A brief text on Synecdoche, New York, just for fun:

The creation of the need, and the desire, to see things again is part of the method of Sans Soleil, and also, perhaps, its real subject. What Marker means to communicate to us is the solitude of the film editor at his machinery, his reverie over the footage he’s shot… the scenes he watches over and over again. He wants to explain… how images are replayed as memories, as obsessions, and as the troubled dreams of travelers.

The creation of the need, and the desire, to see things again is part of the method of Synecdoche, New York, and also, perhaps, its real subject. What Kaufman means to communicate to us is the solitude of the film writer at his machinery, his anxiety over the words he’s written, the words he reads over and over again. He wants to explain how memories are replayed as images, as obsessions, and as the troubled dreams of artists.

Sans Soleil seems… to be generating its own questions in the audience, like: Where are we now? Is this a film about Japan? About Guinea-Bissau? These stupid questions (which are also the sort we might ask of a bad, incoherent film), strangely, help pull us along through the movie: we keep following the subject, feeling that it’s almost in our grasp if only the speeding images would slow down a bit, if only those passages that look and sound like summations would allow us to linger before they rush us on to new information, new syntheses. And the stupid questions turn out to be the right ones. Sans Soleil is the diary of a return, a return which induces – naturally – retrospection, reverie, the need to account for the distances travelled in coming back: a review of notes from other places…

Synecdoche, New York seems to be generating its own questions in the audience, like: Where/when are we now? Is this a film about America? About Charlie Kaufman? These stupid questions (which are also the sort we might ask of a good, incoherent film), strangely, help pull us along through the movie: we keep following the subject, feeling that it’s almost in our grasp if only the speeding ideas would slow down a bit, if only those passages that look and sound like summations would allow us to linger before they rush on to new ideas, new syntheses. And the stupid questions turn out to be the right ones. Synecdoche, New York is the diary of a constant present, a present which induces – naturally – retrospection, nausea, the need to account for the distances traveled in standing still: a review of ideas from other places…

Several random thoughts:

We might consider Synecdoche, New York an essay film, not a narrative film.
Charlie Kaufman wants to be Woody Allen.
Charlie Kaufman is smarter, and more interesting, than Woody Allen.
If the act of creation is fear of a blank page, then Synecdoche, New York is the largest blank canvas Kaufman could find. He must fill it up.
He is afraid to fill it up.
Kaufman craves rejection and fears recognition
Kaufman craves recognition and fears rejection

(The above italicized texts are from a Terrence Rafferty article on Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil in Sight and Sound magazine, autumn 1984. My variations on his words, and how they relate to Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche New York, are in the non-italicized font.)