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On February 11, 2003, "Donald Kaufman" was nominated for a real-life Academy Award, along with the real Charlie Kaufman, for the screenplay of Adaptation (2002). This is the first time in Oscar history that a nomination has been bestowed upon a fictional human being.
"The emotions that Charlie is going through [in the film] are real and they reflect what I was going through when I was trying to write the script. Of course there are specific things that have been exaggerated or changed for cinematic purposes. Part of the experience of watching this movie is the experience of seeing that Donald Kaufman is credited as the co-screenwriter. It's part of the movie, it's part of the story." -Kaufman on writing the script
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I keep coming back to this
I keep coming back to this post, thinking that I want to respond to it, but never quite knowing how to put my thoughts into something coherent, so I don't know how coherent this will be. I think that it's interesting that this nomination was given, and that it in a way shows a newfound (maybe) appreciation for one of the things that Charlie was trying to avoid, in putting yourself in the script. But in a way, in Adaptation it's the opposite, in taking a character out of the script (it goes both ways in the movie so maybe they cancel each other out?) Still in writing this now I'm not sure why, but this seems like something important. I also though want to argue against what Charlie Kaufman says when he says that "part of the experience of watching this movie is the experience of seeing that Donald Kaufman is credited as the co-screenwriter." While I think that he's right, I want to know how many of the viewers of the movie realized that he was credited as the co-screenwriter, and for those that did notice, I'd want to know how many of them knew that Donald Kaufman isn't real. While I think it's an interesting twist to the story and that it adds to the movie, I think that this aspect gets back a lot of the movie's audience. And while I think that the nomination brings this to light for those who didn't know I'm not sure that there's the same effect if you watch the movie looking for that.
Even after all of this, I'm not really sure what to think of the nomination.. I think there's an importance to it, but that the greater importance isn't necessarily directly related to the movie, but rather to what it means for the future.
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