Synecdoche

I can't believe how very affecting Synecdoche, New York was. It is almost certainly the best movie I've seen since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I feel certain that I can safely say that I will see anything that Charlie Kaufman ever writes, and will almost definitely love it.

I've only watched it once so far, but I'm going to buy the DVD today and I'll be watching it for many years to come. (Or will I?) Some things are fuzzy in my memory, and I'm sure I don't understand all of it yet, but I'd just like to write some things about it with the somewhat vague impressions I'm left with, mostly because I figure Charlie would respect that.

With every movie I watch that his mind was responsible for, I feel more and more connected with him, like we are very much alike in many ways. Not in terms of talent, of course, but rather in how we think about the world. I've seen a lot of comments in the light research I've done since watching this movie where others felt that this movie was written TO them, or FOR them. Without a doubt, I completely understand what they mean.

I'm a shy person. I could probably be diagnosed with Avoidant Personality Disorder if I thought it would do any good, but a label does nothing but put you neatly into a group so that assumptions can be made about you and you can feel better about all the horrible things you do to ruin your life.

Women are enigmas to me, and I long for love and connection with them. But at the same time, on some level, by experience and by reason, I know that my life will always be full of problems because of them, whether it's because I cannot attain connection with them or because the connection that I have with them is flawed. And I'm always waiting -- "for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right."

I don't know that I really like myself, and I'm sure that, even if I do, I'll always be unsure of myself.

It's hard for me to relate with others. I love people, but they scare me. All of them.

I'm a sad kind of person, generally, even though I think people are beautiful -- that the world is beautiful. I love life, even as it breaks my heart.

These are some of the things I've seen in Charlie Kaufman's "protagonists." Joel in Eternal Sunshine, "Charlie" in Adaptation, a few people in Being John Malkovich -- I identified with them all more than any other fictional characters that I can recall. At times, I even saw myself in Chuck Barris, oddly enough.

If Charlie Kaufman is not a lot like me, he sure as hell is good at writing characters who I can REALLY connect with, which is something that few screenwriters have been able to accomplish.

This movie succeeds again in that respect, I think. Maybe it's just because Caden is such a lonely mess. I'd have to watch it again to say for sure what it is that makes me empathize with him so much. Really, though, I think he was meant to be relatable to most people.

Since it is a glaring, important symbol, I'd like to address his name first: Caden Cotard.

First off, Caden's surname is undoubtedly of significance. The Cotard delusion is a condition in which a sufferer believes that he or she is dead. Some people think that this choice for a last name is meant to tell us that Caden is, in fact, afflicted with this delusion.

That seems too simple to me, though. It doesn't make sense to apply this to the film as a whole. First of all, there are too many motivations that seem to be driving Caden for me to accept that he simply believes he is dead. He has wishes and goals and behaves as though he believes he is alive on a literal level, although it is definitely not a stretch to say that he may FEEL that he is not. And I think that's the point. Nothing in the movie seems to be literal at all. It's symbols and metaphors, through and through. He's not dead, and he knows it, but he might as well be. The life that he's living is troubled and not at all what he wants. He tries to create a show, tries for all his life to do something that might make some meaningful impression on the world. He tries to figure it all out, get his shit together, direct people to say and do the right things so that his "play" will be something special, so that he can finally have an audience who appreciates his life as something more than what is seen. But he has no real control over the "actors," so things never do come together, and in the end, it makes no difference whether or not he ever existed at all.

Certainly a depressing picture to paint, but Kaufman has never shied away from pointing things like this out. And how many of us have felt this way? I think most people want to know that they'll be missed when they're gone, that they'll be remembered long after death. Even those who have resigned themselves, for one reason or another, to the conclusion that they will fade from the world as though they were never here usually want to make sure that certain loose ends are tied up -- peace is made with folks, loved ones are taken care of, and so on. We struggle to make these things happen, even though it won't matter to us one way or another once we actually die.

All this leads me to believe Kaufman chose "Caden" as a first name with knowledge of its etymology. I can't be sure, of course, but it makes sense to me. It apparently means "spirit of battle" or "little fighter." If what we do is meaningless in the end, why do so many of us struggle so much to bring meaning to our lives? Why bother at all? Why not just jump off a tall building and be done with it?

