Some highlights and awkward moments from the Q&A Charlie gave after the Synecdoche screening in Chicago the other night.

Question Number Fifteen: Someone asked a long drawn-out question about whether the film was “semi-neurotic, semi-adolescent” and Kaufman responded, “Well, not if you put it that way!” He continued talking about his creative process, saying, “When I start something, I don't know where it's going to go.  I write stuff from the inside. It is what it is.” Kaufman made me( as a fellow writer) feel better by saying that he does not have a “routine” where he writes “X” number of hours a day at a certain time, etc. (Thanks for that, Charlie! I mean it!) “What I wanted to do when I started out was to try to externalize the internal world of this character. The dream imagery (house burning, etc.) just came. I found it kind of fascinating.” Charlie talked about how “the end is built into the beginning” (i.e., we are born to die…”in the midst of life we are in death”) and used the idea of choices that inform our lives, especially in regards to the character of Hazel, who buys and lives in a constantly burning house. “She didn't have to buy that house and live in that house, but she chose to.  It's all about decisions.  The funny things are funny because they resonate.”

BCK also got a mention from one of the Q-ers. But that doesn't feature in the link above. Sadie tells me the Q&A was recorded, so it might end up on YouTube.

[NOTE: the author quoted above has left a comment on BCK. Connie says she has posted an amended version of the post above on Associated Content, as well.]