Tag: Chicago Film Festival

During the Q&A with Robert Davi at the Tuesday night (Oct. 21) showing of “The Dukes”, the audience, which was not a full house, was treated to “vamping” by the long-time character actor, as he waited for friends of his to arrive and for traffic to allow others to see the film.

First question for Robert Davi was: “How long did it take for you to shoot the film?”

A: “Eight months to a year.

Question #2: “What was the film shot on?” A: “The film was shot on Super 16, then I did a D.I. and transferred it to 35 millimeter. It is a modern film that doesn’t have a sleek look. I wanted a rough-around-the-edges look.” Davi gave credit to his DP (Director of Photography) Michael Goy for the film’s look, which is intimate and classic.

Question #3: Object of the film? A: “I wanted to bring light to the world whenever we could. I wanted it to have no politics and have an upbeat ending.” Davi also said, “I hope your dad’s not a dentist,” in reference to the heist of a dentist’s gold from his safe. Davi reminisced: “Growing up, going to the dentist was a huge thing. It was expensive. It was humorous. It was universal. With the stock market thing and the housing crisis, I thought it was something that wouldn’t bring people down.”

Question #4: “What about the character Murph?” A: “In the script, Murph was originally a tough Irish guy. I wanted to break the stereotype, so the part was reworked for the Latvian character actor who played Murph. “I wanted to have the idea of transplanted New Yorkers.” And, added Davi, “That was me singing at the end of the film. The guy who was a stand-up comic in the film was also a stand-up comic in real life. He tried to become an actor in Los Angeles, but it fell apart. There is a sense of geographical dislocation in the film, a New York story set in Los Angeles.”

Question #5: “What made you want to be an actor?” A: “I got the idea from watching Italian films when I was a kid growing up. Then, I worked in the theater. Then we discovered I had a voice. I was a baritone with the soul of a tenor. I studied voice with Tito Gobi.”

Question #6: “What was your inspiration…your idea for the story?” A: In the 1970s I worked with Stella Adler. This was when there were 25,000 steelworkers being laid off. The idea of that, of losing your job, was very frightening to me, as a young guy. And then my dad was laid off. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to make my first film with Frank Sinatra and I met Jay Black, who had been in a group called ‘Jay and the Americans.’ There was also an influence from Alvin Toffler’s book ‘The Third Wave.”

Question #7: “Will there be a sequel?” A: “If it’s successful, there might be a sequel. I did think about it. At the beginning, that is Cousin Brucie you hear, who used to open for the Beatles at Shea Stadium and place like that. I showed this to David Edelstein and Peter Travers in New York City of the New York Film Critics’ Association. They loved the music in it. I had some ideas to do things differently. For example. I had the idea of the car going into a tunnel sequence where the car would break into musical notes and then the car would go out onto Ventura Boulevard.

I also used Ash Wednesday because it was a remembrance of these guys pulling a heist with ash on their foreheads. It was a whole dichotomy of that, indicative of these guys, the melting pot aspect of the group.

Question #8: “What were some of the hurdles you faced in making the film?” A: “The financial was the biggest hurdle. I was looking for the challenge and I was ready. Also, distribution is always a problem. Independents aren’t really that bad. Also, we had to have the right cast. I was lucky to find the kid who played my son. I met 15 young boys who were all lovely, but it was a pivotal part. I did several improvisations with him and bonded with him. He was a very loving and very open little boy. Finding him was as big a challenge as Vittorio DeSica finding the right boy to use in “The Bicycle Thief.” The young actor later went on to play the son in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ Then, the biggest emotional push was when the group gets shut down on opening night.”

Question #9: “What about the cast?” A: “I knew I wanted Chazz. I knew all the other actors. I’m not an overactor, so I knew that ensemble. Originally, Murph was an Irishman, but I rewrote it. You know what someone once said, ‘After the writer writes the screenplay, he should die.’”

Closing comments: “I love Chicago. I appreciate you all being here. Thank you all for sharing this with me.”

