Charlie Kaufman's Angels: Confessions of A Dangerous Mind

In 2002, Charlie Kaufman found a third feature in “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and an adversary in its director, George Clooney.

There were many reasons I had avoided watching “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” for so long. The first being that for some reason, it was always rented at the video store; the second was George Clooney (an ongoing issue of mine); and the third reason was that Charlie Kaufman was not the film’s biggest proponent, to say the least. During an interview with Marc Maron, Kaufman, when asked about his spy biopic (spy-opic?), “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind“, he responded with palpable resentment. “That was a movie in which I was not consulted.” What fond memories. For a writer who I believed to be extremely close and incredibly personal with his works, I decided to stay away from the one film he felt the most despondency toward. And upon watching ”Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” in an effort to understand his resentment, the reasons for his malaise ring throughout. It is ironic how a story so suited toward Kaufman’s sensibilities would later mutate into the project that would be far and away his most disconnected.

In terms of screenplay adaptations and source material, the story behind “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” is not only right up Kaufman’s alley, but down his street, around his corner, and in his wheelhouse. The Chuck Barris autobiography of the same title was a deep introspection on one man’s twisted path to fame, an immersion into a character-centric world, had the ability to be genre-fluid, and, just as important as any other factor, it was funny. Barris’ book had the elements that would bond nicely to Kaufman’s style.

Kaufman’s script centers around game show guru and television producer Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell), whose journey from scrappy wannabe womanizer to hot shot NBC television executive is interrupted by speed bumps ahead. First there’s his girlfriend Penny (Drew Barrymore), a self-proclaimed hippie never letting him catch a break. “Don’t ever ask me to marry you again”, Chuck tells her. Then there’s Jim (George Clooney), a CIA operative that recruits Chuck to be a hitman for the agency. He fits the profile, and Kaufman implies that many other television producers and entertainment industry company men would as well.

The film’s status in Kaufman’s line-up is unique that it often feels like an asterisk; the friend that no one wants to hang out with; a persona non grata. After a successful Malkovichian debut alongside Spike Jonze, and a plant-and-payoff collaboration with Michel Gondry, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” would not be helmed by a arthouse pioneer or an indie darling, but by A-list actor and Jimmy Stewart reincarnation, George Clooney. After the actor’s breakthrough decade in the 90s, the biopic would serve as Clooney’s early aughts directorial debut. But even Gorgeous George’s involvement in the project, Kaufman had written the script, eventually becoming a tool, used and tossed aside to further Clooney’s career. This did not sit well with the writer. Taking into account Kaufman’s current views on “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” as well as the Hollywood studio system, one can identify several factors that would further his discontent toward the industry: control, Clooney, and Columbia.

A Kaufman film, even when directed by another artist, is always heavily weighted in terms of the writer’s part. For “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”, this wasn’t the case. The story became a mere “assignment”, and George Clooney’s insistence on changing the script while not “consulting” with Kaufman who spent years crafting the material, was irritating for the hotshot writer. On top of having to relinquish control, the fact he had to relinquish control to Clooney, an artist on the other side of Kaufman’s spectrum, could be seen as an even bigger blow. As an actor and director, Clooney’s films see the the world through a strong moralist attitude with an everyman at its center. Kaufman’s tells his stories in a more cerebral manner, often times focusing on a character’s intriguing descent rather than their rise to the top. Clooney’s direction, sense of character, and attitude toward the creative process did not compliment Kaufman’s. And just to rub salt into the writer’s wound, Columbia, the studio responsible for Kaufman’s unpleasantries, would take less and less care of the writer as more A-list names (like Clooney’s phone-a-friends, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) became involved. After 2002’s “Adaptation”, Kaufman’s most self-referential picture, he would choose to never go back to a large scale studio again.

Although the film would leave some scars, the zany nature of its story mixed with George Clooney’s attachment as director/actor would garner positive responses from critics and audiences. It was put out in theaters alongside the rerelease of Chuck Barris’ original book, which to first time readers, were surprised to hear that in 1984, Barris revealed the story was fiction.

“No, I was never a CIA hit man. I never did those things. I once applied for the CIA, and while I was going through the process I got a job and went on television. But I had always wondered what would have happened if I had done both.”

Even after this revealing interview the television host never once asserted that the book was not an autobiography. To this day, many people still refer to the work as such. Kaufman’s inclusion nails down some of the fundamental existential questions resonant in the movie’s source material and its author: Can you imagine the truth? Is a bended reality a reality at all? As the film progresses, touches of Kaufman are evident. In a scene where Chuck Barris is on stage, he begins o hallucinate scenes from his life— Sidney Lumet’s “Network” on mushrooms. Kaufman writes Barris’ downward spiral in a frequency similar to John Cusack’s puppeteer in “Being John Malkovich” or Philip Seymour Hoffman’s aging director in “Synechdoce, New York”. For no matter the character, whether it be psychologists, motivational speakers, or in the case of “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”, undercover CIA game show host serial killers, everybody is a tortured artist. Perhaps no one more so than Kaufman.