Caden, I believe, is supposed to be any one of us. A normal person in a normal life. And he's a little fighter in a BIG fight. Perhaps one we have no hope of winning.

On the other hand, I could just as easily accept that his first name was selected for ironic purposes. In certain respects, Caden does not fight; he accepts everything that happens to him, quite in spite of him having a role as a director. I can't think of a single time in the movie where he really takes control of any situation. (Again, I've only seen it once.) He may try occasionally, but when he fails, he pulls away.

Staying on the subject of names, I haven't seen many evaluations (disclaimer: which obviously doesn't mean there aren't any; I just haven't looked very hard yet) of the movie's title that went beyond "'synecdoche' sounds like 'Schenectady'," which, ya know, is true, but to attribute Kaufman choosing that name to a simple play on words is pretty lazy. I mean, in the film itself, the main character makes a big fuss over titles. It's clear to me that this was a perfect, well-thought-out choice that deserves some investigation.

"Synecdoche" is a new word for me, as it probably was for most people, so I had to look it up before the movie was even released. It sorta has a rather flexible definition and refers more to a type of figurative expression than any specific one.

Basically, anything where the name of a part of something and that something's whole, or a specific subset of something and a more general category to which it belongs, are used interchangeably is a synecdoche. The previous link has lots of examples, which I won't repeat here.

My first thought on learning this, though, is that the title actually is referring to New York City, rather than Schenectady. This makes sense even more in the context of this (beautiful) quote:

There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.

The population of NYC is approximately thirteen million. That's the only way I can come up with to make sense of that line. (And really, what's it matter what the setting is? "Everyone is everyone.") And when you put those puzzle pieces together, you get a wonderful string of connections: "the world" is equated to NYC -- a synecdoche; the title basically can be interpreted as referring to "New York, New York," wherein the same word denotes both part and larger, enveloping whole -- maybe not exactly a synecdoche, but something close; and Caden's theater, its own little world, built to represent NYC and, by extension, the world.

There are even more layers to it as well. To summarize the themes of the movie, it could be said that it is about "everything," and Caden attributes the same description to his unfinished play. It's about dating and love and life and so many other things... but it's not really everything. When he says that word, you know what he means, even though no movie or play can ever really be about EVERYTHING. But as humans, the stars of our own shows, we often think of "life" and "everything" as interchangeable terms.

Life is not everything, though. Nor is the world. We feel like it is, and we want to believe that it is, but we are really all alone and such a small part of the universe. In the minister's eulogy monologue, my absolute favorite moment in the film, he says:

Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born.

Millicent Weems, directing Caden through an earpiece, breaks the news to him:

Now it is waiting and nobody cares. And when your wait is over this room will still exist and it will continue to hold shoes and dress and boxes and maybe someday another waiting person. And maybe not. The room doesn't care either.

We are everything to ourselves and to no one else. Ever. No exceptions.

We're short-sighted in that way. We watch this movie about a man's life -- compressed down to two hours. We feel we know this man, having seen only this small chunk of what a full life is. Were he real, we might make the mistake of believing the film somehow IS him -- his essence, the meaning of his existence.

At the beginning of this essay, I mentioned all the ways in which I felt I actually knew the screenwriter of this and other movies in certain ways based on what it is that he wrote -- that small part of him and his life. I've seen other reviews of his movies that implied that their authors felt the very same thing. The characters in his movies, though, are merely his thoughts, and nothing more. Maybe they share some of his characteristics. Maybe they do some of the same things that he does. But they are not him. We just get so wrapped up in our own stories that we often fail to realize that what we see of people is only what they choose to show at the times when we are around them. We don't ever really know anyone. Everyone is only the ideas we have of them.

And I keep saying the word "story" because that's the way Caden puts it. I think we all know the feeling, don't we? If someone asked you, "What is your life?" you would likely answer by telling a story. That seems to be the best way we've found so far to relate our lives to others. I guess it's easy to say that we don't make much of a distinction between the story of our lives and the lives themselves.

I just can't fathom how Kaufman ever came up with such a perfect title. He's probably had a grin on his face from the very moment the idea came to him.

