Manohla Dargis has a new piece on Synecdoche in the NY Times - an interesting analysis/summary of the film.
“Synecdoche, New York” might be the story of a life condensed into a single minute — specifically, in the minute it takes for 7:44 a.m. to become 7:45 a.m.. — but then, it might not. The film doesn't answer its riddles in one sitting, which makes sense given it's about one of the greatest mysteries: a human life. Its dense texture, thicket of literary references, medical terms, mordant jokes, eccentric images and myriad preoccupations are not there simply to drive you crazy (though they might) or show you how smart Mr. Kaufman is, or make you feel clever for catching its allusions. Rather, the film is a representation of Caden's inner world or, I'm guessing, Mr. Kaufman's, which of course would make it a synecdoche. (Source)
In the Times' piece on who their critics would nominate for this year's Oscars, Dargis also nominates it for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress (in that last category, 4 of her 5 nominees are from Synecdoche). The other critics also slot Synecdoche into various categories.
Synecdoche polled 10th in the Village Voice's Best Films of '09. WALL-E was #1.
Meanwhile, Variety has a short feature on the work Frederick Elmes did as cinematographer for Charlie's film.
Frederick Elmes has collaborated with such iconoclastic directors as David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch, but Charlie Kaufman and "Synecdoche, New York" presented particular challenges.
"You try to realize what the director has in mind," Elmes says, "and though Charlie always wanted to keep it looking as real as possible -- in most cases we used natural light -- we also knew it was fantastical."
The decades-long narrative involves overlapping encounters and characters portrayed by multiple actors. But Elmes says in subtle visual ways, each person and situation was differentiated from the other, be it through camera technique, lighting or the desaturation of color -- most of which was done in camera rather than post.
According to Elmes, Kaufman, who was not originally supposed to direct his own screenplay, was "learning as we went along what was needed to make his story.
"It was a relatively low-budget film," Elmes adds, so ingenuity was essential.
"At one point we lost track of what house we were in," he says, which led to one of the houses being set on fire and photographed that way throughout. (Source)
That's pretty much the whole thing, other than a short list of the tools he used.
