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Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York opens limited today. But before getting into my own complex, semi-enthused, slightly tortured feelings about this undeniably interesting, densely layered film, let me quote one of the greatest opening paragraphs of a N.Y. Times film review that I've ever read, written by Manohla Dargis and concerning, naturally, the matter at hand:
"To say that Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York is one of the best films of the year or even one closest to my heart is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now. That at least would be an appropriate response to a film about failure, about the struggle to make your mark in a world filled with people who are more gifted, beautiful, glamorous and desirable than the rest of us -- we who are crippled by narcissistic inadequacy, yes, of course, but also by real horror, by zits, flab and the cancer that we know (we know!) is eating away at us and leaving us no choice but to lie down and die."
That, ladies and germs, is what writing can be, needs to be, should be, and damn well ought to be at times. Perhaps even often.
But back to my own reaction, which I posted on the morning of Tuesday, 5.26, or four days after I saw it in Cannes, sitting in a sixth-floor studio apartment in the Montparnasse section of Paris. It was a partly...okay, 60% negative response, but I didn't intend to come down on the film in a scolding way, given that I enjoyed and even relished it in many respects.
To illustrate this point, here are three graphs (composed of this and that sentence rescrambled for maximum effect) from the original review:
Untitled from Hollywood Elsewhere on Vimeo
"I loved it in portions, understood the point of it, and was intrigued and somewhat amused by in the early rounds. An imaginative Alice in Wonderland-type thing, it has rich ideas and a certain fully worked-out totality. It is clearly smart-guy material, wise and witty, at times almost elevating, at times surreal, and with performances that strike the chords just so.
"I was especially wowed by a sermon scene that happens sometime in the last third. It's just some young bearded clerical letting go with the gospel according to Kaufman (we live in a gloomy, fearful universe), but the way it was written and performed made me feel alive and re-engaged. It encapsulates what's really good and special about the film.
"I was never exactly bored. In a way it's a riff on Federico Fellini's 8 and 1/2. It's been 45 years since that landmark film. Isn't it good for our collective moviegoing soul to wade through such films now and then?"
I'm basically saying I feel badly about having slammed it, given that I admire Kaufman and feel roused by Synecdoche's ambition. But I need to disagree with a claim made in Dargis's final graph, to wit:
"Despite its slippery way with time and space and narrative and Mr. Kaufman's controlled grasp of the medium, Synecdoche, New York is as much a cry from the heart as it is an assertion of creative consciousness. It's extravagantly conceptual but also tethered to the here and now, which is why, for all its flights of fancy, worlds within worlds and agonies upon agonies, it comes down hard for living in the world with real, breathing, embracing bodies pressed against other bodies. To be here now, alive in the world as it is rather than as we imagine it to be, seems a terribly simple idea, yet it's also the only idea worth the fuss, the anxiety of influence and all the messy rest, a lesson hard won for Caden. Life is a dream, but only for sleepers."
Synecoche, New York did not strike me as "coming down hard for living in the world with real, breathing, embracing bodies pressed against other bodies." It struck me as coming down hard for the beautiful obstinacy of Charlie Kaufman's vision, which is basically that life is a flower, a miracle and a banquet all in one, but that we're all nonetheless fucked and heading for the grave.
Kaufman has said again and again that this movie is about fear of death and decrepitude. In a Salon interview with Andrew O'Hehir up today, he says it thusly:
"I think as you get older you start to -- I've always been preoccupied with issues of dying and illness. All that stuff is not new for me, but it does become more a part of my life as I get older and watch people I know die and get sick. It's a real thing and it's a universal thing. No matter where you are in your life, it dictates your decisions.
Hoffman, Hope Davis
"I know that as a very young child, I was afraid of death. Many children become aware of the notion of death early and it can be a very troubling thing. We're all in this continuum: I'm this age now, and if I live long enough I'll be that age. I was 20 once, I was 10, I was 4. People who are 20 now will be 50 one day. They don't know that! They know it in the abstract, but they don't know it. I'd like them to know it, because I think it gives you compassion."
All that is well and good, but does this sound like a guy who in the final analysis believes in and swears by the primal simplicity and transcendence of bodies and souls hungrily entwined?
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on October 24, 2008 at 8:33 AM
comment #1
sardine
says ...
Dargis is a lousy critic.
GO OBAMA!
Posted by sardine
at October 24, 2008 9:44 AM
comment #2
gruver1
says ...
Wells to Sardine: Why ever would you say such a thing about Dargis? Give some thought to what you want to say before writing it, and then think about it again before posting it. C'mon, give it another go. Explain why you feel this way about Dargis. Show respect to me, this site, to her...stand up and say it plain, true and straight.
Posted by gruver1
at October 24, 2008 9:50 AM
comment #3
DeafBrownTrashPunk
says ...
Dargis isn't a lousy critic. I enjoyed her NYT essay that she wrote over the summer bemoaning the lack of strong female roles in Hollywood films. that was a real eye-opener for many people.
Er, I guess I'm gonna go see Synecdoche New York. Maybe >>I
Posted by DeafBrownTrashPunk
at October 24, 2008 10:20 AM
comment #4
DeafBrownTrashPunk
says ...
oops, my sentence got cut off. I was saying, maybe I will like it.
taste is subjective...
Posted by DeafBrownTrashPunk
at October 24, 2008 10:22 AM
comment #5
thorsen1nk
says ...
Fuck bunghola dargis. Fuck her right in her untalented ass. Her and Elvis Mitchell are two of the most shockingly awful film critics ever to drag the knuckles across a keyboard. It shocks me to hear such praise from a talented guy such as yourself, Jeff. Call a spade a spade--she's a hack of the nth degree and has no business airing an opinion about anything, let alone get paid for it. The fact she's at the NYT has Pauline Kael spinning in her grave.
