Charlie Kaufman says only “garbage” movies make money in Hollywood
The screenwriter and director behind such movies as Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman, has come out in protest against Hollywood, stating that “garbage” films profit.
Speaking during a masterclass at the Sarajevo Film Festival, the screenwriter discussed his career achievements whilst speaking in strong support of the current SAG-AFTRA strikes.
“At this point, the only thing that makes money is garbage. It’s just fascinating. It makes a fortune, and that’s the bottom line,” Kaufman stated during the talk, “It’s very seductive to the studios but also to the people who engage and become the makers of that garbage, especially if they’re lauded for the garbage because they don’t have to look inward or think long about what they’re doing”.
Speaking to international industry experts, Kaufman urged them to “make movies outside of the studio system as much as possible and think of ways to do that…I have this pipedream of creating an organization of artists to figure out how to finance and support filmmakers who make things that have value”.
Moving onto the subject of the strikes, Kaufman added that “writers have been trained to eat and make the garbage too…As long as they are in that arena making that shit, then you might as well have AI do it”.
Once he started talking about AI, he found it hard to finish, adding: “Once you give that up and allow the studios to use AI to write their screenplay, there’s no going back…Then there’s no hope because AI can’t create a moment of humanity. As long as people are doing it and there’s that struggle, then there’s always a chance that something will come out of it that will be worth something to human beings”.
Take a look at the trailer for Kaufman’s most recent movie, I’m Thinking of Ending Things from back in 2020, below.
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