Charlie Kaufman

This book addresses the motif of literary twinship from the Shakespearean age until today. Twins have all too often been discussed as mere footnotes to the allegedly more nuanced motif of the doppelganger, or as a kind of 'embarrassing' secret of literary history that is said to occur merely in inferior genres like farce or horror fiction. This study, by contrast, makes a case for the complexity of literary twinship across the literary spectrum, and it demonstrates that twinship articulates bodily anxieties, dynastic troubles, and genetic concerns that the classic double trope cannot ac-commodate. While the book does not deliver a complete and unabridged history of literary twin-ship (as such a history would inevitably be one marked by long gaps), it still examines twinship in a diachronic fashion and in different historical periods in order to show how the category of twinship is frequently re-negotiated as part of larger discursive shifts. Some historical periods understand twins mainly as a biological conundrum that threatens to expose the arbitrary laws of dynastic kin-ship, others as an epistemological problem that challenges any attempt to impose clear-cut definitions.
The individual case studies trace the development of the category of twinship over time, demonstrating how the twin was repeatedly (re-)invented as a cultural and pathological type when other discursive areas (including the fields of criminology and eugenics) constituted themselves, and how it served as the battleground for ideological disputes. It is in-midst of these discursive processes that I locate literary twinship, and my goal is not to demonstrate that literature 'mirrors' scientific debates of the day. Not only is it evident that literature frequently prefigured the discussions of modern twin scholarship, it has also been instrumental in facilitating these debates and in contributing to the negotiation of power shifts, for instance by setting the stage for debates regarding kinship systems in the Shakespearean age, by engaging in the Victorian reformulation of the criminal as genetically/pathologically evil, or by contributing to the dystopian quality of cloning discourse in the 20th century.

A partire dalla fine degli anni Sessanta il linguaggio cinematografico è contrassegnato dall’affioramento periodico di una duplice pulsione: a disgregare la struttura narrativa mediante la sostituzione del tempo cronologico, omogeneo, irreversibile, quantitativo e calcolabile, con un tempo esistenziale, inesteso, non divisibile, qualitativo, eterogeneo, non misurabile e reversibile; a dissolvere le voci esterne o interne alla diegesi mediante un sistematico disoriginamento, che è prima di tutto un divorzio tra l’immagine e il sonoro, in direzione, direbbe Michel Chion, di un cinema «acusmatico». In direzione di un cinema che mette in questione l’ontologia e l’innocenza della sua tecnica audio-visiva, smascherando l’ideologia e il dogmatismo che hanno trasformato in religione l’unione di suono e immagine: le voci sono dissociate dai corpi di appartenenza e anche dalle individualità che essi incarnano.

"In 'I Don't Know, Just Wait: Remembering Remarriage in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', William Day shows how Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind should be considered part of the film genre known as remarriage comedy; but he also shows how Kaufman contributes something new to the genre. Day addresses, in particular, how the conversation that is the condition for reunion involves discovering 'what it means to have memories together as a way of learning how to be together'. One of the most innovative aspects of Kaufman's filmic representation of such a conversation is its effect on the audience: how the narrative structure 'replicates for the viewer the felt contingency of memory that we attribute' to the characters we see onscreen - a couple contending with the interrelated experiences of remarriage and remembering."
--David LaRocca, Introduction to The Philosophy of Charlie Kaufman, 12.

This chapter from Cramped Style looks at the work of Charlie Kaufman, exploring his all-too-human themes, and examines why it is unprofitable to produce his unique and invaluable work in the current state of all or nothing big budget Hollywood filmmaking.

Ce mémoire de recherche en Master 2, sous la direction de Philippe Dubois et présenté à l'Université Paris-3 en 2012, étudie l'esthétique du personnage cinématographique dans le cinéma contemporain. À travers l'analyse filmique, il essaye d'actualiser les notions de "personnage" et de "sujet", et propose de comprendre les inquiétudes identitaires du personnage/sujet contemporain à partir de deux catégories plastiques: la dissociation et l'explosion.

This paper aims to examine the  ''Search for the Self'' in Kaufman's Films , by analysing ''Being John Malkovich'', ''Adaptation'' and ''Synecdoche New York''. Drawing upon Jacques Lacan's writings on the formation of the self and by charting the theoretical debate revolving around selfhood, I will attempt to elucidate the protagonist's relationship with his reflection.

