Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Genre: Drama / Comedy
Duration: 124 minuten
Country:
United States
Directed by: Charlie Kaufman
Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton and Michelle Williams
IMDb score:
7,5 (101.797)
Releasedate: 24 October 2008
Synecdoche, New York plot
Theater director Caden is busy getting some tricky things in his life in order. He tries to realize a lifelike replica of New York for his latest theater production, to keep the various women in his life under control and at the end of the day discuss everything (including why he thinks he is dying) with his therapist. .
Actors and actresses
Caden Cotard
Hazel
Maria
Claire Keen
Adele Lack
Tammy
Sammy Barnathan
Olive (4 years old)
Madeleine Gravis
Ellen Bascomb / Millicent Weems
Reviews & comments
De filosoof
-
- 2299 messages
- 1564 votes
This film is possibly the most bizarre but also the most brilliant film ever made. It is about the disintegrating director Caden who suffers from everything and loses everything and who decides to make a play that is 'real' in order to understand himself which gives an endless Droste effect: an actor has to play him and his life which then Because he plays the director, he has to hire a new actor himself to play him ad infinitum. What must be 'real' thus becomes an endless decline into unreality, so that the process does reflect the director's disintegration in a lifelike manner. The film is also about being lonely and not knowing the other, but that we are also in the same boat, so that we are everyone at the same time, which takes shape in the play because everyone plays the other.
The film is also about art that wants to express life but has to distance itself from life so that realism and fiction as well as art and psychosis naturally coincide: Caden's art does this by magnifying life and Adele's by means of miniatures. Ultimately, understanding ourselves coincides with our death; the end follows from the beginning, including our choices, and ultimately our death follows from our birth. The fact that we cannot (under) understand reality and that we can only create makes the film ultimately postmodern.
The film is brilliant in both its idea and its execution (even every sentence that is spoken is a gem), but also extraordinarily heavy: the film is so difficult that you hardly watch it for pleasure. But that is perhaps the real life of it, because life itself is no pleasure either.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Fisico (moderator films)
-
- 10017 messages
- 5398 votes
The title isn't, and neither is the film: Synecdoche, New York is a film that is difficult to fathom. Perhaps the masterpiece within the oeuvre of Charlie Kaufman or at least that was the intention. The potential for that is certainly there, but I don't know if it all comes across that way or is understood. It is a film full of good intentions, but of which I more than realize that I may have missed many layers of the film.
But what you can count on is that the film is expertly made. Also due to the star role of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays a star role as the somewhat melancholic Caden Cotard, not entirely coincidentally referring to the syndrome of .
It is an intriguing film with captivating dialogues where fiction and reality seem to be mixed up and where it is fascinating to see when stage director Cotard projects his own life in his play with the real people in his life and an actor who plays his part on takes. It's just a shame that the story didn't grab me enough, perhaps also because I wasn't fully involved. Though I'm not the only one I guess...
Translated from Dutch · View original
Lavrot
-
- 808 messages
- 0 votes
Not as punishment from the gods a stone roll up a mountain like Sisyphus, but capture reality with fiction, more in particular Caden Cotard's own world. A role tailor-made for PSH accompanied by a phenomenal female acting troupe. Caden's companion Adele reduces the naked truth to miniature works of art, while Caden blows his world up to superhuman proportions. Gradually, fiction mixes with reality and vice versa. A variant of "Where stars make dreams and dreams make stars" but that was a completely different film, although in that story the main character completely loses himself. In the end it all doesn't matter anymore, especially in the image of imminent death. What remains is the futility, the courageous effort, but above all a listening ear and a shoulder to rest the weary head. Not coincidentally on the shoulder of one Ellen as if it were that Caden ends up very small in a miniature of his own wife.
In a word: great movie!
Translated from Dutch · View original
Corporate & Media
Realtimes Network
Innovatieweg 20C
7007 CD, Doetinchem, Netherlands
+31(315)-764002
Realtimes Network
- Sign up |
- Contact Us |
- About Us |
- Advertise |
- Privacy |
- Disclaimer |
- RSS Feed
© 2025 MovieMeter B.V.