17 Questions for Writer/Director Kevin Smith (“Zack and Miri Make A Porno”)

By Connie Wilson

On October 23, 2008

In Interviews, Movies

Q&A with Kevin Smith following the October 21^st showing of “Zack and Mimi Make a Porno” at the Chicago Film Festival

As Kevin Smith approached the front of the theater to answer questions, his opening gambit was, “Awesome to be here in Gotham City.” He added, “If our movie makes one-tenth of what that movie made, I’ll be a happy man.”

The first audience question was: “How did you get an “R” rating for this movie?” Smith’s answer was involved. “Initially,” he said, “the movie was given a rating of NC17. We expected that. They said, ‘No, it is still too raunchy. That s*** shot will never play in an ‘R’-rated movie. We just had to accept the rating. Then, it goes before a board of 14 people. One half were from NATO, and I thought, ‘Whoa!’ I didn’t know it was this important!’ Turns out NATO means National Association of Theater Owners. The other 7 are Motion Picture ratings board people. We had 15 minutes to stand up and tell why the movie should be an ‘R.’ Then you leave and there is a silent vote. There were 2 areas that were under discussion. One was the first porno scene because of ‘too much thrusting.’ I felt like saying, ‘Come to my house. There’s no thrusting at all; just hovering.’ The other area of concern was the s*** shot. It’s only 14 frames…not even a second of film. It definitely makes an impact. It certainly did on Jeff Anderson! You get to cite precedent, so we were ready to argue our case. It takes 24 frames to make up one second of screen time. That shot is only 14 frames. If I were 13 and it was 1983 and I saw those scenes, yes, I would go to the bathroom and tug one out. But no kid is gonna’ do that today. So, we cited, as precedent, Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke in ‘Taking Lives,’ where there is a lot of (sexual) thrusting, but it’s done seriously. Our was a comedic version of sex. In order to do that, we had to go over that. For the s*** shot, we cited “Jackass: the Helmet,” where they have a fart helmet. Then, they get a funnel and there’s actual excrement expressed into the funnel in documentary fashion, and THAT got an ‘R’ rating.

So, I’m out in the hall with Joan Gravis who heads up the ratings board and I’m close to making a deal. I was definitely invested in keeping the s*** shot. And then someone comes out and tells us we’ve been given an ‘R’ and I’m, like, ‘See you later, Joan.'”

Question 2: “What about marketing the movie?”: A: “Marketing the movie has been a bitch. We actually use stick figures for the marketing poster, and we’re still having trouble getting the word out or getting people to post them (the posters). We’re having a hard time marketing because the word ‘porno’ is actually in the title. Some people think it actually is a porno film because of that. I’d rather let the movie speak for itself; it comes out in 10 days.”

Question 3: “What about the current generation? Would you let your children see your films?” A: “My daughter is 9. She is gay for ‘High School Musical 3.’ That is the antithesis of our movie. I can get behind it, though. I think our audience is all 10 to 20 years older than my daughter. Kids are hip to that s***. Even in the kids’ world, gossip rules.”

Question 4: (from a would-be writer) “I’m a writer. Can I work for you?” A: “I don’t’ have enough juice to get my own s*** made! I had to get Seth Rogen in this movie before I got the power to get it made.” (Answer was a resounding “No.”)

Question 5: “What strikes you as funny?” A: “I try to make myself laugh and, if other people laugh, that’s my internal barometer.”

Question 6: “How did it happen that Tom Savini appeared as Jenkins, the owner of a shop in the film?” A: “Tom Savini, of course, is the make-up guy associated with George Romero in films like ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and many, many others, and he was a fan. He just wanted to be in it. Monroeville was the place where they shot ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and that shopping mall where they shot that film is in the movie.”

Question 7: “When would Joe Siegel walk out?” A: “I don’t know that he would have made it past the s*** shot. And then he died. So, I really couldn’t talk about it with him. But thanks for bringing the room down!” (Laughter) [*The reference to Joe Siegel was an attempt by an audience member to show how much more he knew than the rest of we mere spectators and how much better informed than the rest of us he was, in that most of the audience didn’t have clue one about Joe Siegel (“Please, Alex! May I buy a clue?”) including me. I assume(d) Joe Siegel had something to do with rating movies…before he died, of course. I don’t really care. It was not germane, really, but, hey…audience member guy! I hope it was a Big Ego Boost to know something arcane that the rest of us didn’t know and that had little or nothing to do with the film, itself and thanks for asking that question and wasting all of our time!]

