Word: caden
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...point, “Synecdoche, New York” has a place in the genealogy of Kaufman’s work only insofar as it takes the personal context of those earlier films and erases them.The story itself is as complex as Kaufman fans have come to expect. Caden Cotard (Hoffman) immerses himself in his work to escape his failed marriage. His sudden, debilitating loneliness amplifies and resonates with his obsession with the various frailties of the human form—injury, lesions, seizures—all of which Caden suffers from at one point or another. The rapidity...
...Synecdoche, as you'll remember from seventh grade grammar class, is a figure of speech substituting the part for the whole (using "hands" for "sailors" in "all hands on deck"). Caden's parts, you could say, are irrevocably crumbling into a black hole of depression. Some of the movie's parts may stir confusion in the viewer, but the whole is clear: Caden is losing his spirit, his determination and his mind...
...obvious inspiration is Federico Fellini's 8-1/2, in which Guido, a moviemaker with director's block, is beset by memories and fantasies as he dodges all the women in his life, from mother to wife to whore to mistress to muse. Caden has women problems (wife, daughter, mistress, actress); but Synecdoche, bless it, doesn't demean or dismiss any of them - except maybe the family shrink (Hope Davis), who tells Caden her new best-selling book can help him, then charges him $45 for a copy. And this artist's problem is not the lack of an idea...
...with 8-1/2 and other challenging films of its time, Synecdoche poses cosmic questions about itself. Are we being shown Caden's imagination or projection of the rest of his life? Is the film fantasy or dread, or is it real? The answer, of course, is that it's a movie, which need only create an alternate world, populate it with memorable characters, and be true to its internal logic, however skewed. Kaufman has constructed a most devious puzzle, a labyrinth of an endangered mind. Yet it's one that - thanks in large part to a superb cast...
...difference between 8-1/2 and other films, like It's a Wonderful Life, where the hero teeters on the precipice of suicide: It doesn't send in the clowns, or dispatch a bumbling angel, But Synecdoche is less forgiving of Caden than 8-1/2 is of Guido. Kaufman says that life is a series of lost chances, of doors closing, until some unseen prompter whispers a final word in your ear: "Die." The apparent bleakness of the film's ending - which is the ending we all must face - led many observers at Cannes, where the film...