Distant Relatives: 8½ and Synecdoche, New York
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 3:03PM Robert here w/ Distant Relatives, exploring the connections between one classic and one contemporary film.
Portrait of the Artist as a Confused Man
Perhaps the idea of a filmmaker making a film about himself, his fears, his hopes, his life, is inherently self-indulgent. It's hard to argue otherwise though self-portraits have always been a staple of art. Perhaps Da Vinci and Rembrandt were self-indulgent too. Still, something about the self portraits is so necessary. Someone has to explore the life of the artist. Biopics, whether celebratory or critical, are often too structured and viewed from outside looking in. Only autobiographies allow the filmmaker the ability to really explore their internal rot. The cinema this creates may not always be compelling but it always feels essential. Federico Fellini's career is saturated in self-exploration, from the continual casting of his wife Giulietta Masina (La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, Juliet of the Spirits), to his reminiscence on his childhood (Amarcord) to his contemplation on the de-evolution of social ascencion (La Dolce Vita). Fellini's career is a tribute to himself, and never more than in 8½, a film so self-referential that its title is devised from the number of films Fellini had made to that point. It is his eighth and a half. Charlie Kaufman's career too is filled with expressions of his own desires and anxieties. He sees his life as that of the impotent artist, and they appear throughout his films in one form or another. The fact that Kaufman had already written a film, Adaptation that featured himself as the lead character (writing a film that featured himself as the lead character) shouldn't detract from the fact that Synecdoche, New York's Caden Cotard is very much a Kaufman stand-in. In fact, Adaptation's use of Kaufman as character may have even freed up the real Charlie Kaufman into a more subtle (if that's possible) cypher for the later film. Adaptation feels a bit like a warm up for Synecdoche, New York with its musings on love and death and the meta-realities of art. Both titles refer to the artistic process as well (self-referentially like Fellini's). Adaptation is obvious. As many of us learned only upon the relase of the film, a "synecdoche" is a part of speech where a part of something is used to represent a whole, such as saying "threads" to mean "clothes" or "set of wheels" to mean "car." And so it is with art, the attempt to use one small story to represent some truth about the whole of existence.
In both films, 8 1/2 and Synecdoche, New York we begin with a misanthrope, unwell in health and heart, about to embark on the ultimate boondogle of his career, whether he knows it or not. Continue...
Our two directors, Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) and Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) suffer perhaps most from an oversized ego and the belief that the best story to tell as a representation of life itself is their own. Of course, to them their life is the epitome of life itself. To the rest of us, the plan is a disaster, oversized and seemingly neverending. Fellini's Guido (basically Fellini) auditions actors to portray the characters in his life (also the characters in Fellini's life). Is the filmmaker in Guido's film also making a film about his life, about a filmmaker also making a film about his life? Somewhere in there too is a science fiction plot where all the characters make a grand departure from earth, a metaphor perhaps for the departure of death. Pulling it all together is Guido as he drifts in and out of his fantasies to the point where we viewers can no longer distinguish them from reality. Caden Cotard too holds auditions for the characters of himself and everyone else in his life, and eventually those playing himself, and those playing those playing himself. As in 8 1/2 the layers double back on themselves possibly to infinity. Outside the play of Caden's life, housed in a giant hangar, a science-fiction end of the world scenario seems to be playing out. How it all fits into Caden's representation of reality we hardly know. Caden himself, like Gudio barely fits the pieces together as his reality becomes intertwined with fantasy, the line between them becoming less and less relevant as the proceedings continue. An early epiphany from Caden and declaration that he knows how to make his play work is followed by another such epiphany and another an another until they barely mean anything.
Women. Ah yes, Women. Pretty Women.
Through it all, in both Guido's life and Caden's there is one consistent... one reason to fear, loath and mostly love getting up in the morning: women, the fairer sex, beauty of the world, muses all of them. Whether social or pschological, women have a power over them. Guido's main preoccupations are his distant wife, his crude mistress and his dream actress but it's clear once we see the harem of his fantasy that all the women he knows have a place. Indeed as we meet them too we see them presented as objects of fascination and desire, not even necessarily prurient (okay maybe always a little prurient). For Caden Cotard too, his life is a parade of female influence, from his soon-to-be ex-wife, to her large bosomed friend whom he comes to despise, to his younger second wife, his not-so-innocent dream girl next door, the actress portraying his not-so-innocent dream girl next door, his insipintly sultry therapist and on and on. They are for better or worse his unavoidable muses. In Fellini's film the key to understanding the role of women is in the "Asa Nisi Masa" flashback. As a child, a young girl tells Guido to utter this secret word to make a portrait move. It has been postulated that Asa Nisi Masa is a code devised by the frequent wordplay device of adding extra syllables to an already existing word. When the excess syllables are removed, the word "anima" remains, a psychologial term referring to the repressed feminine characteristics in the male subconscious. So we have a female giving Guido the secret revelation of the femininity inside him which is the only way to create a moving picture which leads to his ultimate treasure. And this is worth pointing out because Caden too triggers the hidden feminine side of himself when he inexplicably becomes his wife's female maid, and the actress portraying this maid in the play of his life becomes him.
Ultimately, these exhausting trips into the artistic mind, its impotence, its femininity, its ego, leave us where? Actually, with a pretty good story that represents a truth about the whole of existence. But it's not small, and it's not clear. It's messy and confusing. It's real in that it's completely fantastical. We're left with two individuals who, although they are artists, are not dissimilar from the rest of us. They disengage from life, but cling too it. They sometimes love what they despise and sometimes lust at what they admire. They spend most of their time confused by existence and slowly come to realize the only storytelling devices they have to interpret their lives, not as artists but as humans, are woefully inadequate. For Fellini, the best a man can do is become the ringmaster of the circus of his life. It's chaotic but hopefull. For Kaufman, perhaps the best conceivable ending is fading out in the arms of a woman. Though neither of these films are really about endings, despite two main characters overly preoccupied with their own inevitable curtain calls. Whether either of these men find peace before it's too late is up to the viewer's interpretation. Most of the time we don't know what to make of what we're looking at. And maybe that's the point. That's life.
Other Cinematic Relatives: Sullivan's Travels (1941), Stolen Kisses (1968), All that Jazz (1979), Stardust Memories (1980), Almost Famous (2000)
Reader Comments (3)
I thought it was well shot and edited and the philosophical approach was interesting, if pretty depressing, but the confusing shifting reality was the biggest weakness. In 8 1/2, you could still tell what was reality and what was dreams in the film's context. So: 8 1/2, emotionally messy and influential movie that goes down completely smooth. (One of my A+s.) Synecdoche, New York: Emotionally messy and depressing movie that's interesting to watch, but completely confusing. (A-)
The first one of these where I've seen both films.
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