Question 8: “Were the scenes all scripted, or was there some ad-libbing and improvisation?” A: “Will Ferell and Chris Rock are great ad-libbers, as is Seth Rogen. Take the line, ‘Why is he so high-strung?’ It just sounded like Ben Affleck trying to be funny. With Seth, it was germane to the scene. It propels the scene forward.”

Question 9: “Whose films have influenced you? Who would you like to work with?” A: Jason Segal, Jonah (from “The Forty Year Old Virgin,” and “SuperBad”), Seth Rogen. When I saw Seth in “The Forty Year Old Virgin” I decided I was going to write him a lead. I wrote him an e-mail, asking if he would be interested, and I had an e-mail back within 5 minutes. Seth said he had told his agent, when he arrived in Hollywood, ‘I want to be in a Kevin Smith movie.’ This dude is famous now. He’s more famous than me.”

Question 10: “Do you think there will ever be a ‘Clerks II’?” A: “There was a messy divorce between the Weinstein Brothers and Miramax, so I doubt it.”

At this point, Smith diverged into telling a story about Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Steven Spielberg. George Lucas stopped by, and Ben Affleck was there at the time, along with the Paltrows, who are close friends of the Spielbergs. So, Affleck calls me up and says, (of Lucas and Spielberg), “They were both really geeky. They had a website-off and then lost interest in that and started surfing for porn, but not good porn, you know? That soft porn stuff. And Affleck asked them if they’d ever heard of a movie called ‘Clerks’ and he said, ‘Yes.’ That’s enough.”

Question 11 had to do with the use of R2D2 and other Lucas-inspired characters in the film, such as Princess Leia. A: “Rich McCallum who worked for Lucas let us use the sound effects. It’s not like Lucas said, ‘You put balls on R2D2? I was gonna’ do that in the 50-year-reunion DVD.'”

The conversation moved on to Smith’s recent weight gain, which he attributed to not putting himself in the movie for the first time in many films and, therefore, hitting the craft services wagon much too heavily. “I look in the mirror now and I see my father at age 65, and I’m, like, only 38! Once this movie is over, I’m going to go and drop a lot of weight, but I didn’t think I’d hear anything about my weight here in Chicago. I expected Chicagoans to say, ‘Come: you’re one of us. Come feed with us at the trough.’

Smith then told a funny story about breaking a futuristic toilet at the Laker Blazers poker tournament. When he saw the futuristic toilet with no base, which jutted directly out from the wall, he thought, ‘Nothing under it. That is no friend to a fat man.’ Smith went on to describe doing what he termed “the hover,” (as done for women for years in public rest rooms.) He went into a long discussion of being “a back or front wiper.”

Basically, the story ends with the toilet pulling straight out of the wall and breaking, with Smith saying it was “Horrible on every f****** level. I gotta’ get off the bowl, count to 3 and jump like in ‘Lethal Weapon II.’ And then there’s the guy waiting on the outside of the stall. He’s shouting, ‘You okay in there?’ It’s not like you can come out and be like, ‘Who did this?'”

All ended well when the owner of the emporium was summoned and promised, “Nobody ever has to know.” [Except that Smith just told the world.]

Question #12: “Are you filming a horror movie?” A: I’m filming ‘Red State,’ a $3 to $5 million-dollar horror movie. I’m having a hard time getting funding for it. It’s so black it makes ‘The Dark Knight’ look like ‘Beverley Hills Chihuahua.'”

Question #13: “Do you think you have grown as a filmmaker?” A: Noting that he is now back with his original Director of Photography Dave Klein, Smith said, “I think this is the best thing we’ve ever done visually.” Smith promised to stay faithful to using Klein in the future, noting that he had been paired with Vilmos Szigmond on “Jersey Girl,” as the studio sought to educate him by pairing him with a great Director of Photography in some recent projects. “They ended up saying, we could put him with a great DP and he would turn him into s***. I told Klein, ‘Dude, I will never not work with you (Klein) again.'”

