I read Synonyms of New York in two halves, so judging from the time and content of the two parts, my feelings should be different from those of many people who read it all at once, and may not have such a coherent experience. But it also gave me a chance and free time to think outside the box, and the time span in the movie was more real to me.
For example, after the protagonist gave up thinking in his later years, he felt the same way as he stared blankly at other people's plays. The most direct manifestation is that he simply lived in this world built by himself until his death.
But for me, it doesn't have a very direct connection to the first half. Unless everything that happens around the protagonist is understood as a product that can be connected with art, like the colorful shit pulled out by his daughter, like the burning house.
In fact, everything that happens around the protagonist can indeed be understood as a magical reality, or an artistic and extreme reality of reality, as mentioned above. In this way, you can indeed indirectly feel the true meaning of that art to reality. The protagonist's last resignation is also more powerful.
But when I look at the first half in isolation, I will see a poor but sad director, he married an artist wife, his wife left home, he was extremely selfish, and fell in love with Hazel who licked him before , went to pursue it again, and seemed to be kidnapped... In the end, he wanted to pour out the bitter water in his heart and show it, so he planned to build a New York to express his life. Then the above is connected with the insertion of Allen at the end, and what happened in the first half seems to be meaningless.
This is how I understand it: the first half of the paragraph does not seem to be a magical reality at all, but an actualized art. I personally think that Kaufman does not intend to show an absurd story based on reality, but what he really wants to show is actually a Just like the art of a real story.
What is displayed in this way is bound to give us a sense of reality, because it is like reality, but from its foundation, this art is not giving reality a sense of identity, but using display to deny it.
We think that art can have an impact on the real because the art is fictional or it is also made up of reality. With this attribute, I take a picture of it, and then dye it in Cheng Liang's color, you can feel it. It's a surreal sculpture.
It's like the protagonist of a movie.
He's been through so many unusual things, and he's stuck with himself, and he's determined to show it to the world. But he didn't actually lose himself when he met Hazel's death, nor was it because his wife left, his daughter asked him to apologize before his death, etc. He lost himself. In fact, he never had himself. and ability are actually produced under the influence of others. Of course, he wants to express the uniqueness of this influence, but he will find that he is too passive, and he is not qualified at all, because he has no self-knowledge and cannot judge himself. How good or bad the play is, how to arrange it.
So, it's pretty vain.
This is most likely nothingness.
So I think that maybe Kaufman is denying himself by making this film, denying the works and values he has made, personally think.
In one's life, perhaps one should go with the flow, sweep the floor without complaint, clean and sanitize, get married and have children like most people, and then die in peace.
Searching for meaning does not lead to meaning, and examining oneself does not necessarily lead to the discovery of the true self. On the contrary, regardless of the meaning, people will be full, and without examining themselves, people will reveal their own desires without falling into the abyss of struggle.
This is many times more powerful than those who shout about nothingness and meaning and freedom all day long.
personal understanding.
Artists are always self-indulgent, aren't they?
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