02 · 06 · 26

Cinema is made of ghosts: Interview with Charlie Kaufman and Eva H.D.

Alonso Díaz de la Vega

I don't mean to brag, but to provide context: of the dozens of interviews I've done with filmmakers, this is the strangest. I don't remember having any expectations about what it would be like to talk to Charlie Kaufman and Eva H.D., but in retrospect, I know it would have been wrong to expect a conversation that was—to say the least—adhering to a certain sequence. Whether she interrupted him to crack a joke, or he interrupted her to clarify information, the two of them combined into an uncontrollable beast. The image that best describes my role in the conversation is that of Quint (Robert Shaw) trying to fish with a rod for the indomitable great white shark in Jaws (1975). However, this does not mean that—like Quint—I did not enjoy it.

Kaufman and H.D. arrived at the interview room upset: they didn't like the idea of having their picture taken. One immediately senses in them an unusual combination of shyness and unbridled extroversion, which is also evident in their work, both separately and together: he is the screenwriter of the eccentric Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). He then directed even more idiosyncratic films, such as Synecdoche, New York (2008), in which a theater director reconstructs his entire city in order to create a faithful representation of his own life, and Anomalisa (2015), an animated film about the painful inability to love others.

H.D. is a poet; her work is a mixture of melancholic cadences and trivial imagery: details of the ordinary world such as ice cream parlors, gardens, screws, which describe in the second person the unavoidable difficulty of getting through the days. It is practically impossible to find biographical information about her, and her books are distributed independently, far from the major publishing houses. H.D. seems to write—rather than to be read—to expel a pain that is perceived in her own work and in what she has been building with Kaufman, her partner, in projects such as the one they are presenting in Morelia.

How to Shoot a Ghost (2025) is a short film about a pair of ghosts wandering around Athens, Greece. The film is based on H.D.'s script, which she describes as her delusions, dressed up with Kaufman's images featuring Irish actress Jessie Buckley and Lebanese actor Josef Akiki. Some important motifs include the city's political history and street photography, which inspires the visual style. Based on this and Kaufman and H.D.'s reluctance to be photographed (in the end they allow it, but with results that describe their discomfort), I begin by asking questions on topics such as image and photography. The full interview with both of them, edited for better understanding, can be read below.

FICM: I understand that they don't like being seen very much, and I think that gives rise to an interesting question: Is art a way of being present without being visible?

Eva H.D.: I think that, more than that, this culture we all live in, when you examine it, is a little repugnant. But most of the time we don't realize it. We all take pictures all the time. But then, when you think, “Do I want to do this?” Usually the answer is no, because it doesn't make sense.

Charlie Kaufman: It's kind of in our movie.

E. H.D: Yes, it's in our movie. That it's about how you're going to die very soon. We all will. And we're not going to take these crappy photos with us. So what are we going to take? Do we take all the time we waste making these idiotic facsimiles that don't resemble us in any way?

CK: I don't know. That wasn't me. That photograph wasn't me. I mean, obviously it's me, but it wasn't me. And I felt like I had to pretend to be someone who would have their photograph taken for a catalog. I don't know if that makes any sense.

E H.D: Old photos are beautiful. When you see old ones, like daguerreotypes or whatever, of people, and they all look really uncomfortable because it's like 1870 and they're like [imitates the stiff poses of old photographs]. That seems more honest because that's how we...

CK: I think mine looked like that!

E H.D: Yeah. It's like the father all [does the gesture again].

CK: Well, I think they all posed for a while because it took a long time to expose...

E H.D: Yeah! And they're like, what the hell are we doing? But they know they're supposed to... For posterity because someone's going to look at their stupid family photo or whatever, or they're charming, you know, whatever. And they're trying to make a record, but that didn't make them die any sooner. And they look uncomfortable.