Smith notes that he likes to set his movies in places where he hangs out, hence his settings which, up until this movie set in Pittsburgh, have always been in New Jersey. When he met Seth Rogen, Rogen told him: “‘Clerks’ was the movie that made me want to be a filmmaker.’ He’d (Rogen) say, ‘You’re great!’ And I’d say, “No, YOU’RE great!’ We have a very good interaction. I’d work with him again in a heartbeat.”

Smith then told the audience that the s*** shot had actually happened to Barry Sonnenfeldt when he was working shooting porno films. “I want an e-mail or a call from him, saying either, ‘Dude, you nailed it!’ or ‘You were so far off!'”

Question #14: “Why did you cast 2 actual porn stars (Traci Lord and Katie Morgan) in the film?” “It was Seth’s idea. ‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you can ask her to do that will be as horrible as what she does in her day job.’ So, we were researching it on the internet…just for the movie, I swear (laughter)…and I saw a YouTube bit of Katie Morgan where she was pretty good in the acting part. She was so excited about the Premiere of the movie. I was like, ‘I’ve been doing this for 15 years now. I’m jaded. I’ve got it at my house. I can watch it in my living room,’ and she’s all excited and enthused about the Premiere.”

Smith noted that Morgan has said to him, “I want to be able to do both” (i.e. serious and porno films). “It was very helpful having Katie and Traci on the set. They knew how it worked in the porn industry. It became ‘Teach me how to direct, Katie Morgan.’ Getting Traci Lords was kind of a coup for us. She hasn’t made a porno film in, like, 20 years and, insensitively, we sent her the script. She read it and decided, ‘Maybe it’s time I embraced my past and made fun of it.”

At this point, Smith told a humorous story about interviewing the porn queen in his home and how he could just imagine his mother and father from his childhood viewing this. He said, “Why did you waste the time on this?”

Question #15: “Do you still work with Scott Mosier?” A: “I find it nearly impossible to do my job without Scott. He’s a wonderful film editor, and he’s a great guy to bounce cuts off (Smith both wrote, directed, and edited the film). It’s like a porn version of how Scott and I make films.”

Question #16: “Who thought up or gave you the idea for the Dutch Rudder?” A: “That came from DP Dave Klein, and I added the Double Dutch Rudder. There was a third one that got cut, the Double Dutch Fudge Rudder.”

At this point, there was a discussion of Jason Mewes always being naked. “He’s always got it out or what-not.” (Smith says “what-not” a lot! Next up: “Yada?”) “When he walked out of the bedroom, naked, he was a lot larger than he normally is, and Ben Affleck said to me, ‘You realize that Mewes is one pump away from total lift-off.’ Mewes, upon hearing this, said, “Tell Affleck that I’m my own fluffer. And I was on the way down, not on the way up.'” An audience member asked if Mewes was off drugs and alcohol. Smith responded, “He’s been sober for 6 years. Doesn’t drink. Doesn’t do drugs.” (As I recall, we applauded Mewes being sober…and I don’t even know the guy!)

Question #17: “Do you have a favorite ‘Star Wars’ sexual fantasy?” A: “I never have had a “Star Wars’ sexual fantasy.”

Writer/Director/Editor Smith told an amusing story about chatting with Brandon Routh, who played “Superman” in the most recent installment of that franchise, and who plays a gay classmate of Zack and Miri’s, in this film. (Smith): “I asked him if there wasn’t some sort of morals clause in his contract that would forbid him from making this film, and he said that the only clause was that he couldn’t portray other superheroes and, when I heard that, I said, ‘Right on! Get in there and kiss that guy!’ “(Jason Long)

Audiences who can handle the crude language (as Smith fans can) and situations and are not scandalized by the storyline, which is basically a sweet story of the discovery of true love, will enjoy “Zack and Miri Make A Porno.” All of us present on October 21st enjoyed the film and the following Q&A at the Chicago Film Festival with Writer/Director/Editor Kevin Smith.

Twenty Questions for Screenwriter/Director Charlie Kaufman at the Chicago Film Festival (October 19, 2008)

By Connie Wilson

On October 21, 2008

In Movies, Reviews

[*”Synecdoche, New York:” Q&A Following the showing of the film at the Chicago Film Festival.]

