Art House: Synecdoche, New York
Philip Seymour Hoffman died from a drug overdose on February 2 at the age of 46. The shock of the tragedy has possibly only been matched by our belated realisation that the American actor's profound aptitude in portraying tortured souls might somehow have its tenuous roots in real life.
Hoffman (above) was one of the greatest actors of his generation to specialise in playing lonely, insecure and deeply unhappy human beings. He dazzled with a range of distinguished roles in both cinema — 2005's , 2008's and 2012's — and theatre. His final Broadway appearance was in the role of Willy Loman in Mike Nichols' 2012 revival of Arthur Miller's , a leading part that the actor previously played as a high school senior in 1984.
It is against this background of consistent artistic reinvention that Hoffman's lead role in , the 2008 directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman, should be appreciated.
Maddeningly elliptical in structure — as should be expected from the writer-director who also scripted (2002) and (2004) — this ambitious drama is, in essence, an overview of the human condition filtered through the eyes of a perpetually troubled genius, the New York-based theatre director Caden Cotard.
The role is played by Hoffman, who had directed his fair share of off-Broadway plays. In just another case of art-imitating-life-imitating-art, the actor is shown at the film's start directing a production of .
Although the reviews are good, they're not enough to curb the growing contempt of Caden's wife (an established artist played by Catherine Keener) in a disintegrating marriage. But upon receiving a MacArthur Fellowship, Hoffman's protagonist pours his life into a decades-long restaging of his own existence on a monumental warehouse set.
With an intimate understanding of a tortured artist's psyche and a seemingly insatiable thirst for the darkest brand of humour, Kaufman's mind-bending film follows one ordinary man who is consecutively — and sometimes simultaneously — besieged by doubts, regrets, physical ailments, crumbling relationships, deaths in the family and other problems faced by presumably all his living peers in the world.
Hoffman, in this instance, is your guide through the trials and tribulations. may be overwhelmingly philosophical but could also be considered an important piece of cinema at its most complex and humane. It is a study of human life, enhanced by the very fine performance of a nonetheless flawed soul.
, June 29, 11.40am, Broadway Cinematheque, Yau Ma Tei. Part of the BC Sunday programme
