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I think if I've worked anything through with screenwriting it's that I'm not going to be able to work anything through.

Charlie Kaufman

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Charlie Kaufman
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: November 1
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Able
Going
Work
Think
Thinking
Worked
Anything

More quotes by Charlie Kaufman

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I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal.
Charlie Kaufman
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I don't write genre stuff in any form. I'm not interested in it. I always try to do the opposite of that.
Charlie Kaufman
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I'm old enough, by a long shot, to remember going to the library and spending days researching. If I was looking for a line from a poem or something else I needed, that would be the trip I would have to take.
Charlie Kaufman
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I want to do my own thing, and I'm trying to get closer to realizing that as a filmmaker.
Charlie Kaufman
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My time on the set is the least of my involvement. Most of my time is in pre-production and post-production.
Charlie Kaufman
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I actually think I'm probably more interested in structure than most people who write screenplays, because I think about it.
Charlie Kaufman
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I'm interested in trying to explore what I think is the truth at a given time in my life, and part of the process of being honest is - in my mind - talking about the idea that you're watching a movie.
Charlie Kaufman
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When I'm writing a script, before I can write dialogue or anything, I have two or three hundred pages of notes, which takes me a year. So, it's not like what happens next. I've got things that I'm thinking about but I don't settle on them. And if I try to write dialogue before then, I can't. It's just garbage.
Charlie Kaufman
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There really is only one ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps going and gets complicated and there's loss. Everything involves loss every relationship ends in one way or another.
Charlie Kaufman
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I'm Jewish, and my family is Jewish. I was very interested in Woody Allen when I was growing up, but I don't think of myself as a Jewish writer. I'm more from suburbia, American suburbia. I'm more from the '70s than I am from Judaism.
Charlie Kaufman
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I have a personality that tends to be somewhat compulsive, and I do tend to think in a circular way. I dwell on the same things over and over and I try to figure out different ways of looking at the same issue.
Charlie Kaufman
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We're all one thing, like cells in a body. 'Cept we can't see the body. The way fish can't see the ocean. And so we envy each other. Hurt each other. Hate each other. How silly is that? A heart cell hating a lung cell.
Charlie Kaufman
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I can talk endlessly about characters, or why someone did this or that, and what that dynamic and interaction is. I really love it, and I think that actors really respond positively to the fact that I like to talk about that stuff, because I'm not sure that all directors do.
Charlie Kaufman
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I graduated from college in 1980.
Charlie Kaufman
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Before you start production, you have characters you have created without actors in mind, then all of a sudden you've got actors. They bring an enormous amount in creating these characters, and creating the dynamics between the characters that you've written.
Charlie Kaufman
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Do not simplify. Do not worry about failure. Failure is a badge of honour. It means you risked failure.
Charlie Kaufman
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Writing is a journey into the unknown.
Charlie Kaufman
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Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.
Charlie Kaufman
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Do not simplify. Do not worry about failure. Failure is a badge of honour. It means you risked failure.
Charlie Kaufman
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I think you just assume that your memory is just sort of a video playback of your experience, but it's nothing like that at all. It's a complete refabrication of an event and a lot of it is made up, because you're filling in spaces.
Charlie Kaufman