Commentary: 'Synecdoche' could improve with edit

June 02, 2008 The original cut of Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut "Synecdoche, New York" was just more than four hours long, and after his two-hour, four-minute version was unveiled at the Festival de Cannes to a five-minute standing ovation, a viewer could understand why. The hypnotic film covers about 40 years in the life of a troubled theater director (Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has moonlighted as a theater director off the screen) staging a play within a play within a city within a warehouse within a warehouse. Kaufman's screenplays always have played by their own rules, often channeling bizarre ideas into quirky, funny fantasies and character studies.

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