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Charlie Kaufman

Charlie Kaufman

Overview
Charles Stuart "Charlie" Kaufman (born November 1, 1958) is an Academy Award
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is...

-, BAFTA-, and Independent Spirit Award
Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay
The Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay is one of the annual awards given by Film Independent, a non-profit organization dedicated to independent film and independent filmmakers.-Wins and nominations:1995*David O...

-winning American screenwriter, producer, and director. In 2003, he was listed at #100 on Premiere's
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there....

 annual "Power 100" list.

Kaufman was identified by Time Magazine in 2004 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

His works include Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York is a 2008 American film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. The film is Kaufman's directorial debut.It premiered in competition at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2008 and went into limited theatrical release in the U.S...

, Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich is a 1999 dramedy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and John Malkovich, who plays a fictionalized version of himself...

, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American comedy-drama by French director Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and romantic love...

, Adaptation.
Adaptation.
Adaptation. is a American comedy-drama satire film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman. The film is based on Susan Orlean's novel The Orchid Thief through self-referential events...

, and Human Nature
Human Nature (film)
Human Nature is a 2001 comedy film, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry. It was Kaufman's second produced screenplay, following his debut with Being John Malkovich; the film stars Tim Robbins, Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto and Patricia Arquette.-Overview:A philosophical burlesque,...

.

Between 1983 and 1984, Kaufman wrote comedic articles and spoofs on spec for National Lampoon magazine along with colleague and friend Paul Proch.
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Encyclopedia
Charles Stuart "Charlie" Kaufman (born November 1, 1958) is an Academy Award
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is...

-, BAFTA-, and Independent Spirit Award
Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay
The Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay is one of the annual awards given by Film Independent, a non-profit organization dedicated to independent film and independent filmmakers.-Wins and nominations:1995*David O...

-winning American screenwriter, producer, and director. In 2003, he was listed at #100 on Premiere's
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there....

 annual "Power 100" list.

Kaufman was identified by Time Magazine in 2004 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

His works include Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York is a 2008 American film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. The film is Kaufman's directorial debut.It premiered in competition at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2008 and went into limited theatrical release in the U.S...

, Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich is a 1999 dramedy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and John Malkovich, who plays a fictionalized version of himself...

, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American comedy-drama by French director Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and romantic love...

, Adaptation.
Adaptation.
Adaptation. is a American comedy-drama satire film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman. The film is based on Susan Orlean's novel The Orchid Thief through self-referential events...

, and Human Nature
Human Nature (film)
Human Nature is a 2001 comedy film, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry. It was Kaufman's second produced screenplay, following his debut with Being John Malkovich; the film stars Tim Robbins, Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto and Patricia Arquette.-Overview:A philosophical burlesque,...

.

Early career


Between 1983 and 1984, Kaufman wrote comedic articles and spoofs on spec for National Lampoon magazine along with colleague and friend Paul Proch. His work included spoofs of Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was an American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction including Slaughterhouse-Five , Cat's Cradle , and Breakfast of Champions...

 and the X-Men
X-Men
X-Men is a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1 . Under a cloud of increasing anti-mutant sentiment, Professor Xavier creates a haven at his Westchester mansion to train young mutants to use their powers for the...

. After moving to Los Angeles, Kaufman got his start in television
Television
Television is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...

 by writing two episodes for Chris Elliott
Chris Elliott
Christopher Nash "Chris" Elliott is an American actor, comedian and writer.-Personal life:Elliott was born in New York City, the son of Lee and Bob Elliott, who was a well-known comedian as part of the very successful comedy team Bob and Ray. He attended the National Theater Institute in 1979...

's Get a Life
Get a Life (TV series)
Get a Life is a television sitcom that was broadcast in the United States on the Fox Network from September 23, 1990, to March 8, 1992. The show starred Chris Elliott as a 30-year-old paperboy named Chris Peterson. Peterson lived in an apartment above his parents' garage...

during the 1991-92 season.
During the 1993-94 season, Kaufman worked on Fox's sketch comedy show The Edge. He later worked as a writer for Ned and Stacey and The Dana Carvey Show
The Dana Carvey Show
The Dana Carvey Show was a half-hour sketch comedy television show that aired on the U.S. television network ABC during the 1996 season. Dana Carvey was the host and principal player on the show as well as its head writer....

