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Yes, It's A Charlie Kaufman Pastiche Starring Paul Giamatti. Got A Problem With That?

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Weirdsmobile
06/22/09

In reply to Yes, It's A Charlie Kaufman Pastiche Starring Paul Giamatti. Got A Problem With That?
This is the kind of comparison that kind of annoys me, to be frank. Here's what happens: a lot of artists creating in a certain style toil in obscurity. Eventually the zeitgeist syncs up with that style and you have a breakthrough success (like Charlie Kaufman) that compels the suits to open the door to "more like what this guy did." We see more projects similar to the breakthrough success. End result? All those other artists get accused of "ripping off" or "being inspired by" the original artist, regardless of how long they've been working in their style, or even if they were doing it before the guy who broke through.

I mean yeah, sure, any success in the creative arts is going to inspire hordes of imitators. But it's just not fair or accurate to label something in a similar style to Charlie Kaufman a "Charlie Kaufman Pastiche" just because Kaufman was talented AND fortunate enough to be successful with a voice that is distinctively his, but not necessarily unique to him.

P.S. I am not Sophie Barthes, nor do I know her, despite my full-throated defense of this person I've never heard of and who may well be a shameless Kaufman ripper-offer. :)
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Sproing
06/22/09

@Weirdsmobile: Being John Malkovich was released in 1999. Sophie Barthes started writing Cold Souls in 2005. I've seen both -- there are similarities and there are differences. But if she didn't know her film would face these kinds of comparisons and slights, she should have.
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James Spurrier
06/22/09

In reply to Yes, It's A Charlie Kaufman Pastiche Starring Paul Giamatti. Got A Problem With That?
Sorry guys, I agree with Charlie Jane, Stranger Than Fiction was an okay way to spend two hours, but it was hardly compelling Kaufmanesque cinema. First of all, the filmmakers kept forgetting their own film's premise (an unseen novelist narrates a man's life as it happens in a voice that only he can hear), with long, fairly eventful stretches of the movie where the narration disappears entirely FOR NO REASON. It smells like a tacked-on romantic subplot was added at the behest of the studio. Secondly, the bits of narration from the in-film novel that we hear are vaguely clever in a second-rate Douglas Adams knockoff sort of way, but they don't live up to the description of "literary genius" that the film's characters seem so eager to bestow on it. Stranger Than Fiction had some good ideas, but it totally failed to capitalize on them in the way a Charlie Kaufman script would.

At least the music by Spoon was pretty good.
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Plague
06/22/09

@James Spurrier: I agree with your assessment.

Except for the Spoon part.
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Charlie Jane Anders
06/22/09

@James Spurrier: You pretty much exactly summed up my feelings about that movie. Thanks!
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Steve Mohundro
06/22/09

In reply to Yes, It's A Charlie Kaufman Pastiche Starring Paul Giamatti. Got A Problem With That?
I saw this at the Seattle International Film Festival, and I don't think it's quite as off-kilter as most Kaufman's stuff. It's also not quite as hard sci-fi as you might think. It takes the basic premise that there's a machine and method that can be used to remove people's souls and put in different ones and runs with it. Which souls have value, and what happens when you have someone else's soul inside you or no soul at all? I liked it quite a bit, though. It's worth seeing.
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Sproing
06/22/09

@Steve Mohundro: Saw it at SIFF also. The film also toys with Russian stage drama, and how "heavy" the Russian soul must be to produce such heartbreaking theater. But it's a trifle without Giamatti in the key role. That man owns.
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Pope John Peeps II
06/22/09

In reply to Yes, It's A Charlie Kaufman Pastiche Starring Paul Giamatti. Got A Problem With That?
Why is this a Kaufman clone? Judging from the trailer, there only seem to be a few passing resemblances.
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