FilmFemme

A Note: If you haven’t seen Synecdoche, New York and plan to, you may not want to read this right now.  You can, if you must, I wrote it and posted it after all.  But some of the things that surprised me about this film were beautiful and meaningful because they were surprises.  It comes out on October 24th!

Charlie Kaufman.  A writer’s writer.  A filmmaker’s writer.  A creative force to be reckoned with, who uses characters and words and dreamlike scenarios so effecively to explore what can only be recognized as universal truths, pervasive neuroses, collective fears.  Even in this paltry blog entry, that no one will really read and ultimately means nothing, I find myself trying to grasp at words that might make me feel like I could put myself in the same “writer” column where he exists, but I fail.

His latest effort, 2 hours that follow Philip Seymour Hoffman as a struggling playwright and director is, well, I’m always reluctant to use phrases like “nothing short of a masterpiece” especially in reference to something as big as this film.  I’d have to see it again before risking that kind of hackery.  Anyhow, the exposition of the film sees Caden Cotard’s (Hoffman) first marriage to a smart and restless artist (Catherine Keener) deteriorate until she leaves him, taking their daughter Olive (played by Sadie Goldstein at 4 and later by Robin Weigart).  At the same time, his health begins to fail.  Trips to the neurologist, unpredicted seizures, rotting teeth.  Caden struggles on, directing small plays in a small town (Schenectady, of the title, sort of) and attempting a dalliance with the beautiful, somewhat bohemian free spirit, Hazal (a fiery-haired Samantha Morton).  The romance is doomed from the start as Caden has yet to accept the demise of his marriage, but suddenly he is awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant whereupon he is determined to do something big, significant, and most importantly, truthful.  The rest of the film follows Caden’s move to New York City where he rents a warehouse and hireds scores of actors to recreate the drama that is his life and in turn, their own.  The sets are elaborate, multistoried recreations.  He marries the lead actress, Claire (Michelle Williams) and they, too have a daughter, Ariel.  His entire life is consumed by this play that has all the elements of something grand and important — except for an audience.

The story here really isn’t so complex: a creative man longs to create something with meaning, that reveals something about what it means to be human, the crux of all art.  But the elements that Kaufman adds to the film are something like brilliant, if not just brilliant.  As a for instance, while she is still young, towards the beginning of the film, Hazal buys a house.  But her house, though quaintly appointed and even impressive, is on fire.  It perpetually smokes and smolders as she continues to live there, inside the blaze.  “I’m afraid of dying in the fire,” she notes to her real estate agent who replies “Well, it is a very personal choice, how one will die.”  Brilliantly twisted and torturedly poignant. 

After Hoffman, the cast listing of Synecdoche, New York reads like a list of the most acclaimed independent film actresses of the last 10 years, at least: Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton (I am in love love love with her), Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Williams, Dianne Wiest, Emily Watson, Hope Davis.  How beautiful, all of these women together like this.  All of the driven and independent, unashamed of their emotions or their needs.  How corny of me, to write that, but still, so true.  So beautiful.

It might be difficult to believe, but sometimes something is just so, kind of, I don’t know beautiful or meaningful or whole that even I in all of my sarcastilcious glory don’t really want to snark about it.  For all that it made me feel and consider, and even though there may be ample place to do so, I don’t want to make fun of Synecdoche, NY.  And I think the main reason was that at various points throuought this film, which seems like it could probably be put somewhere among “epic”s or “opus”s,  I was almost brought to tears.  Not because of its beauty, really, or because of heartfelt performances and heartbreaking metaphors, but because it opened up an emptiness.  A void where the only thought that exists is: I will never create anything like this.  And in a way, I think that’s what the movie is about.  Not to distill Kaufman’s intent to braggadoccio, as I detected none.  But about wanting to create something important as time and life go on because they are going on with or without you.  Or me. 

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