What do contemporary films tell us about the material effects of theatrical, cinematic, and digital simulations? Building on a recent return of interest in mimesis in film studies (Shapiro 2010, Elsaesser 2015, Lawtoo 2015), this article turns to the specific case of a contemporary filmmaker who placed different forms of simulation (theatrical, cinematic, digital) at the center of his protean aesthetics (Spike Jonze) in order to diagnose the mimetic interplay between self and other, human reality and virtual reality central to our process of becoming “posthuman” (Hayles 1999, 2012). I argue that the shift from Jonze’s first film, Being John Malkovich (1999) to his last film, Her (2013) urges critics to reflect on the transition from a society of the spectacle based on embodied forms of mimesis to a network society in which disembodied simulation have material effects. To distinguish it from both its realistic and hyperreal counterparts, I call this embodied form of simulation, “hypermimesis.” This article’s wager is that rather than serving as an “extension of man” (McLuhan 1964) hypermimetic simulations have the power to turn the posthuman subject into an extension of technology.

The filmmakers of the French Nouvelle Vague, in the spirit of postwar modernism, wanted to get at the truth of everyday life, and braved oncoming traffic to capture people living real lives. Since the turn of the millennium, Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman have taken the opposite track, showing a remarkable tendency to undermine their own representations of reality – often humorously collapsing the boundaries between the actual and fictional worlds. The particular filmmakers never content themselves with simple exercises in mimesis, but instead openly acknowledge the elusive objective of faithfully representing reality: examples include the subversively deceptively Godardian cut-away of a film set in Anderson’s Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), the symbiotic relationship between the diegetic writing of two screenplays and the events unfolding around the characters in Jonze’s Adaptation (2002), and the multiple mise-en-abyme structure of Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York (2008). In the course of their films, Anderson, Jonze and Kaufman playfully yet confidently turn our perception of diegetic reality on its head, placing emphasis on the idea of “performance” – as it relates to the characters as well as the films themselves.

the present study is informed by two basic research questions: What are the elements present in Kaufman´s postmodern film, Synecdoche New York (2008), which could be interpreted as intertextual references to Borges´ short story “El tema del traidor y del héroe”? And, which of the postmodern features of the film could be interpreted as dialoguing with Borges´ short story?  Thus, Kaufman´s film has been studied with a view to obtaining information with respect to the terms presented in the research questions.  The findings suggest that little narratives enrich the text in which mediated communication seems to bridge the deficiencies of language between postmodern liquid individuals.

[Typescript; please cite published version] We are living in an age that is narratively obsessed: both in the academy and in popular culture, temporally articulated phenomena currently exert a vice-like grip over the collective imagination.  Under such conditions, how may non-narrative sources of aesthetic power be made available once again to human observers?  Charlie Kaufman’s response, in Adaptation, takes the form not of statements but of actions, of “philosophical therapy” for our insatiable narrative hunger.  It leaves us, in the end, with two phenomena that have (in the full sense of the word) no history at all: the beauty of flowers and the intricacy of a human soul.

"An important volume, full of insights into one of the great philosophical screenwriters of recent times, if not of all time." -- Joshua Landy, Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford University, and author of Philosophy as Fiction: Self, Deception, and Knowledge in Proust and How to Do Things with Fictions

"Hollywood's brainiest screenwriter." -- Wired

"To call Kaufman's clever, breathtaking work science fiction feels limiting, but no modern writer better charts the inner space of our anxieties and dreams better than this off-kilter chronicler." -- Vulture

"How gratifying it is to have  The Philosophy of Charlie Kaufman available in paperback. David LaRocca, the editor of this extraordinary collection, has brought together a distinguished group of contributors from a number of disciplines -- political theorists, philosophers, classicists, theologians, professors of literature, filmmakers, and poets. The diversity of background ensures a wide range of stimulating response. Kaufman, whether working as a director or screenwriter, is undeniably an auteur, and one of the book's many achievements is to suggest how decisive and significant the artistic contribution of a screenwriter can be. The questions that propel Kaufman's fictions are overtly and demandingly philosophical, but everything Kaufman does with his existential forays is laced with wit, and extravagant mischief. LaRocca's collection also demonstrates how Kaufman's work is implicitly in dialogue with the ideas of Stanley Cavell. Kaufman's thinking about romantic relationships in terms of repetition and renewal, his preoccupation with the mystery of the film medium's ways of making and unmaking the world, and his beleaguered quest for moral perfectionism all exhibit kinship with Cavell's approach to the beautifully tumultuous human situation." -- George Toles, Distinguished Professor and Film Chair, University of Manitoba, screenwriting partner of Guy Maddin, and author of  Paul Thomas Anderson and  A House Made of Light: Essays on the Art of Film

