Finally I could put a face to the name that has always piqued my curiosity. And what a first film he has made, i will always envy him that. This post is from whatever notes i could take in his masterclass , and his answers to the questions that were thrown at him.
As he came in, a simply dressed , shirt over a T-shirt guy. first question thrown at him-
Q.- Is it really you?
A.- No.
Q.- So you started with TV?
A.- It was useful for me to have a job. Before that I had a job answering phonecalls in minneapolis at 6 dollars per hour. At thirty I decided to take the plunge to do what i wanted to do. As a writer I was put into a writers room where my voice was probably was the weakest and hardly anyone could hear me. I was so shy and a nobody. I had a writing partner and we worked together and wrote few pilots and they got nowhere. They were odd and silly to everybody. It’s later that I made a career out of those silly ideas.
Q.- Do you wish your screenplays had structure?
A.- I think I have a craft and my scripts do have a structure, they just do not fit into the accepted norm and formulae written by those who have never written a script.
Q.- How do you know what to stick to?
A.- I don’t think their are any rules or method. It’s all experience and instinct.
Q.- How do you know what to stick to and what is dispensable and what is indispensable? Which aspect of the craft is to be preserved and what is dispensable?
A.- I don’t think there is any adhering to or throwing away. I think I have an inherent ability to describe and write scenes. It’s instinctive. I somehow figure out the best way to do it. Structure does not interest me. It seems like that somebody saying there is one way to paint a painting. Every body in the business seems to know how to write a script. Only they don’t. I disagree with Syd Field and his kind. people are always trying to figure out an angle I might have in what I do.
There was this journalist from the Time magazine that did my interview after Being John Malkovich released. I talked about my whole life and all, and when the interview came out it was under a heading called “Revenge of the nerd”. It came across like , ” look at me, you beat me in school but now I have gotten back at you.” She had already decided what my motive was for being who I am, beforehand. All of you journalists are the same, they already know the angle one has. They first befriend you, then they feel you like them and they pretend to like you and they go out and kill you. People accuse me of showing fake feelings, well, fake feelings are part of you, you fake them because you care, it is part of the truth, it’s the situation that becomes complex. I like complexity. That’s life.
On Being John Malkovich
I wrote the film for myself. I didn’t know who Spike Jonze was when i met him. I ws happy he wanted to do the film. My discovery of him started after he came on board. Why John Malkovich? Any other actor’s namewould not have meant the same. I n that scene where everyone looks like malkovich and says malkovich, malkovich, imagine if there was any other actor. cruise cruise would not have sounded the same. Malkovich was funnier and confusing, it raised the stakes. I did not know John before writing the film. And both me and Spike decided we will not rewrite it to suit the real John Malkovich. So John Malkovich the actor ended up playing the character John Malkovich. Why John Malkovich? Because it’s a funny idea that people would be like to be him. Their is a quality about John that’s unknowable and his eyes, always seem like someone is looking out of them.
I was lucky i met Spike. I am lucky I have met the right people.
After the film released all the studio executives and people i use to meet had only one thing to say “I want a portal into your brain” . It became such a cliche and a boring pickup line.
On Adaptation
I started with an idea we discussed and after a point i didn’t know where to go, so i brought myself in. I didn’t tell anyone what i was doing with it because obviously they would have rejected it. I am obsessed with artificial fantastic world. I like artifice. I like people questioning the audacity of what they are watching. I always liked the fake world and illusion, but i don’t like being lied to. I like to confuse people like life confuses you and leave them looking for answers. I do not like to explain. I always wanted to be someone other than I am. If somehow we could escape from ourselves and look at the universe we would see that it’s all nothing. Someone once told me that they were meditating in a park and there were two horses fucking and they could not meditate. For me the idea of meditating is to have confused feelings, to be in between horses fucking and live with it . Uniformity of emotions shown in most films is too unreal and we feel jealous because it looks perfect. My idea of what a film should be and how a script should be is what i put in there. Some of that still exists in me, some has moved on.
A screenwriter’s life is not as glamorous and dramatic as the director’s. A screenwriter has no social life, nothing dramatic so I thought I will give him someone to talk to, and I gave him a twin, a dope because a dope is fun to talk to, write about and write of. The film just fell in place.
We felt that for Adaptation to really work it needed to fail on box office and it did. I was nominated but the film failed to prove how it really is and how people don’t like ambivalence and the pressure is on the writer and the filmmaker is for everyone to like the film and understand it.
Q.-Adaptation was a lot like Fellini’s 8 1/2 but much more deeper and modern.
A.-I have not seen 8 1/2. A lot of people told me that, so I decided I will not and never see that film and I haven’t. So I don’t know what you are talking about.
Q.-I mean it raises questions of truth like authenticity and originality, philosophically expected questions but socially not accepted.
A.-May be.
On Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless mind
People think it’s my best film because they understand it. They could say they understood a complicated film and feel intelligent talking about it. Rest of my films didn’t make them feel that way.
