and often incomprehensible.

Despite it's many faults it remains a highly ambitious, winning film that will - like Donnie Darko - have fans arguing over what it all exactly means for years to come. Essentially Kaufman has tried to make a movie in which the protagonist tries to decipher what the meaning of life is.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Cotard, a theatre director living in Schnectady, upper state New York, who is in the process of preparing a new work in 2005 when his wife Adele (Catherine Keener) decides to leave him and move to Berlin with their daughter. A bathroom accident results in Cotard cutting his head open and from that moment on Cotard loses touch with reality.

Synecdoche, New York made our head hurt.


Time jumps at bizarre unexplainable rates, events that seem to be happening on the day are revealed by sly uses of calendars to be taking place, weeks, months or even years afterwards. Characters age at different rates. His daughter becomes an adult (Robin Weigart) in seemingly no time at all. His psychiatrist (Hope Davis) is writing a book about Caden and their relationship begins and ends on the pages of her books. Other characters do quirky unbelievable things. A young woman Hazel (Samantha Morton) infatuated with Caden moves into a house that is constantly in the state of burning down. The action inexplicably jumps to 2009 when the now single theatre director is awarded a MacArthur genius grant and decides to put on the most magnificent theatre play ever staged.

Kaufman is occupied by themes that have appeared in his other scripts: the vagaries of memory (Eternal Sunshine), the struggle of an artist (Adaptation), and the desire to inhabit another life (Being John Malkovich). Like all Kaufman scripts, the ideas behind the action are stunning; he's a master at setting up situations that always seem to run into cul-de-sacs and meet unsatisfactory ends.

"At times brilliant... but by the end a tad infuriating and often incomprehensible."


After a brilliant introduction to the world, the film becomes an increasingly bizarre and wacky collection of scenes as Caden decides to put his own life on-stage, strangely employ an actor (Tom Noonan) who shares none of his physical characteristics and a near-lookalike (Emily Watson) to play Hazel.

It's at this point that any attempts to follow the plot become futile on a single viewing. Kaufman throws everything into this picture including the kitchen sink. It's so ambitious and different that it has to be admired. Towards the end of the film it's stated that you have to go back to the beginning to understand what's happening and the film starts with a reference to British playwright Harold Pinter. As such Kaufman's film is best understood as a tribute to the memory plays with which Pinter made his name. But any greater conclusions will only come after we've seen it a few more times.

 

[Cinemaman]

I loved clips, they look brilliant. Can't wait to see the whole movie, and I have no doubts I won't understand it right after the first screening (because masterpieces aren't so easily opened).

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=22647

 

[Cinemaman]

Terrefic poster!

 

[GhostPoet]

Oh wow...this sounds so horrible.

 

[Laderlappen]

The cast is just SO amazing!

Philip Seymour Hoffman
Samantha Morton
Michelle Williams
Catherine Keener
Emily Watson
Dianne Wiest
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Hope Davis

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809873025/video/9776092

Trailer.

QT Trailer HD 480p (53.3Mb)
QT Trailer HD 720p (138.9Mb)
QT Trailer HD 1080p (138.9Mb)

 

[JLBats]

It makes me sad sometimes how sort of non-film savvy this film message board is.

 

[cerealkiller182]

Its kaufman I'll always watch Kaufman

 

[Octoberist]

there were some surreal shots, like seeing that blimp in New York (i guess it's the future by that point in the movie)

 

[I Am The Knight]

I'm very interested in this movie...It will be hard to digest it in one viewing, I'm sure.

 

[lou2099]

This movie only caught my attention on imdb.com because of it's unusual title.

 

[Cinemaman]

I must see it!

 

[I Am The Knight]

 

[Hunter Rider]

http://www.cinematical.com/2008/09/25/exclusive-synecdoche-new-york-poster-premiere/

 

[Cinemaman]

This one looks so massive

 

[Sarge 2.0]

One of the most fascinating and brilliant works of art I've seen in a long time. A cinematic masterpiece. Here's my mini review from another thread:

Send a message via Skype™ to Sarge 2.0

Default Re: What's the last movie you watched? 4th Edition


A brilliant work of art. Certainly one of the most ambitious movies ever made. It encompasses life, death, sex, loneliness, love, illness, family, parenthood, identity...it's a movie about everything (or about how everything is everything) and everyone (or how everyone is everyone). And because it's about everything (and everything) and everyone (and everyone) that means it has relevance to the way almost everyone (and everyone) moves through their life, even if they're just hurtling towards death. It's about how we're all basically the same, even if we're all basically different. If this sounds confusing to you it's because pondering the concept of identity can be confusing at first. Hell, it never becomes entirely clear. Well it's not just about you (it's about you because it's about everyone, see?) it's about how you (and everyone) interact with the people around you (i.e. Everyone Else). It's also about how "we" (i.e. Me, You, and Everyone Else) learn from our actions and interactions (and reactions) in order to shape our personalities and our trajectories through life. Or at least that's what we think we're doing. The acting is wonderful by the way. I guess it's worth mentioning. Even though "we" are all actors who play characters that our brain tells us we are, or who we're supposed to think we are based on how we deal with our actions, movements, decisions, etc. When Roger Ebert reviewed the film I was perturbed by the fact that he didn't review it in a traditional way; i.e. he didn't really discuss the acting, the directing, the set design, the lighting, the "plot". Now that I've seen the movie I realize that to discuss the movie in that way is pointless because that frame of mind is a macguffin established by the films nature (i.e. it's a film!), and by the end of it we have our thought process subverted so that we can properly understand it. Manohla Dargis gave a more traditional review, in a sense, but she delves into the grand ideas of the film just as sharply as Ebert does. Maybe the film is about a dream and Caden Cotard is the dreamer. But all films are dreams (nothing that happens in a movie is "real" so to ponder "was it only a dream?" when it comes to the plot of any movie is pointless) and all audience members (and writers, and directors, and actors, and painters, and garbage men, and talk show hosts, and scientists, and diet pill salesmen, etc.) are dreamers. Fiction and nonfiction blur in the film, and one man lives in two worlds, or just one world separated by a consciously established binary of "reality" and "fantasy". So it doesn't really matter who is who or what is what. You might not think that you'll "get" this movie or that it "applies to You" (whoever "You" are), and that's fine. Like any great movie or work of art it's "Not For Everyone". Only bad movies are "For Everyone(!)". So if you watch it (or don't), it will still be there. Just like "You", "Me", "Everyone", and "Everything".

Or instead you can go watch G.I. Joe this weekend. It's entirely up to "You".

 

[Sarge 2.0]

edit: double post.

 

[Sarge 2.0]

It will take some years, but eventually this film will enter a broader consciousness and be regarded as a cinematic classic. Like any brilliant work it will be reviled as "pretentious" by "mainstream audiences" and the general public. But in a decade or so this film will get the recognition it deserves as the masterpiece of one of the few true geniuses working in American film today.

I'm calling it from now.