The first question to be asked after the screening of “Synecdoche, New York” was a bit murky, but it seemed to be about whether the screenwriter-turned-director knew where he was going from the outset or found his way there during the cutting process.

Charlie Kaufman’s answer was: “Why do you want to know that?” After there was no answer from the audience member, he went on to say that he often found direction during the editing process.

Question Number Two was from a film student and asked about the 200 short scenes in Kaufman’s first directorial effort, as compared to a normal movie average of 100 scenes. Kaufman responded that it took him 45 days to shoot the entire movie and that he knew he had a lot of scenes.

Question Number Three: The third question referenced Seattle critic N.P. Thomson who apparently called the movie “A dream about outliving your dreams,” and said that it had “a sense of melancholy.” Kaufman responded, “Everyone has something they feel regretful about” (or words to that effect) and went on to say, “I’m kind of dogged about not imposing my opinion on others. Yeah. That sounds good.”

Question Number Four: Kaufman was asked whether he had a theatrical background, since the main character in his movie, Cayden Cotard, is a director in the film. He responded that he “did a lot when I was a kid. I did direct a couple of plays before I did this,” mentioning 2 plays he directed in New York City, one in Los Angeles and one in London. The cast there? Meryl Streep, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason-Leigh, etc. Kaufman said he was able to get his first choices for the film and they were all his favorite actors.

Question Number Five: Kaufman was asked if he had had trouble getting funding to make the film. He answered that, originally, Spike Jonze was to have helmed the film but the combination of the script and Kaufman taking over the reins led Sony to put the film in turnaround (shelve it). But, very quickly after that, said Kaufman, he was able to secure financing with final cut, but he noted: “The landscape has changed a lot in the past couple of years. It wasn’t hard at the time. I don’t know why.” (Yes, the landscape very definitely has changed a lot, financially, hasn’t it, Kids? Our 401K’s are becoming 201K’s and it is unlikely that anyone willing to put up the money to make a movie would be quite as cavalier about backing a film this blatantly uncommercial.)

Question Number Six: This question was about whether he makes things up as he goes along and whether his lead characters are his alter egos. A: “I make things up as I go along, but, there was a lot of back-and-forth until I had something I liked. There are similarities between me and the people I write about. I don’t know how it could be otherwise.” Kaufman went on to say that Philip Seymour Hoffman was an actor whose work he admired immensely and who represents his voice in the film. In fact, Hoffman was largely responsible for Kaufman’s decision to retain the film’s ending, rather than capitulate to those who advised against such a bleak “ending.”

Question Number Seven: Kaufman was asked whether his previous work with other filmmakers, such as Spike Jonze, informed his work. He said, “I don’t know how to answer that. I didn’t move away from things; I just tried to figure out what worked for me.”

Question Number Eight: One of the aspiring filmmakers in the audience asked how Kaufman kept the film’s plot straight, since it was not linear. Kaufman said he once thought he’d use cards, but he found that that did not work for him. “I write a lot of ideas, spend a lot of time thinking. I take notes. I get to a point where I’m ready to start writing dialogue.” Kaufman called dialogue, for him as a filmmaker, “a more comfortable situation,” and noted, “I am able to do it quickly.” At this point, there was some reference to Mr. Kaufman’s having written for “Mr. Show,” the television comedy show, but he quickly responded that he had never written for the show. He did acknowledge that Louis C.K., the stand-up comic, had brought him in to do one skit, a Weird Al Yankovich skit, where there were 3 Weird Als: Weird Al, Weirder Al and Normal Al. He described the skit as “parody/parody of parody/back to normal.”

Question Number Nine: Kaufman was asked whether he preferred to write or direct, since he has now done both. His answer was, “Since I have now done directing, I think I want to do more of it. I like having the control. I like being able to pick the final directions.” He noted, though, that, “I’m kind of a moody, sulky person, and you’re not allowed to be that when you’re the director. ” Kaufman said he could remain cheerful and encouraging for 10 hours of the 17 they worked, “but not for the last 7 hours.”

