November 12, 2013 (XXVII:12) Charlie Kaufman, SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (2008, 124 min)

Directed by Charlie Kaufman Written by Charlie Kaufman Produced by Spike Jonze, Chatlie Kaufman, Sidney Kimmel Cinematography by Frederick Elmes Music by Jon Brion Production Design by Mark Friedberg Art Direction by Adam Stockhausen Set Decoration by Lydia Marks Philip Seymour Hoffman...Caden Cotard Catherine Keener...Adele Lack Sadie Goldstein...Olive (4 years old) Tom Noonan...Sammy Barnathan Michelle Williams...Claire Keen Samantha Morton...Hazel Hope Davis...Madeleine Gravis Jennifer Jason Leigh...Maria Emily Watson...Tammy Dianne Wiest...Ellen Bascomb / Millicent Weems CHARLIE KAUFMAN (Director, Writer, Producer) (b. Charles Stewart Kaufman, November 19, 1958 in New York City, New York) won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Writing in an Original Screenplay for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which he shared with Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth (story). He wrote 14 films and TV shows: 2013 “How and Why” (TV Movie, pre-production), Anomalisa (filming), 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2006 “Moral Orel” (TV Series), 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2002 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, 2002 Adaptation., 2001 Human Nature, 1999 Being John Malkovich, 1996-1997 “Ned and Stacey” (TV Series), 1996 “The Dana Carvey Show” (TV Series, 8 episodes), 1993 “The Trouble with Larry” (TV Series), 1992-1993 “The Edge” (TV Series, 20 episodes), and 1991-1992 “Get a Life” (TV Series). In addition to writing, Kaufman has produced 7 films and TV shows: 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2002 Adaptation., 2001 Human Nature, 1999 Being John Malkovich, 1996-1997 “Ned and Stacey” (TV Series, 22 episodes), and 1995 “Misery Loves Company” (TV Series, 6 episodes). He also directed 2013 “How

and Why” (TV Movie), Anomalisa, and 2008 Synecdoche, New York. SPIKE JONZE (Producer) (b. Adam Spiegel, October 22, 1969 in Rockville, Maryland) has directed 39 films and videos, including 2013 Her, 2012 Pretty Sweet, 2011 “Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win” (Short), 2009 Where the Wild Things Are, 2009 “Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak” (TV Movie documentary short), 2004 “Corporate Ghost” (Video), 2003 “Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks” (Video documentary), 2002 Adaptation., 2002 “Björk: Volumen Plus” (Video short), 2000 “Beastie Boys: Video Anthology” (Video documentary), 1999 Being John Malkovich, 1999 “An Intimate Look Inside the Acting Process with Ice Cube” (Video documentary short), 1994 “Beastie Boys: Sabotage” (Video short), and 1994 “Ciao L.A.” (Video short). He has also produced 25 films, videos, and documentaries, including 2013 Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, 2012 Pretty Sweet, 2011 A Tribute to Ryan Dunn, 2010 Jackass 3D, 2010 “Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life” (Video short), 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2007 “Jackass 2.5” (Video documentary), 2001 Human Nature, and 1997 “Mouse” (Video documentary short). He has also appeared in 17 films and TV shows, among them 2013 The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013 Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, 2010-2012 “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret” (TV Series, 8 episodes), 2011 “Mourir auprès de toi” (Short), 2010 “The Vampire Attack” (Video short), 2009 Where the Wild Things Are, 1999 Three

