Charlie Kaufman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charlie Kaufman

Born Charles Stuart Kaufman
November 1, 1958 (1958-11-01) (age 49)
New York City, New York

Charles Stuart Kaufman (born November 1, 1958) is an American playwright, film producer, theater and film director, and an Academy Award, BAFTA, and Independent Spirit Award-winning screenwriter. In 2003 he was listed at #100 on Premiere's annual "Power 100" list.[1] He was also identified by Time Magazine in 2004 as one of the 100 most powerful people in Hollywood.[2]

Contents

[edit] Personal life

Kaufman is known to be protective of his private life.[3] He rarely speaks about himself, and has only made one televised interview appearance (an episode of Charlie Rose in 2004).[4]

He was born to a Jewish family in New York City, but they moved away shortly after. Kaufman is a graduate of William H. Hall High School in West Hartford, Connecticut. He then briefly attended Boston University before transferring to NYU Film School,[5] where one of his classmates was filmmaker Chris Columbus.[6]

Kaufman lived and worked for a time during the late 1980s in Minneapolis, MN, answering phone calls about missing newspapers at the Star Tribune before moving to Los Angeles, CA. [7]

He currently lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife and two children.[8]

[edit] Career

[edit] Early Work

Between 1983 and 1984 Kaufman, along with college friend Paul Proch, wrote comedic articles and spoofs, including spoofs of Kurt Vonnegut and the X-Men, for National Lampoon magazine on spec.[9]

[edit] Television

After moving to Los Angeles, Kaufman got his start in television by writing two episodes for Chris Elliott's Get a Life during the 1990-92 season.[10] During the 1993-94 season, Kaufman worked on Fox's sketch comedy show The Edge. Of note, he later worked as a writer for Ned and Stacey and The Dana Carvey Show.[11]

[edit] Film

He first came to mainstream notice as the writer of Being John Malkovich (directed by Spike Jonze), earning an Oscar nomination for his effort and winning a BAFTA. He also wrote Human Nature, which was directed by Michel Gondry and then worked with Jonze again as the screenwriter for Adaptation., which earned him another Oscar nomination and his second BAFTA. Adaptation featured a "Charlie Kaufman" character that is a heavily fictionalized version of the screenwriter, including an "identical twin brother," a sell-out screen-writer reflective of Kaufman's anxieties about Hollywood.

He also penned the screenplay for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a biopic based on the "unauthorized autobiography" of Chuck Barris, the creator of such popular gameshows as the Dating Game and host of the Gong Show. The film focuses on Barris's claim to have simultaneously been a CIA hitman. It was George Clooney's directorial debut. Kaufman angrily criticized Clooney for making dramatic alterations to the script without consulting him (instead, Clooney consulted Barris). Kaufman said in an interview with William Arnold: "The usual thing for a writer is to deliver a script and then disappear. That's not for me. I want to be involved from beginning to end. And these directors [Gondry, Jonze] know that, and respect it."[12]

More recently is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, his second with director Michel Gondry, for which he received his first Oscar for best original screenplay and third BAFTA. Kaufman also received the prestigious PEN American Center 2005 prize for screenplay for the film.[13] David Edelstein described the film in Slate as "The Awful Truth turned inside-out by Philip K. Dick, with nods to Samuel Beckett, Chris Marker, John Guare—the greatest dramatists of our modern fractured consciousness. But the weave is pure Kaufman."

Kaufman made his directorial debut with his next project, Synecdoche, New York. Academy-award winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Michelle Williams both star in the film, which tells "the story of an anguished playwright who is forced to deal with several women in his life."[14] It premiered at The Cannes Film Festival 2008.

[edit] Theater

Kaufman wrote and directed the audio play Hope Leaves the Theater, a segment of the sound-only production Theater of the New Ear.[15] This play starred Meryl Streep, Hope Davis and Peter Dinklage. In the world of the play, it was the last thing Charlie Kaufman (the character) wrote before he committed suicide. The title actually refers to Hope Davis' character "leaving the theater."

Theater of the New Ear, including Hope Leaves the Theater, debuted in April 2005 at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY.[16]

[edit] Themes

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

Kaufman's works are cited as being surrealist[17] and focused on an introverted, somewhat shy male protagonist and a more dominant female figure. This is true of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Joel/Clementine), Adaptation. (Charlie/Susan), and Being John Malkovich (Craig/Maxine).[citation needed]

He sometimes includes fictionalized "facts" about his life in his work, notably Adaptation and Hope Leaves the Theater.

Apes recur in Kaufman's work: in Being John Malkovich Lotte has a pet chimp named Elijah, in Human Nature Puff was raised as an ape, and in Adaptation the original deus ex machina was a swamp ape.[18]

[edit] Influences

Among Charlie Kaufman's favourite writers and influences are Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Stanisław Lem, Philip K. Dick, Flannery O'Connor, Stephen Dixon, Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith.[19] The phrase "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" is drawn from Alexander Pope's poem Eloisa to Abelard.[20] In Being John Malkovich one of the John Cusack character's puppet shows is called "Eloise and Abelard: A Love Story". There are also references in Kaufman's work to another literary figure, Italo Svevo. One of his characters is named after the Italian Modernist writer (Mary Svevo in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and Svevo's novel La Coscienza di Zeno (Confessions of Zeno, or Conscience of Zeno, 1923) also seems to be important in connection with Kaufman's writing.[citation needed]

[edit] Quotes

"I liked Woody Allen when I was younger. The early Woody Allen is a complete mess, which I liked as a kid, but he was also a person that I could aspire to be, you know, short Jewish guys up there on the screen. I wanted to write comedies when I was younger, and yeah I liked his style. But I had a different idea of things then." (...)

"I don’t really have anything against stories, but I just want to feel something happening. I read something that Emily Dickinson said that I’m going to paraphrase: you know something’s poetry if a shiver goes up your spine."

- In an Interview with Michael Koresky and Matthew Plouffe, Reverse Shot Online, Spring 2005

[edit] Credits

[edit] Films

[edit] Television

[edit] Plays

  • Hope Leaves the Theater (2005; playwright, director)

[edit] External links

[edit] Interviews

[edit] References

  1. ^ Premiere's Power 100 List, 2003.
  2. ^ Time's 100 Most Influential People.
  3. ^ salon.com Interview by Michael Sragow.. Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
  4. ^ Kaufman on Charlie Rose.
  5. ^ Being Charlie Kaufman Biography.
  6. ^ Box Office Prophets.
  7. ^ Being Charlie Kaufman Biography.
  8. ^ Salon.com Interview by Michael Sragow.. Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
  9. ^ Scans of said articles.
  10. ^ Being Charlie Kaufman Biography.
  11. ^ Salon.com Interview by Michael Sragow.. Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
  12. ^ Kaufman interviewed by William Arnold.. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
  13. ^ PEN Center USA: 2005 Literary Awards Winners. Retrieved on 2007-01-12.
  14. ^ Kaufman's Directorial Debut Lands Williams, Hoffman. Retrieved on 2007-01-12.
  15. ^ Creative Screenwriting Magazine on Hope Leaves the Theater. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
  16. ^ The Body - Projects - Theater of the New Ear. Retrieved on 2007-01-12.
  17. ^ Indie Wire interview.
  18. ^ Adaptation (Draft 2)
  19. ^ Salon.com Interview by Michael Sragow.. Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
  20. ^ Elosisa to Abelard text.