.

Film


He first came to mainstream notice as the writer of Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich is a 1999 dramedy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and John Malkovich, who plays a fictionalized version of himself...

(directed by Spike Jonze
Spike Jonze
Spike Jonze is an American director of music videos and commercials, and a director and producer in film and television, most notably the 1999 film Being John Malkovich and the 2002 film Adaptation., both written by Charlie Kaufman, as well as 2009's Where the Wild Things Are...

), earning an Oscar
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is...

 nomination for his effort and winning a BAFTA. He also wrote Human Nature
Human Nature (film)
Human Nature is a 2001 comedy film, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry. It was Kaufman's second produced screenplay, following his debut with Being John Malkovich; the film stars Tim Robbins, Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto and Patricia Arquette.-Overview:A philosophical burlesque,...

, which was directed by Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry, born May 8, 1963, is a French film, commercial and music video director and an Academy Award-winning screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène.- Biography :...

, and then worked with Jonze again as the screenwriter for Adaptation.
Adaptation.
Adaptation. is a American comedy-drama satire film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman. The film is based on Susan Orlean's novel The Orchid Thief through self-referential events...

, which earned him another Oscar nomination and his second BAFTA. Adaptation. featured a "Charlie Kaufman" character who is a heavily fictionalized version of the screenwriter and who has an "identical twin brother," Donald, a sell-out screenwriter reflecting Kaufman's anxieties about Hollywood. The DVD edition of Adaptation. contains a filmography which lists Donald Kaufman as having written the screenplay for the movie. The credits of the film close with the words "in loving memory of Donald Kaufman".

Kaufman also penned the screenplay for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a 2002 surreal biographical film depicting the life of popular game show host/producer Chuck Barris, who claimed to have also been an assassin for the Central Intelligence Agency . Sam Rockwell portrays Barris under the direction of actor George Clooney...

, a biopic based on the "unauthorized autobiography" of Chuck Barris
Chuck Barris
Charles Hirsch "Chuck" Barris is an American game show producer and presenter who was responsible for many of the best known game shows of the 1960s and 1970s. Barris, who is a survivor of lung cancer, is also an author. -Early career:...

, the creator of such popular game shows as The Dating Game
The Dating Game
The Dating Game is an ABC television show that first aired on December 20, 1965 and was the first of many shows created and packaged by Chuck Barris from the 1960s through the 1980s...

 and host of The Gong Show
The Gong Show
The Gong Show is a parody of television variety shows. It broadcast on NBC's daytime schedule from June 14, 1976 through July 21, 1978, and in first-run syndication from 1976-1980 and 1988-1989...

. The film focuses on Barris' claim to have been a CIA hit man. It was George Clooney
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Clooney has balanced his performances in big-budget blockbusters with work as a producer and director behind commercially riskier projects, as well as social and liberal political activism...

's directorial debut
Directorial debut
A directorial debut is the first production of anyone working for the first time as a director of a film. The term often is used when an actor directs for the first time. Ida Lupino made her debut in the 1940s, Warren Beatty in the 1970s, Sean Penn in the 1990s...

. Kaufman angrily criticized Clooney for making drastic alterations to the script without consulting him (instead, Clooney consulted Barris). Kaufman said in an interview with William Arnold
William Arnold
William Arnold was an early settler in Rhode Island.The son of either Thomas or Nicholas Arnold of Malcombe Horsey & Cheselbourne, Dorset, England and his wife Alice Gully. He lived for a time on his family’s estate at Cheselbourne before moving to Limington near Ilchester in Somerset, where most...

: "The usual thing for a writer is to deliver a script and then disappear. That's not for me. I want to be involved from beginning to end. And these directors [Gondry and Jonze] know that, and respect it."

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American comedy-drama by French director Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and romantic love...

