The movie was written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, who was the writer of: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Adaptation; and Being John Malkovich.
From the IMDB synopsis: “Theater director Caden Cotard is
mounting a new play. ... Armed with a MacArthur [genius]grant and determined to
create a piece of brutal realism and honesty, something into which he can put
his whole self... As the city inside the warehouse grows, Caden's own life
veers wildly off the tracks… Populating the cast and crew with doppelgangers,
he steadily blurs the line between the world of the play and that of his own
deteriorating reality.”
Among the “virtues” explored in this movie:
Wisdom and Knowledge
Creativity—he takes
on a monumental theater project (Jung viewed the
anima process as being one of the sources of creative ability….
Look at
how Caden’s feminine side is
developed)
Perspective-… look at
the title… “Synecdoche” a figure of speech by
which a part stands in for the
whole, or the whole stands in for a part, or
the general stands in for the
specific, or vice versa. The film maker,
through Caden, is constantly shifting the perspective through the play
within the play, through the
characters and the set itself.
Courage
Persistence—We’ll see
the play itself as perhaps an
exaggerated example of
persistence, and then life itself
Temperance
forgiveness and mercy—there is
particularly an unmistakable
and unforgettable scene with his adult daughter
humility—goes with
the persistence, his own ongoing struggle,
his acceptance of uncertainty
about what he is doing.
Transcendence-
appreciation of beauty and
excellence—permeates the theater project
hope-- It
celebrates the excruciating challenge we take in life, stimulates
compassion for our willingness to
confront the challenge, expresses the
wonder of our successes.
spirituality--I see
this film as wonderfully depicting a great spiritual reality,
exploring the interplay between
our eternal spiritual selves and our daily
struggles with material life. At other times, I think it explores concepts
of
God’s relationship to the world,
through Caden as director.
When Charlie Kaufman introduced the film at the Toronto Film
Festival he described it as a conversation between himself and the viewer.
It is full of metaphor, but perhaps best experienced at face
value. Try to just appreciate the experience
of the characters. I encourage you to
NOT work too hard to understand what is going on. The main character himself, Caden, expresses uncertainty about what he is doing; so, if your are
confused you are probably getting it!
Kaufman says: “I’m interested in dreams and how we tell
stories to ourselves in dreams,” he says. “Let me make it very clear that
this film is not a dream, but it does have a dreamlike logic. You can start
to fly in a dream and in the dream it’s just, ‘Oh yeah, I can fly’—it’s not
like what your reaction would be in the real world. So everything that happens
in this movie is to be taken at face value, it’s what’s happening.
It’s okay that it doesn’t happen in real life—it’s a movie.”
If you are wondering what the director has in mind … wait
until the later sections of the movie and you may feel his is telling you in a
very direct way.
Kaufman:” “It has a lot of serious emotional stuff
in it, but it’s funny in a weird way. You don’t have to worry, ‘What does the
burning house mean?’ Who cares!? It’s a burning house that someone lives
in—it’s funny.”
And especially, listen to the lyrics of the simple and
direct song playing during the closing credits. (Little Person"
Written by Charlie Kaufman
and Jon Brion Vocals recorded
and engineered by Juan Patino Performed by Deanna Storey)
Kaufman is especially delighted when he hears people
express interpretations he didn’t intend. “I get no bigger thrill than that,”
he says, “because that means it’s alive.”
That being said… a couple things to notice…
Look at the time at the beginning of the movie…
Cotard's syndrome, also known as nihilistic or
negation delusion, is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds
a delusional belief that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or
has lost his/her blood or internal organs.
Neurologically, Cotard's is thought to be related to Capgras's
syndrome, and both are thought to result from a disconnect between the
brain areas that recognize faces.
“He has a difficult time being present in any
situation,” says Kaufman. “He misses opportunities, he misses moments, and he
misses connections. And I think that’s a very common human condition.”
Archangel Ariel is known as the Angel of Healing and New
Beginnings
7:457:45? One day?
"I'm just a little person,
one person in a sea
/Of many little people,
who are not aware of me
I do my little job,
and live my little life
Eat my little meals,
miss my little kid and wife."