Why Jim Carrey? Because one he wanted to do it. Second when he walked in the first time he was wearing a similar cap that the character wore in the film. He looked like a real person and not the plastic face we were used to seeing on screen. The cap came from him. He tried to do the part rather than being Jim Carrey.
On Confessions Of a Dangerous Mind
I was seperate from the movie. I didn’t thing George Clooney was interested in what I had to say, and things like tha affect me. I don’t have anything to say about it.
On Synecdoche, New York
It’s more idiosyncratic than my other works because here I was in control. I didn’ want my hand held. I did not call anybody.
Q.- Synecdoche looks like a final summation of what you have been trying to do and say with all your movies.
A.- I hope not.
I don’t think I ‘ve arrived with this film, you keep learning more and that’s what Synecdoche is about. Phillip Seymour hoffman’s character is trying to put the real world that he inhabits on stage in a play which is not possible. He ends up creating a replica of New York in the warehouse and the actors are living in it now. At one point , one of the actor says ,”don’t you think we should bring the ausience in, it’s been seventeen years.” His wife’s paintings keep getting smaller and smaller till you need special glasses to see them. The idea being “how do you express?”. All is endless. If I could create the entire New York in the warehouse, if I had the budget and the capability , I would have done that.
Q.- What does that burning house means in the film?
A.- Every Q& A someone asks me what does that burning house means but some people get that, based on their own experience. I am using my own dream imagery. I know what it means to me but I do not want to share it. People try to figure it out and have different meaning to it and I like that. I don’t put things in my film to deliberately confuse them, I like to confuse them but I like it even more when they don’t get confused and they figure it out for themselves, they make an effort to understand it which for me means that they are trying to understand me, neither do i like to do that nor do i like to pander or cater to them. I put them in because they mean something to me.I am not trying to screw with you.
On Scriptwriting Books
It depends on what you want to do. If you want to be part of the studio system then follow the books because people who hire you read the same books and tey like it when you sound like them. I am not into them and I don’t care about Robert Mckee or anyone. I don’t know what form is. I like to start with zero and I like having information about my subject. For adaptation I read the Mckee book and went to his seminar and wanted to put his character in the book. I saw KungFu Panda and from the first frame I can tell you what the film is going to be like and how will it unfold and end, and not just me but everyone can tell that and it is comforting to people and they like it because it confirms to their notions about what the movie should be like and what they expect of you and everyone is happy and so it works. I am not like that. I like to interact and challenge them and i like the audience who stands up to it, and I don’t care about them who expects me to cater to them or explain it to them . I am not there servant.
I can’t write in Genre form. I write what i like to write. Once somebody said,” He is always writing the same thing. If he’s really good he will write a western. fuck him.” I like the Matrix like view of life. It’s me writing, me creating so Fuck you.
On Hollywood’s acceptance of him
Q.- Now hollywood is too keen to do your work. So much receptivity?
A.- being John Malkovich did well, it became a prestige thing.The actors were interested in my work.It’s the getting attracted to the script like this for no fee, is why the movies got made and so the studios are interested. Do you really think they get and care about what I write?”
I am attached to my truth. This is how I see things, there is no other vantage point for me. I just got successful doing it.
On Himself
I get mad about people selling bullshit, lying in politics, at expense of others to make money. Shortcomings are good, they are Humane and acknowledging that is beautiful.
Knowing that you don’t know is the most essential step to knowing.
A director’s job is manegerial and fun as opposed to the writers which is isolated and lonely.
I think I am entertaining myself. I do what I do because I need to to feel that emotionally on something that’s sometimes poignant and meaningful and sometimes funny. I think I am entertaining myself , I need to feel I have emotionally touched myself on something that’s funny to me or touches me. I have a rage against how it all works and how people in power decide it is suppose to work.
I feel an incredible sense of community with books not films.
David Lynch is a filmmaker I look forward to.
Monsters Inc is my favourite animation movie. I did not like Wall.E.
I don’t think about actors when I am writing. When I wrote Synecdoche, I wasn’t going to direct it. Spike was. It did not turn out that way. Then i think of who all exists and approached them and that is how the casting came about.
I have just discovered the process of creating and I would like to direct more.
On Self Indulgence
Q.- You are often accused of being self indulgent?
A.- I don’t know why people have a problem with that. I don’t know what self indulgent means. I think what anybody has to offer is yourself and that is a generous thing. Offering your life experience is what anybody has to offer and somebody who does that should be appreciated because he is generously sharing his weaknesses and flaws with the world.
Q.- Do you think that your films have got the social context right about what you are trying to say but what commonly emerges from your theme is how technology is controlling about how we feel and react and do, and how it is affecting us. Do you agree?
A.- Can you repeat the question please.
Q.- Do you-(repeated)
A.- I don’t know, I never thought like that. May be.
Comments that were posted on “Passion For Cinema” for this post can be viewed here.