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Home , Charlie Kaufman, John Malkovich, Michel Gondry, Rachel Getting Married, Spike Jonze

adaptation, 2002

We open on entering a Fre the Kaufman paradox

Hollywood’s brainiest pleases crowds by refusing to be crowd-pleasing. His debut as director comes with the usual existential despair, absurdist humor, and intellectual mischief. Go ahead— have a little gray matter with your Raisinets.

synecdoche, , 2008

Scenes From the Creation of a Charlie Kaufman Profile Part 1 The Assignment Letter

Slug: Charlie Kaufman Author: Jason Tanz Editor: Nancy Miller Issue: 16.11 Due Date: 8/27/08 a in m ent

Hi Jason,

I am really excited about this Charlie Kauf- man profile. You and I have discussed several approaches in capturing this brilliant screen- by jason tanz writer as he makes his debut as an auteur with Synecdoche, New York. I think once you meet Kaufman, you’ll have entert picture s s ony a better sense of the story you want to write. But just to summarize our conversations so far: You’re going to request meeting with Charlie on three separate occasions in his hometown of . First, a standard in-person interview of a couple hours or so. Second, you’ll be a fly on the wall as Charlie conducts some business related to the film’s being , 1999 release. If there’s any postproduction left, that would be ideal—would love to see him in the editing room, for instance. Maybe even riding along with Kaufman as he heads to the grocery Synecdoche: C ollection; store. Then you do a follow-up interview—by

phone if necessary. I’m confident once you meet ob a l him and form a rapport, you will come back K with plenty of material and we’ll strategize from there. Secondary interviews will likely be Philip Sey- mour Hoffman and other cast members of Syn- ecdoche. Also, collaborators and would be excellent sources to round out your story. If you need contact info for any of these guys, let me know. I’m happy to wrangle Gondry and Jonze if you need. Your deadline is August 27, which is a quick turnaround, but I’m confident this story will

come together once you’ve had time with Kauf- M a lkovich: John being tion, man. This story is going to be great. a a pt

Nancy Ad 2 2 9 ench bistro in Los Angeles. He looks nothing like , who played Kaufman in the Kaufman-penned filmAdapta ­ tion. The real Kaufman is slight, with a healthy serving of reddish-brown curls. Two vertical creases partition his eye- brows—the product, one imagines, of countless furrowings. His wardrobe is standard-issue LA screenwriter: short-sleeve Penguin button- Part 3 down, tan jeans, lime-green socks. Kaufman, 50, has a reputa- Logistics

tion for shyness, but as he takes a seat in the back corner of the On 8/11/08, at 2:07 PM, Nancy Miller wrote: So, the plan as I understand so restaurant, he speaks directly, rapidly, forcefully. far, is: You’re meeting him tomorrow at Figaro. Then you go back early next Kaufman recently completed work on his directorial debut, week, then you do a phone follow-up, Synecdoche, New York. The film, which opens in late October, is is that right? On 8/11/08, at 2:08 PM, Jason Tanz his trickiest screenplay to date, which is really saying something. wrote: Well, phone follow-up isn’t down Kaufman’s previous mind-bending work—a roster that includes in writing, but I’ll try to finagle that, yes. On 8/11/08, at 2:11 PM, Nancy Miller , Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the wrote: OK. And how are you feeling about your angle? I know we batted Spotless Mind, for which he won an Oscar—established him as around a few ideas right after the screening. My one concern is that lunch the most distinctive and admired screenwriter of his genera- and editing room is pretty standard director profile stuff. Is that something tion. With Synecdoche, Kaufman is attempting to make the jump you want to play off of?