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Kings, 1999 Being John Malkovich, 1997 The Game, and 1993 Mi vida loca. SIDNEY KIMMEL (Producer) has produced 43 films, including 2014 Walk of Shame, 2013 Brilliant, 2013 Parker, 2012 Gone, 2011 Moneyball, 2009 Adventureland, 2008 All God's Children Can Dance, 2008 Management, 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2007 The Kite Runner, 2007 Talk to Me, 2007 Death at a Funeral, 2006 Alpha Dog, 2005 Slow Burn, and 2000 Famous. JON BRION (Music) (b. Jon Wright Brion, December 11, 1963 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey) has composed music for 20 films and TV shows, including 2012 This Is 40, 2012 ParaNorman, 2011 The Future, 2010 The Other Guys, 2008 Step Brothers, 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2006 The Break-Up, 2004 I Heart Huckabees, 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2002 Punch-Drunk Love, 2000 “BTM2” (TV Series, 12 episodes), 1999 Magnolia, and 1996 Hard Eight. FREDERICK ELMES (Cinematography) (b. November 4, 1946 in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey) has been cinematographer for 49 films, among them 2013 Horns, 2012 A Late Quartet, 2010 A. Hitler, 2009 Brothers, 2009 A Dog Year, 2009 Bride Wars, 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2006 The Namesake, 2005 Broken Flowers, 2004 Kinsey, 2003 Coffee and Cigarettes, 2003 Hulk, 2001 Storytelling, 1999 Ride with the Devil, 1998 “The Wedding” (TV Movie), 1997 The Ice Storm, 1995 Reckless, 1991 Night on Earth, 1990 Wild at Heart, 1988 Moonwalker, 1988 Permanent Record, 1987 “Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8” (TV Movie), 1987 Heaven, 1986 Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, 1986 Blue Velvet, 1983 Citizen: The Political Life of Allard K. Lowenstein, 1983 Valley Girl, 1977 Eraserhead, and 1970 Street Scenes. MARK FRIEDBERG (Production Design) has been the production designer for 41 films and TV shows, including 2015 Live by Night (pre-production), 2014 The Amazing Spider-Man 2, 2011 New Year's Eve, 2011 “Mildred Pierce” (TV Mini-Series, 5 episodes), 2010 The Tempest, 2009 State of Play, 2009 Tenderness, 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2007 Across the Universe, 2007 The Darjeeling Limited, 2005 The Producers, 2005 Broken Flowers, 2004 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, 2003 Coffee and Cigarettes, 2002 Far from Heaven, 2000 Pollock, 1999 Ride with the Devil, 1998 “Sex and the City” (TV Series), 1997 The Ice Storm, 1996 I'm Not Rappaport, 1996 Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, 1993 The Ballad of Little Jo, 1992 In the Soup, 1991 “Walking the Dog” (Short), 1990 A Matter of Degrees, and 1988 Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen.

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN...Caden Cotard (b. July 23, 1967 in Fairport, New York) received the 2006 Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Capote (2005). He has appeared in 62 films and television shows, including 2015 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (filming), 2014 God's Pocket (filming), 2014 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (filming), 2013 The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, 2012 The Master, 2011 Moneyball, 2009 The Invention of Lying, 2008 Doubt, 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2007 Charlie Wilson's War, 2007 Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, 2006 Mission: Impossible III, 2005 Capote, 2005 Strangers with Candy, 2004 Along Came Polly, 2003 Cold Mountain, 2002 25th Hour, 2002 Red Dragon, 2002 Punch-Drunk Love, 2000 Almost Famous, 1999 The Talented Mr.

Ripley, 1999 Magnolia, 1998 Patch Adams, 1998 The Big Lebowski, 1997 Boogie Nights, 1996 Hard Eight, 1994 Nobody's Fool, 1994 When a Man Loves a Woman, 1994 The Getaway, 1992 Scent of a Woman, 1992 My New Gun, and 1991 “Law & Order” (TV Series). CATHERINE KEENER...Adele Lack (b. Catherine Ann Keener, March 23, 1959 in Miami, Florida) has

appeared in 65 films and TV shows, including 2013 Captain Phillips, 2013 The Croods, 2012 A Late Quartet, 2010 Trust, 2009 Where the Wild Things Are, 2009 The Soloist, 2008 A Summer in Genoa, 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2008 Hamlet 2, 2007 Into the Wild, 2005 Capote, 2005 The 40-Year-Old Virgin, 2005 The Interpreter, 2002 Full Frontal, 1999 Being John Malkovich, 1997 The Real Blonde, 1996 The Destiny of Marty Fine, 1993 The Cemetery Club, 1992 “Seinfeld” (TV Series), 1991 Johnny Suede, 1988-1989 “Knightwatch” (TV Series), 1988 Survival Quest, 1987 Ohara (TV Series, 11 episodes), and 1986 About Last Night... TOM NOONAN...Sammy Barnathan (b. April 12, 1951 in Greenwich, Connecticut) has appeared in 73 films and TV shows, among them 2011-2012 “Hell on Wheels” (TV Series, 17 episodes), 2009-2011 “Damages” (TV Series, 17 episodes), 2011 “TV You Control: Bar Karma” (TV Series), 2009 The House of the Devil, 2008 The Alphabet Killer, 2008 “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (TV Series), 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2006 Seraphim Falls, 2006 “Ice Cream Ants” (Short), 2003 Madness and Genius, 2003 “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (TV Series), 2003 The Egoists, 2002 “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (TV Series), 2001 The Pledge, 2000 The Photographer, 1999 The Astronaut's Wife, 1996 “The X-Files” (TV Series), 1993 Last Action Hero, 1989 Collision Course, 1986 Manhunter, 1986 F/X, 1985 The Man with One Red Shoe, and 1980 Heaven's Gate.

