Charlie Kaufman on Writing Stories and Taking Risks

If what you are doing does not have the possibility of failing then by definition you are not doing anything new. —Charlie Kaufman

In an interview at Göteborg International Film Festival, back in 2011, Charlie Kaufman talked about his approach to story telling and how little he relies on plot to talk about reality and existence. I think you have to have seen a few of his movies to fully grasp what storytelling without story can look like.

I’m not really interested in stories. Stories are things that are kind of polished and seen from a distance and I wanna try to do stuff where it feels like it’s immersed, where I am immersed when i am working on it, and where the audience will experience that immersion and the chaos or confusion of actual existence; as opposed to a story with a beginning and a middle and an end and a kind of a distance, and a perspective, and a life lesson and all that stuff that doesn’t really seem to be part of the actual moment to moment life that I have. —Charlie Kaufman