from writer to full-on auteur. It’s been five years since he started On 8/11/08, at 2:16 PM, Jason Tanz wrote: I think I feel pretty good about batting around ideas with his friend and sometime collaborator the angle. I mean, who knows, but I came up with some cool ideas over the week- Spike Jonze, five long years during which he worked on this bleak end, ways of framing this while also mak- ing him Wired. story of a man’s anxieties, failures, flaws, and ultimate demise. That being said, I don’t think we’re going to get super-amazing scenes here. The result is a deeply personal, borderline-obsessive­ story of We just aren’t. But I’m hopeful that we’ll kaufman, with actress robin weigert, on the set of synecdoche, new york. get some good quotes and scene-­setting heartache and death—not the fun, f/x-enhanced-fireball kind of and that will be enough to carry us through. And I always leave open the death that fills movie theaters, possibility of writing about these nego- but the holy-crap-look-at-the- tiations themselves, which as you sug- so hard to know what I’m sup- put to film. “I’ve been told that my stuff is mathematical,” Kauf- story, meanwhile, is filtered through Caden’s perspective—further size-of-that-abyss kind of death posed to say. I’m participating in man says. “There’s like a hidden epiphany in it for me. You think complicating matters, because his autonomic nervous system may that fills Sartre novels. This is an article to sell this movie, but you understand something, and then another version opens up.” be shutting down, and there are hints that he suffers from psycho- Part 2 Getting Access not, in other words, an easy sell. what am I supposed to say? ‘It’s great and I’m loving it’? It seems For anyone who doesn’t mind a little gray matter with their Rai- sis, chromosomal damage, and Capgras syndrome—believing real And now he has to promote the to be a tricky thing to sell people on, and I’m frustrated with that.” sinets, Kaufman is more than a writer; he is a cultural touchstone. things are replicas. (Caden’s last name, Cotard, is also the name On 7/17/08, at 6:06 PM, Jason Tanz wrote: Hm. How’s this? Not sure how thing. Which he is not very good at. The mind of Charlie Kaufman may not be the happiest place on “It’s hard not to see his influence,” says Anthony Bregman, who of a delusion that causes sufferers to believe that they are dead or much detail/ass-kissing is required. Happy to revise. The first question is a softball— earth, but it is one of the most fascinating. Kaufman merges the exis- served as producer on The Ice Storm and The Savages, as well as dying.) Meanwhile, Kaufman himself hovers around the outer rim of We’d like to profile Charlie Kaufman— Wired’s favorite screenwriter—as he How do you feel about this film in tential despair of Beckett with the absurdist humor of Monty Python three of Kaufman’s films, includingSynecdoche . “Every submission this infinite spiral, someone who—like Caden—is trying to capture enters this new, ambitious stage of his career. Why we’re interested now: relation to your other ones?—and and the intellectual playfulness of a natural-born puzzle geek. (He I get is ‘We have a Charlie Kaufmanesque movie for you.’” and re-create the intricacies of a life with limited space and time. Kaufman recently finished his direc- torial debut, Synecdoche, New York, the answer should be obvious: I’m is particularly fond of Epimenides’ paradox, a classic one-­sentence But it’s hard to imagine anyone mimicking Synecdoche, Kauf- If this all makes you yearn for a Kaufman decoder ring, dream taking the reins from the A-list direc- tors who have filmed his previous work. prouder of this movie than any I’ve brain-buster: “This sentence is false.”) In Malkovich’s most famous man’s most Kaufmanesque film yet. (Yes, that’s a tautology.) Let on. This time, the puzzle master doesn’t provide any answers. We want to capture this show-and- prove moment. And we’re rooting for ever done. Everyone should see it. scene, the eponymous actor enters a portal into his own mind. In Stranger Than Fiction and Tropic Thunder splash around the onto- “Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine him; Kaufman is a Wired hero, a formal innovator who brings a bracing intel- But Kaufman doesn’t do confident. Adaptation, a screenwriter named Charlie Kaufman writes him- logical kiddie pool; Synecdoche plunges to such murky depths that gest will make the banality of the scenes ultimately have a safety valve— lect and wonky humor to his work. By a feature rather than a bug. In the end, all accounts, Synecdoche is his boldest “This is a difficult period for me self into his own movie, which becomes Adaptation. And the lead it makes Adaptation look like Dude, Where’s My Car? The film though, I don’t want to depend on him a clever conceit that you come to foray yet into Borges-Dick territory, the giving us really exciting stuff. kind of stuff our readers would eat up. right now with this movie, because character of Eternal Sunshine witnesses his memories as they are revolves around theater director Caden Cotard (played by Philip understand,” Kaufman says. “This We’d like to paint a unique portrait of a in m ent On 8/11/08, at 2:38 PM, Nancy Miller Kaufman at the crossroads, a glimpse movie and this script are inten- it’s over and I want it to be over,” he being erased, including the memory of his decision to erase his Seymour Hoffman), who attempts to capture the “brutal truth” of wrote: OK. Sounds like you’ve got a plan at one of our best as he so, I look forward to hearing about it tries to extend himself into honest-to- says. “Putting it out into the world, memories. Cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, in his Pulitzer his own existence by staging a real-time re-­creation of it. He casts when you get back. No, I’m dying to hear tionally not like that. It’s more like God auteurhood. there’s a lot of …” He trails off, stares Prize–winning tome Gödel, Escher, Bach, refers to such regressions an actor to play him, who then must cast an actor to play him, and about it when you get back. life. Things flying off and becom- On 7/21/08, at 1:42 PM, Nancy Miller wrote: Hey, wanted to let you know I sent at a point in the middle distance for as Strange Loops—circular paradoxes that contain themselves. And so on. Caden’s girlfriend attracts the affections of the actor playing ing unhinged and being incompre- a version of this to [Kaufman’s agent].