And somewhere maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
I’ll find a second little person,
who will look at me and say
I know you,
you’re the one I’ve waited for
Let’s have some fun.
Life is precious, every minute
And more precious with you in it
So let’s have some fun.
We’ll take a road trip Way out west
You’re the one I like the best
I’m glad I found you
Like being round you,
You’re the one I like the best
somewhere maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
somewhere maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
somewhere maybe someday
Maybe somewhere far away
I’ll find a second little person,
and we’ll go out and play
with Caden Cotard,
at 40. about him trying to understand
life. He wants to create a piece of art
to leave behind, to be loved for this Starts.
Caden= Welsh
name—spirit of battle
The Cotard delusion
or Cotard's syndrome, also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, is
a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief
that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his/her blood
or internal organs. Rarely, it can include delusions of immortality.
Neurologically,
Cotard's is thought to be related to Capgras's
syndrome, and both are thought to result from a disconnect between the
brain areas that recognize faces (fusiform face areas) and the areas that
associate emotions with that recognition (the amygdala and other limbic
structures). This disconnection creates a sense that the observed face is not
the person's it purports to be, and therefore lacks the familiarity that should
be associated with it. If it is a relative's face, it is experienced as an
impostor's (Capgras); if the sufferer sees their own face they may feel no
association between it and their sense of self, resulting in a sense that they
do not exist.
Encountered
primarily in psychoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, Cotard's
syndrome has also been described in organic lesions of the nondominant
temporoparietal cortex as well as in migraine.
(Capgras's … name
on apartment buzzer) The Capgras delusion (or Capgras syndrome) is
a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional
belief that an acquaintance, usually a spouse or other close family member, has
been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. The
Capgras delusion is classed as a delusional misidentification
syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that involves the misidentification
of people, places or objects. It can occur in acute,
transient, or chronic forms.
Capgras' Syndrome is a delusional disorder in which the victim
believes that all of his close friends and family members have been replaced
with nearly-exact replicas,
often perceived as robots
or actors.
Cotard's Syndrome involves believing yourself to be dead, that you no
longer exist, and (sometimes) that your limbs and body belong to another.
These two disorders
do not deserve separate writeups because they are caused by damage to the same
part of the right hemisphere of the cerebral
cortex, and are thus just different cognitive interpretations
of the same perception. Cotard's is always accompanied by severe depression,
while Capgras' is not, in most cases.
These diseases are
caused by a breakdown
-- which can be caused by accident, stroke, etc. -- in the pathway between perception
and affect. That
is to say, while the victim can tell who someone is, they receive no emotional
response from the recognition. For instance, you might visit your mother and
recognize her completely, but it wouldn't feel like what being with
mother was actually like. A Capgras sufferer would interpret
this as being because his mother was an imposter, while
a Cotard sufferer would assume that he had no response because he was dead
inside. A theory
suggested for the differences of these interpretations is that the depression
accompanying Cotard's caused the victim to view the perception change as being
his fault for
being dead, while
the non-depressed Capgras sufferer sees the difference in actions that others
suddenly started doing wrong.
These syndromes are
the exact opposite of prosopagnosia, where the visual/recognition pathway is
broken but the emotional one is not, making it impossible
to recognize the face
of a loved one while still allowing emotional response to their name.
Treatment with the bicyclic and tricyclic antidepressives
has no effect on the delusions, although it may break the Cotard's sufferer's depression.
Electroconvulsive therapy,
however, has been shown to improve blood flow to the damaged
areas, in many cases ending the delusions after only a few treatments. If the brain area has
been completely destroyed, severed by an automobile accident or what have you, recovery
is impossible
and the delusions
will probably last for the victim's entire life.
Synecdoche
is a trope, a figure of speech by which a part
stands in for the whole, or the whole stands in for a part, or the general
stands in for the specific, or vice versa. In the case of the film, the play
represents life, and so a part of life represents the whole of life.
Open: Fall “the beginning of the end”
Death of a Salesman
with young actors: “Try to keep in mind
that a young person playing Willy Loman thinks he’s only pretending to be at
the end of a life full of despair. But the tragedy is we know that you, the young
actor, will end up at this very place of desolation.
