the end is built into the beginning
Synecdoche, New York begins with Caden's daughter singing, then an alarm clock--7:45--and on the radio, a literature professor reads from a translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's "Autumn Day (Herbsttag)" because, she says, Autumn is "seen as the beginning of the end." She compares the year to a life and September is a "melancholy month" in which "the bloom is off the Rose and things start to die." She reads the last few lines: Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander the boulevards Up and down, restlessly While the dry leaves are blowing Not sure whose translation that one is, but here is Edward Snow's, with the earlier lines: Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your long shadows on the sundial, And on the meadows let the winds go free. Command the last fruits to be full; give them just two more southern days, Urge them...