Posted by thorsen1nk
at October 24, 2008 10:22 AM
comment #6
Joshua Mooney
says ...
I agree that's a damn fine opening by Dargis, though I suspect I won't be as blown away by the film. I also agree that Dargis is a superb writer and critic, though she and I don't like the same films as often as we do. But when she replaced John Powers at the L.A. Weekly (and Powers is one of my favorite film writers ever), I thought she did a great job, and I'm happy she's at the NY Times these days. Looking forward to re-reading your take on "Synecdoche." I saw the trailer at a recent screening in the Village, and the audience seemed mystified, at best.
Posted by Joshua Mooney
at October 24, 2008 10:23 AM
comment #7
T. S. Idiot
says ...
Dargis can write well when she likes a film, but for the middling-to-bad lot, she always falls back on vague generalities. See her, for example, on How to Lose Friends . . . : http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/movies/03lose.html
This movie is far from perfect, but I enjoyed it. Her attitude suggests irritation at having to review movies she sees as beneath her. There are obviously repellent, mindless films out there worthy of anyone's disdain, but she seems to enjoy sneering at harmless fare while trying to see how few words she can get away with in her review.
Posted by T. S. Idiot
at October 24, 2008 10:36 AM
comment #8
actionman
says ...
I fell in love with Dargis when she was one of the only major critics to realize the brilliance of Tony Scott's masterpiece Domino and then later in the same year, completely champion Terrence Malick's masterpiece The New World.
This is yet another brilliantly written review from her. I can't wait to see this film. Anyone suggesting that she's a poor critic and/or writer needs to learn a thing or three about criticism and writing in general.
Posted by actionman
at October 24, 2008 11:24 AM
comment #9
arturobandini2
says ...
John Powers is a great writer (film and politics) and I'm glad you mentioned him, Joshua M. Thanks to Powers I not only know about the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien, I can pronounce his name. As for Manohla, she is my fantasy movie date.
Posted by arturobandini2
at October 24, 2008 11:30 AM
comment #10
bmcintire
says ...
Holy shit! Rex Reed's review is hilarious! He's a tired old gasbag with apparently no taste at all, but this is just an awesome read:
http://www.observer.com/2008/o2/could-synecdoche-new-york-be-worst-movie-ever-yes
Posted by bmcintire
at October 24, 2008 1:46 PM
comment #11
CitizenKanedforChewingGum
says ...
"I fell in love with Dargis when she was one of the only major critics to realize the brilliance of Tony Scott's masterpiece Domino"
BWAHAHA...wow, I bet Kaufman wishes he could come up with dialogue THAT funny.
And actionman, your continuing raging hard-ons for\pimping out of the Scott brothers on this site gets extremely irritating.
Especially when it clearly hasnothing to do with the subject at hand, and you try to shoehorn it in.
Posted by CitizenKanedforChewingGum
at October 24, 2008 2:16 PM
comment #12
CitizenKanedforChewingGum
says ...
P.S. Dargis *is* a lousy film critic. Her grasp of film language and theory is flimsy, if truly existent at all. Her grasp of the English language, on the other hand, is pretty decent.
Then again, this is not a new development. Extremely rare is the occasion when someone can both read a film perceptively, and write eloquently enough to express it.
Posted by CitizenKanedforChewingGum
at October 24, 2008 2:22 PM
comment #13
thorsen1nk
says ...
"I can't wait to see this film. Anyone suggesting that she's a poor critic and/or writer needs to learn a thing or three about criticism and writing in general."
I was a professional film critic for 7 years and I still get paid to write for a living. I know a hack when I see one or, in Bunghola's case, smell one. She's wretched. I've read reviews where she goes of on a tangent and barely even mentions the film. Her, Mitchell, and Mick LaSalle should be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
That said, she's a [CENSORED] hair better than the twin spigots spouting dreck at the new At the Movies and any number of quote whores. I'd have no problem with her if she was writing reviews for a marginal local paper. But the NEW YORK TIMES? Between hiring her as a critic and that neo-con dolt William Kristol as a columnist, I wonder if they're serving peyote buttons at the 6 martini lunches in the Times boardroom.
Posted by thorsen1nk
at October 24, 2008 3:15 PM
comment #14
MilkMan
says ...
I just got home from seeing it.
Synecdoche, NY = Inland Empire for Dummies.
Charlie Kaufman = Woody Allen without an ounce of humanity.
Armond White = right
Just knowing that you're an pompous prick doesn't make you smart or funny. It just makes you an pompous prick who doesn't have the balls to put up a fight.
Charlie Kaufman is a creep. That's one thing he has in common with Woody Allen. They both spend a lot of time writing with their dicks. But at least Woody as an adult perspective on relationships. The perspective of an old lech, but mature nonetheless. Kaufman writes men and women like he's never seen or heard two of them in the same room at the same time. I'm assuming an Oscar has done wonders for his cock, but it has hurt his writing.
Posted by MilkMan
at October 25, 2008 1:01 AM
comment #15
madskrilla
says ...
Dargis likes everything. Even when she praises the very few good films there are out there, she does it for the wrong reasons. Maybe, since she had to replace a very lively writer and very cool critic like Mitchell, she decided to try to be a contrarian, in a cheap, Slate-y way. It got old quick. She's just not very insightful. She makes a very average critic like AO Scott look like Andre' Bazin.
Sometimes, she's simply an embarrassment:
http://movies.nytimes.com/2006/06/16/movies/16garf.html
I'm surprised that a seasoned pro like Mr. Wells cannot see through her shtick.
Posted by madskrilla
at October 25, 2008 12:08 PM
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