| Abstract [eng] |
Charlie Kaufman's work is characterized by complex narrative structures and multilayered fields of meaning and reference. As in his other films, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” raises philosophical questions – contemplating human existence and its various modes of experience. The narrative is composed of different structures of reality: the everyday lived experience and the imagined. These are interwoven and merged in the film to reveal the protagonist's existential state. As a result, the viewer's perception is “activated” – it is precisely their experiential involvement that enables the emergence of meaning. The aim of this thesis is to identify the articulations of played and lived reality in Kaufman’s film and to reveal their interrelation. The object of research is examined phenomenologically – focusing on the viewer’s experience and the processes of the act of film perception. Therefore, the dominant concepts of intentionality and intersubjectivity are explained first. Then, a methodological distinction is drawn between the two realities, based on the phenomenological definition of lifeworld and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutic theory of play. Finally, the thesis includes tools from film phenomenology: Vivian Sobchack’s concept of film as an expression of an intentional, bodily perceiving consciousness, and Jean-Pierre Meunier’s theory of the viewer’s intersubjective relation to the film characters. In the analytical part of the thesis, the defined features of lived and played reality are identified. These are distinguished through the analysis of characters’ directions of intentionality and their intersubjective relationships. The final section of the analysis demonstrates how these realities are merged and interact in the film, with the characters finding themselves stuck in between different structures of perception. Throughout these processes, the viewer’s consciousness participates fundamentally. Due to the analogical nature of cinematic articulation to human perception, the film enables an understanding of the protagonist’s state of mind from the various perspectives of his intentionality. Thus, the research reveals how certain film meanings emerge through specific viewer experiences and how the embodied consciousness shapes the final meaning of the film. The individual correlation between viewer and film determines the potential for multiple interpretations. The analysis shows that the film is constructed in a way that disrupts the viewing experience – provoking and disorienting the viewer. In this way, the film encourages an active, hermeneutic viewing that requires sculpting its meanings and references independently. The interpretation undertaken in this thesis demonstrates that the protagonist’s played reality overtakes his everyday lived experience, resulting not only in social isolation but also in existential alienation. The desired intersubjective relationships with others are replaced by imagined – played – ones. The film reveals the nature of such quasi-intersubjective relations: it shows not only the acts of the fragmented consciousness of the main subject but also reveals the paradoxical quasi-existence of the imagined person, imprisoned in his game. The thesis concludes that the film raises two essential questions: the existential – regarding the relationship between imagination and reality – and the axiological – how external constructs shape self-understanding. The work expands the field of research on Kaufman’s oeuvre. In Lithuania, his works remain scarcely studied, and internationally, academic analyses of this particular film are still lacking. The thesis introduces new methodological tools of film phenomenology: it includes recently revisited Meunier’s theory of intersubjective identification and applies Sobchack’s concept of the film's double vision in practice. |
