The Films of Charlie Kaufman
Synecdoche, New York Returns to Many Familiar Kaufman Themes
May 6, 2009
In Charlie Kaufman's latest movie, Synecdoche, New York, he mirrors and explores many of the themes that have populated his previous movies, as well. His movies take place in a world that closely resembles our own, but differs in fundamental—and often physically impossible—ways, as in a dream. In addition to blurring this line between dreamscape and waking life, Kaufman is interested in examining the lines between reality and fiction, as well; specifically, the laws that govern the world of stage and cinema.
The Play's the Thing
In Adaptation, these laws are analyzed as the clichés that have driven most popular films throughout cinematic history; in Synecdoche, New York, the laws are presented for examination as the play within a play. Caden's dramatic piece progressively achieves greater verisimilitude, eventually representing a truer and more honest picture of Caden's existence than the world outside the warehouse. Caden obsessively catalogs every aspect of life through the actions of his surrogates to the point where, not only do his surrogates require surrogates of their own, but Caden is unable to express his own emotions except through the dialog among his actors. Much of the conflict in the movie is predicated on an actor vocalizing thoughts and emotions that had gone unsaid—perhaps even unrealized—by their "real-life" counterpart.
Fear and Loathing in Manhattan
In these ever-expanding plays, populated by surrogates and half recognized faces, in which dreams, reality, and fiction merge and evolve together, Kaufman explores many universal themes: love, memory, loss, and paranoia all get their turn under the microscope. In the end, however, the aspects of humanity that Kaufman seems best able to represent are the twin demons of self-loathing and sexual humiliation: the images he creates are as raw, secret, and true as any in cinema today. He seems to have an especial fear of lesbianism, and personalizes it as extremely emasculating for his characters: the wives in both Being John Malkovich and Synecdoche, New York leave the male protagonists for female partners.
By the end of Synecdoche, New York, however, Kaufman turns this dynamic on its head and flips the table on Caden; he has gone years believing his wife left him for another woman... only to discover that it might have in fact been him who left for another man. The final incarnation of the "character" Caden—the one who spends all his time directing actors and set-builders in the increasingly intricate world of his play—is in fact a woman who lives with "his" gay lover. In this one powerful and simple image, Kaufman brings all the aforementioned themes together: the surrogate-self straddling an existence between dream and reality, fact and fiction; simultaneously petrified of being abandoned and of being exposed as a coward, a liar, a weakling. In the end, ironically, by exposing these most painful of human emotions, Kaufman is working to heal wounds created by our fundamental fears and self-doubt. By linking all of humanity through our collective insecurity, Kaufman shows that everyone is in the same boat.
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