Being John Malkovich

Charlie Kaufman is a very loveable genius! I use "genius" as Emerson defined it: " To trust that was is true for you, in your secret heart, that is genius!" Wow! Kaufman is as vulnerable in his intro to the "Being John Malcovich Screenplay" as his character in "Adaptation". He is in such truth, that even his sad confessions are funny and healing to this reader & millions, who made this original masterpiece a hit! I have seen this movie so many times & reading the dialogue still makes me laugh, because it is so alive! It is great to see where he let the actors improvise, which shows how secure Kaufman is with his self. The actors were appreciated as artists with a great sense of humor & allowed to create & adlib. The end result is one of the greatest intellectual comedies ever made.This book is generous in teaching how to write with complete honesty and wild creativity.If you watch the DVD, while reading this screenplay, you can attain insight on why it is so wise to encourage actors to ad their own words to make a brilliant screenplay come alive! A writer who can let go of their ego, enough to do that is very confident within himself and nurturing to the artist within every being, even the chimp, who was traumatized by childhood memories in the script, but was allowed to make spontaneous chimp sounds. But seriously, Kaufman is a wonderful comic genius & we are lucky if we see his movies & read this special book he authored.

"Being John Malkovich" is one of the most insanely creative films ever made,and a large portion of the credit for that goes to Charli Kaufman's moody,intimate,and sly script,presented here in pretty much the same form as it is in the finished film.Which is great,but on top of that you get,a stellar,caustic introduction in which the author is told to say a few words to the readers,beacause the readers are"owed...something"."I said I would try" replys our intrepid narrator,and what follows is a darkly hilarious trip through his mind as he tries to come up with something insightful or inspirational to say,all the while revealing his self-loathing and profound contempt.In the end, the best he can manage to come up with is "And if you're going to write a screenplay,try to keep it around one hundred and ten pages".Which when you think about it,is probably the most practical advice he could give.

The real bonus here is Kaufman's intro--which, rather than explicating the writing or making of this movie, is an anguished, hysterical, can't-take-it-any-more Dance of Despair and Disillusionment that will brighten the day of any struggling scribe. "Wow!" one thinks, avidly turning the pages, "Charlie Kaufman waited five years, got the huge payoff, had a critical and commercial hit...and he's still absolutely bananas! God bless America!"Los Angeles writers will especially enjoy the part about making friends with the take-out bags left on the floor of one's ever-more-apartment-like car.Kaufman's growth proceeds apace: his new script ADAPTATION is like a feature-length expansion of his intro here. You've just got to love a guy who's an addled mess and doesn't try to whittle it into a cutesy Woody Allen persona. He's just cuckoo!