Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, 52, is the mind behind such eccentric, cerebral hits as ‘Being John Malkovich’ (1999), ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ (2004) and ‘Synecdoche, New York’ (2008), which he also directed. With his playful, paradoxical narratives and tendency to blur real and fictional concerns, he’s been dubbed the quintessential meta screenwriter, a true maverick who has managed to forge a niche within The System. He’s coming to London next week to take part in the Bafta and BFI Screenwriters’ Lecture Series, which will include presentations from other important contemporary screenwriters such as Guillermo Arriaga and Paul Laverty. Here, we asked him about some of the dos, don’ts and more don’ts of his very personalised trade.
On studio filmmaking…
‘In a lot of movies, especially big studio ones, they’re not constructed in any other way than to get people to like them and then tell their friends. It’s a product. It’s like building a Buick. I don’t think the studios would even argue with that. It’s a very big business, a very risky business, and they want some sort of certainty that they’re going to succeed. They push certain buttons. But those movies aren’t interesting to me.’
On being seen as a ‘mathematical’ screenwriter…
‘I’ve heard people say that, and I don’t approach things that way. It often does come down to imagining different permutations of events. But I’m certainly not mathematical by training. I have a personality that tends to be somewhat compulsive, and I do tend to think in a circular way. I dwell on the same things over and over and I try to figure out different ways of looking at the same issue.’
On screenwriting as therapy…
‘I think if I’ve worked anything through with screenwriting it’s that I’m not going to be able to work anything through. It’s an ongoing crisis. You deal with who you are in different circumstances. I don’t think screenwriting is therapeutic. It’s actually really, really hard for me. It’s not an enjoyable process. Sometimes I like it when a script is out in the world and people are talking about it. I’ve been asked this before, and it invariably leads to the question: is there something else I’d rather be doing that’s more therapeutic? When I was young I used to act, and I would say that that was something I could definitely see as therapeutic. I really loved it. With this, it doesn’t feel like I’m solving anything or that I feel any happier by doing it.’
Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich, the title star of Spike Jonze's 'Being John Malkovich' (1999)
On pitching…
‘I never think about that. I’ve never tailored anything that I’ve wanted to do to what I think is going to get me money. I didn’t write “Being John Malkovich” for anybody. I was working in TV and I did it in my spare time with an eye to using it as a sample so I could get other assignment work in movies.’
On attracting big names…
‘John Malkovich aside, I never write with actors in mind. When that happens, you tend to write what you already know the actor can do. For instance, Jim Carrey was not in my head when I wrote “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. Had he been, and I was actually trying to get Jim Carrey to be in it, then I would’ve started to write what I know about Jim Carrey. It’s very hard to make that a character. The ideal situation is that you write this character, and then someone like Jim Carrey comes in to it, so Jim Carrey brings Jim Carrey, because Jim Carrey is Jim Carrey. That causes Jim Carrey to move away from what he knows (Jim Carrey), and it causes the character to move into the actuality of Jim Carrey and you get this synthesis, which is really good.’
On dreaming big…
‘I do have ideas that I don’t think can be realised in film. Yet, working mostly with Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, all they ever say is: “Don’t worry about that. It’s great, we’ll figure out how to do it.” There are some things you’ve got to cut. For the most part, the ideas that have seemed expensive have been figured out. If that kind of thing is going to happen, it’s going to happen more now that I’ve taken on directing. I can’t just think: Oh, Spike will have to work that one out. ’
On going back to TV…
‘I was an employee on TV. I was never working on my own show, it was always for someone else. The things I was working on for the most part were not of great interest to me ['The Dana Carvey Show', 'The Edge', 'Get a Life']. I was very excited that I could be a working writer. I have written a pilot that might get made. If it did, I would take the time to run that show and make it in to a series. It would be something for HBO, but quite an intimate show that I could be quite autonomous with. I don’t want a huge writing staff and those giant production issues.’
Samantha Morton and Philip Seymour Hoffman in 'Synecdoche, New York'
On reviews of his films…
‘I love reading them. I have a policy that I will never explain anything in my movie because I want people to have their own interaction with it. I love that there’s a possibility of different interpretations, and I do write things with that intention.’
On his forthcoming project, ‘Frank or Francis’…
‘If I look at some of the things in the script that I’m about to embark on, I’d have to say I don’t really have any idea how we’re going to do it. I’ve been pretty good at keeping logistics away from the writing process. It’s important when you’re writing to not bridle yourself with pragmatic concerns. The movie I’m about to do has got a lot of scenes and a lot of characters. And the scope of it and the world it inhabits is very, very large. In the broadest possible sense, it’s about online film criticism, but as usual, the world that I’m writing about is not necessarily the world that I’m writing about. It’s just a place to set it. There’s a lot in there about the internet and anger: cultural, societal and individual anger. And isolation in this particular age we live in. And competition: it’s about the idea of people in this world wanting to be seen. I hate to use the word “about”, as it implies that what I’m doing is an analogy and that I’m trying to say something. I’m not. That’s for the audience to do.’
Charlie Kaufman speaks at the BAFTA BFI Screenwriting Lectures at BFI Southbank on Fri Sept 30
