Charlie Kaufman: the King of Emotional Turbulence

When considering auteurship, one director stands out in my mind (who also happens to have directed my favorite movie of all time) and that is Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman has always had a notable signature on every film he’s been involved with. He began his career writing popular screenplays such as Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind before he finally made his directorial debut with Synecdoche, New York (there’s that favorite movie I was mentioning). While he’s had his name attached to a broad array of work, he’s only directed three movies to date: Synecdoche, New York (2008) as previously mentioned, Anomalisa (2015), and I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020). Given the recent release, it’s clear that he’s still active and I hope to see many more films from him.

Taking a look at the first film he directed, you can already see how consistent he is with his work considering his screenplays. Synecdoche, New York continued Kaufman’s fascination with uncomfortable psychological elements. Phillip Seymour Hoffman stars as Caden, an aging theater director who is awarded a MacArthur genius grant allowing him to write and direct what he decides must be his magnum opus. Caden’s desire for perfection, for it to “mean something”, and underlying psychological problems slowly drive him mad, and the movie takes the viewer along with him. It utilizes essentially every aspect of filmmaking to make you truly question what is real, how much is too much, and what a “successful” life is. Uncomfortable angles, odd things happening in backgrounds, and inconsistent visuals all make you wonder whether you’re missing something regardless of how closely you’re paying attention. The dialogue fluctuates between mundane to poetic to practically incomprehensible to demonstrate just how unstable Caden is.

The movie follows the rest of Caden’s life, up until the end which is the final scene after a climax sequence that is somehow more chaotic than the rest of the movie. The final scene features a monologue by a character who is (subtly) revealed to be a figment of Caden’s imagination and a representation of himself in his own mind. The monologue is without a doubt the most coherent and powerful part of the film, summarizing “what it all meant” in a way (hint: nothing). The film leaves you feeling melancholy but oddly calm which, as you’ll see, is the tone and result of all of Kaufman’s films.

Anomalisa, coming out seven years later, is a claymation film with so much detail and skill you barely remember you’re watching an animated film. It stars David Thewlis voicing Michael, Jennifer Jason Leigh voicing Lisa, and Tom Noonan as literally every other character and no, he doesn’t change his voice. Michael is a customer service specialist, having written a book and traveling the states to give seminars on how to treat customers. We meet him traveling to Ohio for one of the aforementioned talks and he strikes the audience as shockingly normal. You almost question why he would be the main character of any story, the only notable thing about him is the fact that every other character has the same voice and he has his own (a fact that no one is acknowledging). As he gets to his hotel room alone, you come to see that he is extremely emotionally turbulent, clearly going through some unnamed stress. It becomes clear that he feels incredibly lonely in the world, despite having a wife and child and customer service stardom.

Similarly to Synecdoche, New York you notice Michael slowly begin to slip into insanity as he finds a woman, Lisa, who’s voice is also different and they quickly resolve that they love each other. Michael sanity continues to slip as Lisa’s voice slowly becomes the same as everyone else’s. He delivers his speech, making no sense whatsoever and breaking down on stage. When he returns home to his wife he asks her who she is, who she really is to which promptly replies “oh, for fuck’s sake” and asks him in return. He seems to chew on that answer as the movie moves to it’s final scene- Lisa, her unique voice returned, writing Michael a very romantic and optimistic letter about the connections we make with other people. Like Synecdoche, the movie leaves you melancholic but calm. It also utilizes similarly odd visuals, not creepy per se but uncomfortable, like an office so long that you need to drive from one end to the other, containing only a normal sized desk which all go unnoticed by everyone other than Michael or Caden.

Based on a book with the same title by Iain Reid, Kaufman adapted it for and directed the film I’m Thinking of Ending Things. In the start of this movie we are led to believe that Lucy (Jessie Buckley) is the main character, as her thoughts serve as narrator. She is taking a road trip with her boyfriend, Jake (Jesse Plemons), to meet his parents. We are led to believe by her narration that the title refers to their relationship. As soon as they arrive at Jake’s childhood home that classic Kaufman strangeness begins. There’s a dog, then there’s no dog, the details of Lucy’s life such as her occupation and hobbies are changing mid conversation with no comment from anyone, Jake’s parents sporadically change in age and lucidity. After an almost terrifyingly strange but ultimately uneventful visit, Lucy demands to leave and they begin their journey home in a snowstorm. Jake requests that they stop by his old high school and he goes in for a trashcan leaving Lucy in the car for a suspiciously long time causing her to follow in after him. In the eery, empty, dark high school the true weirdness begins. There’s a janitor, who we’ve seen glimpses of throughout the film and who seems to know Lucy better than herself, a momentous dance number with Lucy and Jake lookalikes, a fever-dream-esque animated sequence, and the loss of Lucy’s point of view, shifting to the janitor.

By the end of the film you’re entirely disoriented, feeling that you witnessed something important but unclear on what it was. Typically, I’m against films that you have to watch twice to “get” but this one didn’t bother me. I watched it a second time, paying even closer attention to details and came to realize that Jake was actually the janitor, who was contemplating suicide and reminiscing on a life that could have been (hence all the inconsistencies and bouncing timelines) and that Lucy was simply a woman he saw once upon a time.