"I can't think of a contemporary filmmaker who is more philosophical, and more deserving of philosophical attention, than Charlie Kaufman. Sometimes -- especially when I'm in the middle of one -- I think I'd like to spend every minute of every day watching Kaufman's wildly creative, deliriously destabilizing, profound and at times beautiful films. Sadly, that is not possible. But reading these essays may well be the next best thing. This fascinating book will help audiences grasp and appreciate the full richness of what is to be found in the work of contemporary cinema's most madcap metaphysician." -- Troy Jollimore, Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Chico, Guggenheim fellow, and author of Love's Vision, On Loyalty, and Syllabus of Errors: Poems

"This rich and varied collection of papers helps us to better understand Kaufman's wonderful films and explore the themes, philosophical and otherwise, that they contain. The section on the not-to-be-missed  Synecdoche, New York,  is especially rewarding. Read it and you will want to watch the film again and again." -- C. D. C. Reeve, Delta Kappa Epsilon Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of Action, Contemplation, and Happiness and Blindness and Reorientation: Problems in Plato's Republic


From the Academy Award-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Academy Award-nominated Adaptation (2002) to the cult classic Being John Malkovich (1999), writer Charlie Kaufman is widely admired for his innovative, philosophically resonant films. Although he only recently made his directorial debut with Synecdoche, New York (2008), most fans and critics refer to "Kaufman films" the way they would otherwise discuss works by directors Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, or the Coen brothers. Not only has Kaufman transformed our sense of what can take place in a film, but he also has made a significant impact on our understanding of the role of the screenwriter.

The Philosophy of Charlie Kaufman, edited by David LaRocca, is the first collection of essays devoted to a rigorous philosophical exploration of Kaufman's work by a team of capable and critical scholars from a wide range of disciplines. From political theorists to philosophers, classicists to theologians, professors of literature to filmmakers, the contributing authors delve into the heart of Kaufman's innovative screenplays, offering not only original philosophical analyses but also extended reflections on the nature of film and film criticism.

Les histoires d’amour finissent mal en général. Et font mal. Et si l’on pouvait aimer sans risquer d’avoir mal ? Dans l’Épître d’Héloïse à Abélard (1717) que cite Kirsten Dunst dans le film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (M. Gondry, 2004), Alexander Pope décrit le regret d’Héloïse d’avoir perdu à jamais, avec sa virginité, la tranquillité d’esprit des vestales irréprochables qui, « oubliant le monde et par le monde oubliées », avaient la chance de jouir encore de « l’éclat éternel de l’esprit immaculé ». Pour aborder le thème populaire de la douleur de la rupture amoureuse, Michel Gondry et Charlie Kaufman ont justement imaginé qu’une entreprise, Lacuna, Inc., offre à ses clients, Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) et Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet), d’effacer leurs souvenirs douloureux et donc de nettoyer leur esprit de façon qu’il retrouve la pureté, la liberté et la propreté de celui d’un bébé. Plusieurs fois primé, le film — oscarisé pour son scénario — a suscité un fort engouement, au point qu’un livre collectif lui fut consacré par des philosophes anglo-saxons. Instruit de ces lectures cinéphilosophiques, l’exposé viserait à montrer que le film nous apprend qu’il y a pourtant un risque à vouloir ainsi échapper au nécessaire travail de deuil qui suit la perte d’une relation aimée et que ce risque est analogue à celui qu’encourent ceux qui entendent se passer de philosophie pour résoudre les problèmes philosophiques. En effet, l’une des idées géniales du film est d’avoir trouvé un moyen de rendre une quête autobiographique et philosophique de soi aussi passionnante qu’une course-poursuite, en personnifiant, à l’aide du souvenir que Joel a de Clementine, la résistance douloureuse qu’offre l’esprit en deuil à l’idée que l’objet de son attachement est perdu pour toujours. Autrement dit, Gondry et Kaufman ont trouvé un moyen de nous passionner pour un film qui est un enregistrement du travail de deuil et par là du travail philosophique.