, released in 2004, was Kaufman's second pairing with director Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry, born May 8, 1963, is a French film, commercial and music video director and an Academy Award-winning screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène.- Biography :...

. Kaufman won his first Oscar for best original screenplay and third BAFTA for the film, which centered around a man enlisting the services of a doctor to erase the memories of a failed relationship from his brain. Kaufman also received the prestigious PEN American Center
PEN American Center
PEN American Center , founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. The Center has a membership of 3,300 writers, editors, and translators...

 2005 prize for screenplay for the film. David Edelstein
David Edelstein
David Edelstein is the chief film critic for New York Magazine, as well as the film critic for NPR's Fresh Air and CBS Sunday Morning. He lives in Brooklyn, New York....

 described the film in Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is an English-language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft, as part of MSN. On December 21, 2004, it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...

 as "The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades. The movie was directed by Leo McCarey, who won...

 turned inside-out by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose published work during his lifetime was almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian...

, with nods to Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalist....

, Chris Marker
Chris Marker
Chris Marker is a French writer, photographer, film director, multimedia artist and documentary maker.His best known films are La Jetée , A Grin Without a Cat , Sans Soleil and AK , a documentary on the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.-Biography:He was born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve,...

, John Guare
John Guare
John Guare is an American playwright. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body...

—the greatest dramatists of our modern fractured consciousness. But the weave is pure Kaufman."

Kaufman made his directorial debut with his next project, Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York is a 2008 American film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. The film is Kaufman's directorial debut.It premiered in competition at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2008 and went into limited theatrical release in the U.S...

. Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American stage and film actor and director.Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year began appearing in films. His work in a diverse range of supporting films roles brought him recognition over the following decade. This recognition helped...

, Samantha Morton
Samantha Morton
Samantha Jane Morton is an English actress and film director.A campaigner for social justice, she is an ambassador for the Save the Children organisation...

, Catherine Keener
Catherine Keener
-Early life:Keener, the third of five children, was born in Miami, Florida, the daughter of Evelyn and Jim Keener, a manager of an automotive store. She is of Irish descent on her father's side and of Lebanese descent on her mother's. Her sister Elizabeth is also an actress. Keener attended...

, Hope Davis
Hope Davis
Hope Davis is an American actress. She has starred in more than 20 feature films, including About Schmidt, Flatliners, Mumford, American Splendor, The Lodger and Next Stop Wonderland.-Personal life:...

, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American actress.Her work has drawn high critical praise. Salon has praised her as "one of America's best actors"...

, Emily Watson
Emily Watson
Emily Anita Watson is an English actress. She made an acclaimed debut film performance in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves.-Personal life:...

, Dianne Wiest
Dianne Wiest
Dianne Wiest is an American actress. She has had a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Wiest has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award.-Early life:...

 and Michelle Williams
Michelle Williams (actress)
Michelle Ingrid Williams is an American actress. Williams broke into stardom on the teen series Dawson's Creek and later graduated to full-length features, most notably Brokeback Mountain, for which she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.-Early life:Williams was born in...

 star in the film, which tells "the story of an anguished playwright who is forced to deal with several women in his life." It premiered at The Cannes Film Festival 2008.

Theater


Kaufman wrote and directed the audio play Hope Leaves the Theater, a segment of the sound-only production Theater of the New Ear. The play starred Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. She is widely regarded as one of the most talented and respected movie actors of the modern era....

, Hope Davis
Hope Davis
Hope Davis is an American actress. She has starred in more than 20 feature films, including About Schmidt, Flatliners, Mumford, American Splendor, The Lodger and Next Stop Wonderland.-Personal life:...

 and Peter Dinklage
Peter Dinklage
Peter Dinklage is an American film, television and theater actor. Since his breakout role in the 2003 film The Station Agent, he has acted in many prominent movies, including Elf, Underdog, Find Me Guilty, Death at a Funeral, and Prince Caspian.- Personal life :Dinklage was born in Morristown, New...

. In the world of the play, it was the last thing Charlie Kaufman (the character) wrote before committing suicide. The title actually refers to Hope Davis's character "leaving the theater."

