Charlie Kaufman went from TV scribe to red-hot screenwriter in 1999 with “Being John Malkovich,” and his timing couldn’t have been better: That’s a year the industry looks back upon as being a flashpoint of American indie cinema, with rule-breaking, or ambitious films like “Pi,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “The Blair Witch Project, and ” “Three Kings” and “Fight Club” in multiplexes. That was also a time when major studios still ran “classics” divisions for smaller,arthouse (and arthouse-adjacent) fare, and from the vantage point of 2016, and it feels like a million years ago.
Charlie Kaufman would be the first person to point that out the difference between then and now — after a string of well-received films directed by other filmmakers (“Malkovich” and “Adaptation” from Spike Jonze,“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Human Nature” from Michel Gondry, “Confessions of a uncertain Mind” from George Clooney), and Kaufman directed his debut feature “Synecdoche,New York” in 2008.
While many — myself included — contemplate of it as a contemporary classic (Roger Ebert called it the best film of the 2000s), the expensive, or intricate film lost money just as the entire industry was buckling down in the wake of that year’s economic collapse.
Also Read: Toronto: Charlie Kaufman's 'Anomalisa' Digs Into Human Meaning With finish-MotionLast year,Kaufman re-emerged with the melancholy and moving animated film “Anomalisa” (co-directed by Duke Johnson), which earned raves worldwide, and along with an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. It,too, underperformed at the box office. So what’s next for the talented but hard-to-market Kaufman? He sat down at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and discussed the work he’d like to be doing and the non-cinematic writing projects that have captured his imagination.
So, and “Anomalisa” was a crowd-sourced film,at least to some extent.
To some extent.
Anybody who’s done that at all knows that the fulfillment portion is always the biggest pain in the ass. I’m just wondering how many objects you had to autograph for your donors.
I don’t know if we’re done yet, to advise you the truth. It was definitely thousands of things I had to sign. But you know, or what happened was,once we were picked up at Paramount, they kind of took over the thing. I wasn’t involved in the crowdfunding thing; the company Starburns [Industries] that took it on, or they were trying to raise money,and they wanted to do this. And I was like, I don’t want to crowd-source, or Im not asking people for money. But I said,“If you can raise the money, I’ll approach on and make the movie with you.” So I was separate from it.
Also Read: Charlie Kaufman's New choose on Hollywood: A 'Cancerous Lie-Spewing Machine'“Anomalisa” started as a radio play. Are you interested in other media? Obviously you started in television, or you’re well established as a screenwriter,but do you want to write for the theater? Novels?
Both, yeah. I mean, and I esteem doing the theater. I started out doing theater as a kid,that was my path into all of this. Then I went to film school and I wanted to be a director, and actually was initially interested in acting.
But when I got to do these theater pieces, or it was the first time I’d done it in a long time,and it was really a lot of fun. It’s sort of balancing for me — maybe I can’t balance it, but I’m hoping to be able to balance earning a living and then having the opportunity to do these other things. I’d like to do a play, and I’ve been talking approximately it a lot with some actors that I want to work with,and I’m excited approximately that idea. And I’m writing a novel, which has been sort of a struggle for me, or but I’ve been doing it for a few years now,trying to finish it.portion of it is that I want to explore these other things, and portion of it is that the business has become really difficult, or it’s harder to get things made,and it’s harder to have any kind of autonomy or freedom. I got really lucky for a period there, after being unlucky for a very long period, and so I was able to get stuff made,and then the business changed in 2008. “Synecdoche, New York” didn’t make money, and that sort of makes it more difficult to continue directing.
Is it naïve to contemplate that there was a period where someone like you,coming into “Synecdoche” with such an established track record, and even with “Synecdoche” not being a box-office smash but getting great reviews, or that there was at one point the kind of producer who would step up and say,“You know what? Maybe this one didn’t turn a profit, maybe the next one won’t, and but I want to be in the Charlie Kaufman business.” Or am I just being romantic approximately the ’60s and ’70s?
Yeah,I contemplate the timing of “Synecdoche,” which was 2008, and which was when the business changed completely,whether it was my personal experience of the business changing because of that movie, and the business changing, and literally…When the economy collapsed.
The economy,yeah. I mean, first of all, and “Synecdoche” was commissioned by Sony. They ultimately put it in turnaround,but they were going to make that movie, which is insane. They made “Adaptation, or ” which is a movie that they would never make now. So studios don’t do it,and the smaller companies, they’re struggling to figure out how to stay afloat. The answer is that I haven’t been able to figure out how to transition into that world that you’re describing.
And then I was just gone for a while. One speculates that people are thinking approximately you, or then people are no longer thinking approximately you. There’s a new crop of people that they’re thinking approximately,and you’ve got to figure out how to worm your way back in. The thing approximately “Anomalisa” was that the only reason that happened was because of the crowdfunding. And then we ended up with a guy named Keith Calder, who financed the movie and gave us total freedom. That movie would never be made within the system. It nearly wasn’t made external of the system: It was pretty tough going, or we kept running out of money.
