intertribal | None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories.

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None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories.

Based on an essentially speechless review in

moviebuffs a while back, I decided I wanted to see Synecdoche, New York. As luck would have it, it came to Lincoln this weekend, so my mother and I went to see it. Lincoln's one "independent" (university-associated) theater was the most full I had ever seen it, jam-packed with people who were going to see the other indie movie opening this weekend, Slumdog Millionaire. I have in all honesty never seen so many people go to see a movie at the Ross. It had gotten a two-page spread in the entertainment section - the spot reserved for movies like Lord of the Rings, Benjamin Button, etc. Those spreads tend to work wonders in Lincoln.

So we're sitting in the other, tiny theater at the Ross, with the eight other people who are seeing Synecdoche, New York instead of Slumdog Millionaire. A trailer comes on for Slumdog Millionaire. It's bright and colorful and has "Hoppípolla" playing and Time magazine says it's a hymn to life and oh! My mom leans over to me. "It might be interesting just for the visuals of India." I just snorted. Then they showed a trailer for Stranded: I've Come From A Plane That Crashed in the Mountains, and my mom was like, "There, that's more your thing." But anyway, our movie started - Synecdoche, New York - and I can tell immediately that it's not going to be a visual feast, it's not going to be a "hymn to life" in the typical sense, and I'm afraid my mother is going to hate it. I already have the feeling that I will love it, from the opening frames, partly because I love Charlie Kaufman's work. Well, I love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich. Those are the only two of his movies I've seen.

I don't know how to give a review of Synecdoche, New York. Basically and importantly, it's directed and written by Charlie Kaufman and stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, who's brilliant as always. I'll give the barest of plot descriptions: A theatre director who's spent his professional life directing adaptations of other people's plays gets a MacArthur genius grant after his super-famous-artist wife takes his daughter and relocates to Berlin, and he launches into the construction of his magnum opus, a "brutal" and "tough" and "honest" work that is true to his self, whatever that is. He takes over a huge abandoned warehouse in New York City and starts building within it the world inside his head - replicas of the apartments and houses that feature in his "real" life, replicas of the people that have featured in his life, replicas of himself. That's about as far as I can go. I read several reviews of this movie before seeing it and none of them did it justice. It's definitely a Kaufman movie both in style - extremely surreal and dark and loving and hilariously absurd - and content: mental processes, memory, desire, creation, the self, the self in suffering. Synecdoche, New York in particular reminded me very much of a commencement speech Lindsey gave me a link to, by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005. So Lindsey, I especially recommend this movie to you.

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and [unintelligible -- sounds like "displayal"]. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

After the movie ends my mother sits there staring at the screen. (I have been crying, but I'm always crying these days) Usually she jumps up at the end of movies and gets me up and on our way out. She's not a movie buff - she sees them once, enjoys it, and the experience is over. Not this one. It reminded me of the time we went to the Lied to see some very bizarre singer whose name I can't remember and my mother was totally overwhelmed by this one song about what goes through the mind of someone who's dying. I can't get her to look away from the screen until the credits were over. And of course she is my mother and I'm an only child and my father is dead, so it's strange for me to see her so absorbed in something that has nothing at all to do with me, something that has spoken to her own self... whatever that is. After the credits end (and we never stay for the credits) we push our way out of the Ross, because it's now overflowing with people who are there to see Slumdog Millionaire. My mother says, at last, "And all these people are going to see that other movie!", laughing and shaking her head. When we get out into the open she takes a deep breath, points to the sky, and exclaims, "Look at the moon!" It's very bright and full tonight, and the clouds look all layered and textured. Then she sighs and says, "That was one of the most amazing movies I have ever seen."

I can't really say much else, except that it left me feeling peaceful and strangely centered given that it opens with the main character getting a sink blown up in his face, and I'm very happy to have seen it. I give it the strongest recommendation I've given to a movie in a long time, but be aware that it's a movie you'll either love or hate. To me, it was absolutely beautiful. Perfect, as Caden Cotard would say. I'm going to include one last thing - a monologue by an actor playing a minister presiding over a funeral from late in the movie that my mother and I and apparently some IMDb user agree is the psychological and narrative climax of Synecdoche, New York:

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you'll 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: it's what you create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are here for 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 a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope for something good to come along. Something to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved. And the truth is I'm so angry and the truth is I'm so fucking sad, and the truth is I've been so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long have 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, and their own is too overwhelming to allow them to listen to or care about mine. Well, fuck everybody. Amen.