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MICHELLE WILLIAMS...Claire Keen (b. Michelle Ingrid Williams, September 9, 1980 in Kalispell, Montana) has appeared in 43 films and television shows, including 2013 Oz the Great and Powerful, 2013 “Cougar Town” (TV Series), 2011 My Week with Marilyn, 2010 Meek's Cutoff, 2010 Shutter Island, 2009 “GREED, a New Fragrance by Francesco Vezzoli” (Short), 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2008 Deception, 2007 I'm Not There., 2005 Brokeback Mountain, 2004 Land of Plenty, 2004 A Hole in One, 1998-2003 “Dawson's Creek” (TV Series, 128 episodes), 2003 The Station Agent, 2001 Prozac Nation, 1999 Dick, 1997 A Thousand Acres, 1995 “Home Improvement” (TV Series), 1993 “Baywatch” (TV Series). SAMANTHA MORTON...Hazel (b. Samantha-Jane Morton, May 13, 1977 in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England) has appeared in 44 films and TV shows, among them 2014 Miss Julie, 2013 Decoding Annie Parker, 2002-2013 “Max and Ruby” (TV Series, 18 episodes), 2012 John Carter, 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2007 Elizabeth: The Golden Age, 2007 Mister Lonely, 2005 Lassie, 2004 The Libertine, 2002 In America, 2002 Minority Report, 1999 Jesus' Son, 1999 Sweet and Lowdown, 1997 Under the Skin, 1997 “Jane Eyre” (TV Movie), 1995-1996 “Band of Gold” (TV Series, 12 episodes), and 1991 “Boon” (TV Series). HOPE DAVIS...Madeleine Gravis (b. March 23, 1964 in Englewood, New Jersey) has appeared in 44 films and TV shows, including 2012-2013 “The Newsroom” (TV Series), 2013 “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (TV Series), 2012 Disconnect, 2011 Real Steel, 2011 “Mildred Pierce” (TV Mini-Series), 2009 “In Treatment” (TV Series, 7 episodes), 2009 The Lodger, 2008 A Summer in Genoa, 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2007 Charlie Bartlett, 2006 The Hoax, 2006 Infamous, 2005 Proof, 2005 The Matador, 2003 American Splendor, 2002 The Secret Lives of Dentists, 2002 About Schmidt, 2001 Hearts in Atlantis, 2000-2001 “Deadline” (TV Series, 13 episodes), 2000 Joe Gould's Secret, 1999 Arlington Road, 1998 The Impostors, 1997 The Myth of Fingerprints, 1996 Mr. Wrong, 1995 Kiss of Death, 1990 Home Alone, and 1990 Flatliners. JENNIFER JASON LEIGH...Maria (b. Jennifer Lee Morrow, February 5, 1962 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California) has appeared in 86 films and TV shows, including 2013 Jake Squared, 2013 Hateship Loveship, 2013 The Moment, 2013 Kill Your Darlings, 2012 “Revenge” (TV Series, 7 episodes), 2009-2012 “Weeds” (TV Series, 16 episodes), 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2007 Margot at the Wedding, 2005 The Jacket, 2004 The Machinist, 2002 Road to Perdition, 2001 The Quickie, 2001 The Man Who Wasn't There, 1997 A Thousand Acres, 1997

Washington Square, 1995 Georgia, 1995 Dolores Claiborne, 1994 Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, 1994 The Hudsucker Proxy, 1993 Short Cuts, 1992 Single White Female, 1991 Backdraft, 1989 Last Exit to Brooklyn, 1988 Heart of Midnight, 1986 The Men's Club, 1983 Easy Money, 1982 Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1981 “The Killing of Randy Webster” (TV Movie), 1981 Eyes of a Stranger, and 1976 The Spy Who Never Was. EMILY WATSON...Tammy (b. Emily Anita Watson, January 14, 1967 in Islington, London, England) has appeared in 43 films and television shows, among them 2013 The Book Thief, 2013