I’ll follow up tomorrow. a few seconds, then continues. “It’s Kaufman’s Möbius scripts contain some of the strangest loops ever entert picture s s ony Caden, and Caden sleeps with the actress playing . The entire hensible seem to be the process

2 3 2 it isn’t a good idea for a movie.” to explore. Idon’tknow. Maybe of existence. That’s what I set out though AndCannes.) at deal a landed equally hyped Che Guevara biopic, Stevenincluding Soderbergh’s be fair, nootherAmerican film, tivaldistributor.a without (To Cannes in May, but it left the fes- atscreento films anticipated che picked it up in July, with plans for a slow-build, three-month rollout. film finally won distribution when Pictures Classics quietly and more derisively as obscurantist and incomprehensible.” The “into realms that can most charitably be described as ambiguous trib willhave its work cutoutfor it,” addingthatthefilmspins Variety’s mostly warm analysis warned that “a venturesome dis- focused instead on its difficulties. acle movie”—many reviews have some raves—Time called it “a mir - He may have a point. washighlymost the of one Synecdoche has received Synecdo- eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, 2004 look at how a feature, this feature, feature, this feature, a how at look behind-the-scenes real more—a much be it’ll but whatever, or extra, Web a as it post We’ll etc. transcripts, up galleys, full interview audio and/or pitch, my notes, our emails, marked- everything—the mean I online. thing which will make nobody happy. a profile of Charlie Kaufman!” etc.), writing (“I’m quick pretty gimmickry this threatens to become mere meta- course, of But etc. “truth,” of pursuit our in frailty and self-consciousness battle we how constructed, are stories and narratives how of themes Kaufmanian explore means that it, I see way The here. bar” the says—“raise chillingly one weekend, and wanted to run it by you. happening, but I had a thought over the on whether this Kaufman story is even clear not still we’re I wrote:know OK, Tanz Jason PM, 12:18 at 8/4/08, On Here’s what I propose: Let’s put every The challenge we have is to—as every Packaging the Story Part 4