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Yeah, you're like my mom then. I have a way more volatile reaction to movies (and a lot more of them), so it's always interesting to me what you types of people really "respond" to.

I like that part too. But this worked better as a complement to the movie. Also, the "gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing" sounds a lot to me like that ol' crisis of modernity, to beat a comatose horse.

That's scary.

lol, "you types of people." i don't usu. have volatile reactions. not unless something really violates what i think is Right and Good and True, hah. I'm more likely to be like, well, it had its good points, the cinematography was gorgeous, whatever, but it didn't really approach some higher Truth. or whatever.

Actually, I think it's pretty analogous to "Something to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved." I don't know what it has to do with a crisis of modernity--I mean, if it's unique to so-called modernity, or why it would be--but I also think 'crisis of modernity' is a label to cover a phenomenon that hasn't been explained yet. It itself isn't an explanation. I started writing a long response to that comment of yours awhile back, then realized it was taking me way too long, and I think I tried to save it somewhere...maybe I deleted it. Dunno. Anyway it might not've been the best response, so maybe it's all for the better.

Really? Why?

Hmm, well, that's not what my mom goes for, so... yeah, I don't know. Are you a utilitarian art kind of person?

No, the crisis of modernity isn't an explanation, but it is certainly a label to a phenomenon. I don't know who coined it, but it was probably someone who felt betrayed by what they thought was modernity. But people who buy into the idea that there is a crisis specific to their time do certainly feel a sense of having lost some infinite thing. That thing is exactly what makes them feel connected and whole - sometimes they label it morality and sometimes they label it ancestor worship and sometimes they label it national pride, and they try to re-discover this infinite thing through religion, war, bombs, etc. What makes the crisis modern is the very idea of loss, the feeling that there is something missing that used to be there, something that the passage of time has taken away. Of course, that's a very loose definition of modern that I'm using.

I don't know.

What does your mom go for? Utilitarian art? I don't think so...

I really think it's largely a power issue, and modernity is just extra good at making us powerless, or maybe better said, not providing the, er, old-fashioned means of anesthetizing that feeling. That might not the best response either, but I'm supposed to be thinking about the Very Important Issue of metrical structure. (sarcasm) I will find what's important and strip the bullshit away, goddamn it. And there is so much bullshit. I'm pretty sure my thesis is more like, "Why Phonology is a Pointless Endeavor" with a touch of, "How Linguists Waste their Lives." Uh, sorry, unrelated. I think there is something to its being modern (at least in a broad sense, 'cause this is basically what Nietzsche was writing about, about which I will do my damndest to say no more than that...except that it's no coincidence we're talking about Kafka at the same time here), but it is by no means a new problem--more like an old problem in new terms. Like, it's the same problem that gave us a need for religion in the first place. And I don't mean that we feel the loss of that--how can we? We feel the same loss.

Uh, the first two ?'s are separate responses

No, my mom hates utilitarian art. My mom hates objectivism like whoa.

Well... of course it's not a new issue. See, to me, modernity existed (in relative terms) as soon as civilization progressed to like, agricultural societies from nomadic. It's exactly the problem that gave us a need for religion in the first place (that's why I said people turn to it!).

Er, they were intended to be separate, sorry. "What does your mom go for?" *pause* "Utilitarian art? I don't think so..." in reference to what I like, or whatever.

But that's not the impression I had of what was meant by a 'crisis of modernity'? Also, isn't modernity like, post-Enlightenment? Oh dear lord:

"Modernity is a term that refers to the modern era. It is distinct from modernism, and, in different contexts, refers to cultural and intellectual movements of the period c. 1630-1940. The term "modern" can refer to many different things. Colloquially, it can refer in a general manner to the 20th century. For historians, the Early Modern Period refers to the period roughly from 1500 to 1800, with the Modern era beginning sometime during the 18th century. In this schema, industrialization during the 19th century marks the first phase of modernity, while the 20th century marks the second. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century, replaced by post-modernity, while others would extend modernity to cover the developments denoted by post-modernity and into the present."

Yeah, I think I'm most familiar with the one who takes industrialization as a key part of 'modernity'. And I thought that was tied up with the supposed crisis of modernity. And I thought that was bs.

