Synecdoche, New York (2008)

A theatre director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he creates a life-size replica of New York City inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

Director:

Charlie Kaufman

Writer:

Charlie Kaufman

Stars:

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams

8 wins & 28 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Philip Seymour Hoffman	...	Caden Cotard
Catherine Keener	...	Adele Lack
Sadie Goldstein	...	Olive (4 years old)
Tom Noonan	...	Sammy Barnathan
Peter Friedman	...	Emergency Room Doctor
Charles Techman	...	Like Clockwork Patient
Josh Pais	...	Ophthalmologist
Daniel London	...	Tom
Robert Seay	...	David
Michelle Williams	...	Claire Keen
Stephen Adly Guirgis	...	Davis
Samantha Morton	...	Hazel
Hope Davis	...	Madeleine Gravis
Frank Girardeau	...	Plumber
Jennifer Jason Leigh	...	Maria

Storyline

Theater director Caden Cotard is mounting a new play. Fresh off of a successful production of Death of a Salesman, he has traded in the suburban blue-hairs and regional theater of Schenectady for the cultured audiences and bright footlights of Broadway. Armed with a MacArthur grant and determined to create a piece of brutal realism and honesty, something into which he can put his whole self, he gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in Manhattan's theater district. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a small mock-up of the city outside. As the city inside the warehouse grows, Caden's own life veers wildly off the tracks. The shadow of his ex-wife Adele, a celebrated painter who left him years ago for Germany's art scene, sneers at him from every corner. Somewhere in Berlin, his daughter Olive is growing up under the questionable guidance of Adele's friend, Maria. He's helplessly driving his marriage to actress ...

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Plot Keywords:

voyeurism | voyeur | coitus | copulation | sex in bed | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and some sexual content/nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [Japan]

Country:

USA

Language:

English German

Release Date:

21 November 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

I synekdohi tis Neas Yorkis

Filming Locations:

Bronx, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$21,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$172,194, 26 October 2008, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$3,081,925, 22 March 2009

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Likely Story, Projective Testing Service

Technical Specs

Runtime:

124 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color (DeLuxe)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Dianne Wiest appears after an hour and twenty minutes into the film. Even then, she gets only ten minutes of screen time, despite prominent billing.

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Goofs

In the scene where Caden is talking to Hazel directly after having talked to the doctor after his seizure, there is a dog in a box behind Hazel in her box office. Upon cutting to Caden, and then cutting back, the dog is gone. This is the remnants of the character "Squishy", from the original draft of the script. The almost-dead dog was found by Hazel after driving home from the premiere. She was saddened by Caden denying her, and she finds the dog, run over and bloody on the side of the road. She decides to keep it. This is the only scene where he is present, and his presence is not explained.

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Quotes

Caden Cotard: Was my father standing with us at the funeral?
Tammy: I don't know what he looks like.
Caden Cotard: He's dead. So he looks dead I guess.
Tammy: Hmm. Probably wasn't him then.
Caden Cotard: He was a big guy.

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Connections

Referenced in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: Echelon Conspiracy/Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li/Crossing Over (2009)

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Soundtracks

Something You Can't Return To
Written by Jon Brion

User Reviews

to call it a disappointment might almost be a compliment, but I dare you to see it

Note: This works MUCH better on a repeat viewing, practically a masterpiece, and one of the perfectly sad comedies ever made... though the last ten minutes is a slog (perhaps intentionally, as it's near the end of the tunnel... but it's still unbearable).

Over the course of my teenage years I've seen Being John Malkovich through Eternal Sunshine (those two the M-word, masterpieces, with Adaptation and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind near-great, and Human Nature a fun minor work), and he's always given something to chew on for the brain. He's an incredible wit, maybe too incredible, like something that could combust with the amount of ideas and ruminations and skill at defining what's important to us as people and what we want out of art. Synecdoche, New York could be seen as his life-summation of what concerns him as a writer. And to call it art is simple, because it is: it is, alongside the something like Inland Empire, the most challenging work to come out of American cinema. To say that either one is flawed may come as something as a given, but for Kaufman it's somewhat more troubling.

This is a big film of ideas, crucial, life-affirming (or life-damning) thoughts about love and death and loss and forgiveness and, essentially, the process of trying to recreate and recreate and recreate this. But at the same time the intellect to engage full-tilt by Kaufman the writer, the director couldn't engage me as a viewer emotionally - at least at first. This changed on a second viewing - I'm reminded of Woody Allen's assertion on multiple viewings of 2001 that Kubrick was much ahead of him on what he was doing - but on a first impression I have to wonder, with everything going for Kaufman the satirist, the original, the sad dramatist, what the movie's audience really is. Like the play that is rehearsed for decades that Cotard never brings to his audience, what can one take away from Synecdoche, New York as far as connecting with the characters, or just Cotard?

Maybe it reveals something about me just talking about this; indeed this is probably the film of the season, if not just the year (Dark Knight fanatics take note), that you will want to talk about after it ends. As far as puzzling works of art go it's great for a good argument, especially if one is familiar with how Kaufman's work has been leading up to this point. It's not exactly that the film is ever so confusing that one will want to walk out - there is a logic, in a sense, to the life imitating art imitating life imitating art etc etc aspect that makes sense.

When Kaufman, as director, makes his film this time about as hopeful as Franz Kafka rewatching the Zapruder film on a loop, even the scenes and moments that *do* feel somewhat powerful emotionally (i.e. Hoffman seeing his daughter in a nudie-booth, or the final scene on the bed with Hoffman and Morton old and in bed with the house, once again, on fire) don't hit their mark - again, at least at first. It's almost as if seeing the film again it becomes deeper, more resonant; like any work of art at another point in one's life, it could change, and if one gives it the chance it does.

Certainly the cast makes it worthwhile to watch: Hoffman is what he is, brilliant at transforming physically as age goes by as Caden Cotard, and at delivering subtle moments of humor amid his health-decay; ditto in her own right to Morton, who ranges from bubbly and lustful to anrgy and dejected (Michelle Williams, too, shows this range); even a bit part by Dianne Wiest is appreciated. They all help to give life to what is a big, somber meditation on (quoting Douglas Adams) Life, the Universe, and Everything.

And yet, expressing my (initial) disappointment over the length (at 124 minutes it feels twice as long) or the music (did Kaufman order "kill-myself-piano-tunes-you'll-love off of ebay for this?) or the personal problem of connecting emotionally with some of the characters as they (intentionally) don't really grow, shouldn't, I hope, diminish recommending Synecdoche, New York for anyone who wants something to challenge them, provoke thought and discourse, to engage and disrupt brainwave patterns. Perhaps there should be some disappointment; like life, and the art pulled out of it with pliers, it's not always a pretty sight, especially near the end. But it is a unique journey I was glad to take, and I hope every few years or so to come back to it, and see if it changes me, or if I've changed, since seeing it last.