Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman's art replicating life replicating art replicating life.
Overview
Synecdoche, New York is the first film directed by Oscar-winning writer Charlie Kaufman, who penned the scripts to two of my all-time favourite movies – Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Synecdoche’s plot sounds just as deliciously loopy. It follows the life of talented yet somewhat luckless theatre director Caden Cotard as he attempts to woo women and battle an undiagnosed, House-worthy degenerative disease; all while constructing the set of his biggest play yet and hiring half of New York to star in it.
If you paid attention in third-form English, you’ll remember that a synecdoche is a figure of speech where a part of a thing is used to refer to the whole (for example, ’price per head’ obviously includes the price for the rest of your body too). This is how the film gets its name – Cotard’s set starts off as a reference to the city yet becomes a full-scale replica as the lines between reality and art/his own perception collide.
This made many critics’ lists of the best movies of the year when it was released in 2008, and the cast is awesome – Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams and Samantha Morton. Book now or regret it later.
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