Question Number Ten: Kaufman was asked about collaborating with others. He responded, “You collaborate with people and it’s 60/40 %. A lot of the aesthetic was informed by how much we could afford.” Kaufman called directing “an extremely pragmatic business as opposed to writing.” He commented that set director Marc Freedman came in with sketches that were appropriate for a low budget movie, such as a whole block on an Armory. He also noted that, “The Zeppelin is fake” and that, “We could have had more of the Zeppelin, but we didn’t.”

Question Number Eleven: Kaufman was asked about influences on his work. He rephrased the question, “What am I influenced by?” And Kaufman answered, “I try to find what I’m thinking about. The reality is the chaos and confusion of your current existence…what seems true…what seems honest.”

Question Number Twelve: Kaufman was asked about the cast and whether he was surprised to get such a stellar group for his first film. He said, “I cast them, so I wasn’t surprised. It was a thrill for me to get to work with these people. Most of them are my favorite actors.”

Question Number Thirteen: Kaufman was asked about the meaning of the film and said, “I want people to interpret it their own way.” He talked about how his own feelings are sometimes hurt by criticism, noting, “I’m a sensitive guy.” He said, “People put a lot of shit into the world. I want to put something honest out there.”

Question Number Fourteen: Asked about the use of “Death of a Salesman” within his film. He said he was definitely “not making fun of the play at all,” and that, originally, the film he wanted to use was “Equus” but that he could only get the rights to use “Death of a Salesman,” which, he noted, had actually worked out well. He said, “There’s something heartbreaking about kids doing ‘Death of a Salesman.’ (when they’re in high school). I like that play a lot. I’m not making fun of it.” Kaufman also mused about the different ways that casting one person in one part might change the film saying, “What if I cast Michelle as Adele?” ( actually thought he said “Linda” here, but did not remember a character called “Linda” in the film, so I may be misquoting, and, if so, I apologize to the director and ask for a better seat or a microphone that works, next time.)

Question Number Fifteen: Someone asked a long drawn-out question about whether the film was “semi-neurotic, semi-adolescent” and Kaufman responded, “Well, not if you put it that way!” He continued talking about his creative process, saying, “When I start something, I don’t know where it’s going to go. I write stuff from the inside. It is what it is.” Kaufman made me( as a fellow writer) feel better by saying that he does not have a “routine” where he writes “X” number of hours a day at a certain time, etc. (Thanks for that, Charlie! I mean it!) “What I wanted to do when I started out was to try to externalize the internal world of this character. The dream imagery (house burning, etc.) just came. I found it kind of fascinating.” Charlie talked about how “the end is built into the beginning” (i.e., we are born to die…”in the midst of life we are in death”) and used the idea of choices that inform our lives, especially in regards to the character of Hazel, who buys and lives in a constantly burning house. “She didn’t have to buy that house and live in that house, but she chose to. It’s all about decisions. The funny things are funny because they resonate.”

Question Number Sixteen: “Why did you use John Malkovich as the main character in ‘Being John Malkovich?'” A: “At the time, it was because I thought it was funny.” The question then became why Kaufman named the film “Synecdoche, New York” and he responded, “I don’t know why. I liked the way it sounded. I didn’t have it as the only title. It’s so long ago that I don’t know exactly why. I just knew I wanted it to start out somewhere where little theater is done, like Poughkeepsie or somewhere and then end up in New York City, so the town had to be outside of New York City.” He added that he had found new things in the title as recently as two weeks ago.

