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As a writer, or as a filmmaker, you have to present yourself, and part of what yourself is is what you're interested in, or what you think is funny, or what you think is sad, or what you think is horrible.
Charlie Kaufman
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Charlie Kaufman
Age: 65
Born: 1958
Born: November 1
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
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Think
Thinking
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Horrible
Interested
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More quotes by Charlie Kaufman
And so not only do you have to make that work, you can't really start putting the thing together in any form because some of the shots are very short and obviously many of them take so long, you're waiting months and months and months before you can see if it's going to be working emotionally.
Charlie Kaufman
The way I work is not the way that you work, and the whole point of any creative act is that. What I have to offer is me, what you have to offer is you, and if you offer yourself with authenticity and generosity I will be moved.
Charlie Kaufman
I'm not working on anything. I was trying to write something new . . . I guess the goal for me now, at least at this point, is to try to direct again.
Charlie Kaufman
I think if something resonates, even if it's surreal, it's because it is relatable and I think that that's a core issue for me.
Charlie Kaufman
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
I feel like I want to keep moving toward idiosyncracy. Personal, personal, personal.
Charlie Kaufman
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
Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.
Charlie Kaufman
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
I try when I'm writing to leave enough space for people to have their own interpretation, and not to direct it toward one conclusion. Then the audience would not be reacting, because they are being preached to or lectured at. I don't have that much to say that I think people should listen to me.
Charlie Kaufman
If I were doing somebody else's script or I adapted a book by Philip Roth, on set there could be a million different interpretations of the material and people could argue with me. Certainly on Synecdoche, New York we had discussions and arguments, but I felt like I had authority because I'm a writer.
Charlie Kaufman
Story ideas, but it's also musing on stuff that I'm thinking about. This leads me to this and this leads me to this. They're kind of random and haphazard. Often I can't find anything. Somehow, by doing that, even though I don't necessarily refer to them in a specific way, I have some sort of architecture in my head.
Charlie Kaufman
There is so much crap in the world, both in show and other businesses, that I try to be vulnerable myself, in the hopes that there is some truth I can get to, that makes people feel less alone in the world.
Charlie Kaufman
My time on the set is the least of my involvement. Most of my time is in pre-production and post-production.
Charlie Kaufman
Seriously, I don't consider myself a writer. I don't think I have writing talent. But I will continue to do it.
Charlie Kaufman
I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays.
Charlie Kaufman
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
You spend most of your time as a director trying to move forward with the movie. It happens on a daily basis, if not more than once a day, that you are struggling with budgetary constraints. Whereas when you're writing, the limitation that you have is your imagination. So it's decidedly non-pragmatic.
Charlie Kaufman
I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That's what I want to explore. We're all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we're going to die, each of us secretly believing we won't.
Charlie Kaufman
So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.
Charlie Kaufman