Hi, this is Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, and I'm here with a Slate's boiler special podcast on Synecdochie, New York, the new film and the first film directed by Charlie Kaufman.

I'm here with Dan Koeice. Hi, Dan.

Hey, how are you?

Who instructed me to introduce him as some guy because he is now a freelance writer.

Yep.

Associated loosely with the New York Magazine Vulture Culture Vulture blog. So, yes, Dan, I didn't know you were in this movie with me yesterday,

and I was very glad that you approached me after the end of this very, very strange

and strangely involving and yet alienating film and said, hey, let's talk about it.

So let's talk about it.

Indeed, we walked all the way across Manhattan talking about it,

and it's a movie that is both good and bad for talking about afterwards and that, as you said, I think, you know, it does give you a lot to think about.

But problematically, after you think about it for a while, you realize that most of the things you're thinking about are a little bit shallow and sophomoric.

Yeah, but it's a very interesting effect this movie has on you because it is sort of in some way intellectually challenging and vibrant.

Well, okay, to talk to make sure people know why this is even worth saying.

Let's start off with the title, Synecdokey, New York, a pun on the city name Schenectady, New York, where part of the movie takes place.

Right.

Can you read the definition of synecdokey that you have before you in the movie's press notes?

Thanks to the press notes. I know that synecdoche pronounced synecdochie.

It's a poetic term, a term used in poetry analysis frequently, but it's also in general

a figure of speech in which a part is used to represent a whole, as in one would say,

you know, instead of movies, the general concept of movies, you say the screen, the silver screen.

Right. All Hands on Deck is the classic Synecichy example in rhetoric books.

...