- - dering?” Pause. “You can’t win.” I raise about myself is, Is that pan- anti-pander. But then the question der,” Kaufman says. “I’m going to of his mind. “I’m not going to pan- follow him into the darkest corners challenge: convincing audiences to dauntingmost his with himself are impossible to pull off.” Adaptation, “to setupgoals that Jonze, who directed he can’t possibly succeed,” says to sethimselfupinways sothat career.his “Charlie’sisnature screenplay for Adaptation, hesays, heworried itwould destroy render its verdict. He has been here before. When he submitted the films is obviously there. But I do think, if it is seen, it will get legs.” “The risk of it not being as commercially successful as some other a verysubjective lens,” says Hoffmanofhisleadcharacter role. Now Kaufman has presentedhas Kaufman Now In the meantime, Kaufman waits—anxiously—for the market to “It’swatchingreallyman’sjust a years,50 overlife through Malkovich and ments as sidebars? wrote: Maybe we can include some ele- Tanz Jason PM, 12:21 at 8/4/08, On of this idea that will run in the mag? wrote: I like this idea. Is there a version Miller Nancy PM, 12:20 at 8/4/08, On tially really interesting one. both of us, I’m sure, but I think a poten - for experience intense a be pretty would head with the meta-ness of it all. we wouldn’t be knocking people over the so optional, it’d be And out. to spell need the subject, in ways I probably don’t with nicely so dovetails also it But story. to completed to data idea from goes a piece how show and candid completely and-tech POV; we’re using the Web to be gets conceived, written, shaped, etc. Anyway, let me know what you think. It think. you what know me let Anyway, I think it’s exciting from a journalism- Maybe even THESE VERY EMAILS?

kobnon-commissionedal collection credits tk here 2 3 doche will make its North American Film Festival, and in two days night of the International nose. It’s early September, the fourth face, bleeding from the bridge of his restaurant a in in a full-body cast. “They wouldn’t do it,” Kaufman remembers. “There and then has to replace it with an injured tightrope-walking monkey his archaeologist-roommate’s rare child-king mummy for a piñata, vehicle to produce. He penned an episode for the short-lived Bronson Pinchot getting back from space in time so they could make their gig.” rock band that were astronauts by day, and their biggest issue was Kaufman remembers as “a throwback to He developed a pilot for Disney called cey, early ’90s, Kaufman worked on such forgotten gems as Get a Life is the best-known show on your résumé.) Throughout the when you’re toiling inobscurity?WhenChrisElliott’s cultseries surprising that he was not very successful at it. (How do you know ing for that most artificial of formats, the half-hour sitcom. It’s less loss; every relationship ends in one way or another.” going and gets complicated and there’s loss. Everything involves ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps notion, whatdoesthatmean?”hesays. “There really isonlyone culminates inafeel-good ever after’ denouement.“The ‘happily triumph. Hedoesn’tbuythestandard Hollywood story arc that his houroftriumph.Then again, Kaufman isn’tabigbeliever in would be fine.” farm in the Catskills while holding a napkin full of ice cubes to his face. corner of the restaurant, talking to actress about her instead of schmoozing, Kaufman spends the cocktail hour in a dim his face, and now he’s in the john, convinced his nose is broken. So he bumpedhisheadgetting outofhistaxi, hisglasses sliced into Shiraz from DanAykroyd’s vineyard andshillingSynecdoche,but industry bigwigs. Kaufman should be right here, sipping Cabernet luminous star, AnneHathaway, dazzles acluster ofreporters and chats abouthisnew film,RachelGetting Married,asthemovie’s generate some early Oscar buzz. Outside, director party to promote the 10 films it has at the festival and, with any luck, premiere. Tonight, isthrowing asplashy Charlie 3 More than once, Kaufman wrote scripts that the networks refused It’s surprising, then, that Kaufman began his path to stardom labor- Kaufman can’t manage to celebrate, even atwhatshouldbe “I shouldn’t have come here tonight,” he sighs. “Then my nose

