Antkind: Charlie Kaufman Kills the Inner Critic
Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has described his debut novel Antkind as his ‘big book of jokes’, but of course it’s much more than that.
Primarily it seems to be a device for him to torture a film critic of his own making – named B. Rosenberger Rosenberg. This irredeemable character has all the cliché character flaws you might expect in a film critic – he’s pompous, self-aggrandising, and almost completely lacking any self-awareness.
Not even a successful critic, B finds himself teaching film studies at a school for zookeepers. Despite his claims of being a highly educated film expert with credentials from all sorts of prestigious schools, his favourite director is Judd Apatow and he describes Kaufman as ‘a monster unaware of his staggering ineptitude’. While most of B’s assertions are laughably wrong-headed, sometimes you wonder whether it’s really the author expressing his own opinions while under the protection of plausible deniability (i.e. those on Mark Kermode).
Happening upon an undiscovered filmic masterpiece from the reclusive director Ingo Cutbirth, B believes he has finally found his big break. He must watch the 3-month long film seven times according to his process. Unfortunately for B, the film soon goes up in flames. (The irony of a film expert not knowing nitrate film is combustible..) From then on B tirelessly pieces together the 3-month long odyssey while going on an epic journey of his own, from selling shoes at a clown convention to ending up in an apocalyptic cave world inhabited by Trunk (Trump) robots.
In some ways it’s a comic version of House of Leaves, a cult novel which also arduously pieces together a recluse’s critique of a film that never existed. As B’s editor tells him (and possibly so did Kaufman’s publisher) – “I don’t know what the audience would be for a book outlining a non-existent film.”
Kaufman’s ongoing preoccupations with puppets (free will vs predestination), dreams, and the unreliability of memory continue to feature, as does his staunch refusal to explain the meaning of his work. Ingo’s description of his film also applies to the novel itself:
“It is a filmic experiment of sorts that posits an equal relationship between artist and viewer, in that the viewer will not, after viewing it in its entirety, be certain whether the film has left off and his own dreams have taken over. […] in the end, what you add to the film will largely be determined by your own psyche.”
To save you three months, here are some of the highlights..
1. B Questions His Purpose In Life
“Here I am on the far side of fifty with no hair on my head and an unkempt gray beard, driving through the night to research a book about gender and cinema, a book that will pay me nothing and be read by no one. Is this what I am meant to be doing? Am I who I want to be? Do I really want this ridiculous face?”
“There are moments of clarity where I can see myself as others likely do, but I cannot control any of it. The pathetic, comical thought process continues, almost as if a script is playing out. Almost as if I myself am a puppet, defined by some external force, written to be the foil in some strange cosmic entertainment witnessed by someone somewhere. But who or what? And why? And also how? And when?”
2. B Insists He Isn’t Jewish (See Karl Kaufmann and Theodore N. Kaufman)
“Yes, it can also be a Jewish name but is not in this case. I point out that famed Nazi Alfred Rosenberg was in fact a virulent anti-Semite and I believe I am related to him distantly. So there’s that on my side, in terms of not being Jewish.”
(Later – “I don’t think I need to remind you that Alfred Rosenberg was a high-ranking Nazi in the Third Reich.” […] “The virulence of Rosenberg’s hatred of the Jews was peerless.”)
3. B experiences a ‘profound moment of communion with the natural world’
“It’s like we acknowledge each other, this insect and I, across species, across time. I feel like he wants to say something to me. Do I see tears in his eyes? What is this creature? As an amateur entomologist, I am fairly conversant in insect varieties, but of course Florida is, in so many ways, its own thing, unlike anywhere else. Even its insects are eccentric, and I suspect, racist. I squash it in my shirt. He was suffering, as are we all. It was the right thing to do.”
4. B wants to be loved and admired by his idols
“If I could write a monograph elucidating their work in ways never before elucidated in the history of film history that would help. Perhaps if I could even show them things about their work they themselves had never considered.”
5. B shows Synecdoche, New York to disinterested zookeepers
“The students remain uninterested. Cinema studies is deemed a gut course in zookeeper school. You get to watch movies, is what they think. I attempt to disabuse them of that notion. I screen movies with zero entertainment value. I show Synecdoche, New York for the simple reason that it is an irredeemable, torturous, tortuous yawn.”
6. B rips into rival critic Mark Kermode
“It was the first sewer-centric film study since Mark Kermode’s 1993 essay on the C.H.U.D. series, which I believe was entitled I, Mark Kermode, Am an Asshole.”
7. B lists the top 10 Trunk robots of all time
“Trunk No. 3,907: Wow. What a Trunk! By turns funny and tragic, this Trunk is well worth the price of admission.”
8. B admires Judd Apatow, even in the midst of the apocalypse
“His flame withered arm and stalactite-caved-in skull have done little to slow his prodigious output or dull his rapier yet gentle wit.”
9. B explains his reasons for writing film criticism
“Without these lists by truly educated critics, laypeople would find themselves at the mercy of Hollywood marketeers and celebrity sycophants.”
“As I pack, I consider the sage words of brilliant New Yorker film critic Richard Brody: “It’s not enough to love a movie – it’s important to love it for the right reasons.” He’s said everything here. It is the reason I write film criticism: so that audiences can learn why a film is good.”
