Investigation Charlie Kaufman as a Director

 This investigation is a continuation of a previous inquiry onto Charlie Kaufman as a Writer . 

 Overall Style 

Since the start of his career, Charlie Kaufman has established himself as a weird filmmaker, writing absurdist scripts that commented on both everything and nothing at the same time. In his first three major films the absurdity of Kaufman's writing is balanced out by relatively normal directors. Kaufman's directorial style carries the same surrealist style he displayed in his writing, the combination of his surreal writing and directing allows for cinema that breaks all forms of traditional behavior. The best way I can oversimplify Kaufman's directorial style is through Crispin Glover's performance in Back to the Future. 

In this film Glover is not attempting to replicate any normal human behavior, instead replicating the way we all think of our dads. Similarly, Kaufman is not attempting to represent any normal human in his movies having every cinematic choice represent the way we think about that thing. In Synecdoche New York Huffman plays the cliché of the exacting artist, surrounded by what we think a plays look like. There is a particular dream like quality to all of his movies, in which logic is left to the wayside as seemingly random things propel the plot forward. 

Synecdoche, New York 

Synecdoche, New York follows a theater director as he spends his entire life dying. The film is defined by his slow, painful death. In an effort to avoid confronting his mortality the director, Caiden, experiences love, raises a few families, and attempts to make a real theater piece in replicating the entire city of New York. The film takes a structure like no other, not quite following any act structure, but not episodic either; a distinct narrative structure is displayed. Any attempt to explain the plot of this film will lead to the explanation of non-scene that are used to justify Kaufman's grand vision of showing life in it's totality. Similar to Being John Malkovich, this is a film about nothing and everything at the same time. When Kaufman talks about the film he describes the process as making a thing just substantive enough that the presence of some grand meaning was clear, but opaque enough people could choice from a variety of analytic paths. 

I view the film to be about the way we avoid thinking about death through art. The film beautifully portrays the way the artist handles the ever present problem of mortality in showing the lengths we go to avoid thinking about death in a real sense by considering it extensively through our art. Distancing ourselves through analysis. On a critical level this film is extraordinarily affective (I cannot watch it without both crying and laughing). Depending on the day I'm having, this is my favorite film. 

Anomalisa 

In this film Kaufman uses animation to portray every character except the protagonist with the same face. Furthermore, every character except the two main ones are played by the same voice actor. In this Kaufman is able to comment on the nature of narcissism (a common theme in his movies) in a full way.  While I can recognize the craft and quality of this film, I personally don't like it. This is the only Kaufman film I don't like. Out of his movies this is the only one that feels like it has a 'normal' script, because of this the strong directorial choices are lessoned. Kaufman is certainly a great director, but he is first and foremost a writer and this movie forgets that. 

I'm Thinking of Ending Thinks  

This is a film about projection. In it a janitor thinks about the way he thought about his older self when he was younger before killing himself. The film displays this plot through a series of confusing choices making the plot of the movie up to subjective interpretation. While Synecdoche made the meaning opaque, I'm Thinking of Ending Thinks leaves the plot behind a fogged window. This film has lead to some interesting controversy. This is a film that people either love or hate, and depending on your critical response this film has sparked a variety of essays from critical work on your validity as a director to essays outlining the films commentary on contemporary reference culture. Good or bad, if your film sparks more essays than words in the script it's a success

Work Log 

(This week I had a talk with my actors and we decided we did not have the time to shoot a completely new movie, so I will put the 1000 script on ice and relook at it in winter break. For this project I will tap into my video library [explained next week] and make a music video. Also, looking through the files on my computer with Ed for his Brown video I found three completely shot films I forgot about that I will edit in the editing phase of production) 

Monday- talked with actors, choose song for music video    

Tuesday- did some Tic Tocs 

Wednesday- Started work on the plan for the look of the music video

Thursday- Did the first scene of the video 

Friday- Helped Ed edit his Brown video, found some complete films that just need to be edited