Darwin Deez

Andrew Hoepfner:

for a most of the movie, i was frustrated because i thought that i had missed the Rosetta stone. why was the house on fire? why was Caden animated in the cartoons? had the play already started at the beginning of the movie? but the earpiece ending and the golf cart in the apocalypse monologue really got me. made it all worthwhile. and now i’m really enjoying the processing of it.

Darwin Smith:

wow i don’t remember animation or the golf cart, are they driving around the set in a golf cart when he’s old?

the feeling of confusion is totally intentional i think. it’s a frustrating thing for Caden, his life and work. he doesn’t understand “it” either. that plus it’s just like pure modernism i think, the room being on fire and stuff

Andrew Hoepfner:

i’m starting to read the analysis this morn, and i read that one of Kaufman’s responses to “what’s the significance / meaning of the house on fire? was it real? etc” was “who cares?” 🙂

the golf cart was that last scene before he found the actress and died. driving around the set.

and the animation was at the beginning. his daughter was watching that sheep cartoon during breakfast, and Caden was in it

there were a lot of permutations of that. Caden seeing a graphic of himself on the self help website’s reviews immediately upon receiving the book

Darwin Smith:

hmm ok i forgot that

i remember being fairly destroyed (after having watched zeitgeist and everything) about the way MARTIAL LAW, food rations and civil unrest just casually happened in the background. that was p devastating

Andrew Hoepfner:

yeah. i liked how as Caden experienced his private weakness and dying in that little apartment / closet towards the end, you can hear explosions and shouts of “Freedom!” from the outside, but they don’t even seem to matter

Darwin Smith:

shit is fucking genius. the screenwriting is two steps ahead. feels so original and satisfying and modern to be stunned by writing like that, i love it so much it’s so hard to do

now do you see my one critique of it? look at real suffering in the real world as it happens in the third world and in black america. there is in reality much joy there. hardship brings human beings together in a deep way. this movie just presupposes that none of that touches this guy’s soul/life. but the truth is the harder your life is, the more empathy you have for others (up to a point). black joy, look at black churches. totally absent from this narrative. which stops it from being devastating AND totally true. it’s a conceit but it’s a good one and it’s still an amazing movie based around that crushing and sometimes true-ish “what if”

Andrew Hoepfner:

so you’re saying that Caden’s hardship doesn’t bring him joy or empathy? or that Caden doesn’t acknowledge that other groups with more hardship are reacting differently? or both?

Darwin Smith:

i think in actual reality life is not QUITE so joyless, but i see the joylessness kaufmann is showing and it does resonate as painfully true also

Andrew Hoepfner:

i wonder if he sees life as so joyless, or if he was pointing out a temporary impression, and then keeping the whole movie on theme.

and what would it look like, to make a Synecdoche that includes the truth of the joy-through-hardship of the black church, living next door to the bleak misery of Caden?

Darwin Smith:

i think of it as sort of cultural criticism by way of taking to their logical conclusion the assumptions of what’s valuable and what’s not that underpin your average western mindset

what would it look like in the film you mean? it might be distracting. the sheer totality of the failure and misery is kind of the one thread that lets you begin to unravel the confusing and overwhelming experience of the film. seeing that you can start to ‘get it’

Andrew Hoepfner:

right. and it’s kind of interesting about the idea of including too much, including the misery and the joy of hardship, would weaken the film, because Synecdoche is already about how there are an unmanageable amount of story threads, protagonists, experiences. Caden is trying to duplicate reality as his art and he’s getting lost inside of the task. And now we’re thinking, if the film tried to include the joy, it’s artistic statement would get lost.

Darwin Smith:

hmm so either we’re wrong (adding joy would actually be ok) or his art still has its limits and follows certain rules/limitations. i mean there is some joy when the revolution is going well, but it’s way out of focus and in the background. so it would have to be joy internal to Caden’s life and that just can’t really be. we want it too badly as an audience. he can’t just give it to us without us then judging him (kaufmann) and resenting the writing for doing that. it’s like how movies with happy endings feel fake