Buckland-Warren-Puzzle-Films-Complex-Storytelling-Contemporary-Cinema

110 Chris Dzialorunning time (24 frames per second for film in the US, 25 frames per secondelsewhere, and 1 page per minute for screenplays when “adapted” tocelluloid). 1 It is impossible to do this sort of time-to-distance (i.e., speed)“clocking” with literary forms such as poetry and novels, which have noidealized reading time. A page of screenplay text, on the other hand – alwaysrigorously formatted and standardized, down to the size and type of thefont – takes about 25 seconds to read according to one estimate (Boyle,in Sternberg 1997, p. 78). Surely this varies, especially from one reader toanother, but the idealized times of both projection and reading nonethelessquietly lurk in the ink and wood pulp.It is for these reasons that I am choosing to examine the screenplaysof Charlie Kaufman, with only passing, comparative reference to thecelluloid films. Also crucial to my argument, however, is to recognize theontological properties screenplays do not necessarily share with celluloid.In 1985 David Bordwell wrote, before the era of DVDs or DVRs:Under normal viewing circumstances, the film absolutely controls theorder, frequency, and duration of the presentation of events. You cannotskip a dull spot or linger over a rich one, jump back to an earlier passageor start at the end of the film and work your way forward. (p. 74)Since then, many filmmakers have seemingly embraced the chance to tellcomplex stories perhaps best suited for DVDs and other digital formats,which allow for a high degree of temporal manipulation by the viewer (cf.Bordwell 2006, p. 74). The statement above, however, has always been completelyuntrue of the screenplay and scenario, and their “viewing” contexts.If Charlie Kaufman’s films are frustrated with losing the battle to time’sarrow and the irreversible time of projection, then his screenplays (and ourrelationships with them) provide a glimpse of what total control anddominance over time – to the point of its annihilation – would allowus to experience. Thus, I am reading (and imagining) Charlie Kaufman’sscreenplays as the untenable ideal that “frustrated time” narration selfconsciouslyseeks but always defers.Complex Times and AdaptationMost striking about reading the script Adaptation (a semi-fictionalizedaccount of Charlie Kaufman and his imaginary brother, Donald [both played