Recent General News

Charlie was heavily referenced in a recent episode of Only Murders in the Building, Hulu's mystery/comedy/drama starring Steve Martin and Martin Short.

Season 4, episode 5 is called "Adaptation." Says BCK's pal Tim:

The opening of this episode features an Asian-American screenwriter talking about his craft. As the scene unfolds, the camera moves in on a picture of Charlie Kaufman, nestled into the corner of a mirror on the screenwriter’s dressing stand. Not once, not twice, but at least three times. And not just a far-away, obscure shot, but directly focused on it.

Ta-da:

Thanks to Tim and u/giga!

On the publicity trail for Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola again found an opportunity to shout-out Charlie Kaufman. Asked about his own self doubt, Coppola told Josh Horowitz:

"I've started to realise that my life is actually something written by Charlie Kaufman, because the only way I can make sense of it is going through his amazing brain."

Skip to 7:48 if it's not there already:

Thanks to u/pavingmomentum!

Monocle on Culture recently dedicated an episode to Kafka, what with this year marking the centenary of his death, and they invited Charlie to speak a little about Kafka's influence on his own work, and about Charlie's short story "This Fact Can Even Be Proved..." in the new book A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories. 

Click on through for a listen! (I can't find a way to embed it here.)

Charlie comes in at about the 15 minute mark, and it's a great listen--he sounds relaxed and engaged as he talks with host Robert Bound.

Just a quick heads up! A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories (affiliate link!) is out now in the UK, and it'll be hitting US shelves (and e-readers) June 4. It contains a new short story by our guy, called "This Fact Can Even Be Proved by Means of the Sense of Hearing," and I reviewed it here. The TL;DR: if you liked Antkind, you'll probably like this, and if you haven't read Antkind, "This Fact..." gives you a short taste of the same kinda thing. Highly recommended for CK fans. Of course the book contains 9 other Kafkaesque tales, all from writers of  literary fiction. Well worth checking out!

May 30th sees the release of A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories, (affiliate link!) in which we’ll find a new short story by Charlie, called ‘This Fact Can Even Be Proved by Means of the Sense of Hearing." HOORAY! I have an early copy of the book—big thanks to Charlie’s UK editor Anna Kelly!—so here comes a relatively spoiler-free review of Kaufman’s latest foray into prose fiction, his first since Antkind back in 2020.

If you want to go in blind as to the story’s general plot but want to know basically what you’re in for, I can tell you that readers of Antkind will find the voice here familiar—Charlie’s style is consistent with Antkind, and we have another self-reflective character obsessing over every little thing, including his own thoughts. Again the story is essentially stream-of-consciousness as our character deals with a Kafkaesque conundrum. So if you liked Antkind, you’ll like this; if you thought Antkind would’ve been better if it were less bloated, give this a try; and if you haven’t tried Antkind, you might want to start with “This Fact Can Be Proved,” because it’s a brief but satisfying taste of what Kaufman in book form is about.

The plot, such as it is—and you might want to skip this paragraph, though what I’m about to say will crop up in the first couple of pages anyway—concerns a writer known only as “I.,” who has reached the Q&A portion of a public reading from his newest book. His interviewer asks about a particular quote from the book… and it’s a quote “I.” doesn’t recognise, one he can’t remember having written, one whose presence in his book he cannot understand. Things gradually spiral out from there as we’re taken along with I. and his obsessive thoughts.

I have a feeling this one was inspired by a nightmare of CK’s, or by a fear of his. Come on, the character is named “I.”

The whole thing is pretty funny and odd, fitting of a Kafka tribute, and it sits comfortably within Charlie’s oeuvre as a whole, especially his most recent stuff. (Well, not Orion.) We know that CK is a Kafka fan, and while he’s loath to talk influences, we can see here where his own work and Kafka’s would meet on a Venn diagram.

Worth noting: Charlie’s bio in the back of this book is sort of hilarious, when you put it alongside the bios of other authors in the collection. I got a good chuckle out of it.

Aside from Charlie’s story, you’re in for 9 other literary takes on Kafka-esque tales, and an intro by Becca Rothfield—an essayist, critic, philosopher and author whose work has appeared in the New York Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement and Washington Post. Plus her dog is named Kafka apparently. FULLY QUALIFIED FOR THE JOB.

I’ve said a few times, if Charlie ever ditches film for a full-time switch to prose fiction, I’m on board, and his new story doesn’t change my mind.

New York's Roxy Cinema is screening the films of Patricia Rozema this weekend. Rozema will attend for a moderated Q&A after each film, and on Sunday after Mouthpiece (2018), Charlie will moderate that particular discussion.

That's Sunday April 7, 5:15pm, $17 per person, at the Roxy Cinema in New York. More info and tickets here.

May 30 will see the release of A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories, and the last story in there was written by Charlie. Thanks to a bit of digging by regular tipster u/pavingmomentum, we can let you in on the title of CK's story.

Don't go further if you don't want to be slightly spoiled.

Okay?

Okay.

Title is...

...

... "This Fact Can Even Be Proved by Means of the Sense of Hearing."