E H.D: That's something. It's kind of nice. At least they look uncomfortable. Although this sounds like I'm very rigid, like I've never taken a photo in my life. I have them, obviously; we all do. We're drowning in photos! We all have these little devices with like ten thousand photos that are going to do nothing after we're dead or before. So that's what it makes me think about.

CK: The ghost in our film is an invisible photographer, so that's interesting in light of your question, although I don't think it's something philosophical for me... Or it's not a position. It's more like I feel uncomfortable. “This isn't good for me.” You know? I don't want this. And I don't really feel like I have the right to say no. Which is my own problem. So I end up doing things I don't want to do because of that, you know?

E H.D: My favorite street photographers capture a moment. So they capture a spirit that portraits don't tend to capture.

CK: Well, they're not posed. I mean, people who aren't posing, in most cases, may not even know they're being photographed.

E H.D: But most of the street photographers I like were also taking photos before everyone was doing it all the time. It's kind of like tattoos. Remember when it was like, “Wow, that guy has a tattoo!”? Like it was cool. And now it's like, “Wow, that guy has a tattoo, he's probably like an upper-middle-class college kid.” It's like that with photos. Like it was cool, I guess, and weird. And maybe now it's not. So we have to find something else that's possible. I don't know.

FICM: That's very interesting because I think it translates into the way you've been working together on the two short films you've been making. Charlie, you, in particular, have rejected conventional narrative. Now you're working in a more poetic tradition of filmmaking. Is that in rejection of a certain hegemony?

E H.D: Uh, hegemony!

CK: Absolutely. It's been an opportunity to make films that I hadn't really been able to produce before, and an opportunity—since it's a short film, since it costs less—to be more experimental. And so, yes, I didn't know how to do what we were doing. I still don't think I know, but I'm trying to learn, you know? I always like to mention the example of someone like Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, who, when they were making their short films, were making, like, one film a week, and that's how they learned to make films. And most of us who make films don't have that opportunity. You know, Wes Anderson has that opportunity because he...

E H.D: Makes a film a week.

CK: It seems like it. But maybe it's one movie a year, right? But that's a very unusual situation he's in. So, you know, for me it's five years or more between movies. So this is an opportunity to work. And I really like Eva's work. And trying to figure out how to do something with it visually is the challenge for me.

E H.D: I should write you a Wes Anderson movie. It'll be about a man in a state of permanent adolescence and innocence and maybe, like, a 12-year-old girl.

CK: Sounds good. Great. Let's do it.

FICM: Will that be the next one?

E H.D: It's going to be a feature film. It will be about several adult men who are in love with an underage girl. Maybe with, like, a British accent.

CK: The girl.

E H.D: And what happens next?

CK: She could be a nun.

E H.D: Oh, yes, she's a nun.

CK: A child nun.

E H.D: A child nun! And there will be a great soundtrack.

FICM: That sounds great!

CK: Yes. Yes.

E H.D: And a J.D. Salinger, well, like...

CK: I thought you were going to say J.D. Vance.

E H.D: J.D. Vance!

CK: Where are you going with this?

E H.D: No! J.D. Salinger will show up, and he'll start flirting with some other girls in the background.

CK: A zombie J.D. Salinger?

E H.D: Yes. You know, the way they make a hologram or whatever?

CK: Yeah, a hologram.

E H.D: Like ABBA, but it'll be J.D. Salinger.

FICM: But now, with that idea in mind, I get the impression that you feel very free to experiment and work in the medium of short film. Is this something you see yourselves doing in a feature film? Can it be done? Is it possible in an economic sense, in an aesthetic sense?

CK: I have a feature film that I've been trying to make that includes a lot of Eva's prose poetry, I guess. I'm not quite sure what you would call it, but...

E H.D: Delusions.

CK: There are a lot of Eva's delusions, and it's incorporated into the story. So, you know, if this movie ever gets made, there would be an opportunity for us to play with the things we've been playing with here in a more narrative structure.

[Eva takes off a shirt she's wearing over her top and, with it, the microphone; then she starts wrestling with it, out of nervousness, out of mischief?]

