{"id":224433,"date":"2025-09-13T20:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224433\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T20:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:34:09","slug":"charlie-kaufman-holds-hollywood-responsible-for-todays-terrible-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224433\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Kaufman Holds Hollywood Responsible for Today’s ‘Terrible’ World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filmmaker Charlie Kaufman\u2019s<\/a> got a lot to say about the state of the world\u2014and why he thinks Hollywood is at least partially to blame for it.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with The Guardian<\/a>, the mind behind 2004\u2019s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind\u00a0and this year\u2019s short How to Shoot a Ghost<\/a>\u00a0said the film industry has \u201ceverything to do with [why] the world is in a terrible, terrible situation right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of said industry, Kaufman considers it a personal responsibility to \u201cnot put garbage into the world,\u201d which for him, means doing his own thing and not giving into the urge to use AI in filmmaking.<\/p>\n

A massive selling point for the technology is its ability to give people exactly what they want, fast. But Kaufman argues that, in Hollywood at least, that predisposition has been present long before AI exploded onto the scene: \u201cIf you start trying to figure out what it is that people want, you\u2019re doing what AI does. It\u2019s why Hollywood remakes the same five movies every 10 years, and it\u2019s why they have a formula for what a movie is.\u201d<\/p>\n

More critically, Kaufman said the \u201cgreed and acquisitiveness\u201d in the industry stems from \u201cdamaged people doing so much damage.\u201d His comments feel particularly potent in the wake of reporting on Thursday that Paramount will attempt to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a>\u2014a merger that itself has seemed, well, catastrophic<\/a>, to put it nicely.<\/p>\n

Kaufman argued that Hollywood executives are \u201creally lost and don\u2019t have anything, so they\u2019re desperately trying to make themselves better by acquiring, by lording it over people, being powerful and wealthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notably, Kaufman did not spare his criticism for himself: He described himself as another damaged individual, but suggested that his coping mechanisms are healthier than others\u2019 in the industry. \u201c[I read] a poem, see a painting, or listen to music which speaks to me and breaks me for a moment, and where I feel an experience honestly and delicately portrayed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

AI, he added, is doomed to fail in art because it can\u2019t create the feeling of being alive, which Kaufman said was now more vital than ever: \u201cIf we don\u2019t allow ourselves to connect with other humans who have the experiences that we have, then I think we\u2019re lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Filmmaker Charlie Kaufman\u2019s got a lot to say about the state of the world\u2014and why he thinks Hollywood…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":224434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[691,103853,7684,121649,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-224433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-charlie-kaufman","10":"tag-genai","11":"tag-how-to-shoot-a-ghost","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115198903336377939","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}