Whether you enjoy his style or not, you must admit that Kaufman is a master of auteurship. Without fail, his movies carry a very specific mood and look while being about incredibly different stories. Similarities include uncomfortable details that would be a big deal in real life and no one in the film mentions (a house perpetually on fire, a comically large office, people changing ages mid conversation), similar focus on warm and cold color schemes depending on the mood of the moment, and endings that leave you feeling like someone you don’t know has just really opened up to you, to name only a few. It’s a style that, again, may not suit all, but definitely won’t bore anyone.

Glory

This was actually the second time I’ve seen this movie (both in academic contexts, coincidentally) the last time being in seventh grade. I was happy to be able to refresh my memory of it, considering I was so young the first time around. I’m not typically super in to war movies, they just aren’t my first pick for subject matter. I was joking with my roommates during the first few minutes of the movie that I had one-per-war rule for movies, and if I had to pick my one civil war movie, it’d be Glory. Movies and shows about historical events, or even simply set in a historical context, have to be careful about representing the event or period truthfully. It can be a dangerous thing to romanticize “the old days” if you aren’t being especially conscious of which parts you’re romanticizing.

While I was growing up I bounced from town to town frequently, and one of the towns I lived in for about a year and a half was one with a well known battlefield and a vibrant historical reenactment community. It’s always odd to pop into a town with a very niche culture out of no where. They prided themselves on how accurate their costumes were, how incredibly perfect their replicas were, and they had a little museum full of old war artifacts. All the other kids and I would always play historical themed pretend with their parents’ supplies. The micro-culture was never the oddest part for me though, it was how little they mentioned the problems from the era they were so fascinated by. Luckily, having grown up in the south, my mother was always careful to remind me of how racist, sexist, and discriminatory the past had been and how we were still working on it. These kids though seemed to have no notion that there was anything wrong with the era minus the fact that it didn’t have computers (not to blame them, I’m sure I’d be just as enamored with it if I had grown up there my whole life). All this is to say, historical accuracy is important (or at the very least making it explicitly clear when you’re not attempting to be historically accurate) especially the bits that may make you uncomfortable to confront. I think Glory does a great job of avoiding the sugar coating throughout or cheery ending that loads of period pieces partake in.

To leave you with a lighter note, it turns out my neighbor knows Andre Braugher! How fun!

The Thin Blue Line: Mediation, Mode, and Mystery

The Thin Blue Line takes documentaries and improves them, setting the stage for the true crime binge-worthy content we know and love today. Ahead of its time in terms of dramatization and suspense, The Thin Blue Line revisits the killing of police officer Robert Wood, interviewing lawyers, judges, cops, and suspects involved. Throughout the film we follow the trial and conviction of Randall Adams, with frequent interviews from the original primary suspect, David Harris. The film, though calm in mood with the exception of dramatic reenactments, takes the viewer through twists and turns in the case. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself yelling at people on the screen who are calmly talking through their experience. It’s only a good documentary that can get you that deeply invested in the outcome of an event that’s already run its course.

Considering our class’s recent lesson on documentary filmmaking, The Thin Blue Line had me thinking a lot about mediation. Where does it fall on the mediation continuum? Originally, I thought to myself that it must fall on the heavier side of mediation (not propaganda per se but definitely making an argument). However, the more I thought about it I realized that a large part of the reason I considered it heavy on mediation was due to the fact that it seemed as though almost everyone who watched it came to the same conclusion (Randall Adams’ innocence) which is a bit unfair considering we know now exactly what really happened. In reality, the movie presents a majority of the information quite neutrally. The interviews don’t seem overly edited, statements don’t seem to be taken out of context, the dramatic reenactments show all accounts of what might have happened, Morris never makes a straightforward statement on what he believes. The only heavy mediation I sensed was the presentation of the final interview with David Harris. The interview was separated from the others using text to preface it, emphasizing its importance. I wonder how obvious the confession would have seemed if it was included with the same amount of emphasis as other interviews in the film. I still haven’t made any solid decision about exactly where this documentary falls on the mediation continuum, but I feel as though it may be closer to a minimal approach than I had originally thought.

What may have confused me about the films level of mediation is its reflexive nature. The reenactments, the score, the drama of it all make it almost impossible to forget that you are watching a movie. This is definitely not a “fly on the wall” style documentary and the director’s presence isn’t emphasized either. It really takes the reflexive mode of documentary and uses it in full force. It crafts the viewer’s experience artfully, without losing its directness. The audience is entertained by the style but still feels its non-fiction heart. While I already mentioned the score and reenactments, I think one of the subtler but possibly more important aspects of this is the movie’s plot. If all of the information they decided to include were presented chronologically, the movie simply wouldn’t be as entertaining. Withholding Harris’s traumatic childhood experience and criminal history (both prior to the murder in question and in the years after) allow the viewer to more freely play detective throughout the movie without feeling as though the answer is exceedingly obvious. Without a doubt, the audience being invited to figure out what happened by the movie’s design was a vital part of what made The Thin Blue Line so successful.