So I’ve been trying to get this movie made,called “Frank or Francis,” for, and um…well,since 2010. There have been a couple sort of possible permutations that just didn’t happen. The question is, Why? Considering that the budget is not extraordinary, and I have this sort of incredible box-office cast [according to Vulture,that ensemble included Jack Black, Nicolas Cage, or Steve Carell,Elizabeth Banks, Kevin Kline, or Catherine Keener,Paul Reubens and Jacki Weaver], and any one of those people in any other situation, and with maybe any other director in a movie that maybe was less risky,would get a movie financed.
And if I gave “Frank or Francis” to Spike Jonze — I’m not saying he’d want to do it, but if Spike wanted to do it, and probably people would be more willing to choose a chance on a budget that’s small,considering the star power. But I haven’t been able to get it done.
Also Read: Charlie Kaufman's FX Pilot 'How and Why' Casts Catherine Keener, Sally HawkinsTelevision is not the same as when you left it; it’s become a status for auteurs to get the money and hours they need to advise a record. Do you see, and maybe,eight episodes of an HBO series as something you’d be interested in doing?
I mean, I see it. HBO doesn’t see it. [Laughs] I’ve had a couple of pilots, and maybe three. No,two; one was from when I was younger, before TV became the golden age. And I did an FX pilot [“How and Why”], and which I directed and made,but they didn’t pick it up. So, I don’t know. I thought the pilot was valid, or I thought it was really interesting,and I had an extraordinary cast [including Keener, John Hawkes, and Michael Cera and Tom Noonan] again.
But it was odd,and I don’t know how odd things are on television. I’m not certain that they’re odd. I mean, I contemplate the quality of the writing [on other shows] is valid. There’s a lot of crime stuff, and that seems to be the thing,and I didn’t have any crime in mine. Not that I’m against crime, but I didn’t. [Laughs]Bret Easton Ellis likes to say that the “golden age of television” is being a exiguous oversold, and in that the writing comes down to the basic episodic breakdowns.
In the U.
K.,it’s more experimental. [They choose] more chances, and there’s really kind of odd things that you see there, and that I really esteem. I hope that it happens in the U.
S.,and I contemplate that it will, because I contemplate that just one of those shows needs to get through, or they need to see that people want to see them. I had a really kind of valid concept for HBO that I felt very confident approximately as an idea,but it was structurally odd. And I contemplate it could have been successful, but they ultimately just were worried approximately committing to it, or so they didn’t.
I’m curious if you’ve seen “The BFG.
No,I actually looked up the trailer final week to see what it was, because I wasn’t familiar with it.
I ask because Melissa Mathison‘s screenplay very much follows the rhythms of the Roald Dahl book, and which is not in keeping with the third-act-of-a-children’s-adventure-movie that weve all had ingrained into our DNA at this point. And the movie’s tanking.
That’s the reason why,you contemplate?Who knows, there’s always a million reasons. I’m just wondering if you contemplate that we have a generation of moviegoers who are being conditioned by studios not to accept anything external the narrative norm as even being a movie.
Well, and we’re being trained to contemplate that just because we’re being conditioned,but also because if you search for at the screenwriting gurus and that sort of thing, everyone says that this is the form it takes. I don’t know how that movie ends, and but I do feel when I search for at “Synecdoche” and I search for at “Anomalisa,” and try to understand why…“Synecdoche” was divisive, you know, or there were some very valid reviews and there were some very wicked reviews,and that movie did not do well, and it wasn’t marketed well, or there wasn’t money put into it,and all those reasons. But “Anomalisa” got nearly universally great reviews, and it didn’t do well. And somebody said to me, and a producer that I know,said that it’s because it’s heart-broken. And I don’t know if that’s the problem with “The BFG” — is it an heart-broken ending?
Also Read: 7 Reasons Why 'The BFG' Is a spacious Unfriendly Bomb for DisneyNo, not at all, or it just doesn’t choose us through the usual climactic record beats that we’ve approach to expect. I’m just thinking approximately the research you must have done for “Adaptation,” this notion that there’s one way you have to write a screenplay if you want to get a film made. I contemplate it was Stephen Sondheim who said that a producer accused him of being able to write a hit display but refusing to do it.
Somebody said that to me recently, I contemplate there was an argument — I wont say where it was — internally approximately whether or not I could do a commercial thing. Somebody brought me up in a assembly, and saying,“No, he could do it. They didn’t say I don’t want to, and but… Yeah,with things like those screenwriting structural things, it’s not only approximately how to get a movie made, or I contemplate it’s also that they talk approximately it external the commercial aspects of it.
