I'm a huge fan of Kaufman's work but only recently saw Synecdoche, New York, which immediately became my favorite movie, ever. That led me down a rabbit hole of listening to basically every recorded interview he's ever given. He's absolutely brilliant, sincerely humble, probably depressed, and just an absolute joy to listen to. I have a simple quote from him on my computer that I look at from time to time:<p>I try to do what I can to put something in the world that is not garbage.
> In many cases a major obstacle is your deeply seated belief that you are not interesting. And since convincing yourself that you are interesting is probably not going to happen, take it off the table. Think, ‘Perhaps I’m not interesting but I am the only thing I have to offer, and I want to offer something. And by offering myself in a true way I am doing a great service to the world, because it is rare and it will help.’
Adaptation is one of the gems of Postmodern cinema. I really like what that film did to my brain the first time I watched it. It's hilarious.<p>It's a keen insight into the process and emotional rollercoaster of creative work.<p>The layered hilarity to it all is that it's based on the real experience of Kaufman trying to adapt The Orchid Thief.
If you have Netflix, check out one of Kaufman's more recent films, "I'm Thinking of Ending Things". It's an (increasingly loose) adaptation of Ian Reid's book of the same name. The book is deliberately disorienting and unsettling which makes Kaufman's style really shine.<p><a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80211559" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.netflix.com/title/80211559</a>
The video/audio of this talk is also quite good: <a href="https://youtu.be/eRfXcWT_oFs?si=clFM0bNLTO7ll7bK" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/eRfXcWT_oFs?si=clFM0bNLTO7ll7bK</a>
Long ago I was the assistant to the movie tie-in editor at Tor Books. One day we're going through the mail and there's the script for Being John Malkovich. I read it, and I'm like, holy shit, we have to do this. But wait, how are we going to do this? So I show it to the editor, and he says, yeah, this is great, but how are we going to make this a book? I mean, I could think of ways, but no way that Tom would pay for. So I spend the better part of year just blabbing to people about this great script, but no one has any better idea of what do with it. Still disappointed.
If you haven't already, pick up a copy of Kaufman's only novel, Antkind. It is easily the funniest thing I have ever read. The audiobook version is perfectly done. I have never laughed so hard in my life.
Every time I listen to this lecture it hits me in the gut.<p><a href="https://vimeo.com/45097801" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://vimeo.com/45097801</a><p>Eliot Rausch edited a beautiful short video with clips from this speech:
Video of the lecture: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRfXcWT_oFs" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRfXcWT_oFs</a>