A Brief Essay About 2008's Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York is a beautiful, beautiful film. Its slow incorporation of increasingly surrealistic and abstract visuals makes it the perfect “tutorial” film for someone (like me) who has never seen any surrealist works before. Charlie Kaufman utilises simple, down-to-earth characters to explore larger-than-life themes and motifs such as the futility of the endless endeavour to capture life in art. The performances delivered by the people who play these characters are one of a kind and Phillip Seymour Hoffman embodies the main character in an irresistibly arresting manner. The gorgeous visuals in the film also complement the story marvellously.
Before I go any further, I just wanna say that I know that this is formatted kinda like an essay and that I did use the word “essay” in the title. It’s not an essay. It’s more of a (somewhat) spontaneous profession of love for an overwhelmingly gorgeous film, with some reasoning added on the side to justify this love. By doing this, I’m gently forcing myself to look deeper into the film and the subtextual meaning contained within.
The film’s slow ramp-up into surrealism can be likened to a parent holding their child’s hand as their child slowly learns to walk. Eventually, the movie does let go, but it’s at a point where it knows that you as the viewer will feel safe enough to follow along without any support. The film begins in a seemingly mundane situation—a father dealing with the pressures of family life. The fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson describes the introductory aspect of a story as making a series of promises to the person/s consuming your story. These promises give the audience an indication of everything in your story, from the tone to the plot to the visual style. In this case, the film seems to be promising a story that explores the dramatic tensions of family life. So how does Kaufman shatter the limitations of this promise without jarring the audience?
Well, the truth is that I’m not entirely sure that he does shatter the limitations of the promise. In fact, I’m not even sure that a promise has limitations. However, the seed of the promise must still be fulfilled, and one could easily argue that it is. After all, the cast and crew of the play do function as a sort of family for Caden. But Kaufman transcends this promise, moulding and stretching it with every scene, and the film eventually becomes a film about the dramatic tensions of life. As Roger Ebert put it in his review of this film “the subject of ‘Synecdoche, New York’ is nothing less than human life and how it works”.
Thematically, this film is a gold mine. What film wouldn’t be, when it explores literally life itself? To me, the most interesting aspect of this film is the way it portrays the futility of Caden’s artistic dream of replicating every single detail of human life in his play. Caden is (intentionally) a faceless protagonist. He exists as a placeholder for the viewer to insert themselves into. So when he attempts to achieve his goal of mounting a play that captures every aspect of his life and every aspect of every person in his life and every aspect of every person that is related to every person in Caden’s life and so on and on, we root for him to succeed. We root for ourselves to succeed.
Obviously, we never do. Such a goal is impossible. But that is beside the point. It is the journey that matters, not the destination. It has been repeatedly noted online that this is a film about the cyclical nature of life and death, that life is tied into death and that death is tied into life. Synecdoche is about that, but it takes it so much further. This film functions as a cautionary tale, a warning that we should not attempt to capture and preserve life (as that is and of itself a futile act) and that we should instead experience it and live it.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s performance in this film is brilliant and vital. I would go so far as to say that if his performance had been any less perfect, the entire film would not work. As I said earlier, Caden is the audience’s entry point into this film. A common problem with “entry points” such as this one arises from the extent to which the character is given definition. If they are too defined, the audience will not be able to insert themselves into the character’s situation, whereas if they are too faceless, the audience will see them as bland and uninteresting. Now, some of the responsibility is down to the writing for sure, but a large proportion of this responsibility falls down to the actor’s performance.
Hoffman walks this line without making a single misstep. The subtlety with which he portrays Caden and the control over everything that he demonstrates is utterly stunning. He manages to make Caden a character that could very well be a human person that exists now, while simultaneously imbuing him with the aforementioned unmoulded wax figure feel. I am completely unsure as to how Hoffman does this. I have no skill in acting whatsoever, and any observation I could make on this would most likely be wrong. Having said this, I think (and I really, really, really, want to stress think) that it’s due to the fact that when he plays Caden, Hoffman only operates within a certain range of very subtle, slightly muted expressions of the character’s emotions.
We sometimes see films that do not necessarily use the primarily visual medium of cinema to its full extent, and we are sometimes left wondering if the film’s plot would’ve been better suited to the format of a novel. This is not the case with Synecdoche, New York. Synecdoche uses its visuals to pack the film with themes and ideas that are almost never explicitly alluded to by the characters. An example of this is the burning house which Hazel purchases. It seemingly does not have any connection to the rest of the story and is only explicitly referenced by the characters in the scene once.
I really believe that everyone should watch this film at least once. I know that Synecdoche could potentially be viewed as depressing by some, but nobody could say that this is a boring film. There’s just too much subtle stuff going on any one point in time for anyone to be bored. I often say that those “dry” masterpieces are only dry because the filmmakers only gave thought to the subtext, and little to no thought was given to the “text” itself. This film is the opposite of a dry masterpiece. Even if you don’t care about the subtextual meaning, you will be drawn in by the human-centred conflict that is at the core of it all.
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