Synecdoche, Happiness

'We're all alone' says the worn-down husband in Todd Solondz's "Happiness". More than a decade after this wry, melancholy film showcased Philip Seymour Hoffman as a repressed onanist he returns as Caden Cotard in the brilliant Kaufman film Synecdoche, New York.

Solitude is a central theme in Happiness, and as the misery of each character becomes increasingly developed it is obvious that Solondz's point is that the standard ways of coping with solitude are futile. By systematically exposing the emptiness and inauthenticity of marriage, household, career, literary art, care-free retirement, and self-improvement, it seems Solondz argues for a universal recognition of how pathetic we all really are. Seems pretty clear that Solondz wanted us to believe that no matter where we stand on the life cycle we're actually tumbling into tragic meaninglessness. I like it.

The supposed conclusion of happiness studies is that relative wealth and well-being produces the greatest self-reported happiness. Bullshit says the live metaphor in Kaufman's recent film. Happiness is not only unattainable, but a complete illusion, the grandest fiction which, in addition to love, exists only in the hyperbolic narratives that drench our vulnerable humanity from beginning to end. Try to win by controlling others, try to win by creating a controlled environment like a play, try to win by discerning order amidst chaos, and you only end up with maps that contain smaller maps that contain smaller maps...

In other words, the real synecdoche is Cotard-for-everbody, not his magnum opus for New York. We all derive assurance from stupid projects; if we could risk abstracting ourselves slightly then there's no telling how much more difficult (and then enjoyable) it all becomes. So the real reward comes from figuring out how to relate to each other despite the inauthentic scripts running amok in our consciousness, self-descriptions, and conversations.

Synecdoche New York

I'm back, on Marathon Man

It's been nearly three years since my last post but I haven't lost my deep suspicion of cliche'. I recently saw Marathon Man and despite celebrating Obama's victory last week in earnest, I can remain terrified by formula.

I may be jaundiced by the revolting, totally scarring experience of having seen 88 Minutes. That film should never have been made, and once produced it the script should have been edited to exclude all references to personal psychology. Total garbage and a disgrace for all the actors. I can picture distribution people in a smoke-filled room rolling on the floor laughing their hearts out at this film--it's a compendium of hollywood genre cliche's and will be studied by historians developing an expertise in American cultural decay.

Back to Marathon Man and Obama. So I'm running high on hope and earnestness and I still can't get that excited by the supposed classic performance by Dustin Hoffman. There's nothing genuine about his psychology--his obsession with recovering the honor of his dead father provides incredibly thin character development beyond his decision to be a graduate student. And the endless footage of him jogging in New York? Why? To make it likely that he'll be able to outrun the bad guys at the end? To add poetry to his perseverence? I can't even talk about the ending without cracking up...Olivier swallows a diamond before drowning, makes me cackle.

The only part of the film I found touching was the Shoah survivors recognizing their torturer on 47th St. But even those scenes are mired in unfortunate stereotyping and, 30 years later, the whole concept seems crusty.

Marathon Man