U-Wire
April 11 2002
LOS ANGELES -- In "Being John Malkovich," a number of sad, pathetic nobodies fork over a good amount of money in order to be somebody for just 15 minutes (an amount of time that springs from Andy Warhol's observation that fame exists in fleeting, quarter-hour increments). Specifically, they get a chance to nestle in the cranium of character actor John Malkovich and briefly see the world through his cat-like eyes.
The refreshing originality of that premise -- and the even more impressive feat of placing it in a world of mundane routine and quiet yearning that clearly resembles our own -- established screenwriter Charlie Kaufman as an important new force in his field.
After the release of "Malkovich" in the fall of 1999, Kaufman went on to win numerous awards for the film, including best screenplay honors from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. More tantalizingly, his script had everyone wondering what it would be like to experience 15 minutes in Kaufman's obviously imaginative brain and to see where his singular vision comes from.
Since a portal has yet to open into Kaufman's head, sitting down with the writer for 20 minutes to discuss, among other things, his newest film, "Human Nature" will more than suffice, especially when he offers a glimpse into his creative process.
Kaufman explained that he is partial to tossing various ideas around, and seeing if there is a natural unity to them, which goes against the traditional notion of a diagrammed, pre-planned approach to screenwriting.
"It's a way of collaborating with myself, because I'm throwing disparate things (out there), and it forces me to think in directions that I wouldn't have thought in if I had a very clear-cut, single idea," Kaufman said. "It's like, 'How do I incorporate this?' 'Where does this take the story?' -- it forces that."
This process led to Kaufman's conception of "Human Nature," a comedy that explores the pretenses behind the construction of civilization by introducing characters such as a man (Rhys Ifans) who has been raised in the wild, a woman (Patricia Arquette) who grows hair all over her body, and a nebbish behavioral scientist (Tim Robbins).
"It came from a bunch of things," Kaufman said of the script. "I wanted to write about a feral man, and I was thinking about those kind of idolized portraits of pure people raised in nature that seem to appear in movies a lot, and (I wanted) to make fun of that. And I had been reading about behaviorism, and those sorts of torture experiments, so I was thinking about that. And I wanted to write about a woman who was outside and could not get in, (which became) sort of a hair thing, which seems to be a large issue in our culture. And I just combined them."
The "hair thing" became a different sort of issue for Arquette, who had to act in some scenes wearing only prosthetic tufts of hair, and in others wearing absolutely nothing.
When asked about whether it was more difficult to be completely naked on camera or to have certain parts of her body censored with fake hair, Arquette admitted, "it was hard on my ego to do it with hair, but then I thought, 'no one should apologize for (having) that hair.'"
The actress also reflected upon the cultural stigma attached to on-screen nudity, especially in cases like "Human Nature," where the nudity is not of a sexual sort.
"We should actually not be shocked by someone being naked, and just walking around, but we are so shocked by it," Arquette observed. "We're more used to seeing real-life people getting shot on the news every day than people walking around naked."
Director Michel Gondry, a music-video veteran making his feature debut, had to make sure that Arquette and co-star Ifans, who also went the full monty for his role, remained comfortable while shooting their nude scenes.
"You have to take some precaution to make them feel at ease when they're naked," Gondry said. "The problem is, when you watch a movie, you don't realize (it), but obviously all of us know, (that) there are at least 60 people behind the camera, doing their job."
More essential to Gondry than the issue of nakedness, though, was the matter of making a film that examines societal issues but refuses to resolve them in any banal, manufactured way.
"I hate movies where they put the statement right up your nose," he explained. "It's better when you exit the theater with mixed feelings, and you kind of disagree with your boyfriend or girlfriend, and you then talk about it."
That kind of ambiguity is also important to Kaufman, who never sees his characters as purely good or evil.
"I don't think of anyone as a villain," the writer said. "I try to think of what (the characters) are desperate about, what their needs are, and what they're going to do to get what they need, because I think that that's just true."
In two films, Kaufman has revealed those human truths, and layered them within unusual narratives driven by a clear, wicked satiric logic.
His mind is a valuable one to contemporary film comedy, and, whether through his movies or during an interview, a fascinating place to explore.
(Source)