CK: Oh, no.

E H.D: It's in my armpit. Where is it?

FICM: No, it's on the lapel.

CK: There it is.

FICM: Sorry, but we're definitely going to use this.

E H.D: Yes, yes, this is good. Can I just put it decoratively like this? Like Napoleon or something? I'll put my arm like this. Go ahead!

FICM: Can you hide it?

E H.D: Oh, sure! Because nobody knows I have a microphone.

FICM: You know, the magic of cinema.

E H.D: Do I hide them? I don't know. I can tell I'm doing it wrong.

CK: I think it's hidden from them, but not from me. But can you hear it? Where? Yes, it's back there. Okay.

E H.D: Should I do it? Honestly, I'm a little stupid, and I don't know what you'd like me to do. I need to put on this shirt. Maybe I'll just do it. It's very hot.

CK: Think about how I feel.

E H.D: Think about how you feel? Here, here, here, I know. I'll wear it like a cape. How about that?

[In the end, with the shirt draped over his shoulders, the Napoleonic image is fulfilled in another way]

FICM: Actually, it looks really good on you.

E H.D: That's great. This is a new fashion there. That's right. This will be the content of our next wonderfully experimental film.

FICM: This could be your next short film.

CK: Yes, absolutely.

FICM: We'll give you the footage so you can edit it.

E H.D: It's going to be called “Is this on?”

FICM: Well, I found it very interesting that there are some strongly political ideas in this film. How did that happen? And in general, is it the city that inspired you to think about the themes and images you used in the film? I mean, is the conception of the film linked to the space of the city of Athens?

CK: I think that's for you. You wrote the film.

E H.D: I'm glad you think it's very political. That makes me happy. I thought when I was talking to Julio [Chavezmontes] earlier, I thought that maybe Mexicans in general might perceive that, because not everyone does. I think there are some similarities between Mexican culture and history, and Greek culture and history. I think there are some interesting similarities. But what was the question? Does the city determine the content? I mean, I guess it's full of... Is there any way that couldn't be the case? I'm trying to think. There are archival images of Athens and things that happened in Athens. But it's also true that they're sadly similar to things that happen in other places, like there's a military junta in Athens, but, you know, there was one in Chile too, right? This film could have taken place like, I don't know, maybe I don't understand the question. I'm not answering very well.

FICM: I think so, because the idea is basically the inspiration for the film. I think the whole idea is linked to the city...

E H.D: Are you familiar with Cavafis' poetry?

FICM: I know of him, but I haven't read him.

E H.D: It doesn't matter. He was a Greek poet. Well, he wrote in Greek, but he was a Greek from Alexandria in Egypt. And he was also gay in the 19th century. He was strange in many ways. He was a Greek who wasn't from Greece, and he was gay and homophobic, and all that kind of stuff. But he wrote a poem called “The City,” and it's about a metaphorical city. Also a physical one, I guess, but a metaphorical one that surrounds you, which always says that no matter where you go, you think you're going to another land and another sea, but you're not going anywhere because the city is always with you, and since you've destroyed your life, since you've wasted your life here, you would waste it anywhere. There will be no other land and there will be no other sea. So I think the city can be a place like the city of Alexandria was for him or Athens. Maybe it is for me, but it can also be a state of mind.

FICM: Yes, absolutely. And, Charlie, something similar. Basically, I guess the question is, do you bring any preconceived ideas to the filming? I mean, Hitchcock would imagine a movie in his head. You know, he would film whatever was in there. He was an inventor. But when you work with Eva, and in Athens and so on, do you find the movie more when you film the city?