“The Politician's Husband” (TV Mini-Series), 2013 Molly Moon: The Incredible Hypnotist (post-production), 2013 Belle (post-production), 2013 “The Politician's Husband” (post-production), 2013 Little Boy (post-production), 2013 Some Girl(s), 2012 Anna Karenina, 2011 War Horse, 2011 “Appropriate Adult”, 2010 Oranges and Sunshine, 2010 Cemetery Junction, 2009 Within the Whirlwind, 2009 Cold Souls, 2008 Synecdoche,

New York, 2008 “The Memory Keeper's Daughter”, 2008 Fireflies in the Garden, 2007 The Water Horse, 2006 Miss Potter, 2006 Crusade in Jeans, 2005 Separate Lies, 2005 The Proposition, 2005 Corpse Bride, 2005 Wah-Wah, 2004 The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, 2004 Boo, Zino & the Snurks, 2003 Blossoms & Blood (video short), 2002 Equilibrium, 2002 Red Dragon, 2002 Punch-Drunk Love, 2001 Gosford Park, 2000 The Luzhin Defence, 2000 Trixie, 1999 Angela's Ashes, 1999 Cradle Will Rock, 1998 Hilary and Jackie, 1997 The Boxer, 1997 Metroland, 1997 “The Mill on the Floss”, 1996 Breaking the Waves, and 1994 “A Summer Day's Dream.” DIANNE WIEST...Ellen Bascomb / Millicent Weems (b. March 28, 1948 in Kansas City, Missouri) won two Academy Awards, in 1995 for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Bullets Over Broadway (1994), and in 1987 for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). She has appeared in 54 films and television shows, including 2012 The Odd Life of Timothy Green, 2011 The Big Year, 2010 Rabbit Hole, 2008-2009 “In Treatment” (TV Series, 17 episodes), 2008 Passengers, 2008 Synecdoche, New York, 2008 “The Return of Jezebel James” (TV Series), 2001-2002 “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (TV Series), 2000-2002 “Law & Order” (TV Series, 48 episodes), 2001 “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (TV Series), 2000 “The 10th Kingdom” (TV Mini-Series, 9 episodes), 1998 The Horse Whisperer, 1996 The Birdcage, 1995 Drunks, 1994 Bullets Over Broadway, 1991 Little Man Tate, 1990 Edward Scissorhands, 1989 Cookie, 1988 Bright Lights, Big City, 1987 The Lost Boys, 1987 Radio Days, 1986 Hannah and Her Sisters, 1985 The Purple Rose of Cairo, 1983 Independence

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Day, 1982 I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, 1980 It's My Turn, and 1975 “Zalmen: or, The Madness of God” (TV Movie). Philip French, in The Observer:

Schenectady in upstate New York is the hometown of Henry James's Daisy Miller and site of Union College, where Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand meet as pre-war undergraduates in The Way We Were. It is also home to troubled playwright Caden Cotard (the always excellent Philip Seymour Hoffman), hero of Synecdoche, New York, the fascinating directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman, author of such philosophical and psychological comedies as Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Caden is a recently popular first name in the States, possibly deriving from the Gaelic for "battle". Cotard's Syndrome, named after a 19th-century French neurologist, is a neuropsychiatric condition in which the patient believes he is dead, does not exist or is putrefying.

One of those grammatical terms we casually worked into scholarship papers as sixth-formers and later forgot, synecdoche is a figure of speech in which the part stands in for the whole or the whole for a part. Should this film prove widely popular (about as likely as The Satanic Verses becoming a set text at a co-educational university in Riyadh), we may be faced with films called "Metonymy, Missouri", "Tmesis, Tennessee" and "Litotes, Louisiana".

Caden Cotard is an intellectual, a secular Jew, a hypochondriac in midlife crisis, much like Woody Allen's Alvy Singer in Annie Hall, the working title of which was 'Anhedonia', a psychological term for the condition of not being able to experience pleasure from normal pleasurable activities. He sees death and decay all around him as he directs a revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at a Schenectady theatre, deliberately casting young actors as middle-aged characters and having Willy Loman crash his car on stage.

