Charlie Kaufman profile

In a draft article for Wired that's open to comments, Jason Tanz profiles screenwriter Charlie Kaufman ahead of the release of his new film Synecdoche, New York.

It may seem surprising...that Kaufman began his path to screenwriting stardom as a scribe for that most constrained and artificial of formats, the half-hour sitcom. It is probably less surprising that Kaufman was not very successful at it...

More than once, Kaufman wrote scripts that so incensed the networks that they opted to "go dark" — not broadcast the show that week — rather than air them. Kaufman penned an episode for the short-lived Bronson Pinchot vehicle The Trouble With Larry, in which the title character mistakes his archaeologist-roommate's rare child-king mummy for a piñata, and then has to replace it with an injured tightrope-walking monkey in a full-body cast.

Synecdoche, New York opens in America next month but doesn't yet seem to have a UK release date.