One of a tiny few contemporary screenwriters who is as famous and acclaimed as the people who shoot his scripts, Charlie Kaufman conceived three of the most inventive American films of the last decade: Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation. Now with Synecdoche, New York (say it like Schenectady), he gets behind the camera, too. The head-spinning story of a playwright (Philip Seymour Hoffman) whose latest project swallows up his life and those of everyone around him, it’s Kaufman’s most ambitious and elaborate work to date. Since even its most passionate supporters have a tough time describing the movie’s contents, it’s already one of TIFF ’08’s most talked-about titles. Kaufman spoke with EYE WEEKLY the day after the movie had its Cannes premiere last May.

Spike Jonze was originally slated to direct Synecdoche, New York [he serves as co-producer instead]. Did you write it with him in mind?
When I write something, I’m not working with anybody. I went off and wrote it for a few years. Spike wanted to direct it but he wanted to direct it after Where the Wild Things Are, which I thought would take five years. I didn’t want to wait so I asked him if I could direct it and he would step aside. He was very generous about that. I needed to make that happen.

Was it more difficult to work as your own director? Do you need someone to rein you in?
I guess you’d have to ask the people I’ve written for. I didn’t feel like I had to be reined in. Budgetary constraints do a lot to rein you in. There’s just the practicality of making a movie — it’s ever-present. And we were trying to do such a large thing for a very limited amount of money. We had 45 days to shoot 204 scenes — that’s a lot. Plus, every scene in the movie had massive makeup changes and prosthetics that took four or five hours a piece. So we had to schedule around and figure out what else we could do when Phil was in his makeup, for instance. It was all very complicated. And that pretty much defined what we were able to do.

The story slides around so much in terms of time, space and whatever line divides fantasy and reality — would you call this a work of surrealism?
I wouldn’t call it anything if I had my choice. I wouldn’t put a label on it. But I was very interested in dream logic and dreams as stories. I wanted to understand why they’re so compelling. I think movies are a great place to utilize them.

Do you think this could also be your darkest work, seeing as it’s so much about loss, regret and mortality?
I don’t know. People have said that to me but I don’t think of things as dark or light so it’s hard for me to say. Everyone’s on a continuum. I wrote Being John Malkovich in 1996 or 1997 and I wrote this between 2005 and 2007. I’m a different age, a different person. I have different life experiences and I’m thinking about different things. I try to be very present with everything I’m writing.

So what’s this all about, anyway?
I think we try to evoke an emotion or different emotions but I’d rather let the audience experience that. It’s not something they’re meant to figure out — it’s not like a puzzle. It’s more about allowing people to have their individual experiences. A guy I was just talking to told me how he found himself projecting his experiences onto the movie and the movie is designed to do that. Everything I’ve done is very intentionally designed for people to do that. So I shy away from saying what my interpretation is. First of all, my interpretation is irrelevant. If you feel something you feel it. If you don’t feel it, my telling you to feel it means nothing.

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