The first thing the shambling, overweight Caden does each morning is look at the obituary pages where Harold Pinter turns up in the opening sequence. An ER doctor, who's stitching a cut Caden's received in a bathroom accident, sends him to an ophthalmologist, who passes him on to a neurologist. Very soon, he's plagued by boils and explaining to his four-year-old daughter the difference between "psychosis", which he may have, and its homophone "sycosis" (a bacterial infection of the skin), which he does have. There's little sympathy at home from his painter wife (Catherine Keener), and Caden finds solace in the company of the theatre box-office clerk, Hazel (Samantha Morton), whom he encourages to improve her quality of life by reading Kafka.

So far, so well observed and amusing. Then the movie takes off on another tack. Caden's wife decides to pursue her

career in Germany, taking their daughter with her. Everyday reality begins to look a little surreal. Hazel, for instance, buys a house that is full of fire and smoke, a matter which she and the seller take for granted. Then the desperate, unhinged Caden receives one of those multimillion-dollar "genius grants" from the MacArthur Foundation that will permit him to release his

artistic dreams. But what does he want to do? Well, the answer is to discover his real identity, to find himself as an artist through the realisation of a gigantic project, the theatrical equivalent of the Great American Dream.

The film at this point enters on metaphysical, epistemological and eschatological matters as Caden purchases a giant New York warehouse large enough to contain a sizable airship (at one point a zeppelin flies over

Manhattan) and engages an army of actors to perform his work in progress. He marries, separates, attends his parents' funerals, changes the subject of his magnum opus and reconstructs his life in the warehouse, with another actor (Tom Noonan) playing him. He's getting old; after 17 years, the play is still not ready to come before an audience. By contrast, Caden's wife paints pictures so small you need jeweller's glasses to see them.

Caden's existence and his play become coterminous, the enormous set taking in both meanings of synecdoche. The movie is at various times intriguing, funny, disturbing, eerie and occasionally irritating. Is life a dream as the Spanish playwrights thought? Is everyone the hero of their own drama and an extra in everyone else's? Are we all sad Willy Lomans, doomed to failure? Is the only drama a short journey from birth to death over which we have no control?

The movie explores ideas and conventions that became fashionable in 20th-century drama and fiction. There is Borges's fable about the map commissioned by a king that is the size of the world itself, its fragments now scattered to the four corners. There is, too, Edward Albee's play Tiny Alice, the subject of heated discussion in 1964, in which the set contains a large model of the house in which the drama is enacted. One also recalls David Ely's SF novella Time Out, in which a team of US scholars is called in to reconstruct the British Isles after a nuclear holocaust. More recently, men play God in The Truman Show, while the funnier and slighter Groundhog Day touches on WB Yeats's challenge: "The intellect of man is forced to choose/ Perfection of the life or of the work."

Anyway, this is a movie designed to provoke, entertain and infuriate, that boldly goes into areas where few films from the English-speaking world nowadays dare penetrate. Incidentally, talking of Star Trek, it's been brought to my attention that the new voyage of USS Enterprise ends by changing "no man" to "no one" in "where no man has gone before". Roger Ebert on Synecdoche, New York:

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I think you have to see Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" twice. I watched it the first time and knew it was a great film and that I had not mastered it. The second time because I needed to. The third time because I will want to. It will open to confused audiences and live indefinitely. A lot of people these days don't even go to a movie once. There are alternatives. It doesn't have to be the movies, but we must somehow dream. If we don't "go to the movies" in any form, our minds wither and sicken.

This is a film with the richness of great fiction. Like Suttree, the Cormac McCarthy novel I'm always mentioning, it's not that you have to return to understand it. It's that you have to return to realize how fine it really is. The surface may daunt you. The depths enfold you. The whole reveals itself, and then you may return to it like a talisman.

Wow, is that ever not a "money review." Why will people hurry along to what they expect to be trash, when they're afraid of a film they think may be good? The subject of "Synecdoche, New York" is nothing less than human life and how it works. Using a neurotic theater director from upstate New York, it encompasses every life and how it copes and fails. Think about it a little and, my god, it's about you. Whoever you are. Here is how life is supposed to work. We come out of ourselves and unfold into the world. We try to realize our desires. We fold back into ourselves, and then we die. "Synecdoche, New York" follows a life that ages from about 40 to 80 on that scale. Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a theater director, with all of the hangups and self-pity, all the grandiosity and sniffles, all the arrogance and fear, typical of his job. In other words, he could be me. He could be you. The job, the name, the race, the gender, the environment, all change. The human remains pretty much the same.