Hazel remarks to
the real estate agent, "I like it, I do. But I'm really concerned about
dying in the fire," which prompts the response "It's a big decision,
how one chooses to die." In an interview with Michael Guillén, Kaufman
stated, "Well, she made the choice to live there. In fact, she says in the
scene just before she dies that the end is built into the beginning. That's
exactly what happens there. She chooses to live in this house. She's afraid it's
going to kill her but she stays there and it does.
Adele's name is
also a mondegreene for "a delicate art" (Adele Lack Cotard).
Details of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the film:
-The cartoon depicts a virus but really listening to the monologue/text of the
cartoon depicts a scientific description of a prion (which causes
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease)
-Another part of the cartoon has cows and sheep. Cows receive Mad Cow Disease
primarily from eating protein feed made from the organs/brains of infected
sheep (a process that was quite common, but has now stopped.) The cartoon shows
Caden in a wagon being dragged to a corral with sheep and cows.
-Caden displays many symptoms of the disease throughout the movie.
MCArthur
grant: “I guess you’ll have to discover
your real self..
Massive theater piece… “uncompromising,
honest…”.
“I’ve been thinking
a lot about dying lately… that’s what I want to explore. We’re all hurtling towards death, yet here
we are for a moment, alive, each of us knowing we’re going to die, each of us
secretly believing we won’t.” Caden
“Knowing the you
don’t know is the first and most essential step to knowing” Claire
Becomes Ellen…
smells like he’s menstruating according to Claire
“There are over 13 million
people in the world. Can you imagine
that many people? And none of those
people is an extra. They are all leads
in their own stories. They have to be
given their due.”
“The end is built
into the beginning…. What can you do?”
“God, you’re just
perfect.” “I’m a mess. But we fit.”
“I’ve got a title…
“An obscure moon, lighting an obscure world.”
Hazel “I think it might be too much.”
I know how to do
the play now: “It will all take place
in one day, and that day will be the day before you died. That was the happiest day of my life… I’ll
be able to relive it forever.”
A new title:
“Infectious diseases in cattle.”
“Caden Gotard is a
man, already dead. He lives in a half
world, between stasis and anti-stasis.
Time is concentrated, chronology confused. Up until recently he’s strived valiantly to make sense of his
situation, but now he’s turned to stone.”
Minister at
funeral: “Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a 10th of what is
true. And there are a million little
strings attached to every choice you make.
You can just destroy your life every time you choose. That is the truth
about any choice that we make. We make choices that resonate throughout our
lives. But maybe you won’t know for 20
years. And you may 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:
what you create. And even though the
world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction
of a fraction of a second. Most of your
time is spent being dead, or not yet born.
But while alive, you wait in vain.
Wasting years for a phone call or a letter, or look from something or
someone to make it all right, and it never comes, or it seems to but it doesn’t
really. So you spend your time in vague
regret, or vaguer hope that something good will come along, something to make
you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you
feel loved. And the truth is, I feel so
angry. And the truth is, I feel so fucking sad. And the truth is, I felt so fucking hurt for so fuckikng
long. And for just as long I’ve 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.
Fuck everybody. Amen”
Caden with director
(Ellen) in ear… getting moment by
moment instrtuctions (Wipe yourself
(Caden, other actors playing him… as images of God 2nd in Christ-like pose?
“Ellen”’s
(husband?) Everything’s everything.
“You have struggled
into existence and are now silently slipping out of it. This is everyone’s experience. Every single one. Everyone is everyone
(..Adele… Hazel… Claire…)
[Gestalt Dream interpretation]… It is time for you to understand this.
“Now you are
here. It’s 7:43. Now you are here. It’s 7:44. Now you are
gone.” (7:45 drawn on wall.)
Ellen’s mother from
dream… a virtual stranger “I love you.
I know how to do
this play now.. “die”.
“He has a
difficult time being present in any situation,” says Kaufman. “He misses
opportunities, he misses moments, and he misses connections. And I think that’s
a very common human condition.”