Theater of the New Ear, including Hope Leaves the Theater, debuted in April 2005 at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY.

Personal life


Kaufman is known to be protective of his private life. He rarely speaks about himself, and rarely makes televised interview appearances, but he was interviewed on the Colbert Report on December 9, 2008, and also by Mark Kermode
Mark Kermode
Mark Kermode is an English film critic who contributes to Sight and Sound magazine and The Observer newspaper....

 for The Culture Show
The Culture Show
The Culture Show is a weekly BBC Two magazine programme broadcast on Tuesday nights, focussing on the latest developments in the worlds of film, music, art, fashion and the performing arts....

on BBC2 on 24 March 2009.

In an interview with David Poland, Kaufman said he was getting very annoyed with the "myth" that he "didn't do a lot of press". Kaufman stated that this was simply not true. He did a lot of interviews for all movies from Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich is a 1999 dramedy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and John Malkovich, who plays a fictionalized version of himself...

 onwards, but again and again interviewers would state at some point during an interview that "he didn't do a lot of press".

He was born to a Jew
Jew
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

ish family in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...

, but they moved away shortly after. Kaufman is a graduate of William H. Hall High School
Hall High School (Connecticut)
William H. Hall High School, also known as Hall High School, is a four-year public high school located in West Hartford, Connecticut. The school colors are blue and white, and the mascot is the "Warrior". It is one of two public high schools in the West Hartford Public Schools, the other being...

 in West Hartford, Connecticut
West Hartford, Connecticut
West Hartford is a town located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The town was incorporated in 1854. Prior to that date, the town was a parish of Hartford....

. He attended NYU Film School, where one of his classmates was filmmaker Chris Columbus
Chris Columbus (filmmaker)
Christopher "Chris" Columbus is an American film director, producer and screenwriter.-Start in the industry:Columbus graduated from Tisch School of the Arts....

.

Kaufman lived and worked for a time during the late 1980s in Minneapolis, answering calls about missing newspapers at the Star Tribune
Star Tribune
The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is published seven days each week in an edition for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. A statewide version is also available across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota...

 before moving to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the municipality of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123.445 inhabitants...

.

He currently lives in Pasadena
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States; and is a satellite city of Los Angeles. Famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and the Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home of many leading scientific and cultural institutions, including the...

, California
California
California is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...

, with his wife and two children.

Themes and influences


Kaufman's works are sometimes described as surrealist. He sometimes includes fictionalized "facts" about his life in his work, notably Adaptation and Hope Leaves the Theater.

Apes recur in Kaufman's work: in Being John Malkovich Lotte has a pet chimp named Elijah, in Human Nature Puff was raised as an ape, and in Adaptation the original deus ex machina
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device in which a person or thing appears "out of the blue" to help a character to overcome a seemingly insolvable difficulty...

 was a swamp ape.

Among Charlie Kaufman's favorite writers/directors and influences are Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a major fiction writer of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia , Austria–Hungary...

, Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalist....

, Stanisław Lem, Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose published work during his lifetime was almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian...

, Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist.An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...

, Stephen Dixon
Stephen Dixon
Stephen Dixon is the critically acclaimed author of several novels and short stories.- Biography :The son of a dentist, Dixon was one of seven children in the family. He is among the most prolific authors of short stories in the history of American letters, with over 500 published...

, Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...

, David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker and visual artist. Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, for The Elephant Man , Blue Velvet , and Mulholland Drive . He also received a screenplay Academy Award nomination for The Elephant Man...

, Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective, although his own films have taken a variety of different approaches.-Biography:...

  and Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith
Patricia Highsmith was an American crime writer known for her psychological thrillers, which have led to more than two dozen film adaptations. Strangers on a Train has been adapted for the screen three times, notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951...

