The Cinema of Loneliness: Synecdoche, New York

After writing last evening on loneliness and disillusionment in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957), I am posting my original review of Charlie Kaufman's superb Synecdoche, New York (2008), which first appeared in the Austin High School Maroon newspaper last winter. This is the first of a series of articles on The Cinema of Loneliness.

Synecdoche, New York is a film about the decay and deterioration of the human body; an existential examination of how time and space destroys any meaningful relationship we have. Synecdoche, New York is a mournful remembrance of lost loves; a devastating spiral of man’s frustration with his meaninglessness, targeted towards creating an insurmountable artistic masterpiece that somehow conquers death. The film is about a man desperately making stabs at creating lasting bonds.

Synecdoche, New York may be about all of these things, and it may be about none of these things. The film has so many ideas, all of them profound, that a review is almost perfunctory. This is a movie that must be seen firsthand – I think it’s one of the best films of the year, but you might think it’s the worst.

Here’s another synopsis that doesn’t begin to do justice to Charlie Kaufman’s incredible work: self-obsessed, neurotic theatre director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is so concerned with his own Freudian plight that he only fully realizes his own insignificance when he embodies another character in his own play. His play is an ambitious retelling of his entire life, where Cotard directs an actor playing Cotard directing an actor playing Cotard directing an…well, you get the idea.

The set is constructed in a large warehouse, where Cotard builds a life-size replica of New York City, and his theatrical focus widens to include the individual stories of his lovers, his neighbors, and, finally, all of New York.

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

Eventually, life and art become mirrors of each other, and merge such that Cotard may only exist in the reality of his production. The play never gets an audience, but maybe that’s because every potential audience member becomes an actor in the play. Seventeen years pass, and Cotard barely notices.

The women in his life appear and disappear, but his perception of them is always informed by his delusional projections. Notice how Hazel (Samantha Morton) is large and chunky when Cotard first meets and courts her, but grows younger and thinner once they have broken up and she is with another man. She only seems beautiful to Cotard when she is unattainable (how appropriate for a film that is concerned with perception versus reality). Lost loves and children become foreign to Cotard, and he continues his search for truth through his art.

Of course, I am describing the film on a very superficial level – I don’t think Charlie Kaufman would like my review very much, because although I’m sort of hinting what Synecdoche, New York may be about, I’m not really describing the experience. Kaufman is one of my favorite screenwriters - his previous efforts include Adaptation (2002), Being John Malkovich (1999), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) - and the actors are so gifted.

This is one of those movies, like Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There (2007), where my strong emotional reaction gets in the way of being objective about the movie. But how can I be, on a film this rich? Synecdoche, New York is the kind of film I wait for all year.

Wild Strawberries and Woody Allen

"You know so much, and you don't know anything."

In a haunting dream, seventy-eight year-old Dr. Isak Borg (Victor Sjostrom) is confronted with this piece of wisdom by a lost love, as his daughter-in-law, Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), drives him to a ceremony where he is being presented with an honorary award in Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957), one of the most moving films I have ever seen.

How fitting that I first took in a viewing of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972, Luis Bunuel), a social satire which engaged me on a purely intellectual level, only to follow it with Wild Strawberries, a film that caught me off-guard, and floored me completely - my emotional response to the movie was something I surely hadn't suspected.

Bergman's film takes a close look at Borg, a proudly intellectual professor of science who is described by everyone, including his son and daughter-in-law, as cold and void of any emotional attachment. He decides to take a reflective drive from Stockholm, Sweden to Lund University, where he will be receiving his honorary award. Accompanied by Marianne and a trio of happy-go-lucky youngsters headed to Italy, his journey becomes a painful examination of his past, and in his reflective dreams we see how his intellectual superiority spared him from real, meaningful relationships with other human beings.

"He's on such a terribly high level, and I feel so worthless," says Sara, a cousin who Borg almost marries before she opts to marry his brother, Sigfrid, instead. Borg has no interest in taking joy out of the small things in life, such as eating from a patch of wild strawberries near the backwoods of his childhood home, and Sigfrid is the perfect alternative - a lewd man's man.

Borg's punishment - for knowing all of the answers, for understanding other human beings more than they understand themselves, for constantly engaging in intellectual activities and tossing aside simple pleasures - is loneliness. His wife is dead, his son despises him, and his very elderly mother seems even colder than Borg himself. As the professor arrives at the end of his life, he is disillusioned and haunted by his empty past. Yes, he is being awarded for his intellectual achievements, but where is the love? His son, Evald, has grown into an even colder version of his father, and the happy-go-lucky trio, who at first appear mildly annoying, ultimately represent the sort of joyous carelessness that Borg secretly envies.

In short, Wild Strawberries is an examination of that special breed of men who are so obsessed with their own intellectual abilities that they often defer from social situations, preferring to be alone with themselves and bask in their own brilliance. And, eventually, that is exactly where they are at the end of their lives - alone, with themselves.

Borg finds redemption in the finale of Wild Strawberries. "If I have been feeling worried or sad during the day, I have a habit of recalling scenes from childhood to calm me. So it was this evening," says Borg as he shuts his weary eyes. We are treated to his own portion of nostalgia, a topic I explored in some detail in last evening's post.

The film left such an impression on me because the internal struggle between the intellectual self and the emotional self is a topic that I have been writing about for a long time - in fact, due to my incredible reaction to Wild Strawberries, I will soon post a series of articles I have written in recent years about loneliness, alienation, and the struggle mentioned above. How does one resist conformation and promote individuality and yet keep away from total alienation and loneliness? Borg only began asking this question in the final chapters of his long, cold life; hopefully, by exploring the issue now, I can spare myself a cold future.

By the way, it's no wonder Woody Allen gets his inspiration from Ingmar Bergman. His films are, more or less, comedic explorations of Bergman's fascinating thematic ideas. Tomorrow night I am going to see Allen's Annie Hall (1977), one of my all-time favorite films, at the legendary Paramount Theatre downtown, as part of their 2009 Summer Film Series.

I've seen many classic movies at the Paramount, including incredible 70 MM prints of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean), as well as The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola), The 400 Blows (1959, Francois Truffaut), Die Hard (1988, John McTiernan), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, Martin Scorsese) and Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961, Blake Edwards). Needless to say, it is one of the finest theaters in Central Texas, and offers rich cinematic experiences of classic films during the summer.