Here is how it happens. We find something we want to do, if we are lucky, or something we need to do, if we are like most people. We use it as a way to obtain food, shelter, clothing, mates, comfort, a first folio of Shakespeare, model airplanes, American Girl dolls, a handful of rice, sex, solitude, a trip to Venice, Nikes, drinking water, plastic surgery, child care, dogs, medicine, education, cars, spiritual solace -- whatever we think we need. To do this, we enact the role we call "me," trying to brand ourselves as a person who can and should obtain these things.

In the process, we place the people in our lives into compartments and define how they should behave to our advantage. Because we cannot force them to follow our desires,

we deal with projections of them created in our minds. But they will be contrary and have wills of their own. Eventually new projections of us are dealing with new projections of them.

Sometimes versions of ourselves disagree. We succumb to temptation -- but, oh, father, what else was I gonna do? I feel like hell. I repent. I'll do it again.

Hold that trajectory in mind and let it interact with age, discouragement, greater wisdom and more uncertainty. You will understand what "Synecdoche, New York" is trying to say about the life of Caden Cotard and the lives in his lives. Charlie Kaufman is one of the few truly important writers to make screenplays his medium. David Mamet is another. That is not the same as a great writer (Faulkner, Pinter, Cocteau) who writes screenplays. Kaufman is writing in the upper reaches with Bergman. Now for the first time he directs.

It is obvious that he has only one subject, the mind, and only one plot, how the mind negotiates with reality, fantasy, hallucination, desire and dreams. "Being John Malkovich." "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." "Adaptation." "Human

Nature." "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." What else are they about? He is working in plain view. In one film, people go inside the head of John Malkovich. In another, a writer has a twin who does what he cannot do. In another, a game show host is, or thinks he is, an international spy. In "Human Nature," a man whose childhood was shaped by domineering parents trains white mice to sit down at a tiny table and always employ the right silverware. Is behavior learned or enforced? "Synecdoche, New York" is not a film about the theater, although it looks like one. A theater director is an ideal character for representing the role Kaufman thinks we all play. The magnificent sets, which stack independent rooms on top of one another, are the compartments we assign to our life's enterprises. The actors are the people in roles we cast from our point of view. Some of them play doubles assigned to do what there's not world enough and time for. They have a way of acting independently, in violation of instructions. They try to control their own projections. Meanwhile, the source of all this activity grows older and tired, sick and despairing. Is this real or a dream? The world is but a stage, and we are mere actors upon it. It's all a play. The play is real.

This has not been a conventional review. There is no need to name the characters, name the actors, assign adjectives to their acting. Look at who is in this cast. You know what I think of them. This film must not have seemed strange to them. It's

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what they do all day, especially waiting around for the director to make up his mind.

What does the title mean? It means it's the title. Get over it.

ONLY TWO MORE IN THE FALL 2013 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXVII:

November 19 Wim Wenders Pina 2011 November 26 Baz Luhrmann The Great Gatsby 2013

The online PDF files of these handouts have color images

COMING UP IN THE SPRING 2014 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXVIII:

January 28 Josef von Sternberg, Underworld, 1927, 81 minutes February 4 Jean Cocteau, Orpheus, 1950, 95min

February 11 Kenji Mizoguchi, The Life of Oharu, 1952, 136 min February 18 Satyajit Ray, Charulata/The Lonely Wife, 1964, 119 minutes

February 25 Metin Erksan, Dry Summer, 1964, 90 min March 4 Monte Hellman, Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971, 103 min

March 11 John Cassavetes, Killing of a Chinese Bookie, 1976, 135 min Spring break March 17-22

March 25 Agnes Varda, Vagabond, 1985, 105 min April 1 Gabriell Axel, Babette’s Feast, 1987, 104min

April 8 Louis Malle, Vanya on 42nd Street, 1994, 119 min April 15 Wes Anderson, The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001, 110 min

April 22 Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada, 2005, 120 min April 29 José Padilha, Elite Squad, 2007, 115 min

May 6 John Huston, The Dead, 1987 83 min

CONTACTS: ...email Diane Christian: engdc@buffalo.edu

…email Bruce Jackson bjackson@buffalo.edu ...for the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com

...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto list@buffalofilmseminars.com ....for cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/

The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center

and State University of New York at Buffalo with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News