Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing. Charlie Kaufman More Quotes by Charlie Kaufman More Quotes From 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 struggle writing moving There are so many people who are making movies now who can’t get any kind of distribution, so the market seems like it’s flooded. Charlie Kaufman distribution kind people When you approach middle age, lots of stuff happens. Your body is aging, you're watching people around you get sick, you're watching people die, your mortality becomes very present at that point in your life. Charlie Kaufman sick age people I do a lot of things intuitively. I'm not often consciously aware of what I'm doing. It's like in a dream: There's something going on that's powerful but you don't know exactly why. Charlie Kaufman powerful knows dream The difference between a movie and a play is that the production you end up with is the production. If a movie that I spent time on turns out to be crap, it's never going to be made again. Charlie Kaufman differences ends play There's no way to approach anything in an objective way. We're completely subjective; our view of the world is completely controlled by who we are as human beings, as men or women, by our age, our history, our profession, by the state of the world. Charlie Kaufman views birthday men Every day of your life, you have information that enters your head, and that information informs your understanding of things, or shifts it, or changes it, or deepens it, or confuses you. Every day, every moment of every day - it's like this thing that happens. Charlie Kaufman information understanding moments I'm interested in trying to explore what I think is the truth at a given time in my life, and part of the process of being honest is - in my mind - talking about the idea that you're watching a movie. Charlie Kaufman talking ideas thinking 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 waiting together long From my vantage point in writing a story, I can't and don't and have no interest in thinking about the level of sophistication of the audience. I can only think about what interests me, and maybe what I would want to see if I were watching the movie. To me, that's the key to writing something that's not pandering. Charlie Kaufman keys writing thinking I have a background in theater, so I have experience with actors. I like actors - I used to be one. 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 goal writing trying I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays. It's more that I wanted to see what it would be like if I didn't have to collaborate with anybody, to have a sense of purity of the thing from beginning to end. I liked doing it. It's really different from writing. Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing. Charlie Kaufman writing people thinking Directing was a big learning experience for me because I had to deal with every aspect of everything-all this constant decision-making, with people asking you questions at every moment, and you have to have answers for them all. Charlie Kaufman learning-experience moments people I think now that I've tried directing, I'm not interested in doing adaptations anymore. I could do an adaptation of someone else's work that I would write, but the idea of taking someone else's material entirely doesn't interest me. One of the things that I found really helpful, at least in my mind - and I've never discussed this with the actors or with the people I work with - is that being a neophyte in directing, I feel like I have a kind of authority simply because I'm the writer as well. Charlie Kaufman writing people thinking When I found myself in that situation - that actors are like children, I tried to be successful. And when it worked and I figured out how to communicate that things were good - or at least okay - then I felt pleased. Charlie Kaufman situation successful children There is a lot of management going on with directing. Maybe that was the biggest surprise-just the amount of tending that I had to do. The different personalities . . . It's not my way, and it's never been my function before as a writer. I tend to be a moody and somewhat withdrawn person, and I felt very clearly that I had to throw that away because that wasn't allowed here - there were other people who were going to be filling that role. Sometimes it became exhausting, especially around the eleventh hour of the day. Charlie Kaufman different personality people Why do I fall in love with every woman I see that shows me the least bit of attention? Charlie Kaufman eternal-sunshine falling-in-love attention Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating. Charlie Kaufman communication talking inspirational Clementine: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon. Charlie Kaufman clementines eternal-sunshine gone