What might film have to say about global space? This, in essence, is the question which this paper addresses, in relation to Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008). I argue that the protagonist's theatre project in the film can be read in relation to prominent conceptions of global space (which relate in particular to telecommunications systems, multinational capitalism, and the urban environment) and the implications these have for subjectivity. Rather than merely representing the global system, however, Synecdoche, New York suggests a novel way in which we might think about this, and it will be one of the aims of this discussion to uncover this. In terms of the film's form, I read this in relation to Gilles Deleuze's notion of the time-image. There is a disjointed flow of time in Synecdoche, New York, I claim, and this forms not only a link with Deleuze's writings on the cinema, but also suggests a counterpoint to the form of space outlined above. I will end by providing a further reading of the time-image, which serves to link this form back to global space, and the contemporary cultural and political situation.

Das semi-autobiographische Drehbuch zu "Adaptation" präsentiert eine mit Fakten durchsetzte Hyperrealität, die irgendwann beginnt die Grenzen zwischen Werk und Autor zu verwischen. In dieser Arbeit soll die Selbstreferenzialität des Filmes im Bezug auf den damit verbundenen Drehbuchdiskurs betrachtet werden.
Die Kernfrage ist, wie Kaufman in seinem Drehbuch die Filmwelt reflektiert und warum er dafür einen Bruder im Geiste braucht.

"Charlie Kaufman, o roteirista de Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind conseguiu ultrapassar o anonimato dos créditos finais de uma sessão de cinema para se tornar tão conhecido e responsável pela autoria dos filmes quanto seus diretores. Kaufman imprimiu sobre eles sua marca, a de um universo estranho que o espectador aprendeu a procurar e reconhecer como sendo seu. Para discutir a figura do roteirista-autor, Cecilia Sayad traça uma breve história da trajetória do autor no cinema, do mudo ao "cinema de autor" que a geração francesa surgida com a nouvelle vague apresentou ao mundo. Quem é esse autor, reconhecido pela exposição de suas obsessões e cuja imaginação dita o conteúdo visual dos filmes, é a questão levantada nesse livro."

Feral Child vs. Educated Ape: Gondry and Kaufman's Human Nature

The film Human Nature (Gondry, 2001) is an ironic comment on current issues concerning the difficulties that we find when we try to define what means to be human. In fact, it is built upon a crossroad of topics often addressed when we deal  with humanity's margins: feral children, animal research or Kafka's short story "A Report to an Academy", which portraits an ape staging his biography before an academic audience, the obstacles he found while he was forced to become human after being captured, in  order to escape from slavery. Simultaneously, Human Nature follows Kafka's short story and, at the same time, it reverses it, as the plot begins with the public statement made before U.S. Congress by the grown-up feral child named Puff. A human instead of an ape, but both feral child and ape occupy an uncertain and menacing position with respect to humanity, due to their origins. Could an educated chimp be considered human? And an illiterate, aphasic and uncivilised Homo sapiens? After all, according to philosopher Giorgio Agamben, to be human means to remain uncertain and divided between being less than human - an animal - and being more than human - a god. In this light, Human Nature proves to be a fascinating case study. A film in which humans appear to be really lost somewhere in between their urges, their feelings and their high morals, while other animals witness their confusion.


La película Human Nature (Gondry, 2001) constituye un comentario irónico acerca una serie de temas actuales relacionados con las dificultades que  nos encontramos cuando tratamos de definir lo que significa ser humano. De hecho, fue construida sobre una encrucijada de varios temas que son abordados con frecuencia cuando nos ocupamos de los márgenes de la humanidad: los niños ferales, la investigación con animales o el relato de Kafka "Informe para una academia", que retrata a un simio que pone en escena su biografía ante un público académico, describiendo los obstáculos que se fue encontrando al verse forzado a convertirse en humano después de haber sido capturado, con el fin de escapar de su esclavitud. De manera simultánea, Human Nature sigue el relato de Kafka pero también lo invierte, puesto que la trama comienza con una declaración  ante el Congreso de Estados Unidos realizada por un niño feral, ya adulto, llamado Puff. Un ser humano en lugar de un simio, pero tanto el niño feral como el simio ocuparían una posición incierta y amenazante con respecto a la humanidad debido a sus orígenes. ¿Podría un chimpancé educado ser considerado humano? ¿Y un Homo sapiens analfabeto, afásico y nada civilizado? Después de todo, según el filósofo Giorgio Agamben, ser humano significa permanecer dubitativo y dividido entre ser algo menos que humano - un animal - y ser mucho más que humano - un dios. En este sentido, Human Nature resulta ser un caso de estudio fascinante. Una película en la que los seres humanos parecen estar muy perdidos en algún lugar situado entre sus impulsos, sus sentimientos y sus altos valores morales, mientras que otros animales son testigos de su confusión.

