BFI 52nd London Film Festival
29th October 2008

Charlie Kaufman Masterclass

Note: The ‘Masterclass’ started at 9.00pm at the National Film Theatre in London. I arrived at 6 hoping to get a returned ticket as they had been sold out for weeks. There was already a queue of about ten people. By the time that the spare (industry) tickets had been released at 8.30, the queue stretched down the foyer, down a set of stairs, and out of the National Film Theatre. Hundreds had turned up, and hundreds were turned away. Luckily, I got in. The tickets were orange, making them not entirely unlike Wonka Tickets. I could have cried. 
The conversation between CK and TY lasted for about an hour and the Q&A session that followed lasted for approximately half and hour. 
Another Note: I am not a fast writing journalist or have the ability to see pieces of paper in front of me in the dark, so there are several areas in which my notes are summaries of what was said. Any direct quotation is in quotation marks. The notes below do not cover absolutely everything that was mentioned but they do cover everything that I managed to scribble down. 

Interviewer: Toby Young (TY)
Stage at front, CK sits on the left, TY on the right. Small table before them with water and microphones. Behind them was a large screen on which clips would be intermittently shown during the talk. 
CK is introduced and sits down. Were he a poker player, his ‘tells’ would include: nervously leaning forward, spinning in chair, looking down at the table, crossing his arms or placing hands between his legs. As the ‘Masterclass’ goes on, CK appears to become less nervous except when asked stupid questions by TY or the audience. 

Opening question:
TY: “Is it really you?”
CK: “No!”   

TY: “In TV you served your apprenticeship?”
CK: [referring to Get a Life] “I wrote two eps, but worked on lots.”
TY: “Was it useful as a screenwriter?”
CK: “No, it was useful to have a job [....] It wasn’t really a training thing. It was a job.”
 
TY: “Why screenplays?”
CK: Interested in “theatre and acting”. “I directed a couple of plays a couple of years ago [....] That was confidence building [....] allowed me to go on to direct the film [Synecdoche] with confidence.”
 
CK on work done with Proch: “Pretty chaotic” stuff.
CK on pilot episodes: “Silly and Odd”

TY: “How do you know which rules to stick to, and which to break?”
CK: “I don’t think there are any rules. [....] I vaguely know what a 3 Act structure is, but it doesn’t interest me.”
CK then goes on to compare script writing to painting: “No-one says there’s one way to paint, so why films?”

CK: “Journalists are always trying to figure out an angle”
They befriend you. You trust them. “And then they kill you.”
CK relates to the audience about an incident with Time Magazine. At one point in his interview with TM he mentioned something about being “picked on at school”, which meant that the title of the piece became something like “Revenge of the Nerd”, and he got “really offended” as it has nothing to do with what he does; “the girl worked an angle”.
   
CK on first TV writing job at 32, considered it a good thing to enter that world “older” as his work would be better and he would be more confident in his work. (confidence seems to be a theme that runs through CKs motivation for doing things)

 SEE A CLIP ON THE SCREEN. FROM BJM WHEN MALKOVICH GOES INTO HIS OWN HEAD. 

TY referring to BJM: “Why introduce reality into a work of fiction?”
CK: “It’s funnier.”
CK goes on to elaborate on choosing Malkovich and how the fictional Malkovich is different to the actor that plays the role: “At one point Spike told John that John wouldn’t say it that way.”
“There is a quality to Malkovich that is unknowable and odd.” You can imagine someone always “looking out through his eyes.”
TY then prompts CK talk about the seemingly paradoxical collision between reality and artifice in his films. CK seems to be offended at the implication of a paradox being a fault with his ideology.  
CK: “I really like artifice. I really like reminding people they’re watching a movie [...] mixing things that are real with things clearly not possibly real [...] I don’t use it as a paradox [...] I don’t like being lied to. Movies lie a lot. And I try to not lie by saying ‘look, I’m lying’ if that makes any sense.”  
CK: “I think I’ve often wanted to be someone other than who I am [....] I’m limited by others’ perceptions of me. How I’m seen in the world limits how I’m treated.” In a way, the world wouldn’t be like anything if we could get away from our perceptions, because nobody would be looking at it. 
TY: “You’re very attached to the truth.”
CK: “No, I’m very attached to my truth.”
TY: “How do you distinguish between real feelings and fake feelings?” 
This question confuses CK. Awkward silence in the entire auditorium. I think that everybody realises that this is an idiotic question as it makes no sense and sounds clever just for the sake of it. If TY had a beard he would probably have been stroking it right now. CK asks TY for an example. TY gives some convoluted example to do with politicians lying to the public that was hard to follow for CK who asks for an example to do with himself. Another awkward silence as TY tries to search for one. TY eventually gives one, which I forget, because it was complete rubbish. (It was to do with being in a relationship and having fake and real feelings for your partner – as if they were distinguishable)   
 CK: But how do you know? If it was like that then it’s still true, “and I’d incorporate it.”
After mentioning that he has often tried to meditate, CK offers a story: Had a friend who went to a meditation camp. Outside were “two horses fucking”. The people there got “pissed off” because it ruined their solitary contemplation; but the horses are a “part of the complexity” of life – life isn’t about expecting some unattainable notion of perfection. 
Then CK parallels his story to the “bullshit in Romantic Comedies [....] We all feel jealous of it because it looks so fucking great.” 
CK: “People acknowledging shortcomings or failings, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it – I think it’s beautiful.” 

CLIP ON SCREEN: FROM ADAPTATION – VALERIE TALKING TO CK ABOUT THE ADAPTATION AND CK GETS IRRITATED AT THE IDEA OF IT BECOMING A ‘HEIST MOVIE’, ETC. 