CK: Yes. I mean, I think it's a combination of things. It's definitely not like Hitchcock. Eva and I are interested, as she said before, in street photography, and the two shorts we made were heavily influenced by that. So we wanted to find things on the street, but we also had a script in both cases. So we had actors, but we also tried to find people, and it's a combination of both. And then it ends up being, I think, in both cases, a kind of discovery in the editing room. You know, we have the bones, we have the structure, we have the scenes we shot with our actors, and then we have these other things that surround it, and how it all comes together is something that took a bit of time. And Eva and I and the two editors, Rob [Franzen] and Jon [Daniel], worked for a long time to try to put this together in a way that we thought worked.

FICM: I think we're running out of time, but I'd like to ask one last question, which is a little strange, but, you see, I recently saw Blow Out for the second time. Have you seen it?

E H.D: Is that by Jean-Luc Godard?

CK: No, that's, um, Blowup.

FICM: That's by Antonioni.

E H.D: Oh, there's a movie called Blow Out and a movie called Blowup?

CK: Yes. Blow Out is about a sound recording that someone accidentally picks up. It's a tire. A tire blowing up? Was it like that? I haven't seen it in a while.

E H.D: There used to be a party in Toronto called Blow Up. And it was based on one of these movies, and I've never seen either of them. So there you go.
Charlie Kaufman: But what's the question?

FICM: The thing is, there's a scene at the end where the main character uses a recording of a dying woman in a movie. And that told me that cinema is made of ghosts.

E H.D: And creepy men, apparently.

FICM: Yes! But your film is about ghosts. It has something very spectral about it. So, is cinema made of ghosts?

E H.D: I guess it has to be eventually. Sure.

CK: Well, of course. Yes.

E H.D: Besides, you were Brian De Palma's doorman.

CK: I was Brian De Palma's doorman. I think we should end there. Yes, he was my client. He lived in the building where I was the doorman. And I stole his trash. I didn't take it out of his apartment. But he left his trash in the hallway. And I also worked as a janitor there, so I was responsible for picking up the trash, and I would go through the trash of famous people. I don't know if I should admit this, but it's so many years later and I don't think anyone cares. But yes, someone had given him a paperweight, a glass paperweight, and I gave it to my mother. So, does that answer the question?

E H.D: Well, it was if cinema is made of ghosts, so: I believe.

CK: Yes. I was with Nancy Allen at the time, which I don't think I am anymore.

E H.D: I guess [cinema is an art of ghosts] in the same way that our memories are made of ghosts. As if this memory were just a ghost of something, right? It's a vestige. Our evolution as people is a ghost of something, isn't it? We are, like... we don't have tails anymore, but we have a coccyx. Well, [Kaufman] you do have a tail, don't you? But I don't. We have an appendix. Well, you do, but I don't anymore. But we have all these qualities. We have extra eyebrows...

CK: Well, I don't, but you do.

E H.D: ...having been hairy all over. Well, you're still hairy all over! But we're the bits and pieces that are left over from our ancestors. And soon, you know, I'll be dead. And there will be these little bits and pieces and silly photos of me leaving little ghosts fluttering around.

CK: But I think there's something wonderful about that, about some of the images that are, you know, these people on the street passing by in 1950 that are moving...

E H.D: Yes. But I think it's like with a lot of things, like they're moving toward me, but I'm not moving toward myself.

CK: But in a thousand years...

E H.D: In a thousand years, when that photo is the last thing left of humanity, a strange photo of me taken in Morelia, Mexico... Yes, yes, yes, that will be great. And then archaeologists will have to piece together our entire culture from me based on one image.

CK: Yes.

E H.D: Okay.

FICM: Thank you very much for your time. That was fun.

E H.D: Really? I thought it was a little painful. I'm glad. That's good. I'm glad it was fun. That makes me feel better.

CK: How would you rate us?

E H.D: How would you rate [the interview] on a scale of one to six hamburgers?

FICM: Six burgers?

E H.D: Yes, like on a scale of six burgers.

CK: From one to six. Six is the highest and one is the lowest. Seven.

E H.D: Seven? That's too much!

CK: No, I think you're just flattering us.

E H.D: Yeah, well, now we know we can't trust a word you say.