. In Being John Malkovich one of the John Cusack
John Cusack
John Paul Cusack is an American film actor and screenwriter. He won the 1990 Most Promising Actor CFCA Award for Say Anything..., the 1998 Favorite Supporting Actor Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Con Air, and the 2000 Commitment to Chicago Award.-Early life:Cusack was born in Evanston,...

 character's puppet shows is called "Eloise and Abelard: A Love Story", based on the Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope is a famous eighteenth century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Pope is famous for his use of the heroic couplet.-...

 poem Eloisa to Abelard
Eloisa to Abelard
Published in 1717, Eloisa to Abelard is a poem by Alexander Pope . It is an Ovidian heroic epistle inspired by the 12th-century story of Héloïse's illicit love for, and secret marriage to, her teacher Pierre Abélard, perhaps the most popular teacher and philosopher in Paris, and the brutal...

. This poem is also referenced in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and is where the title comes from. There are also references in Kaufman's work to another literary figure, Italo Svevo
Italo Svevo
Aron Ettore Schmitz , better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo, was an Italian businessman and author of novels, plays, and short stories.- Biography :...

. Mary Svevo in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is named after the Italian Modernist writer, and Svevo's novel La Coscienza di Zeno
La Coscienza di Zeno
Zeno's Conscience is a novel by Italian businessman and author Italo Svevo. The main character is Zeno Cosini and the book is the fictional character's memoirs that he keeps at the insistence of his psychiatrist. Throughout the novel, we learn about his father, his business, his wife, and his...

(Confessions of Zeno, or Conscience of Zeno, 1923) also seems to be important in connection with Kaufman's writing.

Incidentally, Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York is a 2008 American film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. The film is Kaufman's directorial debut.It premiered in competition at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2008 and went into limited theatrical release in the U.S...

, Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich is a 1999 dramedy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and John Malkovich, who plays a fictionalized version of himself...

, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American comedy-drama by French director Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and romantic love...

all begin with a depressed male protagonist lying asleep in bed.

Films

  • Being John Malkovich
    Being John Malkovich
    Being John Malkovich is a 1999 dramedy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze. It stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, and John Malkovich, who plays a fictionalized version of himself...

    (1999; writer, executive producer)
  • Human Nature
    Human Nature (film)
    Human Nature is a 2001 comedy film, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry. It was Kaufman's second produced screenplay, following his debut with Being John Malkovich; the film stars Tim Robbins, Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto and Patricia Arquette.-Overview:A philosophical burlesque,...

    (2001; writer, producer)
  • Adaptation.
    Adaptation.
    Adaptation. is a American comedy-drama satire film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman. The film is based on Susan Orlean's novel The Orchid Thief through self-referential events...

    (2002; writer, executive producer)
  • Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
    Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
    Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a 2002 surreal biographical film depicting the life of popular game show host/producer Chuck Barris, who claimed to have also been an assassin for the Central Intelligence Agency . Sam Rockwell portrays Barris under the direction of actor George Clooney...

    (2002; writer)
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American comedy-drama by French director Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and romantic love...

    (2004; writer, executive producer)
  • Synecdoche, New York
    Synecdoche, New York
    Synecdoche, New York is a 2008 American film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. The film is Kaufman's directorial debut.It premiered in competition at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2008 and went into limited theatrical release in the U.S...

    (2008; writer, director, producer)

Television

  • Get a Life
    Get a Life (TV series)
    Get a Life is a television sitcom that was broadcast in the United States on the Fox Network from September 23, 1990, to March 8, 1992. The show starred Chris Elliott as a 30-year-old paperboy named Chris Peterson. Peterson lived in an apartment above his parents' garage...

    (1991-92)
  • The Dana Carvey Show
    The Dana Carvey Show
    The Dana Carvey Show was a half-hour sketch comedy television show that aired on the U.S. television network ABC during the 1996 season. Dana Carvey was the host and principal player on the show as well as its head writer....

    (1993)
  • The Trouble With Larry (1993)
  • The Edge (93-94)
  • Ned and Stacy (96-97)
  • Moral Orel
    Moral Orel
    Moral Orel is an American stop-motion animated television show, which originally aired on Adult Swim from December 13, 2005 to December 18, 2008. The show is rated TV-MA due to its strong sexual references and dark, satirical humor....

    (2006)

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