"The Story of Caden Cotard," "Infectious Diseases in Cattle: Bloggers' Round Table," "Charlie Kaufman Animations," "NFTS/Script Factory Masterclass with Charlie Kaufman"

Synecdoche, New York, should first be prefaced as Charlie Kaufman's directional debut. He is a writer, and through the character of "Caden Cotard," played most vividly by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, we pay witness to this perspective in very effective ways. Which brings me to a comparison to Kaufman's equally innovative indie-brethren, Michael Gondry, who stepped out on his own with a film called, "Science of Sleep." Both films have their flaws, but they also expose something deeply personal, which results in a movie the audience becomes emotionally invested in. Kaufman, in more ways than one, epitomizes the kind of filmmaker who refuses to play puppet to production companies. His films are brutal, unflinching, but honest and compelling. Synecdoche, New York is no different. The movie focuses on the life of theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater is growing bleak by the day. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece, but the textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden's town deteriorating reality. ****

And that is certainly something that all of Kaufman's films tend to accomplish. Much like a Pixar animation, which blurs the line between the real and the imaginary, Kaufman wraps reality in parallels. In "Eternal Sunshine," he created scenes where dreams wavered and were erased, where lives and people melded together, and where love could disappear, only to be found down the block. "Adapation," in a different fashion, gave us insight in the mind of a writer. All it's inconsistencies, embarrassments, and "unexplainables" were placed under the microscope, yielding heartbreaking, but beautifully funny results. Synecdoche, New York is a kind of hybrid of these films.

Image and Sound:

The disc comes with a Dolby True HD 5.1 mix that would better suit Bruckheimer and other films of great visual bombast. The film is quiet, languidly paced, and the mix is thus somewhat superfluous. The soundtrack sets the mood well and the music seems to reverberate through that soundstage, used best in those scenes. The image, by way of Blu-Ray is obviously enhanced, and remains more immersive. This is vital to a film so entrenched in atmosphere of setting. New York is so sweeping visually, and the sequences within the warehouse are enthralling. Colors are dimmer, as expected, but the image is crisp, and the film is made ironically more intimate in it's clarity.

Unfortunately, the special features do not include commentary, which is always interesting in a film where one needs to see it more than once to fully comprehend the underlying motivations. However, one of the featurettes, In and Around Synecdoche, NY : The Making of Synecdoche, NY (19 min) does discuss the production, of course, from a more technical standpoint. What is most intriguing is the insight shared into use of the theater warehouse, where the film's most awe-inspiring scenes take place. Many of the visual cues that the filmmakers give the audience to keep reality in check are revealed as well.***

The Story of Caden Cotard: In Conversation with Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a 12-minute interview with the actor who discusses the challenge of playing a character that ages over a forty year period, correlating with the the range of Pitt in "Benjamin Button." Hoffman, who has shown his brilliance in dozens of intimate films like this, is less articulate in exposition of his characte r, but results are still interesting enough. Next up is wonderfully named Infectious Diseases in Cattle: Bloggers Roundtable (37 min). Much like "Word of Mouth," which is done for Broadway shows, it brings five movie bloggers together to discuss their impressions and reactions to the film. Audience impressions are important, and it should bring up discussion points because as any Kaufman fan knows, there's much more than meets the eye in the films of his repertoire.***

The final bonus item is a NFTS/Script Factory Masterclass with Charlie Kaufman (28 minutes.) Kaufman, much like the Cohen brothers, is a very reserved and private individual, no unlike his films. He does few interviews and any chance to hear him speak about his own work is worth watching. Unfortunately, the interviewer asks him some annoyingly misinformed questions, such as "Why did you send Meryl Streep to accept your Oscar?" to which a dumbfounded Kaufman replies "Oscar?? Umm, do you mean BAFTA?" ***

Final Words: