For the Spanish readers among you, Rob Mata has done a stellar (and probably headache-inducing) job of translating the Synecdoche, New York (1st draft) - Spanish. PHWOAR.He did this quite a while ago - like, a year - so it's about damn time I linked to it.

Also, for the French Kaufman scholars, Maxence has provided his 100+ page research thesis on Charlie Kaufman (with particular reference to Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine). I'm assuming it's a good read. Plus French is always sexy.

It's called Where The Wild Things Are, don't ya know. And he's been interviewed at length about it at AICN. Ordinarily I wouldn't be covering Spike's non-Kaufman escapades, and ordinarily I avoid AICN like the Plague, but a) Charlie gets a couple of brief mentions, and b) what the heck!

Thanks to Pav!

And happy 21st to Kendal Nagorcka.

Matthew Odam posted an article a couple weeks ago at Austin360.com and there's nothing too new in it, except this:

Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article recently about how we relate precocity to genius and talked about the idea that people who come to their creative greatness later in life come to it through a form of open-ended exploration, versus the conceptual thinking of young geniuses like Picasso. I wonder how you relate to both of those ideas — that of precocity and genius and the different ways of finding your voice as an artist, and if you ever felt you might not reach your potential.

I really, really wanted to be a wunderkind. I had that word in my head and wanted it to happen.

At what age?

Oh, God, 9? [Laughter] Seriously. The idea of that was something in my head that just thrilled me. As it didn't happen, and then I moved farther and farther away from it, it started to seem less important to me, and I kinda gave it away… . If I had become successful or well-known when I was in my early 20s, I probably would be a really different person doing really different stuff and it might have been lesser. I don't know. I had a lot of life experiences that put me in the world of people who were struggling. When I worked in TV, I worked with people who were very successful at an early age. And you don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but there's a difference in the way they treat the people they work with. Not with all of them, but there's sometimes a quality of being very, very spoiled and being very, very sort of out of touch with people.

The conceptual thing confuses me because I feel like my work is conceptual. But I do also want to use that as a framework for being expansive and exploring emotions and ideas and moving closer to some sort of realization of a truth. I read this thing where Isadora Duncan said, 'I've strived my whole life to make one authentic gesture.' And I love that idea and I love the idea of how hard that is. (Source)

The Gladwell piece is here, and there's a similar thing here.

Charlie, on a screening of Synecdoche at the Austin Film Festival:

"Afterwards, people came up to me. And one guy said, 'I'm a big tough guy from Texas' – he was like a real jocky-looking guy, the guys that scare me 'cause of my history with guys like that, you know? – and he said: 'I'm a big tough guy from Texas, and this movie made me cry out of both of my eyes. So thank you.' And that was really sweet. And I was like, just because of my history in the world and my relationship to people like that and my background – and I say 'people like that' just because of what he said he was and what he looked like. I didn't know who he was at all. Clearly a very decent person. Just, it's a very generous thing to do, to come out and say that, and I really appreciated it." (Source)

He mentioned that anecdote in an earlier interview, too, but I had to use that headline. (Stolen from Tram.)

The first half of a new review is up at Film Brain. Excerpt:

Synecdoche, New York questions exactly what it means to be a person, and the far reaching effects of the choices we make. Like Adele's miniature paintings, which require magnifying glasses in order to see their rich detail, so too does Kaufman's film. On the surface it's a grand, complicated, sprawling affair (like Caden's art -- built to scale) but the essence and meaning of it all is buried in the details. Take of it what you will.

As the priest says towards the end of the film, "everybody has their misery, but fuck everybody." (Source)

And here's a 30-minute interview with Charlie on NPR, thanks to Jon. Touches on a couple of new things - including elevators in CK's work.

It's nearly December, so what say we do something with the BCK banner and make it Christmassy, yeah? If - unlike me - you're of an artistic bent, feel free to jazz up our banner with a Christmas theme, and send it in. Classy or goofy, I don't mind, so long as it generally blends in with BCK's look. Add a Santa hat to Charlie. Or antlers. Or add snow to the banner. Or tinsel. Or trees. Or WHATEVER. Or create an entirely new banner from scratch.The less denomination-specific the better, but I'm not too fussy.

If you send in something cool I'll put it where the current banner is, or I'll put it in the News and ask for a vote. You have roughly two weeks. I'm sure you have nothing better to do with your time than decorate BCK. GET CRACKIN'.

Charlie K, on the subject of God:

During a public Q&A after the Seattle premiere, I asked Kaufman about his apparent disinterest in questions of a religious nature. I told him I keep waiting for one of his characters to look beyond broken humanity for consolation and redemption. Why don't these characters ever look for God?

Kaufman answered very directly. “That's sort of like asking me, 'Why aren't they lumberjacks?' The answer is, 'Because I don't write about lumberjacks.'”

While the crowd laughed, Kaufman sought to reassure me. “I'm not making fun of you at all.” He explained that it just doesn't occur to him that he might find any kind of love or grace from a sovereign God. “It just doesn't resonate with me. I don't think God is a guy, or a woman, if God exists at all. But other people around me can relate to me in ways that are tangible.... I read a lot of philosophical stuff about religion, metaphysics, and the universe, and I'm really fascinated with it. But my feelings about it are that there's not an anthropomorphic version of someone watching over us who's going to love me. I could be wrong, but that's who I am. And the stuff that I write about is the stuff that I think about.” (Source)

You can read a longer version of the Phoenix interview I linked to a little while ago. It's divided into two parts:

Part the First

Part the Second

Has a couple of really awkward moments, and more interesting stuff than the earlier version. At least, it's more interesting to me. I can't speak for the rest of you. I'm not that way inclined. Mmm.

Plus, adding to the whole when-the-hell-is-his-birthday mystery:

PK: You just had your fiftieth birthday, is that correct?
CK: That is correct.
PK:  Did you have a party?
CK: Went out to dinner.

Which would seem to contradict the November 19 theory. So. Hmph? Also:

PK: It’s a real picker upper. Did you read it?
CK:  I did read it, I didn’t like it as much as I hoped I would and now it’s a major motion picture which also makes me nervous.
PK:  I don’t know if frozen ash and cannibalism are high concept material.
CK: [laughs] Well I won’t reveal the surprise ending.
PK: Really? He wakes up at the end ...
CK: Turns out...
PK: Turns out it’s all a play put on by Caden.  What about the Fregoli Syndrome?
CK:  You’ve been reading up on me.
PK:  There’s a website that is dedicated to you, have you seen it?
CK: To what? To me?
PK: Yeah, it’s called “Being Charlie Kaufman.”
CK: Yeah, I didn’t know they mentioned that on there.

We did. We're totally on the ball.

On the miniature paintings from Synecdoche, New York:

CK: I hired an artist named Alex Kanevsky to do them. ...The paintings aren’t really tiny. That’s a trick. They couldn’t possibly be tiny and look like that, that would be impossible. That was what I liked about them was that they were very painterly. No, the real paintings that Alex did for us -- he’s a really amazing artist, I asked him to do these portraits of the women in the movie and they’re about this big...
PK: That’s pretty tiny.
CK: Yeah but they’re not painterly. You know, they’re very meticulous looking things, you can have obviously small things like that, but they don’t...you can’t do this. You can’t have sort of expressionistic brush strokes. I don’t think you could do it. You know like that guy...the guy who does those little sculptures. You know what I’m talking about? You should look this guy up if you don’t know his stuff. He does sculptures that are, you can’t see them without a...his name is Wigan, I think? I want to say his first name is Willard but I’m not sure, it’s something like that. He does these um...they’re made out of dust and paint, and they’re small enough that he’ll do like the Statue of Liberty that fits on the head of a pin. Or he’ll do Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs standing on a pin, and they’re about this big. You can’t see them without magnifying glasses. And they’re extraordinary, but they’re not, I don’t want to say they’re not painterly, but they’re not very expressionistic. They have to be very precise because of the size of them. So I wanted something that you couldn’t do in this size.

We've mentioned Wigan here, too. Because he's amazing.

Boy, he's really getting into these video interviews. Charlie, you media whore, you!

Clicky clicky.

Thanks to Gavin!

I get the sense Roger Ebert is very much into Synecdoche, New York. Following on from his review the other day, Ebert blogs at length about Kaufman in general and the film in particular, partly in response to Enertainment Weekly's review of the film - in which Owen Gleiberman gave the film a D+. And in response to a commenters' question, Ebert explains exactly how Charlie writes his screenplays:

Ebert: As a serious writer, he would no doubt refuse to answer that question. But you have asked me, not Kaufman, and so I will answer. He starts with the need to work. About "SNY," he has revealed, "originally, Spike Jonze and I were approached to do a horror movie." He stares into space. He solves a Rubik's cube with one hand behind his back. That inspires a plot. He visualizes some characters swooping in circles around that plot, wearing Jet Packs. They all look like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Catherine Keener. Then Kaufman starts writing hard as hell with no idea about where he is going, like an American man who won't use a map in Calcutta. He arrives somewhere. He parks his computer and strolls around a little to see where he is. He discovers some intriguing curiosities. He abandons the computer and takes a taxi back to where he started from. He drives his wife Denise and their kids crazy by complaining that he is a failure, he is almost 50, his hair isn't as curly as it used
to be, he doesn't know what the hell he is doing, and he thinks he should barbeque a chilled shrimp with his screenplay. Denise says, "Charlie, if you don't know what you're doing, I certainly don't know what you're doing. Why don't you go bother your twin brother, Donald? You're good at that." Charlie flies off to a film festival. This festival could be in hell and it would be an improvement. When he returns home he gets back into the computer, and tries to retrace his steps, knowing what he knows now. He fills up the tank with the curiosities, and starts writing like hell again, arranging and changing, placing carefully there a strange thing and a known thing here. He crashes into a wall. When he regains consciousness, he is amazed to find there have been no injuries and during the blackout he has discovered a miraculous somewhere he has never traveled, gladly beyond any experience, "where your eyes," he tells Denise, "have their silence." Then he sends the screenplay in to Harold Ramis' agent. (Source)

So now we know. Thanks to Laurel!

Sooo, for some reason BCK's hosting bills came due a few months late this year. Plus they've increased, for a couple of reasons. And exchange rates - this wintry economic climate, to quote a puppeteer - are kicking me squarely in the nuts. Oh my frickin' God.

SO. If you're digging the site, and if it's been particularly useful to you, do consider making a donation via the PayPal link at the top-right of this site, or the one below. BCKsters all over the world will give you big hugs. Including me.

Our goal: $300US. $260. Which I'll update, if perchance donations start to come in. Forget those kids in Africa.

Added incentive to show BCK a little love (see the post from earlier today): Synecdoche, New York (June '07 draft). That's just a couple months before the film began shooting, unless I am mistaken. It's yet another draft that has been floating around the interweb lo these many months. The page-count hasn't changed much since the first draft, yet to me the June '07 version feels more streamlined. Definitely an improvement.

I have been puzzling over this email for three days. I might as well just paste it here, verbatim.

------------------

Subject: exclusively to charlie kaufman, Samuel L. Jackson,

This very urgent message is addressed personally

and exclusively to

Object: a huge film production

(A new theory on the disappearing of the dinosaurs).

Objet: Project Film (Jurassic Oort MN4)

Monsieur Belkhir SAYAH :

Résidence la Marine Bleu BT XX XX Boulevards Charles Moretti 13XX4 Marseille France Tel 0033 4 88 XXX XXX

---------------------

I think I speak for everyone when I say Huh?

I've omitted some letters and numbers from the address and phone number. The email was sent to me and Regina at the Directors' Guild of America.

So. Mmm.

If you happen to be Charlie or Samuel, and can verify that you're Charlie or Samuel, do drop me a line and I'll hook you up with the Monsieur. I'd love a dinosaur movie, helmed by Charlie and starring Sammy.

You should see some of the other emails I get.

Jeff Goldsmith interviewed Charlie for Creative Screenwriting a couple of weeks back, and there's a podcast available here. Jolly good!

Thanks to Simon, who told me about this a while ago, and I've only just now remembered to mention it.

It's been floating around online for ages, but I had a strong feeling that I ought to play it safe and just ignore it. But Synecdoche, New York has been in selected cinemas for a couple of weeks now, the shooting script is available to buy (via BCK, if you want to help out), and I figure that if I make the first draft of the screenplay available to download, it can only help draw more folks into the cinema to actually, y'know, WATCH THE FILM.

So here it be: Synecdoche, New York screenplay (1st draft)

(As referred to in an earlier post, the "Schenectady" title was apparently put there by whoever initially smuggled the draft out of the studio, or agency, or living room, or wherever. The real title is the same as the film.)

Enjoy!

More soon.

Roger Ebert's verdict is in, and he be lovin' Synecdoche, New York.

I think you have to see Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" twice. I watched it the first time and knew it was a great film and that I had not mastered it. The second time because I needed to. The third time because I will want to. It will open to confused audiences and live indefinitely. A lot of people these days don't even go to a movie once. There are alternatives. It doesn't have to be the movies, but we must somehow dream. If we don't "go to the movies" in any form, our minds wither and sicken.

This is a film with the richness of great fiction. Like Suttree, the Cormac McCarthy novel I'm always mentioning, it's not that you have to return to understand it. It's that you have to return to realize how fine it really is. The surface may daunt you. The depths enfold you. The whole reveals itself, and then you may return to it like a talisman. (Source)

Meanwhile, the New Yorker's Anthony Lane is less than jazzed:

Such is the way of this unusual film. It sets up, in the person of its central character, a monolithic desolation, and then spends two hours capering around it, so that we emerge, at the end, not quite sure whether to feel toyed with or ground down. No one could accuse the director, Charlie Kaufman, of lacking ambition. Few directors these days, especially in America, are willing to roll up their sleeves and grapple with existence, mortality, creativity, love, and the gulf where love was meant to be.

...There has long been a strain of sorry lassitude in Kaufman’s work, and here it sickens into the morbid.

... there are three commonplaces on which it repeatedly riffs. One is what you might call the romantic-pathetic theory of imagination: any alternative reality that we design and furnish, when we conceive a work of art, is always to some extent a stand-in for the puny or pitiful one that we have been personally landed with. The second and most imperishable truth is: we grow old, and perish. And the third says: all you need is love. These are noble principles to pursue; unless the pursuit is waged with gusto, however, it threatens to slump into the sententious, and that is what happens here. (Source)

Thanks to Laurel and Stefano.