courtyard Misery Loves Company, The Trouble With Larry, in which the title character mistakes Kaufman in , and and Toronto, Astronuts (their title), which The Monkees about a goofy into is darting the Ned and Sta- his The Edge. bathroom hands through creatively solve this? to ways some brainstorm we don’t Why photo. a of want for execute finally to opportunity the out throw shouldn’t this story for about five years—we Goetz wrote: We’ve been trying to do Thomas AM, 11:30 at 8/11/08, On the publicist. Wyatt’s right. wrote: I’m happy to be the bad guy with AM, Dadich , 11:28 On at Scott 8/11/08 shoot here. A quick snap, something. of kind ell some to get got wrote: We’ve On 8/11/08, at 11:25 AM, Wyatt Mitch- thing not showing his face? wrote: Can we do a silhouette? Some - Dadich Scott AM, 11:24 at 8/11/08, On we’re OK. think I Editorially him. with out hang to Monday on down going then on Wed., him with interview hour 2–3 good a ting wrote: I know it’s a drag, but we are get Tanz Jason AM, 11:12 at 8/11/08, On reservations about doing the piece. serious me gives This interview/shoot. an for sat never had he that negotiation, the of part was this wrote: I thought Dadich Scott AM, 11:10 at 8/11/08, On move forward. we before discuss and everyone alert to wanted tomorrow, there down Jason send we Before shoot. a photo for sit not will but interview a to do lengthy agreed has He Kaufman. on here in everybody wrote: Hi, everyone. Wanted to loop Miller Nancy AM, 10:21 at 8/11/08, On a 2002 biopic about accept that.” (The one exception: Nature and tor Michel Gondry, whoseprojects withKaufman includeHuman polish the script. “He’s the author of the thing to the end,” says direc- to the directors, then worked hand-in-hand with them to revise and a screenwriter. In his subsequent movies, Kaufman submitted drafts deeply involved with the making of almost all of his films, a rarity for felt less madcap and more emotionally resonant. a tyrant. Jonze pushed Kaufman to hammer out a new ending that devil, whose followers enter Malkovich’s body and rule Earth like Photo Issues Part 5 That collaboration provided a template for Kaufman, who has been Synec­

