Adaptation: The most brilliant film script ever...yes...my thoughts are that in the film screenplay that fake Kaufman is writing he doesn't add a fake brother...he just uses his real brother...once Donald takes over the film becomes what Kaufman is not...he has found a way to keep his cred., and still make a film with car chases, sex and drugs...we will see what he does with Kung Fu Panda 2
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: I watched the film with commentary on...Kaufman has stated that he hated this process...in the start he is real open with the commentary, but then even makes fun of Gondry by saying "so your just going to do a play by play of the film"...or something like that...he gives some good insights...but lets Gondry take over...there is a lot of spot light in this film...in the end it all makes sense...unlike the next film
Synechdoche New York:
I watched this film again for about the 5th time. Everytime I have except the first, I went in with the mission to figure out the plot...then I go back to the first time I saw it, and say...Its about the troubles of a mans life, his search for truth...and then he dies. But there is so much here to make you want to find more answers. In an interview Kaufman basically says that his others films have a nice conceit...there is a safety in them where you "can" figure it out...Adaptation is smart but you know its just a film and he writing about writing...in Malkovich its just a movie and we understand who is who, and there is little to no dream logic...in Synechdoche, its not safe...there is no easy explanation, things are rattled and things are falling apart...even with out hero...so do we take all the symbols and side characters, all the clues and try to enclose them, try to repair and make a story out of what Kaufman lays before us? I try and watch this with new eyes each time, but I fall for all the clues...this time I see it as Kaufman really writing and being "true" (as he has stated in many interviews)...and is writting about his life, his fears, real people in his life and how what he does as a writer has affected that...but then we get these clues that throw me and as I watch the film I get more Ideas...I see on the IMDB Boards, all these ideas..it seems like people really focus on one thing or another...either the burning house, or the switch to Ellen, or something to explain everything...isnt that funny since the name of the film is exactly that definition...we want films to be our thing, to represent our one thing, whatever that may be...clues that have led me to false starts and dead ends:
1. Time:
even before the film starts the girl is singing, then the news radio plays an interview about death, bot are symbolic...the clock says 7:43, Caden wakes up and looks in a mirror..the clock changes before a real minute is over and soon its 7:46...he gets up and is in a different mirror...after you've seen this film a few times this opening becomes everything..."the end is built into the beginning" as Hazel says...so is Caden just dreaming..is this actually the end of the film...if I reedited the film we see a dream like old Caden talking about he stage and it goes to white...the voice in his head says the time checking off 7:43, 7:44, 7:45...when he wakes up in the beginning...she says die...he opens his eyes at 7:45 in the start...tries to wake up..its 7:46...time flies by, he goes down stairs...its a perpetual loop..it this to mean that its recursive?...is it a big version of Groundhogs day?...why the time?...why give us that if he is not dreaming...people in the film even say he is a man already dead...the psychologist says he is unrecognizable...I want to make sense in a linear way...thats my human nature...but Kaufman denies that...and thats why this becomes a GREAT film...
2. Names and Transposition:
When the funny space music plays...we have transposition...one life becomes another...this is shown in names...Adele Cotard (Cotard is a disease..someone believes they are dead)...becomes Adele Lack...did she remarry?...is this her maiden name?...Adele the wife of Caden then becomes Adele Capgras (in the apartment)...Capgras is a disease where schizophrenics believe that someone they know is someone else...here in the apartment Caden becomes Ellen...because he chooses it...then he has to cast an Ellen...that Ellen then becomes Caden...its like in Adaptation...the snake eating itself...Kaufman has written himself into his screenplay...but there it was funny and here it is sad...there are funny moments but sad
3. Olive:
Who is the woman at the end...I always saw it as his long lost daughter...at first I took it as what she says...just an actress...then he says that he wanted the picnic with her...this was in Ellens dream...is he still Ellen..is this her daughter? Stool as paint..I just read this great article that makes me understand the stool scenes...the stol all looks like paint and the paint is from all the crap that Adele the painter is feeding Caden and Olive...at this point its a world he has created...its a world Kaufman has created and Hoffman as Caden is playing his own beliefs..his own thoughts...the voice says that Caden is all of the characters...he is the Synechdoche
There is more...much more..it hurts my head to think about...but I will..I just wont write it all..cause this post is a synechdoche of the film.
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