If Kaufman isn’t an “idea man”, which screen writer is? Whether or not his rate of idea creation is “slow”, as he says, there are more *new* ideas (or subversions of old ones) per page in a Kaufman script than any Hollywood scriptwriter’s work (of the past thirty years, including the Coens) I can think of. That’s why I *still* laugh my brains out whenever I watch “Adaptation”: the acting and cinematography are fine but it’s all those fresh *ideas* that make the movie a gem.

Just because Kaufman chooses not to see himself as an Idea Man (or chooses to be difficult) doesn’t mean that it’s not a fair question. The only quibble I have with Ed’s half of this interview is his tendency to throw the interviewees into the deep end with the first question of the interview, whereas a little stealth might work a lot better. Ie, warm them up (and win them over) with genial chitchat and a few softballs first, possibly (you can edit these out later-laugh). If you spot a telltale hair on the tweed, for example, Ed, ask if they’re cat fanciers…

The first thing Kaufman says is, “This was a lot more energy than I expected” and that was probably more of a warning than a winking quip. Disagreeing with Ed’s premise was, perhaps, Kaufman’s instinctive way of putting the emergency brake on Ed’s Peterbilt.

Ed, some (I hope constructive) criticism: it seems like there is a repetitive theme in these interviews of you asking the interview subjects very long questions regarding recurring symbols, possible references to obscure prior works, and other hidden meanings in the works under discussion, and the authors responding almost uniformly that they create their work intuitively and weren’t aware of what you are talking about, and haven’t intentionally placed these symbols in their work and thus they cannot comment on the patterns of repeating symbols which you you have found.

It just seems to me at this point that after this many replies of this sort that this line of questioning should be de-emphasized, as it is dominating the time alotted for your interviews and turning opportunities for discussion into semi- (and sometimes fully) adversarial confrontations wherein the interview subjects have to repeatedly tell you that what you believe you have observed in the subtexts and semiotics of their work was not intended, and doesn’t seem to them related to what they were intending with the work.

It seems to me that perhaps if you tried some new avenues of questioning that it might open up your interviews to more productive and illuminating themes of discussion, rather than these repetitive confrontations which seem to focus the interviews more on your own interpretations of what the authors have created than on what the authors themselves have to say. I don’t believe this is intentional, but it is getting sort of annoying, particularly in examples such as the recent Mike Leigh clusterfuck and most of this Kaufman interview, which was a frustrating listening experience, as it felt like a real missed opportunity for two intelligent fellas to find common ground, but instead turned into you attempting one failed analysis of the film after another while Kaufman exasperatedly attempted to steer you off of your serial wild goose chases.

I think you’re a skilled interviewer and intelligent guy, just wanted to speak up on this as it feels like it’s getting in the way of what your show is when it’s at its best.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2008/11/03/081103crci_cinema_lane