synecdoche
Synecdoche, but it’s only his best movie if you’ve seen it more than once. The first time people usually hate it, but then absolutely love it when they can digest it.
But I’ll wait to see his work on Kung Fu Panda 2, to see if that can trump Synecdoche.
He’s only directed one film..
Well of all his movies, written or dircted.
So Eternal Sunshine, SNY, Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, and COADM are your choices.
And people should say why it is their favorite?
As a piece of art to dwell on and think over, I think Synecdoche may be his best. As a cinematic film, I think his best may be Eternal Sunshine. But my favorite is still Adaptation.
Picking between Eternal Sunshine and Synechdoche is like picking between one’s own children.
Malkovich all the way.
synecdoche
on a related note, is there any word on when his other movies are coming to blu-ray?
Synecdoche, by a long shot. This was the best film I saw in 2009, hands down. It’s a masterpiece, and I found it deeply affecting and very funny. It’s impossible to stop thinking about.
I’ll go with Being John Malkovich. I prefer its style of cryptic writing to the meta-orgy of Adaptation and Synecdoche, althought I enjoyed those two as well. I find the story of Malkovich much more original and appealing.
Haven’t seen others than those three.
Nice Post I already digged this
Synechdoche
it’s his masterpiece and one of the best american narratives in awhile.
Adaptation is still my favorite.
Synecdoche or Eternal. I’d say Synecdoche is a better film (and better conceptually), but Eternal Sunshine sticks with me more…it’s cooler and the colours are mesmerizing.
“Synecdoche, New York” is by far my favorite screenplay of his (and one of my favorites in a good long time)… but I’d have to say that “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is my favorite all-around film that he was involved in.
I can’t say I liked Synecdoche, New York. It just seemed to drag onnn and onnnn and onnnn. It’s two or so hour run time seemed like I could’ve watched The Seven Samurai three times and that movie would still be on. The reason I think the movie feels long is because it covers such a lonnngggg period of time. I mean one minute the girls three, the next minute she’s ten, the next minute she’s 35 and dieing. I think this movie has the record for most funerals and weddings ever fitted into one movie. I just felt that it was all over the place. It also felt so long and slow because there was no relief. I mean honestly from the first minute to the last the movie is utterly and completely depressing. No relief anywhere except a few chucklers but even those made you sad because it was funny in a sad way. The first hour really had me hooked, but after that I was like “Yeah this should be ending any time now” and it wasn’t even close to being done. I dunno. A decent enough film all in all but if I have to keep wanting it to end and it doesn’t I can’t really honestly say that I enjoyed it.
Will admit though, it did indeed stick with me. It occupied my thoughts for many days after and I’ll admit some parts were very tragically beautiful but all in all it was just too drawn out. I’m sure it did that on perpose but that still doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Now Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind!!!! Love, love, love! That movie!!! By far his greatest in my opinion.
I don’t know. Adaptation was such an honest film. It is also in my opinion Nicolas Cage’s best movie. That is not saying much but still it is a very honest work.
Synecdoche is indeed the best. I hear hes reteaming with Spike Joze again on a new project. But for my money he’s his own best director.
A dead heat between “Adaptation” and “Eternal Sunshine.” “Synecdoche” was a colossal bore.
it’s difficult to determine since he has only directed one movie: synechdoche new york.
Not really. He is the auteur of all his films, regardless of their director.
ETERNAL SUNSHINE, the only “Charlie Kaufman” film I’ve been able to both sit through and enjoy. I hated the bogus cutesy cleverness of MALKOVICH and was bored senseless by ADAPTATION. I sat through about 20 minutes of SYNECDOCHE before the sight of Philip Seymour Hoffman just made me too nauseous to be able to continue.
Life’s too short to waste on Kaufman’s arch phony bullshit.
Not really. He is the auteur of all his films, regardless of their director
there’s no question that kaufman’s screenplays have a distinctive and identifiable narrative approach but that does not make him an auteur. it’s the director’s movie. you’re not putting directing a film on the same plane as writing a screenplay? or are you?
there’s no question that kaufman’s screenplays have a distinctive and identifiable narrative approach but that does not make him an auteur. it’s the director’s movie. you’re not putting directing a film on the same plane as writing a screenplay? or are you?
This is not what auteur theory is, sorry. Auteur does not mean ‘director’.
…
Leaves is right, Brian P. In fact, the word means “author.” And, yes, I would put directing a film on the same plane as writing a screenplay.
And an actor, a production designer, a cinematographer, and a sound designer can all be auteurs.
The real question that I know we’re all pondering is this one: Can the key grip be an auteur?
What are your thoughts?
that’s very funny, really.
The real question that I know we’re all pondering is this one: Can the key grip be an auteur?
apparently if charlie kaufman gaffs, grips, ADs or holds the boom mic it’s his movie.
“you’re not putting directing a film on the same plane as writing a screenplay? or are you?”
I usually find your comments spot on, Brian P., but I respectfully take issue with the mindset that directing a film is somehow superior to screenwriting. Indeed, I dropped out of film school because I found this pervasive dogma ludicrous and stifling to true creativity. To oversimplify, I’d say praising the director over the writer is roughly comparable to claiming that a photographer with a striking snapshot of Falling Water lent a greater creative contribution to that immortal structure than did Frank Lloyd Wright.
Most-not all, but most-of the greats are writer/directors: Bergman, Allen, Coppola, Kubrick (to a certain extent), Paul Thomas Anderson, Wilder, Almodovar, Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, etc. Directors may actualize a film’s potential, but the writer creates it. Take the Pulp script away from Tarantino and hand him a daytime soap spec and his auteurism would dissolve beyond any meaningful recognition (unless, of course, he altered the screenplay.)
Peter H.
What is your pick for the best Kauffman film?
In my opinion it is Synecdoche, since it is the movie that affected me the most of his. I also feel it is his most important.