to Eternal Sunshine. “If you work with Charlie, you have to

of his

The Gong Show a

- about a hapless puppeteer who dis- Kaufman worked on ascreenplay let’s play around with it.’” saying ‘This form issuchbullshit, was funny to me about it. It was like stealing the monkey?’ That’s what you make a fake mummy instead of doesn’t look like a piñata. Why can’t key’s in a human hospital. A mummy anyway you Theit. at look mon- stupidest thing. It makes no sense crying. Iwas like, ‘Man,thisisthe animal-rights person, and she was was awoman onstaff who was an in a puppeteering duel with the with the main character engaging Kaufman’s draft spun off into chaos, issues with the movie’s third act: line of the screenplay. Jonze had spent four days going over every Los Angeles home, where the two in at the time, to his Jonze invited Kaufman, who lived was, but the two quickly bonded. know any better.” it was unmakeable. I guess I didn’t gotten around, and everyone said Charlie told me that the script had read,”“Later,says.Jonzeever films. “It was unlike anything I had director looking to get into feature by Jonze, apopularmusic-video made. But in 1996, he was tapped more jobs, never expected it to be Kaufman, whowrote itto attract script was audacious and silly, and ness of actor John Malkovich. The covers a portal into the conscious- Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, In between short-lived gigs,short-lived between In Kaufman had no idea who Jonze host . Kaufman says that , who directed the film, never consulted him, and Cut to the morning of the Synecdoche he still holds a grudge. “My value to premiere in Toronto. Over breakfast, a director is to keep them aware of what the movie’s about,” Kaufman Kaufman seems uncharacteristically says. “He wasn’t interested in that.”) Jonze was slated to direct Synec- at peace. He spent the previous eve- doche as well. He was traveling with ning with his friends Bregman, Hoff- Kaufman to promote Adaptation when a Sony Pictures executive, Amy man, and actress . Pascal, suggested they work on a His nose appears to have healed. And together. Jonze and Kaufman had both recently suffered the early, favorable notices out of anxiety dreams; they agreed they Canada have given him a boost. “I got a really gorgeous review, not would rather capture the eerie qual- that it was positive—which it was—but it really softened me,” he ity of those night terrors than re-­create standard slasher-flick says. “There’s someone out there who’s responding to this. It was tropes. The two hashed out basic details—a man dying of an uniden- beautiful. And it’s like, who cares anymore? If that’s the only nice tifiable disease—and Kaufman left to write it. thing that happens out of this movie, I got someone to respond in He emerged after two years with a sprawling opus that spans five a way that makes me feel like it moved them.” decades of regret and death. By that time, however, Jonze was com- Jonze recounts a similar moment of validation at Cannes. “I’d mitted to directing an adaptation of ’s Where the already seen this movie so many times in editing, but at that screen- Wild Things Are. Kaufman, who majored in filmmaking at New York ing, somehow I still felt it very deeply,” he says. “The movie was University, always planned to direct someday. He asked if he could over, and the credits were rolling, and I was still sitting in that take over Synecdoche, and Jonze quickly agreed, signing on as a pro- space that the movie created. Then the lights came up, and sud- ducer. “One of the reasons I wanted to direct is so I could make the denly I’m seeing thousands of other faces in that same space. They final decisions,” Kaufman says. “I wanted to be even more personal.” gave Charlie a standing ovation, and it had such feeling to it. That It was a thrilling prospect for Kaufman, but apparently less so for felt like the end of it. Now we have to release it, and there’s all this Sony. The studio dropped the project soon after Kaufman filed the other stuff, but that felt like the ending.” script, requiring him to drum up financing from other sources. (He Well, that’s one ending. It’s familiar to any moviegoer: the dedi- eventually got $20 million from Sidney Kimmel Entertainment.) cated individual who believes in himself, takes every risk, and tri- Meanwhile, Kaufman found himself growing defensive over some umphs. That’s been Kaufman’s story so far­—it’s the story of Being of his artistic choices. He says that he and Jonze had a few difficult John Malko­vich, the story of Adaptation, the story of Eternal Sun- conversations after screenings, when Jonze would suggest directions shine. It wraps everything up with a nice bow and lets us all feel good with which Kaufman disagreed. “There was tension,” Kaufman says. about ourselves. Maybe this ends the same way, with Synecdoche “But Spike loves the movie now. He has told me it isn’t the movie he finding a dedicated following and earning its place in cinematic would have made, but it shouldn’t be. It’s the movie that I made.” history, even if it never does Dark Knight numbers. But there’s another way to end this story. Maybe not with Kaufman’s flicker of adulation in Cannes or Toronto. Maybe

On 8/20/08, at 10:18 AM, Anna Alex- audiences don’t flock to Synecdoche and maybe Kaufman ander wrote: The publicist has not gotten back to me about his possible doesn’t emerge victorious. Maybe he spends five years self-portrait, but I expect sometime today I should hear from him. pursuing the truest expression of his artistic vision only to

On 8/27/08, at 10:18 AM, Anna Alex- find it misunderstood, or underappreciated, or—worst of ander wrote: Aw yeah. The publicist says Kaufman “has an idea he is thinking all—ignored. Maybe this is a story of frustration and disap- over”—and he’ll let him know a bit later this week. He’s going to get back to LA pointment and failure. It may not be a happy ending. It may and see what he has in the house in order to pull it off. not be the kind of ending that would wrap up a successful

On 8/27/08. at 11:07 AM, Anna Alexan- Hollywood movie. But it is the kind of ending that Charlie der wrote: It gets better. “He is THINK- ING of using some Japanese doll they Kaufman would write. � had made that looks like him (from some past film) … where he would shoot this doll in full frame and then he will hopefully place himself somewhere in jason tanz, a senior editor at wired, wrote about the background of the shot as well …” Julia Allison in issue 16.08. Go further behind the scenes of this story—including an audio interview with Kaufman— self-portrait, charlie kaufman at blog.wired.com/storyboard.

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