*the one that, lol

Well, I guess I have my own definition of modernity then, invented by my Japanese Monsters teacher. *shrug* I actually don't use modernity in everyday language because I think it's such a false term, I just say like, industrial age if that's what I mean. I totally fail as a classically-trained academic, but that's what you get when you don't study the Core. I just use the crisis of modernity because it seems to be the available term to describe Germany and Japan pre-WW II, but I could always come up with a new term to describe what I'm talking about. I like that it has modernity in it because that modernity is a false construct points to the crisis of modernity being a false construct.

(also of course i liked the bit about what's wrong with merely 'tolerating' the different viewpoints of the atheist and the religious man without talking about how we make meaning and what choice we have in it. but you probably could've guessed that.)

sorta like...it was enjoyable as art, but not as Art. that is my reaction to most movies i just sorta like. but i don't think the goal of every movie is the same in that respect, or necessarily should be. like, there is a place for entertainment and fantasy, but too much escapism is probably unhealthy and unwise, not to mention unlasting.

the idea of Art kind of creeps me out, not gonna lie.

when i say "art," i mean like the original sense of the word--basically a skill. the idea that art needs to have a point of some sort is pretty modern. romantic, actually. that's all i really mean by Art. I don't know if I buy into the ideas of Wordsworth and the like who say that poetry should be about the truths that science cannot reach or whatever, but he is onto something. anyway, most people's points are kind of trivial, so i guess to me they are enjoyable just as art. if this movie were like that, i don't think you could have given it the review you did, so...why is Art creepy?

Prob'ly cuz it reminds me of objectivism.

So Art is what, the stuff that has a point?

...how? (keep in mind, i know hardly anything about objectivism)

the stuff that isn't done for the pure pleasure of skill in movement, composition, sound, etc.--yeah, basically. Except it's probably a bit more specific than 'has a point', else you could say advertising is Art. It's more like the point isn't one of utility but of meaning, truth, insight, something more like that. Where the point is the interpretation itself, rather than what your interpretation will make you buy, which is more a use-value. Lol, now I'm going back to like medieval and classical thinking--art is not for money! art is for its own sake! I'm pretty sure Augustine said that any actor who got paid was not a true artist because he wasn't doing art for its own sake, or something.

I don't know, I read something once about objectivism that said something about how art should only exist to lift man to a higher state of whatever it is the objectivists believe in. I don't really see the point in segregating between art and Art, I guess.

Uh-oh, Treason of the Intellectuals.

Um, that sounds more like propaganda. "Art should exist to make you believe what this group of people believes?" Yeah, no. The point is only that art need not have any message whatsoever. It's woodcarvings and pottery and decorative patterns. I really don' t think that's all Art is. And when i say the value is in the interpretation, I mean that Art makes you think, not tell you what to think. All that tends to do is cater to an audience. And this is how a lot of people condemn aesthetics as a value judgment based on taste, which pretty much all other aspects of art are, except the admiration of skill in and of itself. And if that's all most people want to make of art, well, so much the worse for them. I'm not saying all art should be Art or anything of the sort. I also don't mean that it should lay out an argument like an academic work. That's not art's medium. That's not how it draws things together. And that's certainly not the only sort of thing capable of interpretation, profundity, making people think. It's often one of the less profound, really...

No idea what you're talking about.

*tells

There's also the point that distinctions in artistic style are totally bound to time and place, are distinctions of taste and thus related to class and stereotypes and all the rest, and this is the other aspect of rejecting aesthetic judgments. I suppose. I do think there's an argument to be made that while this is all very true, for one, the matter is more complex, and for two, there are certain principles upon which art works that, while surely manipulated in different ways by different people, perhaps past the point of appreciation by others from totally foreign backgrounds, are in essence in operation universally. That's right. I said something was universal. Feel free to kill me now.

I have no idea if there are certain principles upon which art works that are in essence in operation universally. Like what, you know? Symmetry? I tend to put much more stock in the distinctions in artistic style that are bound to time and place.

Well, yeah, a lot of the meaning of art is bound up with time and place. I'm really talking about semiotic principles. Maybe. But no, not just symmetry. A variety of things to do with likeness and proportion and other relations. But they don't really matter in and of themselves, until they're part of a tradition or have some historical context or whatever. But like, harmonics are universal. Tuning systems are not. That sort of thing.

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