Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Timing: 2:4 (124 min)

7.544/10
1548

7.034/10
15406

7.5/10
104000

All about film

Video 11

Photo 66

Actors and characters

Release date

2008-10-24

Country

United States

Production

Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Likely Story, Projective Testing Service, Russia, Inc.

Genre

Drama

Budget

$20 000 000

Revenue

$4 297 030

Website

http://www.sonyclassics.com/synecdocheny

Director

Charlie Kaufman

Actors

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis, Tom Noonan, Sadie Goldstein
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Charlie Kaufman, Anthony Bregman, Spike Jonze, Sidney Kimmel, William Horberg, Bruce Toll, Ray Angelic

Operator

Frederick Elmes

Composer

Jon Brion

Artist

Kim Jennings, Deborah Jensen, Mark Pollard

Audition

Jeanne McCarthy

Editing

Robert Frazen, Erica Kay
All team (79)

• The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the following definition of 'synecdoche': A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole (e.g., 'ate a whole plate' means 'ate the soup that was in the plate,' not the ceramic plate itself), the whole represents a part ('the client went fastidious'), the replacement of a genitive construction with an elliptical one ('100 head of cattle'), elliptical instead of genitive ('head' instead of 'a person thinking with it'), or the name of the material instead of the thing made from it ('Boxes shine, the stalls and chairs - everything is boiling'). The latter is considered metonymy in Russian.
• Among the residents of the house where Adele lives, there is someone named Capgras. There is a psychopathological disorder called "Capgras delusion," in which the patient is convinced that someone in their close circle (husband, wife, parents, etc.) has been replaced by a doppelganger, or when the patient mistakes strangers for acquaintances or relatives. The patient may also claim that their bad deeds were actually committed by their double.
• At the beginning of the film, the character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014) reads the newspaper at breakfast and says: "Harold Pinter is dead. Oh no, he's being awarded the Nobel Prize." This is a reference to the incident when the British news channel Sky News mistakenly announced Pinter's death in a hurry, when in reality he had been nominated for the Nobel Prize. (Harold Pinter, 1930-2008 – English playwright, poet, director, actor, and public figure.)
• The surname of the character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman is Kotar. This is a reference to Cotard's syndrome, a psychopathological syndrome combining anxious depression, depersonalization, derealization, and Cotard's delusion. Cotard's delusion is a nihilistic-hypochondriacal depressive delusion with fantastic content and ideas of grandeur and negation.
• According to director Charlie Kaufman, Christopher Evan Welch was cast in the film at the very last moment, leaving him with less than a day to prepare for the role.
• Initially, Spike Jonze was supposed to direct the film, but he preferred to work on "Where the Wild Things Are" (2009).
• Applying tattoos to Robin Weigert's body, as required for the role, took 20 hours.
• The "Merriam-Webster" dictionary gives the following definition of "synecdoche": A figure in stylistics in which a part is a definition of the whole (for example, "ate a whole plate" means "ate the soup that was in the plate", and not the ceramic plate itself), the whole is a part ("the client went picky"), the replacement of a genitive structure with an elliptical one ("100 head of cattle"), elliptical instead of genitive ("head" instead of "a person thinking with its help"), or the name of the material instead of the thing made from it ("Boxes shine, the stalls and chairs – everything is seething"). The latter is considered metonymy in Russian.