Charlie Kaufman: C/D?

Too early to say C/D, I think.

My love of Kaufman's scripts is probably enhanced by the fact that films he's involved in are some of the only Hollywood productions that aren't an "adaptation" of something else, be it a book, comic, TV show, video game, another film, what have you.

I'm also prob'ly the only person yet to click this thread who loves all of his films. D'oh!

I think Kaufman's films so far have been entertaining, and the critical backlash is based on the mistaken impression that lots of people have decided they are the Future of Movies. At least I think it's mistaken.

I'll eat crow: I was thinking less of the 1930s films like Footlight Parade wherein the principles put on a Broadway show (or a provincial show as in Babes in Arms) but things like Singin' the Rain, The Band Wagon, and etc. that reference the movies and play on the star personas of the leads. But of course that sort of thing was happening back in the 1930s too, so I didn't really have a point.

The meta-musical! Just watched that again a few weeks ago -- my wife had somehow never seen it. An almost perfect movie. (My only hang-up is that I can't quite bring myself to like Gene Kelly -- respect his talents, definitely, but not "like." And he's in the midst of such a likable cast that his slight unlikability is magnified to the extent that it grates on me just a little. But as I say, it's still a fantastic piece of work.)

Anyway, Kaufman -- I've only seen the two Spike Jonze movies, so it's a little hard for me to separate the two of them. I liked Adaptation, although I thought it kinda worked better on paper than it played on film (which someone might argue was part of the point, I suppose). And Being John Malkovich I downright loved. I thought that movie was underrated even by a lot of people who liked it -- it got a lot of, "Oh, it's so zany, so fresh, so FUN" reviews, when I actually thought it was an intensely philosophical and deeply considered film. I think that movie grapples with some things (about the nature of existence and identity, the perennial struggle for transcendence via the Other, blah blah blah) that don't turn up in many films this side of Bergman. And it's funnier than Bergman.

Everyone remembers the first, lame student scripts they wrote. You get towards the final scenes and think, "how the hell do I tie this baby up?"

So you think of something wacky, off-kilter, just in the hope that "it'll do", or go out with a bang. As you're a beginner, you excuse the fact that it makes no sense. You'll learn.

Kaufmans' four films still show this tendency. He's a great comic writer. But then again, Adaptation was unapologetically misognyist. And Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was just bad.

Kaufman has respect for the audience's intellectual appreciation of cinema, which is great. But he has no respect for their more visceral appreciation of movies as entertainment.

?????? Qualify this, Chuck.

Meryl Streep gave a great performance, but I think her work was completely undermined by that sophmoric ending (I mean, even the Naked Gun films parody Hollywood cliches with far more skill than Kaufman did in the last half hour).

Of course, is writing 2-D female character's a sign of misogyny or just bad writing? I think I was just dissapointed that formally Kaufman tried something really new and inventive, but he still has just as little of a clue about women as any old Hollywood screenwriter.

"he has no idea how to end the picture" = yes well done also you are an idiot

I thought Adaptation had loads of faults, but I smiled at imaginative moments and laughed at funny ones loads of times, and had a great time. Being John Malkovich was even better, and I think in both cases the PoMo games are not empty flourishes but ways that make very good sense to me as ways of addressing some genuinely interesting subjects.

think normankillwell wrote that last post stoned