Of course, I find myself wondering if you could even really say that this movie tells a story. Is there anything at all that can be taken as a literal event? It would be nearly impossible to sit down and write a narrative that told the story of Synecdoche, New York, would it not? Sure, we could interpret and extrapolate and perhaps guess at what the literal story is. But it would be just that: a guess. There's not really a clear sequence of events that I can see. Cause and effect don't appear to be very firmly linked.

After the first twenty minutes of the movie, I was under the impression that this was some attempt at dramatizing Caden's life as he perceived it.

Everyone is just so honest and blunt, saying exactly what it is that they WANT to say. All the way through to the end, this quality seems to persist in the dialogue. I could maybe still accept this explanation, but I'd say that the more significant purpose of the characters is to represent any one of us and those we know. Caden and those who surround him are cartoon people in an informative diagram. They are placeholders. But people like myself have very emotional reactions to what we see because those placeholders could easily be us.

I was just divorced from my ex-wife a few months ago. I can say that the sadness and hope and anger that I saw in Caden when Adele was leaving were very representative of what I felt during that dark time in my own life. And to hear Adele say that she sometimes wished Caden would die so she could start over again, guilt-free -- even though my ex-wife was the one who initiated our divorce, I am both sad and a little bit ashamed to say that I thought the very same thing at the times I felt the most unhappy with my former spouse. Even when I was angry with her, I still couldn't help but feel wretchedly saddened by that realization. But these are the things that real people really think, whether they want to own up to it or not.

The movie also conveys very touchingly how it feels to love someone and to find yourself unable to be who he or she wants you to be. To long for that person. To try and try and try to win that person's heart and fail every time because you can't be someone you're not. To look somewhere else -- anywhere else -- in some lame attempt to replace what it is that you actually need. Again, how many people have felt this way? Isn't it nearly universal?

And all of us have bodies that break down. Hell, I'm in my mid-twenties, and I'm already feeling horribly old. I can't run without my knees hurting, my back hurts for weeks at a time for no apparent reason, and my hair's already getting thin. Parts of us eventually stop working that we assumed would always work. We go to doctor after doctor to try to fight the inevitable. We don't know what they're doing to us or what their words actually mean.

We're embarrassed by other people knowing that we're falling apart. We're afraid that we're dying over the smallest things. We watch the color of our poop because, well, you just never know what could go wrong next. And we basically just take it all as it comes and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

This is the misery that we all share.

You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone's everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It's yours. It is time for you to understand this.

Synecdoche, New York is without a doubt a very depressing movie. It is all hopeful struggle in the beginning, hopeless conflict in the middle, and loneliness and no hope in the end. I would contend that it is honest in its lack of hope, though, and that it isn't a downer movie merely for the sake of being a downer. It is meant to portray the tragic nature of life, because it can't end in any other way. And it always ends.

All those people we thought we knew, all those people we cared about -- they disappear, and we get more and more lonely. The scene where Caden walks out onto the street and sees no one but dead bodies brought tears to my eyes because he wasn't just alone; he was left to miss everyone who he'd known. Even if you're "lucky" enough to make it to an old age, you are surrounded by strangers. They might as well all be dead. You are left with nothing but the memories of loved ones, and when you get to that point, the world is simply empty.

As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time.

The meaning of the final scene in the movie isn't quite clear to me just yet. Is a perfect stranger, only heard of in a story, the person he loves in the end of his life? Is he just looking somewhere, anywhere, for company, for love, for connection? Would this be a sign that he realizes that the life of loneliness that he lived was only lonely because that is the path he chose for himself to take?

And did he really choose to take that path? It seems like the pivotal moment in his life really comes when he cries while he's having sex with Hazel, who is almost certainly the primary object of Caden's desires. It wasn't a choice, really, but it seems like Caden feels like it was. No doubt he regrets it. Would his life have turned out differently if he hadn't done that? Would he have ended up with Hazel? Would he have been happy?

When he saw that magazine article about Adele, it said something about her only wanting to be around happy, fun people. (Maybe not those exact words, but something close.) The importance of that statement, in my mind, relates directly to why he feels that Hazel doesn't reciprocate his love for her. He's a sad, desperate man. Who wants to be with someone like that?