Question Number Seventeen: “Why view life like this?” This question came from a young man in my row who seemed rather discontented with what he viewed as the pessimistic tone of the film. Kaufman’s answer: A – “How do I view it? I don’t think of it as pessimistic. I think we are all on a continuum. Everyone is on the same path. I think it informs our life that we’re the only animals that know we’re going to die. I want, as a reader or a viewer, ‘Eureka!’ moments that speak to me/him. I think of myself as enormously optimistic. Take happiness. Fake happiness is meaningless and alienating. I’m not creating a product. I’m not trying to get you to come see my movie. That’s kind of the end of it, for me. Do with it what you will. I think you can really only offer us yourself. The rest is a lie, and the rest is a gamble.” [*I remember thinking, at this point, that it was a rather self-indulgent thing to take the money of investors (and the talents of a top-notch cast) and care only about articulating one’s own angst. I wondered how the people who gave Kaufman the money to make the film would view his comment about not trying to convince audiences to come see the film in today’s economic climate? It’s one thing to have something to say and to want to say it well, and to realize that not all of life is “happy” and “uplifting” and “joyous,” but it’s another thing, entirely, to have a film that meanders off-topic a great deal and is so “down” and depressing that people will be driven from the theater…or never get there at all. Maybe collaborations with others on films have been good to and for Charlie Kaufman in the past? Certainly any of his previous films were more entertaining and more commercial, if not more profound. But that’s just my opinion, and the only one I’m qualified to express, so see it at your own speed and make your own judgments; he does have impressive talent in the writing department, and watching someone who may be slowly dying is sure upbeat and gives you that little bit of extra verve in your step as you exit the theater. For some actual quotes from the film, please see my review on www.associatedcontent.com]

Question Number Eighteen: Kaufman was asked whether he finds interviews like this one “enjoyable” or not, as they continue during additional screenings of his film. He responded, “I find it more or less enjoyable. I really enjoyed it. I’m happy. It’s not a burden.”

Question Number Nineteen: When asked about any advice or arguments that arose during the filming, Kaufman acknowledged that there were some who cautioned him against retaining the bleak ending. “There was a lot of anxiety about the end of the movie.” Kaufman confessed that he actually wrote another different ending for the film, but that he listened to Philip Seymour Hoffman the most and Hoffman did not see how the film could end any other way than the way it did and urged him not to shoot it and/or not to use it.

Many wanted Catherine Keener’s character (Adele Lack) to come back for some sort of “resolution,” said Kaufman, but he did not see it that way. He went on to say, “Your confidence gets kind of shaky, but I had final cut.” He remarked, “I wasn’t going to change the movie to say something that would bring more people to it.

Kaufman repeated his “final cut” comment at least three times during the Question and Answer session. Woody Allen was always held up as the director who had the ideal situation of “final cut” and that having “final cut” was a director’s dream.

Question Number Twenty: “What do you like (in movies) that is mainstream?” Kaufman responded, “I like to sit home and watch crap on a Friday night, too. I like a lot of movies. I’m not, like, a weirdo or anything.” After the tittering died down, the questioner asked Kaufman if he had seen “The Dark Knight” and Charlie responded, “I haven’t actually seen any Super Hero movies this year. I like the Coen Brothers. I liked ‘Dumb & dumber. There are some really funny lines and situations in that movie.” [*This is where I agree to disagree with you, Charlie, but, then again, I saw it while in Portugal and it probably plays better if you know what-the-hell they’re saying. Or not.]

The questioner went on to ask if Kaufman had seen “A Scanner Darkly.” He responded, “It seemed weird, to me, that he wanted to do it (“A Scanner Darkly”) that way (using rotogravure). I wouldn’t have done that.” [*I have a theory that using this method allowed him to use the younger, thinner, more hirsute Woody Harrelson. All that was required from the leads: voices. They could look like they had looked 20 years earlier, if the director chose to have them drawn that way. I liked the film.]

Question Number Twenty-One: “In your films, does character inform plot, or does plot inform character?” He answered, “I honestly don’t know what that means. They’re all sort of combined. I feel like I want to make it (the film) organic. It’s all up for grabs. Structure really is important to me. I actually think about it (structure) a lot.”

When pushed further about the film’s bleak view of life (as perceived by many viewers), Charlie Kaufman responded, “You’re asking me something that you feel and then asking me why YOU feel it. I’m not going to venture a guess. I don’t know you. I think being a person is hard. The grocery clerk looks like she hates you. Other people are mean to you. There’s only one end to any project that you do, and that’s your death.”

When asked why he ended the film, finally, he said: “I ended it because I got bored, I had a deadline I had to meet to get paid. I spent a lot of time not writing but thinking.”

One of the many meanings of the title is “simultaneous understanding.” There are many, many others, just as there are many, many other interpretations of this interesting, experimental, but ultimately joyless film.