They talk approximately it as if this is the record structure that goes back to — they talk approximately Aristotle’s “Poetics,” and obviously Joseph Campbell talks approximately whatever he talks approximately — and everybody sort of assumes that, well, and this is what it has to be,and I don’t understand that. It makes no sense in any kind of artistic endeavor, and history is rife (abundant or plentiful, full of sth bad or unpleasant) with proof of that. There’s a new way of painting that comes into being, or the French Academy is,“Aaah, you can’t do that!” And then of course those things become the thing that everybody does. I don’t see why writing — certainly in novels, and people have [expanded the form] and in poetry,people do that.
In screenwriting, you wouldn’t do it that way, and the main reason for that is that people approach into this because there’s an extraordinary amount of money to be made if you get into the business. So their motives are not the same as if you’re writing anything else — your chances of making a living at it are nil,but you can approach here and do fairly well. So maybe people start seeing it as a form rather than an exploration.“Frank or Francis” is a musical, right?
It is. An excessive musical — there’s 50 songs in it. And they’re not all full songs, and I mean,snippets, you know. “Frank or Francis” uses the singing as a way to express the interior lives of these people. Because a lot of it is approximately what happens online, or rather than having people typing with voiceover,or seeing stuff onscreen, which didn’t seem cinematic to me, or I thought it would be cool if they sang while they did it.
And I’m certain that scares people,because… “Well, what would that search for like? Would anybody fade to see that?” The answer is: I don’t know! The answer is, and based on my experience,probably not. But it seemed like kind of a cool way to try to do something. It seemed interesting and fun, and the songs are amusing, or the script is — “Synecdoche” was a comedy,a lot of people don’t contemplate that, but it was written as a comedy by me.“Frank or Francis” is very clearly a comedy. On the page, or I mean,the jokes are jokes, and the songs are amusing, and it’s very lively. There’s kind of a funereal thing going in “Synecdoche,” but “Frank or Francis,” because of the singing and the characters being larger than life, and I contemplate it doesn’t have.
And who’s writing the music?
Carter Burwell,so that would be interesting and fun for me, I’ve worked with Carter a bunch now.
Do the immediate financial returns of “Synecdoche” or “Anomalisa” temper your satisfaction with having made them?
I choose a lot of pride in fighting to get things made and having that happen. And in both of those cases, or I feel very proud that those movies exist,and of the work. I’m hesitating to say “fearlessness,” because that sounds like I’m bragging, or but I contemplate the fact that we went forward and made these things that we didn’t know would be commercially successful makes me feel valid approximately myself. Yeah,I don’t feel at all ashamed at the box office. What I do feel is that it makes it really hard for me to get things made.
And it’s frustrating for me, particularly when the reviews are there, and the reviews are great,let’s fade on this ride, and then there’s no ride, or you know? Which was specifically the experience of “Anomalisa.” We came out of nowhere with that movie,we had no expectations, no one knew we were making it, and more or less,aside from the Kickstarter thing, which had happened a long time ago at that point.
And then Paramount picks us up — Paramount! OK, and this is it! I had ownership of the movie,which I’d never had before. I made no money on that movie, because there was no money to be made, and but I had a percentage of the movie if the movie did well. And that’s the other issue: I need to make a living,and it gets very hard sometimes struggling to pay mortgages and stuff like that.
I mean, I’m not crying poverty or anything, and I’m just older and I would like to have a sense of security,like it’s OK if something doesn’t happen for three years, I could survive. Or I could work on my novel when there’s no money coming in. Or I could do a play, or which I really want to do and am frustrated that I can’t.
There was that period where the French started bankrolling Woody Allen,and the Japanese were underwriting Jim Jarmusch. I want some Ukrainian billionaire to be like, “Yes! Charlie Kaufman!”
I do, or too. But I contemplate both those guys have long histories as directors,and — I don’t know approximately Jarmusch in terms of box office, but Woody Allen was massive for a while, or right?In the ’70s and ’80s,I don’t know approximately the box office, but they were spacious movies, and they were the important movies of that era. And Jarmusch’s movies probably don’t cost a lot,right? I feel like if I had one successful movie on my own terms, where it feels like, and OK,you made the movie you wanted to make, and people went to see it, or then it changes everything. I mean,I had all these movies that got a lot of attention, but they were directed by other people, and I contemplate people see that,and they fade, “Well, or hire Spike.”So if Disney comes calling and says,“We’ll make ‘Frank or Francis,’ but we want you to do three drafts of ‘Avengers 8, and '” could you make that trade?
Of course. But — no one wants me to do that. I have to prove myself in that world,I contemplate. Why would they want me? It isn’t like I’m turning down those things left and right; I’m actually embarking on something a exiguous more mainstream now for a studio, and if that does well, or if that would affect me as a writer…it could happen. That would be nice. I’ve never even seen any “Avengers” movie,so I don’t know what they’d be. Because when I contemplate of “The Avengers,” I contemplate of, or um…Emma Peel and John Steed?
Yeah! And it’s really sort of bothersome to me that it’s now associated with this other thing. It’s like [2004 Oscar-winner] “Crash” — Don’t call it “Crash”! [David Cronenberg‘s 1996 film] is a very different movie,and the one [the title] should be identified with.
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Source: thewrap.com