Synecdoche: Look It Up

Earlier this evening I saw Synecdoche, New York. It is the first film I have ever seen after which I had not a word to say. In fact, just forcing myself to say to my companions, "I do not have anything to say," was a bit difficult. I didn't even have that to say. That saying was contrived. I slowly walked to the bathroom and while standing up against the urinal I thought about this blog, and about going home and writing, "I just saw Synecdoche, New York, and have nothing to say." I realized that this would be not only incredibly insufficient, but also quite unclear -- it sounds like I didn't like it very much. Which isn't to say that I liked it. That is an altogether inappropriate term...

I thought of something to say in the bathroom, and when I met my friends I said, "I've thought of something to say," and then continued, "It's contrived." One friend said, "I agree." There was a longer pause than one might expect and finally I clarified that I was prefacing my comment. I offered my contrived response: "It is right about what's wrong, wrong about what's right; it is right about what we get wrong, and it's not sure we get anything right." My friends nodded and one said, "that's true." And sure enough, it's accurate, in a sense. But only in a sense.

Don't take the film too literally, but don't fall into the trap of not taking it literally. It's mind. I'm not saying it's about mind, just saying that it's mind. You see, when writing about this film, one has to be very careful not to be too careful. Get what I mean? It's kind of like going to a therapist who always knows what you're going to say, but never knows what you mean, and never cares what you need. It's also not being sure whether that therapist's strange-looking foot condition is actually so strange, or merely a projection of your own hypochondria. And it's being a hypochondriac who is also very sick, or at least the doctors seem to be saying so.

It's when your partner knows you well enough to know that your dopplegänger's statement is your thought, but not knowing you well enough to know that you were thinking it until your double, your projection, the actor playing you, says it. Or she knows you well enough and you only have to think it and you've already committed too grievous a sin -- not to mention the sins of all the years that have already gone by -- to be granted forgiveness. Or none of this matters much because you'll never forgive yourself, or even think to ask forgiveness unless you're told to. And even then it's contrived, because you're asking forgiveness for something that you haven't done, and what you need is not to ask forgiveness, but to be asked. (But by whom?)

It's how we don't actually know the lengths to which we go in order to keep from just looking inward. Watch the movie. It all happens, and it happens just as you see it. (Am I describing the movie now?) But is it real? It looks that way, and it sure feels it, but have we been paying enough attention to hear the voice pushing us from one painful moment to the next anymore? Is Caden any more Caden than Ellen, and was Ellen ever really Ellen at all? The point, if there is just one, is that not only do these questions not matter at all, but they are the most important thing.

But there's no resolution. There are plenty of resolutions, we're just too busy to notice why they feel so nice. We wake up the next day and return to our remarkably dense construction; when the player playing me kills himself, I'll just replace him and, while I'm at it, I'll replace myself, too, and take someone else's role. There's no resolution? Laughter, that's resolution. Sadness -- resolution. Here you can experience both at the same time. In fact, the saddest moment is the most hilarious -- and isn't it?

It's about misery. All of the characters are miserable. No it's not. You ask me where the joy is -- I don't want to point it out. You ask me what Caden is looking for and I can't help but say, "Perhaps the problem is that he is not looking at all." Perhaps. Perhaps that's also contrived. What is death? What is death really? I'll bet your answer, or, at least, the answer for most of you, is contrived, too. How about writing a wollop of a line, something beautiful and moving and exuberant -- and then undermining it entirely by making it nothing more than a line poorly read in the rehearsal for a play that will never open (it's been open the whole time, hasn't it)? The audience hears the line during a moment of grief in what looks and sounds and smells like the "real world," and their eyes well up... and suddenly it is being recited again in what looks and sounds and is just a stage (but how much less real?) and realizes: it was just bullshit. It was a lie. It was contrived. But even this judgment is only accurate in a sense, because it was also magnificent. It's not the line that's being undermined, it's the so-called reality to which we attributed it. And anyway, it's not the reality that's being undermined, it's just our shallow attempt to make real what is merely existent. But it is not merely existent -- it is existent! It's true that it hurts, it's just that we fail to know ourselves as well as someone who's been observing us for 20 years but has feelings of his own, too. Did you see when he jumped? Somewhere some French philosopher moaned something about authenticity, but was too anxious to understand it, let alone live it. So's Caden, but we all have our moments.

He says, "I don't know why I make it so complicated." But "knowing that you don't know is the most essential step to knowing, you know?" Some old man tells him, when he's already getting up there himself, that "death comes faster than you think," which is pretty terrifying, because Caden is certain that he's already dead. But neither Caden nor the old man (nor the beautiful young actress who tells him about knowing) know what statements like these mean. Nor does he care much about his needs. Well, that's a little unfair. But only in a sense.