But then, you have to consider, would he have been sad and desperate if things had worked out with Hazel? Might her presence in his life have made him more bearable to be around? One can only speculate.

Ultimately, I think Caden somehow accepts responsibility for his choices while simultaneously coming to the conclusion that he was wronged by forces beyond his control, that he never had a chance to make the choice that might have brought him and Hazel together. And this would be another link to the title's "Synecdoche", which is derived from Greek words that translate to "the acceptance of a part of the responsibility for something."

By crying in that single, irrevocable moment, he was unknowingly setting himself on the path to a terrible future. And he only cried because of his confusion -- because of being with a woman other than his wife, the absence of his wife and daughter, and all the other stresses of life. Speaking through the minister, he curses the nature of it all:

There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you'll never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce.

And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create.

It's definitely self-contradictory at first, but what I parse from this is: Sure, we may have some illusion of free will, and the choices that we make shape our future. But how comforting can that really be with the knowledge that the choices we are forced to make will have consequences we never could have forseen -- when we will never have the chance to correct any of our mistakes? If there is no such thing as fate, there might as well be. Once time has passed, it's passed for good.

What was once before you - an exciting, mysterious future - is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing.

So much of the movie revolves around the notion of time and its passing. There are obvious clues from the very beginning of the movie that the subjectivity of time is one of the themes that is being explored. The date changes by days (or weeks -- I'm not sure how far it goes) all during the course of a single breakfast.

Clocks and newspapers are the boring part of Kaufman's attempts at warping time in this film, though. I'm more touched by Claire's statement that she "used to be a baby," like it was some sort of shocking revelation. And by Caden's visions of his young and innocent daughter as her older, far less innocent self was dying. While this is definitely not the first time such a juxtaposition has been shown in a movie, it feels like it's written into this one with a higher purpose than simply pulling at one's heartstrings. It's strange the way that time changes us, even though we are somehow the same people that we've always been, and this scene puts that into perspective while also further displaying the limits of our ability to know other people, even those closest to us. To Caden, Olive is that little girl. That's the only way he's ever really known her. Again, she is to Caden only what Caden's idea of her consists of, which he never really got a chance to update because of the distance between them.

Anyway, I need to stop writing for now, but I want to get one more thought out because I think it's important.

I want to go back to the depressing nature of the film for just a moment. Make no mistake: it is a sad, sad movie if you really let it into your psyche. I've had my eyes well up with tears before, but this is the first movie I've ever seen that made me actually cry. It hurts because it takes the stuff that the optimistic part of you mind doesn't want to ever have to deal with and it punches you in the face with it, over and over and over again.

But when the credits stopped rolling and I got a grip on myself, I suddenly felt as though my spirit was truly lifted up. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but that is what I felt.

While the film speaks for our helpless isolation and the final meaninglessness of anything we struggle to do, you have to ask yourself, what possible reason could Charlie Kaufman have for trying to depress the living fuck out of as many people as he could manage to convince to watch this movie? If he's such a nihilist, why would he even bother to take the time and effort required to make this movie? Why communicate to people the utter hopelessness of their existence?

When I really sat down and thought about this movie, I get conflicting thoughts about nearly every conclusion that can be drawn from it. The message is that we're all alone, but if "everyone is everyone," don't we have a lot more in common than we realize? The message is that it doesn't matter what we do, but then shouldn't that just encourage us to try to live the lives that we want for ourselves? The message is that time is short, so shouldn't we try to make the best of what we have and stop worrying about whether or not we will be remembered?

But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope for something good to come along. Something to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved. And the truth is I'm so angry and the truth is I'm so fucking sad, and the truth is I've been so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long have been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own, and their own is too overwhelming to allow them to listen to or care about mine. Well, fuck everybody. Amen.

Am I just sitting around, wasting my time feeling sorry for myself, trying to get everyone else to understand how miserable my life is?

If we're all just waiting, maybe Kaufman is telling us to do something. Maybe he's trying to scare us and scream at us, "EVERYONE'S LIFE SUCKS, SO GET THE FUCK OVER IT AND LIVE!" Whether or not it's because it doesn't matter in the end, maybe that's what he's trying to say.

Or maybe I'm just missing the point entirely.