... which comes from this Kafka quote:

“Everyone carries a room about inside him. This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing. If someone walks fast and one pricks up one’s ears and listens, say in the night, when everything round about is quiet, one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall.”

 What else do we know about the story? Not much. A Good Reads reviewer says:

"Both Charlie Kaufman and Keith Ridgway write from the perspective of men who are unstable in their identities [...] and they felt knowingly Kafkaesque". (Source)

Looking forward to it, aw yeah!

May 2024 will see the publication of A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories "to commemorate 100 years since Kafka's death," and one of those stories is written by our pal Charlie!

I wonder if the Kafkaesque story will be Kaufmanesque?!

Via The Bookseller:

“What happens when one of the most idiosyncratic and visionary imaginations of the 20th century meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English today?” the publisher teased. “From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these 10 specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting.” (Source)

Other authors included: Ali Smith, Joshua Cohen, Elif Batuman, Naomi Alderman, Tommy Orange, Helen Oyeyemi, Keith Ridgway, Yiyun Li, Leone Ross.

Can't wait!

Thanks to the ever reliable u/pavingmomentum.

This'll be quick, because I'm on mobile. Zoom workshop with Charlie K and Boots Riley this Monday! Info here!

Here's the video of that interview posted by Variety earlier in the week. Charlie talks about the WGA strike; A.I. and how it parallels his unproduced script Frank or Francis; Jackals, Ending Things and why Charlie is a character in Antkind. Video below, articles here and here.

That's a Charlie quote, from an interview he's done with Variety while in Sarajevo.

“It’s disgusting, because they don’t do anything[...] No, they do damage is what they do. They do damage to the art form. And by doing that, they do damage to humanity. And if everything is about the bottom line for them and saving money, then there’s nothing left to the art form.”

[...] Throughout the week, he’s been spotted on the streets of the Bosnian capital wearing a gray T-shirt reading “Writers Guild on Strike.” During an interview with Variety, Kaufman peeled off one layer to reveal a second WGA-branded T-shirt beneath it. (Source)

Click through and you'll find his thoughts on Disney's CEO Bob Iger, other studio bosses, A.I. and the latest round of WGA negotiations.

After delivering a masterclass in Sarajevo, Charlie stopped by the Agelast podcast for a chat. What resulted was a 30 minute conversation about time, death, regret and all the breakfasts you've ever had. It's a worthwhile 30 minutes! I only wish the interviewer had more time with Charlie. Most of the conversation revolved around Synecdoche, New York and I'm Thinking of Ending Things.

via r/kaufman

While the WGA strike continues, Deadline reports that Charlie's Masterclass in Sarajevo saw him firing more shots at the Hollywood system. The Bosnian Cultural Center's main hall was "packed out" to hear him speak, as part of the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Sporting a grey WGA-branded “strike” t-shirt, writer-director Charlie Kaufman[...] offered a strong condemnation of the current Hollywood studio system and urged filmmakers to find new ways to create work.

“At this point, the only thing that makes money is garbage. It’s just fascinating. It makes a fortune, and that’s the bottom line,” Kaufman said. “It’s very seductive to the studios but also to the people who engage and become the makers of that garbage, especially if they’re lauded for the garbage because they don’t have to look inward or think long about what they’re doing.”

Kaufman[...] continued to tell the audience full of local and international industry professionals to“make movies outside of the studio system as much as possible and think of ways to do that.”

“I have this pipedream of creating an organization of artists to figure out how to finance and support filmmakers who make things that have value."

He told the audience...

[...] that the wider discussion around the WGA’s “AI issue” is that “writers have been trained to eat and make the garbage too,” meaning writers indulge in and create work that he described as lacking creative ambition and humanity.

“As long as they are in that arena making that shit, then you might as well have AI do it,” Kaufman said.

[...]

“Once you give that up and allow the studios to use AI to write their screenplay, there’s no going back,” he said. “Then there’s no hope because AI can’t create a moment of humanity. As long as people are doing it and there’s that struggle, then there’s always a chance that something will come out of it that will be worth something to human beings.” (Source)

There's more, and you should definitely click through for the rest. Also check out the comments under the article; there are some valid points on both sides of this fence.

via r/kaufman

Charlie's off to the 29th Sarajevo Film Festival (August 11-18), where he'll be given the honorary Heart of Sarajevo award in recognition of his work. There will also be an open air screening of Adaptation. Charlie last attended the festival in 2008, presenting Synecdoche, New York.

Jovan Marjanović, the festival’s director, said: “We are thrilled that, after 15 years, we are welcoming back to the [festival] one of the most significant, world-renowned screenwriters and directors, and honor him for his work and dedication to the art of filmmaking. Charlie Kaufman is an extraordinary filmmaker whose films, though filled with biting humor, compel us to contemplate existential depths of the human experience.” (Source)

Thanks to u/pavingmomentum!

Been a while since we had an interview with Charlie! In Ireland for the Bloomsday Film Festival, he chatted with Ray Darcy on RTE Radio 1. They talked about Ending Things, Jackals, the WGA strike and the emergence of AI in filmmaking--as you can probably guess, CK is not a fan.

I don't think I can embed the program, so you'll hafta click the link. Goes for 20 minutes.