Synecdoche, New York

I saw the above recently.
One reviewer found and finds the film so depressing he always needs to drink after viewing it though I suspect he needs a drink regularly and not just after Kaufman movies. I didn’t find Synedoche, NY depressing, sobbed at the end the first time which was quite lovely because it sneaks up on you and though there’s no sneaking up on you the second time there is the awareness of why it would set your tear ducts to pour.


Whereas Synecdoche depresses some viewers I found it life affirming because we’re all building a city with our cast of characters, recasting the role of this person or that, denying that this or that person are even on scene with us. Sometimes walling up years; maybe because we’ve already seen everything that vignette has to offer or maybe because we just don’t want to see it again and would rather forget some rooms because we ourselves weren’t truly there.
Yet another player plays the role of someone we’re reminded of, some loss or gain in and as an aspect of someone so pinnacle we’ll recast them again and again for shoes left unfilled waiting to be tripped over, risen above or slipped right into like fuzzy slippers...and sometimes too, quite oddly one drops suddenly from somewhere and then are shoes begin dropping from every which where.


The past and present and future are always onstage together. If we could rewrite, if we could just see it clearly as it was, see precisely where we were or are or am could we do it better this time, next time; are we truer now?

In a Kaufman’s reality there’s that memory of you, how you coded yourself and decoded someone else, each always a bit off the mark, not realizing, not knowing but feeling surely you have a clue- except for where you don’t and the mystery isn’t who died or how they died but how did you arrive at this very moment? And who is this that I’ve cast just as much as they’ve cast themselves to be right here right now?


And then, there you are again- same scene, same characters?

Well not entirely the same because you’re not really you anymore, your cells have died away and been replaced and died away and been replaced and then of course there is the matter of time. Time, the illusion made real in wrinkles, and coughs and that first liver spot? Or is it a mole I’ll need to watch and measure?


As with every meaningless and grave decision we make we seldom know which is which. “Millions and millions of strings” all attached to other strings of choices and decisions- each, be they grave or meaningless are tied to the invisible strings of others. We don’t see our choices when we’re making them, not really. But upon review we find a Sam in the background watching us watch ourselves, taking notes as we sleep through conversations we’ll have some day but seldom do.
Meanwhile, life writes more and more and more.


I look in my memory and knowing me I know the moment happened. And knowing me I most certainly brushed it off? Was too afraid or unsure to ask?

The moment surely happened when one of those strings, one of those insignificant decisions was decided in a request I didn’t make. So right now, this minute I am Caden Cotard and I’ve decided to go back, way back, back to that day, that split second. I couldn’t direct someone to build a set for that moment because I don’t know precisely where it happened. I can’t find what the weather was like, or what you or I were wearing. Or what I might have said instead or where I stood or sat or laid when the thought surely flitted across my brain. I can’t find the moment but I know it happened. I didn’t log it maybe because I didn‘t register it as important? but then again maybe because I did.


Line:
Could/May I call you Henry instead?