Charlie Kaufman's Brain Teaser Movies
More On Kaufman's 'Synecdoche'
Charlie Kaufman is best known for the quirky screenplays for Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He's written and directed the new film Synecdoche, NY.
Host Scott Simon talks to film critic Desson Thomson about Kaufman's brain-teaser movies — films that make the human mind the landscape of the story.
Charlie Kaufman On Being — And Directing
Charlie Kaufman won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2005 for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Charlie Kaufman won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2005 for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty ImagesScreenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaption) is known for his disjointed narratives and quirky characters. Now he brings that off-beat sensibility to his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York.
The film features Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director who builds a life-size model of Manhattan's theater district in a warehouse in upstate New York. As Hoffman's character becomes increasingly obsessed with his mock-up of Manhattan reality, he starts to lose control of his own.