CK immediately comments on how coincidental the clip shown is to this part of the Masterclass. Everybody laughs, even TY (nervously).
TY: “Is it [the scene] true?” 
CK: The Valerie Thomas scene occurs pretty much exactly like it does in the film.

CK on Orchid Thief: “It was melancholic and very moving.”
CK: “That stupid identical twin idea that they have in movies, I thought that would be a good idea.” And then it evolved (or adapted) into Donald being a clichéd cliche writer and a clichéd “doofus”. It was genuinely never intentional when the assignment was accepted.
CK: “I felt that the movie actually really needed to fail for it to be successful.” The overtaking of Donald’s ideas to alter the course of the narrative – “That was intentional.”
TY: But the film succeeded anyway!
CK immediately contradicts TY’s comment: “No, it really failed!” The “goal was to have ambivalence at the end.” 
													CLIP ON SCREEN: ESOSM WHEN JOEL AND CLEM ARE ON THE ICE - “I COULD DIE RIGHT NOW” – AND THEN THE WHOLE RUNNING ABOUT TO STOP CLEM FROM VANISHING. 
                                                                                                                                         
TY: “Are you surprised by how receptive Hollywood is to your work?”
CK: “I think that Malkovich did well and made it’s money back. And actors for one reason or another are interested in these scripts. For no money.” The whole film was made for Jim C’s typical salary.
When Gondry told CK that they were thinking of getting Carrey, at the time in the top 5 highest paid actors in Hollywood (according to TY), Ck imagined a guy with a “rubber face” ruining the film. But Carrey appeared for the audition wearing a “cool” beanie hat and was unshaven. And so, based on his look they hired him and “Jim wears no make-up and always needs a shave in the movie.”
CK: “When Spike Jonze said he wanted to direct my movie, I didn’t know who he was, and I didn’t care [...] you’re just trying to get your movie made.”
TY then talks to CK about his working dynamic with Gondry and Jonze, and CK responds by saying that they all get on well, etc. However, “I don’t think that George Clooney was all that interested in what I was interested in.”
And so, when asked about working with Jonze and Gondry again, CK responds: “I’d like to direct again. I’d like to direct the next thing I write.” (So we now know that he hasn’t given up on writing!)
     
SYNECDOCHE TRAILER SHOWN

TY: “It felt like a final summation of all the things you’ve been exploring”. As if it were the kind of ultimate film that a director can do to cap his career.
CK: “I hope not!” Themes run through the films but the CK that explores these themes in this film will be different to the CK that makes another film as he will have developed his taste and opinions, etc. 
TY: Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s character is “engaged in a search for authenticity” much like CK.
CK: But he fails because he’s trying to put all the details into his art in a “very literal way”, nevertheless, it is still a good thing that he at least attempts to understand ‘truth’ through “fake” realism, and that “I like the idea of a big fake New York; I would do it if I could.” 
CK: “There’s a dream logic to the movie [...] which is fun.”

Q&A SECTION
-	“There was never really going to be a horror movie [....] I can’t really do a genre movie. It doesn’t interest me.”
-	“I like Kung-Fu Panda”  (I honestly do not remember what question prompted this moderately excited exclamation – all I have in my notes is a smiley face that I drew next to the quote.)
-	“If you’re masturbating and asking people to applaud you, that’s maybe self-indulgent.”
-	 “I have thought about doing TV again” Everything that exists in movies exists in TV. I’m really interested in form, TV can tell stories over very long periods of time, which doesn’t really happen in movies. It would be “interesting to take a trajectory for a character and follow it over several decades” as opposed to a character such as “Tony Soprano” who doesn’t seem to accumulate any emotional baggage over the years.  
-	“Theatre is alive and film isn’t [....] a movie is always the same, it’s pre-recorded” even though I try to “incorporate” a “dense” layering effect to encourage repeat viewings. 
-	“Virtually every Q&A I do, someone asks me what the burning house means.”
-	“I don’t put things in to confuse people [....] they resonate with me in some way emotionally.”
-	“When I’m writing, I don’t think about actors.”
-	“I’ve never seen 8 1/2!” Once people told me that Synecdoche was similar to it, I made a point of not watching it – “It’s in no way a response to 8 1/2” 
-	Q: Impact of technological processes on perception of reality as opposed to a biological one.
CK’s response: “I don’t think I’ve given a lot of thought to it.” But it relates to what we are perceiving/told about by the media who are “under-educating intentionally so we can be controlled”. They “figure out how to manipulate people in sophisticated ways, and it’s scary.”
-	Q: Technological processes in ESOSM.
CK’s response: “Least interested in.” They were generally all presented to me by Michel. But - “I am very interested in corporate mind control.”
-	Q: Anyone working today that you feel that you have an affinity to?
CK is thrown by this question. TY suggests to him Patricia Highsmith, but CK points out to TY that she is dead.
CK: “I’m sure there is. I hate questions like this because I have to think about who I like” although I have to respect your right to ask me this question. [long pause] “I don’t know. In film, I like David Lynch a lot. I don’t consider him a peer or anything. [long pause] I like a lot of dead people!”   
-	Q: The second half on Monsters Inc. is similar to a Kaufman script, can you see yourself moving into animation at any time?
CK: “I have to say that I really like Monsters Inc., but I don’t know that I would write it [....] That’s the one I probably liked best [of the Pixar films]. I didn’t care much for Wall-E.”   

And with mention of Wall-E, that was it, an hour and a half had passed and Charlie Kaufman stood up, waved, looked a little confused and half-pleased, then vanished stage exit left. 

I was left wondering why the hell nobody had asked him what he was planning on doing next, but then maybe the ink hasn’t dried yet on that Kung-Fu Panda II contract anyway.