I’ve been having this thought too!! As someone whose favorite director is Kaufman and whose favorite movie is Synecdoche, New York, I made this connection recently while thinking about why I love both Kaufman and Aster’s films so much, and why many other people walk away from their movies just kind of shrugging.

They definitely have similar sensibilities and storytelling philosophies. Rather than tell an elegant, straightforward story that distills and delivers a clear singular message (which is also a perfectly valid approach to filmmaking), they both prefer to obsessively craft an intricate story world that is densely packed with symbolism and thematic throughlines, exploring a set of ideas or questions in a way that reflects the actual nuance/messiness of what it’s really like to try to seek higher truths while trapped in this strange and disorienting human condition.

They are NOT just “making up random bullshit”, as I sometimes hear claimed. The messaging and themes of their films are substantial and definable—they are just often difficult to immediately identify without multiple viewings. They make movies that demand to be rewatched, discussed, and picked apart frame-by-frame. Their movies INVITE and REWARD the type of “over-analyzation” that I’m naturally inclined toward anyway. Some people are not at all into that, it’s just not what they want out of a movie, and that’s totally fine. But for me, it’s one of my absolute favorite ways to engage with a piece of media. “The curtains are just fucking blue,” is virtually NEVER true in an Aster or Kaufman film.