Cinema Mythologica: Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Love robots, doppelgängers and tragic heroes – behind these iconic film characters lies a mythical past. Although most films are set in the present or the future, classical myths play a significant role throughout Hollywood. Countless films are inspired by archetypal narrative patterns and mythical characters, particularly when they deal with contemporary themes such as AI, gender and psychology. In the Cinema Mythologicaseries, a collaboration between De Uitkijk and classicist Koen Vacano, we uncover the hidden mythical layers of film history, from Oedipus complexes to narcissistic algorithms. Each film features a short introduction in English, inviting you to view the film through a mythological lens.

Theatre director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a neurotic, tormented by numerous physical ailments. He is afraid of death, afraid of life, and perpetually desperate. His wife Hazel, a painter, finds life with him suffocating and flees to Berlin with their young daughter. Cotard’s life falls apart. What sustains him is an unlimited budget for the creation of his magnum opus: a play as ‘shockingly honest’ as life itself, for which he attempts to build a lifelike replica of New York. Cotard rents a huge hangar and hires an army of actors who are free to discover their own roles. Years pass, during which the warehouse becomes increasingly isolated from the outside world and Cadens’ health deteriorates further. A parallel city grows up around Cotard, the leading actor in a theatre without boundaries.