the screenwriter of Do you want to be John Malkovich? and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has strong opinions on the state of the film industry. ANDn a masterclass at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Charlie Kaufman, reflected on the current work on scripts and, specifically, the use of AI (artificial intelligence) to develop them.
In the midst of a time of uncertainty for the industry, with strikes by writers and actors, the director of Synecdoche, New York (2008), anomalous (2015) and I think about the end (2020), pointed out that Hollywood is at a critical point and that it is important that the work of screenwriters is distinguished from that created by artificial intelligence through quality.
“Screenwriters have been trained to consume and create garbage. As long as they’re in that arena, making garbage, it doesn’t matter [los guiones] make them with AI”, shared the director in Sarajevo (via Deadline).
However, he stressed the importance of not stopping the strike and seeking the necessary protections regarding the use of artificial intelligence. Kaufman warned that failure to do so could have serious consequences.
“Once you give up and allow studios to use AI to write their scripts, there’s no going back. So, there will be no hope because AI cannot create a moment of humanity. As long as people do it and there is that struggle, then there will always be an opportunity for something to come out and be valuable in some way to human beings,” he explained.
Keep reading: “If Hollywood will continue to make garbage, it doesn’t matter if they do it with AI,” says Charlie Kaufman
In the same way, Kaufman invited everyone in his class to look for ways to make movies outside of the Hollywood system. In the filmmaker’s opinion, there is currently an abundance of “junk” and he points out that audiences have become accustomed to consuming this type of content.
“Right now, the only thing that makes money is garbage. It is fascinating. It generates a fortune, that is the reality. It’s very seductive for the studios, but also for the people who contribute and create that crap, especially if they’re applauded for that crap, because they don’t have to reflect or think too much about what they’re doing,” Kaufman emphasized. “The diet [de la audiencia] it is corrupted and has been for a long time. If you eat garbage all your life, you want garbage. If you eat processed foods, you crave them. And it wouldn’t be like that if you hadn’t been fed it all your life. That’s what the movie machine does and I find it really offensive. It disgusts me”.
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Do you think the same as the director?