From the breakneck exposition of Synecdoche, New York, to its narrative plotting and the dialogues between characters, everything happens absurdly quickly. This is evident from the outset: the confusion and intensity of Caden’s breakfast table is expressed through a heightening of speed in visual and sonic montage. The intensity of Synecdoche’s speed presents a well-trodden cultural critique from a perspective as peculiar formally as it is narratively.

Humanities scholarship often notes the incapacity of artistic representation to accurately render capitalism. Andrew Lawson, for instance, notes that narratives that ‘attempt to contextualise the human beings caught’ in the American subprime mortgage crisis ‘run up against a kind of opacity or obscurity, a crisis of representation’. (Lawson, 2013) Capitalism’s scale, the dissociative effect of its balances, the complexity of its global arrangements, all are seen to defy the logic of bounded narrative representation.

This paper addresses this ‘crisis of representation’ by considering the ways in which representation might wrestle with the challenge of rendering capitalism in crisis. Taking Charlie Kaufman’s film Synecdoche, New York (2008), I read Kaufman’s themes of death, life, and literary representation as allegorical components that address the Subprime Mortgage Crisis.

Despite arriving in the subprime moment, at first blush Kaufman’s themes seem unconcerned with material social reality. The film ostensibly stands, with its Borgesian account of a playwright trying to produce a play that represents a day in the life of everyone, as a retreat from reality into metatextual play. Kaufman, however, includes a surreal scene that marries death and homeownership, and in so doing, covertly figures the Subprime Mortgage Crisis throughout the film. This representative strategy parallels Michael Rowbotham account of ‘debt slavery’, drawn from the literal translation of ‘mortgage’, as ‘the grip of death’. (Rowbotham, 1998) Thus, I argue that Kaufman’s allegorical use of death and art offers an escape with the possibility of artistic representation to capture its unassailable economic subject.

In Adaptation (2002) by Spike Jonze (director) and Charlie Kaufman (screenplay) two image regimes clash head-on. Thereby the movie places itself between the aesthetic styles of
classical Hollywood and (European) modernist cinema. Rather than privileging one regime over the other, Adaptation challenges the assumed mutual exclusiveness of classical and
modernist film aesthetics. Thus it opens up an interstice, which paves the way for a unique image regime: neither classical nor modernist, but born out of the legacy of both. In the
paper, it is argued that this third image regime is foremost characterized by its multidimensional approach to cinematic temporality; or more precisely, in its ability to create a unique equilibrium between the linearity that characterizes classical cinema and the nonlinear ruptures of modernist cinema. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that Adaptation is a prime example of the growing image regime of ‘complex narratives’ (Simons 2008), because it conducts a metafilmic examination of how a new generation of filmmakers waver between classical and modernist ideals of science, philosophy and art. What the movie ultimately calls for is a new conception of cinematic temporality able to incorporate and thereby transcend both aesthetic paradigms; a project that in the movie ultimately fails. It will further be suggested that the classical-modernist dichotomy is manifest in contemporary film
studies in the conflict between Bordwellian cognitive-formalist film science and Deleuzian film-philosophy. Whereas the former argues for the ‘naturalness’ of classical Hollywood
conventions, the latter argues for the transgressive powers of modernist cinema. It is ultimately suggested that the future of film studies may not lie in the victory of either of these perspectives, but – as suggested in Adaptation – be found in a creative reconfiguration of both in the search of a multidimensional conception of cinematic temporality.

Charlie Kaufman, o roteirista de Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind conseguiu ultrapassar o anonimato dos créditos finais de uma sessão de cinema para se tornar tão conhecido e responsável pela autoria dos filmes quanto seus diretores. Kaufman imprimiu sobre eles sua marca, a de um universo estranho que o espectador aprendeu a procurar e reconhecer como sendo seu.

Para discutir a figura do roteirista-autor, Cecilia Sayad traça uma breve história da trajetória do autor no cinema, do mudo ao "cinema de autor" que a geração francesa surgida com a nouvelle vague apresentou ao mundo.

Quem é esse autor, reconhecido pela exposição de suas obsessões e cuja imaginação dita o conteúdo visual dos filmes, é a questão levantada nesse livro.